Governors of DelawareI.Swedish.Peter Minuit1638-1640Peter Hollander1640-1643Johan Printz1643-1653Johan Papegoga (acting)1653-1654Johan Claudius Rising1654-1655II.Dutch.(Same as for New York.)III.English.(Same as New York until 1682.)(Same as Pennsylvania 1682-1776.)Presidents of DelawareJohn McKinley1776-1778Caesar Rodney1778-1781John Dickinson1781-1783Nicholas Van Dyke1783-1786Thomas Collins1786-1789GovernorsJoshua Clayton1789-1796 FederalistGunning Bedford1796-1797 ”Daniel Rogers11797-1799 ”Richard Bassett1799-1801 ”James Sykes21801-1802 ”David Hall1802-1805 FederalistNathaniel Mitchell1805-1808 ”George Truett1808-1811 ”Joseph Haslett1811-1814 ”Daniel Rodney1814-1817 ”John Clarke1817-1820 ”Henry Malleston31820 ”Jacob Stout41820-1821 ”John Collins1821-1822 Democratic-RepublicanCaleb Rodney51822 ”Joseph Haslett1822-1823 Democratic-RepublicanCharles Thomas61823-1824 ”Samuel Paynter1824-1827 FederalistCharles Polk1827-1830 ”David Hazzard1830-1833 American-RepublicanCaleb P. Bennett1833-1836 DemocratCharles Polk71836-1837 ”Cornelius P. Comegys1837-1841 WhigWilliam B. Cooper1841-1845 ”Thomas Stockton1845-1846 ”Joseph Maul81846 ”William Temple91846-1847 ”William Tharp1847-1851 DemocratWilliam H. Ross1851-1855 ”Peter F. Causey1855-1859 Whig-Know-NothingWilliam Burton1859-1863 DemocratWilliam Cannon1863-1865 RepublicanGove Saulsbury101865-1871 DemocratJames Ponder1871-1875 ”John P. Cockran1875-1879 ”John W. Hall1879-1883 ”Charles C. Stockley1883-1887 ”Benjamin T. Biggs1887-1891 ”Robert J. Reynolds1891-1895 ”Joshua H. Marvil1895 RepublicanWilliam T. Watson111895-1897 DemocratEbe W. Tunnell1897-1901 ”John Hunn1901-1905 Republican “Preston Lea1905-1909 ”Simeon S. Pennewill1909 ”
Governors of Delaware
I.Swedish.
II.Dutch.
(Same as for New York.)
III.English.
(Same as New York until 1682.)(Same as Pennsylvania 1682-1776.)
Presidents of Delaware
Governors
Bibliography.—Information about manufactures, mining and agriculture may be found in the reports of theTwelfth Census of the United States, especiallyBulletins 69and100. The Agricultural Experiment Station, at Newark, publishes in itsAnnual Reporta record of temperature and rainfall. For law and administration seeConstitution of Delaware(Dover, 1899) and theRevised Codeof 1852, amended 1893 (Wilmington, 1893). For education see L. B. Powell,History of Education in Delaware(Washington, 1893), and a sketch in theAnnual Reportfor 1902 of the United States Commissioner of Education. The most elaborate history is that of John Thomas Scharf,History of the State of Delaware(2 vols., Philadelphia, 1888); the second volume is entirely biographical. Claes T. Odhner’s brief sketch,Kolonien Nya Sveriges Grundläggning, 1637-1642(Stockholm, 1876; English translation in thePennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. iii.), and Carl K. S. Sprinchorn’sKolonien Nya Sveriges Historia(1878; English translation in thePennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vols. vii. and viii.) are based, in part, on documents in the Swedish Royal Archives and at the universities of Upsala and Lund, which were unknown to Benjamin Ferris (History of the Original Settlements of the Delaware, Wilmington, 1846) and Francis Vincent (History of the State of Delaware, Philadelphia, 1870), which ends with the English occupation in 1664. In vol. iv. of Justin Winsor’sNarrative and Critical History of America(Boston, 1884) there is an excellent chapter by Gregory B. Keen on “New Sweden, or the Swedes on the Delaware,” to which a bibliographical chapter is appended. ThePapersof the Historical Society of Delaware (1879 seq.) contain valuable material. In part ii. of theReport of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Surveyfor 1893 (Washington, 1905) there is “A Historical Account of the Boundary Line between the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware, by W. C. Hodgkins.” The colonial records are preserved with those of New York and Pennsylvania; only one volume of the State Records has been published, andMinutes of the Council of Delaware State, 1776-1792(Dover, 1886). For political conditions since the Civil War see vol. 141 of theNorth American Review, vol. 32 of theForum, and vol. 73 of theOutlook—all published in New York.
Bibliography.—Information about manufactures, mining and agriculture may be found in the reports of theTwelfth Census of the United States, especiallyBulletins 69and100. The Agricultural Experiment Station, at Newark, publishes in itsAnnual Reporta record of temperature and rainfall. For law and administration seeConstitution of Delaware(Dover, 1899) and theRevised Codeof 1852, amended 1893 (Wilmington, 1893). For education see L. B. Powell,History of Education in Delaware(Washington, 1893), and a sketch in theAnnual Reportfor 1902 of the United States Commissioner of Education. The most elaborate history is that of John Thomas Scharf,History of the State of Delaware(2 vols., Philadelphia, 1888); the second volume is entirely biographical. Claes T. Odhner’s brief sketch,Kolonien Nya Sveriges Grundläggning, 1637-1642(Stockholm, 1876; English translation in thePennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. iii.), and Carl K. S. Sprinchorn’sKolonien Nya Sveriges Historia(1878; English translation in thePennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vols. vii. and viii.) are based, in part, on documents in the Swedish Royal Archives and at the universities of Upsala and Lund, which were unknown to Benjamin Ferris (History of the Original Settlements of the Delaware, Wilmington, 1846) and Francis Vincent (History of the State of Delaware, Philadelphia, 1870), which ends with the English occupation in 1664. In vol. iv. of Justin Winsor’sNarrative and Critical History of America(Boston, 1884) there is an excellent chapter by Gregory B. Keen on “New Sweden, or the Swedes on the Delaware,” to which a bibliographical chapter is appended. ThePapersof the Historical Society of Delaware (1879 seq.) contain valuable material. In part ii. of theReport of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Surveyfor 1893 (Washington, 1905) there is “A Historical Account of the Boundary Line between the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware, by W. C. Hodgkins.” The colonial records are preserved with those of New York and Pennsylvania; only one volume of the State Records has been published, andMinutes of the Council of Delaware State, 1776-1792(Dover, 1886). For political conditions since the Civil War see vol. 141 of theNorth American Review, vol. 32 of theForum, and vol. 73 of theOutlook—all published in New York.
1Speaker of the senate. Filled unexpired term of Gunning Bedford (d. 1797).2Speaker of senate. Filled unexpired term of Richard Bassett, who resigned 1801.3Died before he was inaugurated.4Speaker of the senate.5Speaker of the senate, John Collins dying in 1822.6Speaker of senate, Haslett dying in 1823.7Speaker of senate.8Speaker of senate, Stockton dying in 1846.9Speaker of senate, Maul dying in 1846.10As speaker of the senate filled the unexpired term of Cannon (d. 1865), and then became governor in 1867.11President of senate, Marvil dying in 1895.
1Speaker of the senate. Filled unexpired term of Gunning Bedford (d. 1797).
2Speaker of senate. Filled unexpired term of Richard Bassett, who resigned 1801.
3Died before he was inaugurated.
4Speaker of the senate.
5Speaker of the senate, John Collins dying in 1822.
6Speaker of senate, Haslett dying in 1823.
7Speaker of senate.
8Speaker of senate, Stockton dying in 1846.
9Speaker of senate, Maul dying in 1846.
10As speaker of the senate filled the unexpired term of Cannon (d. 1865), and then became governor in 1867.
11President of senate, Marvil dying in 1895.
DELAWARE,a city and the county-seat of Delaware county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Olentangy (or Whetstone) river, near the centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 8224; (1900) 7940 (572 being foreign-born and 432 negroes); (1910) 9076. Delaware is served by the Pennsylvania, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis (New York Central system), and the Hocking Valley railways, and by two interurban lines. The city is built on rolling ground about 900 ft. above sea-level. There are many sulphur and iron springs in the vicinity. Delaware is the seat of the Ohio Wesleyan University (co-educational), founded by the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1841, and opened as a college in 1844; it includes a college of liberal arts (1844), an academic department (1841), a school of music (1877), a school of fine arts (1877), a school of oratory (1894), a business school (1895), and a college of medicine (the Cleveland College of Physicians and Surgeons, at Cleveland, Ohio; founded as the Charity Hospital Medical College in 1863, and the medical department of the university of Wooster until 1896, when, under its present name, it became a part of Ohio Wesleyan University). In 1877 the Ohio Wesleyan female college, established at Delaware in 1853, was incorporated in the university. In 1907-1908 the university had 122 instructors, 1178 students and a library of 55,395 volumes. At Delaware, also, are the state industrial school for girls, a Carnegie library, the Edwards Young Men’s Christian Association building and a city hospital. The city has railway shops and foundries, and manufactures furniture, carriages, tile, cigars and gas engines. Delaware was laid out in 1808 and was first incorporated in 1815. It was the birthplace of Rutherford B. Hayes, president of the United States from 1877 to 1881.
DELAWARE INDIANS,the English name for the Leni Lenape, a tribe of North American Indians of Algonquian stock. When first discovered by the whites the tribe was settled on the banks of the Delaware river. The French called them Loups (wolves) from their chief totemic division. Early in the 17th century the Dutch began trading with them. Subsequently William Penn bought large tracts of land from them, and war followed, the Delawares alleging they had been defrauded; but, with the assistance of the Six Nations, the whites forced them back west of the Alleghenies. In 1789 they were placed on a reservation in Ohio and subsequently in 1818 were moved to Missouri. Various removals followed, until in 1866 they accepted lands in the Indian territory (Oklahoma) and gave up the tribal relation. They have remained there and now number some 1700.
DELAWARE RIVER,a stream of the Atlantic slope of the United States, meeting tide-water at Trenton, New Jersey, 130 m. above its mouth. Its total length, from the head of the longest branch to the capes, is 410 m., and above the head of the bay its length is 360 m. It constitutes in part the boundary between Pennsylvania and New York, the boundary between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and, for a few miles, the boundary between Delaware and New Jersey. The main, west or Mohawk branch rises in Schoharie county, N.Y., about 1886 ft. above the sea, and flows tortuously through the plateau in a deep trough until it emerges from the Catskills. Other branches rise in Greene and Delaware counties. In the upper portion of its course the varied scenery of its hilly and wooded banks is exquisitely beautiful. After leaving the mountains and plateau, the river flows down broad Appalachian valleys, skirts the Kittatinny range, which it crosses at Delaware Water-Gap, between nearly vertical walls of sandstone, and passes through a quiet and charming country of farm and forest, diversified with plateaus and escarpments, until it crosses the Appalachian plain and enters the hills again at Easton, Pa. From this point it is flanked at intervals by fine hills, and in places by cliffs, of which the finest are the Hockamixon Rocks, 3 m. long and above 200 ft. high. At Trenton there is a fall of 8 ft. Below Trenton the river becomes a broad, sluggish inlet of the sea, with many marshes along its side, widening steadily into its great estuary, Delaware Bay. Its main tributaries in New York are Mongaup and Neversink rivers and Callicoon Creek; from Pennsylvania, Lackawaxen, Lehigh and Schuylkill rivers; and from New Jersey, Rancocas Creek and Musconetcong and Maurice rivers. Commerce was once important on the upper river, but only before the beginning of railway competition (1857). The Delaware division of the Pennsylvania Canal, running parallel with the river from Easton to Bristol, was opened in 1830. A canal from Trenton to New Brunswick unites the waters of the Delaware and Raritan rivers; the Morris and the Delaware and Hudson canals connect the Delaware and Hudson rivers; and the Delaware and Chesapeake canal joins the waters of the Delaware with those of the Chesapeake Bay. The mean tides below Philadelphia are about 6 ft. The magnitude of the commerce of Philadelphia has made the improvements of the river below that port of great importance. Small improvements were attempted by Pennsylvania as early as 1771, but apparently never by New Jersey. The ice floods at Easton are normally 10 to 20 ft., and in 1841 attained a height of 35 ft. These floods constitute a serious difficulty in the improvement of the lower river. In the “project of 1885” the United States government undertook systematically the formation of a 26-ft. channel 600 ft. wide from Philadelphia to deep water in Delaware Bay; $1,532,688.81 was expended—about $200,000 of that amount for maintenance—before the 1885 project was superseded by a paragraph of the River and Harbor Act of the 3rd of March 1899, which provided for a 30-ft. channel 600 ft. wide from Philadelphia to the deep water of the bay. In 1899 the project of 1885 had been completed except for three shoal stretches, whose total length, measured on the range lines, was 43⁄8m. The project of 1899, estimated to cost $5,810,000, was not completed at the close of the fiscal year (June 30) 1907, when $4,936,550.63 had been expended by the Federal government on the work; in 1905 the state of Pennsylvania appropriated $750,000 for improvement of the river in Pennsylvania, south of Philadelphia.
DELAWARE WATER-GAP,a borough and summer resort of Monroe county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Delaware river, about 108 m. N. of Philadelphia and about 88 m. W. by N. of New York. Pop. (1890) 467; (1900) 469. It is served directly by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and by the Belvidere division of the Pennsylvania railways; along the river on the opposite side (in New Jersey) runs the New York, Susquehanna & Western railway, and the borough is connected with Stroudsburg, Pa. (about 3 m. W. by N.) by an electric line. The boroughwas named from the neighbouring gorge, which is noted for the picturesqueness of its scenery, especially in winter, when the ice piles up in the river, sometimes to a height of 20 ft. Here the river cuts through the Kittatinny (Blue) Ridge to its base. On the New Jersey side is Mt. Tammany (about 1600 ft.); on the Pennsylvania side, Mt. Minsi (about 1500 ft.); the elevation of the river here is about 300 ft. The gap (about 2 m. long) through the mountain is the result of erosion by the waters of a great river which flowed northwards acting along a line of faulting at right angles to the strike of the tilted rock formations. The scenery and the delightful climate have made the place a popular summer resort. The borough was incorporated in 1889.
See L. W. Brodhead,The Delaware Water-Gap(Philadelphia, 2nd ed., 1870).
See L. W. Brodhead,The Delaware Water-Gap(Philadelphia, 2nd ed., 1870).
DE LA WARR,orDelaware, an English barony, the holders of which are descended from Roger de la Warr of Isfield, Sussex, who was summoned to parliament as a baron in 1299 and the following years. He died about 1320; his great-grandson Roger, to whom the French king John surrendered at the battle of Poitiers, died in 1370; and the male line of the family became extinct on the death of Thomas, 5th baron, in 1426.
The 5th baron’s half-sister Joan married Thomas West, 1st Lord West (d. 1405), and in 1415 her second son Reginald (1394-1451) succeeded his brother Thomas as 3rd Lord West. After the death of his uncle Thomas, 5th Baron De La Warr, whose estates he inherited, Reginald was summoned to parliament as Baron La Warr, and he is thus the second founder of the family. His grandson was Thomas, 3rd (or 8th) baron (d. 1525), a courtier during the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII.; and the latter’s son was Thomas, 4th (or 9th) baron (c.1472-1554). The younger Thomas was a very prominent person during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. After serving with the English army in France in 1513 and being present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, he rebuilt the house at Halnaker in Sussex, which he had obtained by marriage, and here in 1526 he entertained Henry VIII. “with great cheer.” He disliked the ecclesiastical changes introduced by the king, and he was one of the peers who tried Anne Boleyn; later he showed some eagerness to stand well with Thomas Cromwell, but this did not prevent his arrest in 1538. He is said to have denounced “the plucking down of abbeys,” and he certainly consorted with many suspected persons. But he was soon released and pardoned, although he was obliged to hand over Halnaker to Henry VIII., receiving instead the estate of Wherwell in Hampshire. He died without children in September 1554, when his baronies of De La Warr and West fell into abeyance. His monument may still be seen in the church at Broadwater, Sussex.
He had settled his estates on his nephew William West (c.1519-1595), who then tried to bring about his uncle’s death by poison; for this reason he was disabled by act of parliament (1549) from succeeding to his honours. However, in 1563 he was restored, and in 1570 was created by patent Baron De La Warr. This was obviously a new creation, but in 1596 his son Thomas (c.1556-1602) claimed precedency in the baronage as the holder of the ancient barony of De La Warr. His claim was admitted, and accordingly his son and successor, next mentioned, is called the 3rd or the 12th baron.
Thomas West, 3rd or 12th Baron De La Warr (1577-1618), British soldier and colonial governor in America, was born on the 9th of July 1577, probably at Wherwell, Hampshire, where he was baptized. He was educated at Queen’s College, Oxford, where he did not complete his course, but subsequently (1605) received the degree of M.A. In 1597 he was elected member of parliament for Lymington, and subsequently fought in Holland and in Ireland under the earl of Essex, being knighted for bravery in battle in 1599. He was imprisoned for complicity in Essex’s revolt (1600-1601), but was soon released and exonerated. In 1602 he succeeded to his father’s title and estates and became a privy councillor. Becoming interested in schemes for the colonization of America, he was chosen a member of the council of the Virginia Company in 1609, and in the same year was appointed governor and captain-general of Virginia for life. Sailing in March 1610 with three ships, 150 settlers and supplies, he himself bearing the greater part of the expense of the expedition, he arrived at Jamestown on the 10th of June, in time to intercept the colonists who had embarked for England and were abandoning the enterprise. Lord De La Warr’s rule was strict but just; he constructed two forts near the mouth of the James river, rebuilt Jamestown, and in general brought order out of chaos. In March 1611 he returned to London, where he published at the request of the company’s council, hisRelationof the condition of affairs in Virginia (reprinted 1859 and 1868). He remained in England until 1618, when the news of the tyrannical rule of the deputy, Samuel Argall, led him to start again for Virginia. He embarked in April, but died en route on the 7th of June 1618, and was buried at sea. The Delaware river and the state of Delaware were named in his honour.
A younger brother, Francis (1586-c. 1634), was prominent in the affairs of Virginia, and in 1627-1628 was president of the council, and acting-governor of the colony.
In 1761 the 3rd or 12th baron’s descendant, John, 7th or 16th Baron De La Warr (1693-1766), was created Viscount Cantelupe and 1st Earl De La Warr. He was a prominent figure in the House of Lords, at first as a supporter of Sir Robert Walpole. He also served in the British army and fought at Dettingen, and was made governor of Guernsey in 1752.
George John West, 5th earl (1791-1869), married Elizabeth, sister and heiress of George John Frederick Sackville, 4th duke of Dorset, who was created Baroness Buckhurst in 1864; consequently in 1843 he and his sons took the name of Sackville-West. The earl was twice lord chamberlain to Queen Victoria, and he is celebrated as “Fair Euryalus” in theChildish Recollectionsof his schoolfellow, Lord Byron. His son Charles Richard (1815-1873), 6th earl, served in the first Sikh war and in the Crimea; and being unmarried was succeeded by his brother Reginald (1817-1896) as 7th Earl De La Warr. Having inherited his mother’s barony of Buckhurst on her death in 1870, he retained this title along with the barony and earldom of De La Warr, although the patent had contained a proviso that it should be kept separate from these dignities. In 1896 the 7th earl’s son, Gilbert George Reginald Sackville-West (b. 1869), became 8th earl De La Warr.
See G. E. C(okayne),Complete Peerage(1887-1898).
See G. E. C(okayne),Complete Peerage(1887-1898).
DELBRÜCK, HANS(1848- ), German historian, was born at Bergen on the island of Rügen on the 11th of November 1848, and studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Bonn. As a soldier he fought in the Franco-German War, after which he was for some years tutor to one of the princes of the German imperial family. In 1885 he became professor of modern history in the university of Berlin, and he was a member of the German Reichstag from 1884 to 1890. Delbrück’s writings are chiefly concerned with the history of the art of war, his most ambitious work being hisGeschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte(first section,Das Altertum, 1900; second,Römer und Germanen, 1902; third,Das Mittelalter, 1907). Among his other works are:Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege(Berlin, 1887);Historische und politische Aufsätze(1886);Erinnerungen, Aufsätze und Reden(1902);Die Strategie des Perikles erläutert durch die Strategie Friedrichs des Grossen(1890);Die Polenfrage(1894); andDas Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau(1882 and 1894). Delbrück began in 1883 to edit thePreussische Jahrbücher, in which he has written many articles, including one on “General Wolseley über Napoleon, Wellington und Gneisenau,” and he has contributed to theEuropäischer Geschichtskalenderof H. Schulthess.
DELBRÜCK, MARTIN FRIEDRICH RUDOLF VON,Prussian statesman (1817-1903), was born at Berlin on the 16th of April 1817. On completing his legal studies he entered the service of the state in 1837; and after holding a series of minor posts was transferred in 1848 to the ministry of commerce, which was to be the sphere of his real life’s work. Both Germany and Austria had realized the influence of commercial upon political union. Delbrück in 1851 induced Hanover, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe to join the Zollverein; and the southern states, which hadagreed to admit Austria to the union, found themselves forced in 1853 to renew the old union, from which Austria was excluded. Delbrück now began, with the support of Bismarck, to apply the principles of free trade to Prussian fiscal policy. In 1862 he concluded an important commercial treaty with France. In 1867 he became the first president of the chancery of the North German Confederation, and represented Bismarck on the federal tariff council (Zollbundesrath), a position of political as well as fiscal importance owing to the presence in the council of representatives of the southern states. In 1868 he became a Prussian minister without portfolio. In October 1870, when the union of Germany under Prussian headship became a practical question, Delbrück was chosen to go on a mission to the South German states, and contributed greatly to the agreements concluded at Versailles in November. In 1871 he became president of the newly constitutedReichskanzleramt. Delbrück, however, began to feel himself uneasy under Bismarck’s leanings towards protection and state control. On the introduction of Bismarck’s plan for the acquisition of the railways by the state, Delbrück resigned office, nominally on the ground of ill-health (June 1, 1876). In 1879 he opposed in theReichstagthe new protectionist tariff, and on the failure of his efforts retired definitely from public life. In 1896 he received from the emperor the order of the Black Eagle. He died at Berlin on the 1st of February 1903.
DELCASSÉ, THÉOPHILE(1852- ), French statesman, was born at Pamiers, in the department of Ariège, on the 1st of March 1852. He wrote articles on foreign affairs for theRépublique françaiseandParis, and in 1888 was electedconseiller généralof his native department, standing as “un disciple fidèle de Gambetta.” In the following year he entered the chamber as deputy for Foix. He was appointed under-secretary for the colonies in the second Ribot cabinet (January to April 1893), and retained his post in the Dupuy cabinet till its fall in December 1893. It was largely owing to his efforts that the French colonial office was made a separate department with a minister at its head, and to this office he was appointed in the second Dupuy cabinet (May 1894 to January 1895). He gave a great impetus to French colonial enterprise, especially in West Africa, where he organized the newly acquired colony of Dahomey, and despatched the Liotard mission to the Upper Ubangi. While in opposition he devoted special attention to naval affairs, and in speeches that attracted much notice declared that the function of the French navy was to secure and develop colonial enterprise, deprecated all attempts to rival the British fleet, and advocated the construction of commerce destroyers as France’s best reply to England. On the formation of the second Brisson cabinet in June 1898 he succeeded M. Hanotaux at the foreign office, and retained that post under the subsequent premierships of MM. Dupuy, Waldeck-Rousseau, Combes and Rouvier. In 1898 he had to deal with the delicate situation caused by Captain Marchand’s occupation of Fashoda, for which, as he admitted in a speech in the chamber on the 23rd of January 1899, he accepted full responsibility, since it arose directly out of the Liotard expedition, which he had himself organized while minister for the colonies; and in March 1899 he concluded an agreement with Great Britain by which the difficulty was finally adjusted, and France consolidated her vast colonial empire in North-West Africa. In the same year he acted as mediator between the United States and Spain, and brought the peace negotiations to a successful conclusion. He introduced greater cordiality into the relations of France with Italy: at the same time he adhered firmly to the alliance with Russia, and in August 1899 made a visit to St Petersburg, which he repeated in April 1901. In June 1900 he made an arrangement with Spain, fixing the long-disputed boundaries of the French and Spanish possessions in West Africa. Finally he concluded with England the important Agreements of 1904 covering colonial and other questions which had long been a matter of dispute, especially concerning Egypt, Newfoundland and Morocco. Suspicion of the growingententebetween France and England soon arose on the part of Germany, and in 1905 German assertiveness was shown in a crisis which was forced on in the matter of the French activity in Morocco (q.v.), in which the handling of French policy by M. Delcassé personally was a sore point with Germany. The situation became acute in April, and was only relieved by M. Delcassé’s resignation of office. He retired into private life, but in 1908 was warmly welcomed on a visit to England, where the closest relations now existed with France.
DEL CREDERE(Ital. “of belief” or “trust”). A “del credere agent,” in English law, is one who, selling goods for his principal on credit, undertakes for an additional commission to sell only to persons who are absolutely solvent. His position is thus that of a surety who is liable to his principal should the vendee make default. The agreement between him and his principal need not be reduced to or evidenced by writing, for his undertaking is not a guarantee within the Statute of Frauds. See alsoBroker;Guarantee.
DELESCLUZE, LOUIS CHARLES(1809-1871), French journalist, was born at Dreux on the 2nd of October 1809. Having studied law in Paris, he early developed a strong democratic bent, and played a part in the July revolution of 1830. He became a member of various republican societies, and in 1836 was forced to take refuge in Belgium, where he devoted himself to republican journalism. Returning in 1840 he settled in Valenciennes, and after the revolution of 1848 removed to Paris, where he started a newspaper calledLa Révolution démocratique et sociale. His zeal so far outran his discretion that he was twice imprisoned and fined, his paper was suppressed and he himself fled to England, where he continued his journalistic work. He was arrested in Paris in 1853, and deported to French Guiana. Released under the amnesty of 1859, he returned to France with health shattered but energies unimpaired. His next venture was the publication of theRéveil, a radical organ upholding the principles of theAssociation internationale des travailleurs, known as the “Internationale.” This journal, which brought him three condemnations, fine and imprisonment in one year, shared the fate of his Paris sheet, and its founder again fled to Belgium. In 1871 he was elected to the National Assembly, becoming afterwards a member of the Paris commune. At the siege of Paris he fought with reckless courage, and met his death on the last of the barricades (May 1871). He wrote an account of his imprisonment in Guiana,De Paris à Cayenne, Journal d’un transporté(Paris, 1869).
DELESSE, ACHILLE ERNEST OSCAR JOSEPH(1817-1881), French geologist and mineralogist, was born at Metz on the 3rd of February 1817. At the age of twenty he entered the École Polytechnique, and subsequently passed through the École des Mines. In 1845 he was appointed to the chair of mineralogy and geology at Besançon; in 1850 to the chair of geology at the Sorbonne in Paris; and in 1864 professor of agriculture at the École des Mines. In 1878 he became inspector-general of mines. In early years asingénieur des mineshe investigated and described various new minerals; he proceeded afterwards to the study of rocks, devising new methods for their determination, and giving particular descriptions of melaphyre, arkose, porphyry, syenite, &c. The igneous rocks of the Vosges, and those of the Alps, Corsica, &c., and the subject of metamorphism occupied his attention. He also prepared in 1858 geological and hydrological maps of Paris—with reference to the underground water, similar maps of the departments of the Seine and Seine-et-Marne, and an agronomic map of the Seine-et-Marne (1880), in which he showed the relation which exists between the physical and chemical characters of the soil and the geological structure. His annualRevue des progrès de géologie, undertaken with the assistance (1860-1865) of Auguste Laugel and afterwards (1865-1878) of Albert de Lapparent, was carried on from 1860 to 1880. His observations on the lithology of the deposits accumulated beneath the sea were of special interest and importance. His separate publications were:Recherches sur l’origine des roches(Paris, 1865);Étude sur le métamorphisme des roches(1869);Lithologie des mers de France et des mers principales du globe(2 vols. and atlas, 1871). He died at Paris on the 24th of March 1881.
DELESSERT, JULES PAUL BENJAMIN(1773-1847), French banker, was born at Lyons on the 14th of February 1773, the son of Étienne Delessert (1735-1816), the founder of the firstfire insurance company and the first discount bank in France. Young Delessert was travelling in England when the Revolution broke out in France, but he hastened back to join the Paris National Guard in 1790, becoming an officer of artillery in 1793. His father bought him out of the army, however, in 1795 in order to entrust him with the management of his bank. Gifted with remarkable energy, he started many commercial enterprises, founding the first cotton factory at Passy in 1801, and a sugar factory in 1802, for which he was created a baron of the empire. He sat in the chamber of deputies for many years, and was a strong advocate for many humane measures, notably the suppression of the “Tours” or revolving box at the foundling hospital, the suppression of the death penalty, and the improvement of the penitentiary system. He was made regent of the Bank of France in 1802, and was also member of, and, indeed, founder of many, learned and philanthropic societies. He founded the first savings bank in France, and maintained a keen interest in it until his death in 1847. He was also an ardent botanist and conchologist; his botanical library embraced 30,000 volumes, of which he published a catalogue—Musée botanique de M. Delessert(1845). He also wroteDes avantages de la caisse d’épargne et de prévoyance(1835),Mémoire sur un projet de bibliothéque royale(1836),Le Guide de bonheur(1839), andRecueil de coquilles décrites par Lamarck(1841-1842).
DELFICO, MELCHIORRE(1744-1835), Italian economist, was born at Teramo in the Abruzzi on the 1st of August 1744, and was educated at Naples. He devoted himself specially to the study of jurisprudence and political economy, and his numerous publications exercised great practical influence in the correction and extinction of many abuses. Under Joseph Bonaparte Delfico was made a councillor of state, an office which he held until the restoration of Ferdinand IV., when he was appointed president of the commission of archives, from which he retired in 1825. He died at Teramo on the 21st of June 1835. His more important works were:Saggio filosofico sul matrimonio(1774);Memoria sul Tribunale della Grascia e sulle leggi economiche nelle provincie confinanti del regno(1785), which led to the abolition in Naples of the most vexatious and absurd restrictions on the sale and exportation of agricultural produce;Riflessioni su la vendita dei feudi(1790) andLettera a Sua Ecc. il sig. Duca di Cantalupo(1795), which brought about the abolition of feudal rights over landed property and their sale;Ricerche sul vero carattere della giurisprudenza Romana e dei suoi cultori(1791);Pensieri su la storia e su l’ incertezza ed inutilità della medesima(1806), both on the early history of Rome.
See F. Mozzetti,Degli studii, delle opere e delle virtù di Melchiorre Delfico; Tipaldo’sBiographia degli Italiani illustri(vol. ii.).
See F. Mozzetti,Degli studii, delle opere e delle virtù di Melchiorre Delfico; Tipaldo’sBiographia degli Italiani illustri(vol. ii.).
DELFT,a town of Holland in the province of South Holland, on the Schie, 5 m. by rail S.E. by S. of the Hague, with which it is also connected by steam-tramway. Pop. (1900) 31,582. It is a quiet, typically Dutch town, with its old brick houses and tree-bordered canals. The Prinsenhof, previously a monastery, was converted into a residence for the counts of Orange in 1575; it was here that William the Silent was assassinated. It is now used as a William of Orange Museum. The New Church, formerly the church of St Ursula (14th century), is the burial place of the princes of Orange. It is remarkable for its fine tower and chime of bells, and contains the splendid allegorical monument of William the Silent, executed by Hendrik de Keyser and his son Pieter about 1621, and the tomb of Hugo Grotius, born in Delft in 1583, whose statue, erected in 1886, stands in the market-place outside the church. The Old Church, founded in the 11th century, but in its present form dating from 1476, contains the monuments of two famous admirals of the 17th century, Martin van Tromp and Piet Hein, as well as the tomb of the naturalist Leeuwenhoek, born at Delft in 1632. In the town hall (1618) are some corporation pictures, portraits of the counts of Orange and Nassau, including several by Michiel van Mierevelt (1567-1641), one of the earliest Dutch portrait painters, and with his son Pieter (1595-1623), a native of Delft. There are also a Roman Catholic church (1882) and a synagogue. Two important educational establishments are the Indian Institute for the education of civil service students for the colonies, to which is attached an ethnographical museum; and the Royal Polytechnic school, which almost ranks as a university, and teaches, among other sciences, that of diking. A fine collection of mechanical models is connected with the polytechnic school. Among other buildings are the modern “Phoenix” club-house of the students; the hospital, containing some anatomical pictures, including one by the two Mierevelts (1617); a lunatic asylum; the Van Renswoude orphanage, the theatre, a school of design, the powder magazine and the state arsenal, originally a warehouse of the East India Company, and now used as a manufactory of artillery stores.
The name of Delft is most intimately associated with the manufacture of the beautiful faience pottery for which it was once famous. (SeeCeramics.) This industry was imported from Haarlem towards the end of the 16th century, and achieved an unrivalled position in the second half of the following century; but it did not survive the French occupation at the end of the 18th century. It has, however, been revived in modern times under the name of “New Delft.” Other branches of industry are carpet-weaving, distilling, oil and oil-cake manufacture, dyeing, cooperage and the manufacture of arms and bullets. There is also an important butter and cheese market.
Delft was founded in 1075 by Godfrey III., duke of Lower Lorraine, after his conquest of Holland, and came subsequently into the hands of the counts of Holland. In 1246 it received a charter from Count William II. (see C. Hegel,Städte und Gilden, ii. 251). In 1536 it was almost totally destroyed by fire, and in 1654 largely ruined by the explosion of a powder magazine.
DELHI,DehliorDilli, the ancient capital of the Mogul empire in India, and a modern city which gives its name to a district and division of British India. The city of Delhi is situated in 28° 38′ N., 77° 13′ E., very nearly due north of Cape Comorin, and practically in a latitudinal line with the more ancient cities of Cairo and Canton. It lies in the south-east corner of the province of the Punjab, to which it was added in 1858, and abuts on the right bank of the river Jumna. Though Lahore, the more ancient city, remains the official capital of the Punjab, Delhi is historically more famous, and is now more important as a commercial and railway centre.
Though the remains of earlier cities are scattered round Delhi over an area estimated to cover some 45 sq. m., modern Delhi dates only from the middle of the 17th century, when Shah Jahan rebuilt the city on its present site, adding the title Shah-jahanabad from his own name. It extends for nearly 2¼ m. along the right bank of the Jumna from the Water bastion to the Wellesley bastion in the south-east corner, nearly one-third of the frontage being occupied by the river wall of the palace. The northern wall, famous in the siege of Delhi in 1857, extends three-quarters of a mile from the Water bastion to the Shah, commonly known as the Mori, bastion; the length of the west wall from this bastion to the Ajmere gate is 1¼ m. and of the south wall to the Wellesley bastion again almost exactly the same distance, the whole land circuit being thus 3¼ m. The complete circuit of Delhi is 5½ m. In the north wall is situated the famous Kashmir gate, while the Mori or Drain gate, which was built by a Mahratta governor, has now been removed. In the west wall are the Farash Khana and Ajmere gates, while the Kabul and Lahore gates have been removed. In the south wall are the Turkman and Delhi gates. The gates on the river side of the city included the Khairati and Rajghat, the Calcutta and Nigambod—both removed; the Kela gate, and the Badar Rao gate, now closed. The great wall of Delhi, which was constructed by Shah Jahan, was strengthened by the English by the addition of a ditch and glacis, after Delhi was captured by Lord Lake in 1803; and its strength was turned against the British at the time of the Mutiny. The imperial palace (1638-1648), now known as the “Fort,” is situated on the east of the city, and abuts directly on the river. It consists at present of bare and ugly British barracks, among which are scattered exquisite gems of oriental architecture. Thetwo most famous among its buildings are the Diwan-i-Am or Hall of Public Audience, and the Diwan-i-Khas or Hall of Private Audience. The Diwan-i-Am is a splendid building measuring 100 ft. by 60 ft., and was formerly plastered with chunam and overlaid with gold. The most striking effect now lies in its engrailed arches. It was in the recess in the back wall of this hall that the famous Peacock Throne used to stand, “so called from its having the figures of two peacocks standing behind it, their tails being expanded and the whole so inlaid with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls and other precious stones of appropriate colours as to represent life.” Tavernier, the French jeweller, who saw Delhi in 1665, describes the throne as of the shape of a bed, 6 ft. by 4 ft., supported by four golden feet, 20 to 25 in. high, from the bars above which rose twelve columns to support the canopy; the bars were decorated with crosses of rubies and emeralds, and also with diamonds and pearls. In all there were 108 large rubies on the throne, and 116 emeralds, but many of the latter had flaws. The twelve columns supporting the canopy were decorated with rows of splendid pearls, and Tavernier considered these to be the most valuable part of the throne. The whole was valued at £6,000,000. This throne was carried off by the Persian invader Nadir Shah in 1739, and has been rumoured to exist still in the Treasure House of the Shah of Persia; but Lord Curzon, who examined the thrones there, says that nothing now exists of it, except perhaps some portions worked up in a modern Persian throne. The Diwan-i-Khas is smaller than the Diwan-i-Am, and consists of a pavilion of white marble, in the interior of which the art of the Moguls reached the perfection of its jewel-like decoration. On a marble platform rises a marble pavilion, the flat-coned roof of which is supported on a double row of marble pillars. The inner face of the arches, with the spandrils and the pilasters which support them, are covered with flowers and foliage of delicate design and dainty execution, crusted in green serpentine, bluelapis lazuliand red and purple porphyry. During the lapse of years many of these stones were picked from their setting, and the silver ceiling of flowered patterns was pillaged by the Mahrattas; but the inlaid work was restored as far as possible by Lord Curzon. It is in this hall that the famous inscription “If a paradise be on the face of the earth, it is this, it is this, it is this,” still exists. It is given in Persian characters twice in the panels over the narrow arches at the ends of the middle hall, beginning from the east on the north side, and from the west at the south side. At the time of the Delhi Durbar held in January 1903 to celebrate the proclamation of Edward VII. as emperor of India these two halls were used as a dancing-room and supper-room, and their full beauty was brought out by the electric light shining through their marble grille-work.
The native city of Delhi is like most other cities in India, a huddle of mean houses in mean streets, diversified with splendid mosques. The Chandni Chauk (“silver street”), the principal street of Delhi, which was once supposed to be the richest street in the world, has fallen from its high estate, though it is still a broad and imposing avenue with a double row of trees running down the centre. During the course of its history it was four times sacked, by Nadir Shah, Timur, Ahmad Shah and the Mahrattas, and its roadway has many times run with blood. Now it is the abode of the jewellers and ivory-workers of Delhi, but the jewels are seldom valuable and the carving has lost much of its old delicacy. A short distance south of the Chandni Chauk the Jama Masjid, or Great Mosque, rises boldly from a small rocky eminence. It was erected in 1648-1650, two years after the royal palace, by Shah Jahan. Its front court, 450 ft. square, and surrounded by a cloister open on both sides, is paved with granite inlaid with marble, and commands a fine view of the city. The mosque itself, a splendid structure forming an oblong 261 ft. in length, is approached by a magnificent flight of stone steps. Three domes of white marble rise from its roof, with two tall minarets at the front corners. The interior of the mosque is paved throughout, and the walls and roof are lined, with white marble. Two other mosques in Delhi itself deserve passing notice, the Kala Masjid or Black Mosque, which was built about 1380 in the reign of Feroz Shah, and the Moti Masjid or Pearl Mosque, a tiny building added to the palace by Aurangzeb, as the emperor’s private place of prayer. It is only 60 ft. square, and the domes alone are seen above the red sandstone walls until the opening of two small fine brass gates.
To the west and north-west of Delhi considerable suburbs cluster beyond the walls. Here are the tombs of the imperial family. That of Humayun, the second of the Mogul dynasty, is a noble building of rose-coloured sandstone inlaid with white marble. It lies about 3 m. from the city, in a terraced garden, the whole surrounded by an embattled wall, with towers and four gateways. In the centre stands a platform about 20 ft. high by 200 ft. square, supported by arches and ascended by four flights of steps. Above, rises the mausoleum, also a square, with a great dome of white marble in the centre. About a mile to the west is another burying-ground, or collection of tombs and small mosques, some of them very beautiful. The most remarkable is perhaps the little chapel in honour of a celebrated Mussulman saint, Nizam-ud-din, near whose shrine the members of the imperial family, up to the time of the Mutiny, lie buried, each in a small enclosure surrounded by lattice-work of white marble.
Still farther away, some 10 m. south of the modern city, amid the ruins of old Delhi, stands the Kutb Minar, which is supposed to be the most perfect tower in the world, and one of the seven architectural wonders of India. The Minar was begun by Kutb-ud-din Aibak aboutA.D.1200. The two top storeys were rebuilt by Feroz Shah. It consists of five storeys of red sandstone and white marble. The purplish red of the sandstone at the base is finely modulated, through a pale pink in the second storey, to a dark orange at the summit, which harmonizes with the blue of an Indian sky. Dark bands of Arabic writing round the three lower storeys contrast with the red sandstone. The height of the column is 238 ft. The plinth is a polygon of twenty sides. The basement storey has the same number of faces formed into convex flutes which are alternately angular and semicircular. The next has semicircular flutes, and in the third they are all angular. Then rises a plain storey, and above it soars a partially fluted storey, the shaft of which is adorned with bands of marble and red sandstone. A bold projecting balcony, richly ornamented, runs round each storey. After six centuries the column is almost as fresh as on the day it was finished. It stands in the south-east corner of the outer court of the mosque erected by Kutb-ud-din immediately after his capture of Delhi in 1193. The design of this mosque is Mahommedan, but the wonderfully delicate ornamentation of its western façade and other remaining parts is Hindu. In the inner courtyard of the mosque stands the Iron Pillar, which is probably the most ancient monument in the neighbourhood of Delhi, dating from aboutA.D.400. It consists of a solid shaft of wrought iron some 16 in. in diameter and 23 ft. 8 in. in height, with an inscription eulogizing Chandragupta Vikramaditya. It was brought, probably from Muttra, by Anang Pal, a Rajput chief of the Tomaras, who erected it here in 1052.1
Among the modern buildings of Delhi may be mentioned the Residency, now occupied by a government high school, and the Protestant church of St James, built at a coast of £10,000 by Colonel Skinner, an officer well known in the history of the East India Company. About half-way down the Chandni Chauk is a high clock-tower. Near it is the town hall, with museum and library. Behind the Chandni Chauk, to the north, lie the Queen’s Gardens; beyond them the “city lines” stretch away as far as the well-known rocky ridge, about a mile outside the town. From the summit of this ridge the view of the station and city is very picturesque. The principal local institution until 1877 was the Delhi College, founded in 1792. It was at first exclusively an oriental school, supported by the voluntary contributions of Mahommedan gentlemen, and managed by a committee of the subscribers. In 1829 an English department was added to it; and in 1855 the institution was placed under the control of the Educational Department. In the Mutiny of 1857 the oldcollege was plundered of a very valuable oriental library, and the building completely destroyed. A new college was founded in 1858, and was affiliated to the university of Calcutta in 1864. The old college attained to great celebrity as an educational institution, and produced many excellent scholars, but it was abolished in 1877, in order to concentrate the grant available for higher-class education upon the Punjab University at Lahore.
The Ridge, famous as the British base during the siege of Delhi during the Mutiny, in 1857, is a last outcrop of the Aravalli Hills which rises in a steep escarpment some 60 ft. above the city. At its nearest point on the right of the British position, where the Mutiny Memorial now stands, the Ridge is only 1200 yds. from the walls of Delhi; at the Flagstaff Tower in the centre of the position it is a mile and a half away; and at the left near the river nearly two miles and a half. It was behind the Ridge at this point that the main portion of the British camp was pitched. The Mutiny Memorial, which was erected by the army before Delhi, is a rather poor specimen of a Gothic spire in red sandstone, while the memorial tablets are of inferior marble. Next to the Ridge the point of most interest to every English visitor to Delhi is Nicholson’s grave, which lies surrounded by an iron railing in the Kashmir gate cemetery. The Kashmir gate itself bears a slab recording the gallant deed of the party under Lieutenants D. C. Home and P. Salkeld, who blew in the gate in broad daylight on the day that Delhi was taken by assault.
The population of Delhi according to the census of 1901 was 208,575, of whom 88,460 were Mahommedans and 114,417 were Hindus. The city is served by five different railways, the East Indian, the Oudh & Rohilkhand, the Rajputana-Malwa & Bombay-Baroda, the Southern Punjab, and the North-Western, and occupies a central position, being 940 m. from Karachi, 950 from Calcutta, and 960 from Bombay. Owing to the advantages it enjoys as a trade centre, Delhi is recovering much of the prominence which it lost at the time of the Mutiny. It has spinning-mills and other mills worked by steam. The principal manufactures are gold and silver filigree work and embroidery, jewelry, muslins, shawls, glazed pottery and wood-carving.
TheDistrict of Delhihas an area of 1290 sq. m. It consists of a strip of territory on the right or west bank of the Jumna river, 75 m. in length, and varying from 15 to 233 m. in breadth. Most of the district consists of hard and stony soil, depending upon irrigation, which is supplied by the Western Jumna canal, the Ali Mardan canal and the Agra canal. The principal crops are wheat, barley, sugar-cane and cotton.
When Lord Lake broke the Mahratta power in 1803, and the emperor was taken under the protection of the East India Company, the present districts of Delhi and Hissar were assigned for the maintenance of the royal family, and were administered by a British resident. In 1832 the office of resident was abolished, and the tract was annexed to the North-Western Provinces. After the Mutiny in 1858 it was separated from the North-Western Provinces and annexed to the Punjab. The population in 1901 was 689,039.
TheDivision of Delhistretches from Simla to Rajputana, and is much broken up by native states. It comprises the seven districts of Hissar, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Delhi, Karnal, Umballa and Simla. Its total area is 15,393 sq. m., and in 1901 the population was 4,587,092.
History.—According to legends, which may or may not have a substantial basis, Delhi or its immediate neighbourhood has from time immemorial been the site of a capital city. The neighbouring village of Indarpat preserves the name of Indraprashta, the semi-mythical city founded, according to the Sanscrit epicMahabharata, by Yudisthira and his brothers, the five Pandavas. Whatever its dim predecessors may have been, however, the actual history of Delhi dates no further back than the 11th centuryA.D., when Anangapala (Anang Pal), a chief of the Tomara clan, built the Red Fort, in which the Kutb Minar now stands; in 1052 the same chief removed the famous Iron Pillar from its original position, probably at Muttra, and set it up among a group of temples of which the materials were afterwards used by the Mussulmans for the construction of the great Kutb Mosque. About the middle of the 12th century the Tomara dynasty was overthrown by Vigraha-raja (Visala-deva, Bisal Deo), the Chauhan king of Ajmere, who from inscribed records discovered of late years appears to have been a man of considerable culture (see V. A. Smith,Early Hist. of India, ed. 1908, p. 356). His nephew and successor was Prithwi-raja (Prithiraj, or Rai Pithora), lord of Sambhar, Delhi and Ajmere, whose fame as lover and warrior still lives in popular story. He was the last Hindu ruler of Delhi. In 1191 came the invasion of Mahommed of Ghor. Defeated on this occasion, Mahommed returned two years later, overthrew the Hindus, and captured and put to death Prithwi-raja. Delhi became henceforth the capital of the Mahommedan Indian empire, Kutb-ud-din (the general and slave of Mahommed of Ghor) being left in command. His dynasty is known as that of the slave kings, and it is to them that old Delhi owes its grandest remains, among them Kutb Mosque and the Kutb Minar. The slave dynasty retained the throne till 1290, when it was subverted by Jalal-ud-din Khilji. The most remarkable monarch of this dynasty was Ala-ud-din, during whose reign Delhi was twice exposed to attack from invading hordes of Moguls. On the first occasion Ala-ud-din defeated them under the walls of his capital; on the second, after encamping for two months in the neighbourhood of the city, they retired without a battle. The house of Khilji came to an end in 1321, and was followed by that of Tughlak. Hitherto the Pathan kings had been content with the ancient Hindu capital, altered and adorned to suit their tastes. But one of the first acts of the founder of the new dynasty, Ghias-ud-din Tughlak, was to erect a new capital about 4 m. farther to the east, which he called Tughlakabad. The ruins of his fort remain, and the eye can still trace the streets and lanes of the long deserted city. Ghias-ud-din was succeeded by his son Mahommed b. Tughlak, who reigned from 1325 to 1351, and is described by Elphinstone as “one of the most accomplished princes and most furious tyrants that ever adorned or disgraced human nature.” Under this monarch the Delhi of the Tughlak dynasty attained its utmost growth. His successor Feroz Shah Tughlak transferred the capital to a new town which he founded some miles off, on the north of the Kutb, and to which he gave his own name, Ferozabad. In 1398, during the reign of Mahmud Tughlak, occurred the Tatar invasion of Timurlane. The king fled to Gujarat, his army was defeated under the walls of Delhi, and the city surrendered. The town, notwithstanding a promise of protection, was plundered and burned; the citizens were massacred. The invaders at last retired, leaving Delhi without a government, and almost without inhabitants. At length Mahmud Tughlak regained a fragment of his former kingdom, but on his death in 1412 the family became extinct. He was succeeded by the Sayyid dynasty, which held Delhi and a few miles of surrounding territory till 1444, when it gave way to the house of Lodi, during whose rule the capital was removed to Agra. In 1526 Baber, sixth in descent from Timurlane, invaded India, defeated and killed Ibrahim Lodi at the battle of Panipat, entered Delhi, was proclaimed emperor, and finally put an end to the Afghan empire. Baber’s capital was at Agra, but his son and successor, Humayun, removed it to Delhi. In 1540 Humayun was defeated and expelled by Sher Shah, who entirely rebuilt the city, enclosing and fortifying it with a new wall. In his time Delhi extended from where Humayun’s tomb now is to near the southern gate of the modern city. In 1555 Humayun, with the assistance of Persia, regained the throne; but he died within six months, and was succeeded by his son, the illustrious Akbar.
During Akbar’s reign and that of his son Jahangir, the capital was either at Agra or at Lahore, and Delhi once more fell into decay. Between 1638 and 1658, however, Shah Jahan rebuilt it almost in its present form; and his city remains substantially the Delhi of the present time. The imperial palace, the Jama Masjid or Great Mosque, and the restoration of what is now the western Jumna canal, are the work of Shah Jahan. The Mogul empire rapidly expanded during the reigns of Akbar and his successors down to Aurungzeb, when it attained its climax. After the death of the latter monarch, in 1707, came the decline. Insurrectionsand civil wars on the part of the Hindu tributary chiefs, Sikhs and Mahrattas, broke out. Aurungzeb’s successors became the helpless instruments of conflicting chiefs. His grandson, Jahandar Shah, was, in 1713, deposed and strangled after a reign of one year; and Farrakhsiyyar, the next in succession, met with the same fate in 1719. He was succeeded by Mahommed Shah, in whose reign the Mahratta forces first made their appearance before the gates of Delhi, in 1736. Three years later the Persian monarch, Nadir Shah, after defeating the Mogul army at Karnal, entered Delhi in triumph. While engaged in levying a heavy contribution, the Persian troops were attacked by the populace, and many of them were killed. Nadir Shah, after vainly attempting to stay the tumult, at last gave orders for a general massacre of the inhabitants. For fifty-eight days Nadir Shah remained in Delhi, and when he left he carried with him a treasure in money amounting, at the lowest computation, to eight or nine millions sterling, besides jewels of inestimable value, and other property to the amount of several millions more.
From this time (1740) the decline of the empire proceeded unchecked and with increased rapidity. In 1771 Shah Alam, the son of Alamgir II., was nominally raised to the throne by the Mahrattas, the real sovereignty resting with the Mahratta chief, Sindhia. An attempt of the puppet emperor to shake himself clear of the Mahrattas, in which he was defeated in 1788, led to a permanent Mahratta garrison being stationed at Delhi. From this date, the king remained a cipher in the hands of Sindhia, who treated him with studied neglect, until the 8th of September 1803, when Lord Lake overthrew the Mahrattas under the walls of Delhi, entered the city, and took the king under the protection of the British. Delhi, once more attacked by a Mahratta army under the Mahratta chief Holkar in 1804, was gallantly defended by Colonel Ochterlony, the British resident, who held out against overwhelming odds for eight days, until relieved by Lord Lake. From this date a new era in the history of Delhi began. A pension of £120,000 per annum was allowed to the king, with exclusive jurisdiction over the palace, and the titular sovereignty as before; but the city, together with the Delhi territory, passed under British administration.
Fifty-three years of quiet prosperity for Delhi were brought to a close by the Mutiny of 1857. Its capture by the mutineers, its siege, and its subsequent recapture by the British have been often told, and nothing beyond a short notice is called for here. The outbreak at Meerut occurred on the night of the 10th of May 1857. Immediately after the murder of their officers, the rebel soldiery set out for Delhi, about 35 m. distant, and on the following morning entered the city, where they were joined by the city mob. Mr Fraser, the commissioner, Mr Hutchinson, the collector, Captain Douglas, the commandant of the palace guards, and the Rev. Mr Jennings, the residency chaplain, were at once murdered, as were also most of the civil and non-official residents whose houses were situated within the city walls. The British troops in cantonments consisted of three regiments of native infantry and a battery of artillery. These cast in their lot with the mutineers, and commenced by killing their officers. The Delhi magazine, then the largest in the north-west of India, was in the charge of Lieutenant Willoughby, with whom were two other officers and six non-commissioned officers. The magazine was attacked by the mutineers, but the little band defended to the last the enormous accumulation of munitions of war stored there, and, when further defence was hopeless, fired the magazine. Five of the nine were killed by the explosion, and Lieutenant Willoughby subsequently died of his injuries; the remaining three succeeded in making their escape. The occupation of Delhi by the rebels was the signal for risings in almost every military station in North-Western India. The revolted soldiery with one accord thronged towards Delhi, and in a short time the city was garrisoned by a rebel army variously estimated at from 50,000 to 70,000 disciplined men. The pensioned king, Bahadur Shah, was proclaimed emperor; his sons were appointed to various military commands. About fifty Europeans and Eurasians, nearly all females, who had been captured in trying to escape from the town on the day of the outbreak, were confined in a stifling chamber of the palace for fifteen days; they were then brought out and massacred in the court-yard.
The siege which followed forms one of the memorable incidents of the British history of India. On the 8th June, four weeks after the outbreak, Sir H. Barnard, who had succeeded as commander-in-chief on the death of General Anson, routed the mutineers with a handful of Europeans and Sikhs, after a severe action at Badliki-Serai, and encamped upon the Ridge that overlooks the city. The force was too weak to capture the city, and he had no siege train or heavy guns. All that could be done was to hold the position till the arrival of reinforcements and of a siege train. During the next three months the little British force on the Ridge were rather the besieged than the besiegers. Almost daily sallies, which often turned into pitched battles, were made by the rebels upon the over-worked handful of Europeans, Sikhs and Gurkhas. A great struggle took place on the centenary of the battle of Plassey (June 23), and another on the 25th of August; but on both occasions the mutineers were repulsed with heavy loss. General Barnard died of cholera in July, and was succeeded by General Archdale Wilson. Meanwhile reinforcements and siege artillery gradually arrived, and early in September it was resolved to make the assault. The first of the heavy batteries opened fire on the 8th of September, and on the 13th a practicable breach was reported.
On the morning of the 14th Sept. the assault was delivered, the points of attack being the Kashmir bastion, the Water bastion, the Kashmir gate, and the Lahore gate. The assault was thoroughly successful, although the column which was to enter the city by the Lahore gate sustained a temporary check. The whole eastern part of the city was retaken, but at a cost of 66 officers and 1104 men killed and wounded, out of the total strength of 9866. Fighting continued more or less during the next six days, and it was not till the 20th of September that the entire city and palace were occupied, and the reconquest of Delhi was complete. During the siege, the British force sustained a loss of 1012 officers and men killed, and 3837 wounded. Among the killed was General John Nicholson, the leader of one of the storming parties, who was shot through the body in the act of leading his men, in the first day’s fighting. He lived, however, to learn that the whole city had been recaptured, and died on the 23rd of September. On the flight of the mutineers, the king and several members of the royal family took refuge at Humayun’s tomb. On receiving a promise that his life would be spared, the last of the house of Timur surrendered to Major Hodson; he was afterwards banished to Rangoon. Delhi, thus reconquered, remained for some months under military authority. Owing to the murder of several European soldiers who strayed from the lines, the native population was expelled the city. Hindus were soon afterwards readmitted, but for some time Mahommedans were rigorously excluded. Delhi was made over to the civil authorities in January 1858, but it was not till 1861 that the civil courts were regularly reopened. The shattered walls of the Kashmir gateway, and the bastions of the northern face of the city, still bear the marks of the cannonade of September 1857. Since that date Delhi has settled down into a prosperous commercial town, and a great railway centre. The lines which start from it to the north, south, east and west bring into its bazaars the trade of many districts. But the romance of antiquity still lingers around it, and Delhi was selected for the scene of the Imperial Proclamation on the 1st of January 1877, and for the great Durbar held in January 1903 for the proclamation of King Edward VII. as emperor of India.