Bibliography.—Reference has already been made to the principal works which deal critically with the free-trade policy. Professor Fawcett’sFree Tradeis a good exposition of free-trade principles; so also is Professor Bastable’sCommerce of Nations. Among authors who have restated the principles with special reference to the revived controversy on the subject may be mentioned Professor W. Smart,The Return to Protection, being a Restatement of the Case for Free Trade(2nd ed., 1906), and A. C. Pigou,Protective and Preferential Import Duties(1906).
Bibliography.—Reference has already been made to the principal works which deal critically with the free-trade policy. Professor Fawcett’sFree Tradeis a good exposition of free-trade principles; so also is Professor Bastable’sCommerce of Nations. Among authors who have restated the principles with special reference to the revived controversy on the subject may be mentioned Professor W. Smart,The Return to Protection, being a Restatement of the Case for Free Trade(2nd ed., 1906), and A. C. Pigou,Protective and Preferential Import Duties(1906).
(W. Cu.)
1E. Misselden,Free Trade or the Meanes to make Trade Flourish(1622), p. 68; G. Malynes,The Maintenance of Free Trade(1622), p. 105.2H. Parker,Of a Free Trade(1648), p. 8.3(1787), 27 Geo. III. c. 13.4Sir Walter Scott,Guy Mannering, chapter v.5Gladstone, “Free Trade, Railways and Commerce,” inNineteenth Century(Feb. 1880), vol. vii. p. 370.6Parker states a similar argument in the form in which it suited the special problem of his day. “If merchandise be good for the commonweal, then the more common it is made, the more open it is laid, the more good it will convey to us.”Op. cit.20.7Schmoller,Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre(1904), ii. 607.8Byles,Sophisms of Free Trade; L. S. Amery,Fundamental Fallacies of Free Trade, 13.9W. Cunningham,Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement, PP. 5-11.10Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. ii.11Principles of Political Economy, 485.12J. Morley,Life of Cobden, i. 230.13“Mémoire,” 6 April 1776, inŒuvres, viii. 460.14Jefferson,Notes on Virginia, 275. See also the articles onJeffersonandHamilton, Alexander.15One incidental effect of the failure to secure free trade was that the African slave trade, with West Indies as a depot for supplying the American market, ceased to be remunerative, and the opposition to the abolition of the trade was very much weaker than it would otherwise have been; see Hochstetter, “Die wirtschaftlichen und politischen Motive für die Abschaffung des britischen Sklavenhandels,” in Schmoller,Staats und Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen, xxv. i. 37.16J. Welsford, “Cobden’s Foreign Teacher,” inNational Review(December 1905).17Compatriot Club Lectures(1905), p. 306.18J. S. Mill,Principles of Political Economy, book v. chapter x. § 1.19F. S. Oliver,Alexander Hamilton, 142.20The standard is, of course, lower among the negroes and mean whites in the South than in the North and West.21F. Beauclerk, “Free Trade in India,” inEconomic Review(July 1907), xvii. 284.22A. E. Murray,History of the Commercial and Financial Relations between England and Ireland, 294.23For the tariff reform movement in English politics see the article onChamberlain, J.Among continental writers G. Schmoller (Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre, ii. 641) and A. Wagner (Preface to M. Schwab’sChamberlains Handelspolitik) pronounce in favour of a change, as Fuchs did by anticipation. Schulze-Gaevernitz (Britischer Imperialismus und englischer Freihandel), Aubry (Étude critique de la politique commerciale de l’Angleterre à l’égard de ses colonies), and Blondel (La politique Protectionniste en Angleterre un nouveau danger pour la France) are against it.
1E. Misselden,Free Trade or the Meanes to make Trade Flourish(1622), p. 68; G. Malynes,The Maintenance of Free Trade(1622), p. 105.
2H. Parker,Of a Free Trade(1648), p. 8.
3(1787), 27 Geo. III. c. 13.
4Sir Walter Scott,Guy Mannering, chapter v.
5Gladstone, “Free Trade, Railways and Commerce,” inNineteenth Century(Feb. 1880), vol. vii. p. 370.
6Parker states a similar argument in the form in which it suited the special problem of his day. “If merchandise be good for the commonweal, then the more common it is made, the more open it is laid, the more good it will convey to us.”Op. cit.20.
7Schmoller,Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre(1904), ii. 607.
8Byles,Sophisms of Free Trade; L. S. Amery,Fundamental Fallacies of Free Trade, 13.
9W. Cunningham,Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement, PP. 5-11.
10Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. ii.
11Principles of Political Economy, 485.
12J. Morley,Life of Cobden, i. 230.
13“Mémoire,” 6 April 1776, inŒuvres, viii. 460.
14Jefferson,Notes on Virginia, 275. See also the articles onJeffersonandHamilton, Alexander.
15One incidental effect of the failure to secure free trade was that the African slave trade, with West Indies as a depot for supplying the American market, ceased to be remunerative, and the opposition to the abolition of the trade was very much weaker than it would otherwise have been; see Hochstetter, “Die wirtschaftlichen und politischen Motive für die Abschaffung des britischen Sklavenhandels,” in Schmoller,Staats und Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen, xxv. i. 37.
16J. Welsford, “Cobden’s Foreign Teacher,” inNational Review(December 1905).
17Compatriot Club Lectures(1905), p. 306.
18J. S. Mill,Principles of Political Economy, book v. chapter x. § 1.
19F. S. Oliver,Alexander Hamilton, 142.
20The standard is, of course, lower among the negroes and mean whites in the South than in the North and West.
21F. Beauclerk, “Free Trade in India,” inEconomic Review(July 1907), xvii. 284.
22A. E. Murray,History of the Commercial and Financial Relations between England and Ireland, 294.
23For the tariff reform movement in English politics see the article onChamberlain, J.Among continental writers G. Schmoller (Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre, ii. 641) and A. Wagner (Preface to M. Schwab’sChamberlains Handelspolitik) pronounce in favour of a change, as Fuchs did by anticipation. Schulze-Gaevernitz (Britischer Imperialismus und englischer Freihandel), Aubry (Étude critique de la politique commerciale de l’Angleterre à l’égard de ses colonies), and Blondel (La politique Protectionniste en Angleterre un nouveau danger pour la France) are against it.
FREGELLAE,an ancient town of Latium adiectum, situated on the Via Latina, 11 m. W.N.W. of Aquinum, near the left branch of the Liris. It is said to have belonged in early times to the Opici or Oscans, and later to the Volscians. It was apparently destroyed by the Samnites a little before 330B.C., in which year the people of Fabrateria Vetus (mod. Ceccano) besought the help of Rome against them, and in 328B.C.a Latin colony was established there. The place was taken in 320B.C.by the Samnites, but re-established by the Romans in 313B.C.It continued henceforward to be faithful to Rome; by breaking the bridges over the Liris it interposed an obstacle to the advance of Hannibal on Rome in 212B.C., and it was a native of Fregellae who headed the deputation of the non-revolting colonies in 209B.C.It appears to have been a very important and flourishing place owing to its command of the crossing of the Liris, and to its position in a fertile territory, and it was here that, after the rejection of the proposals of M. Fulvius Flaccus for the extension of Roman burgess-rights in 125B.C., a revolt against Rome broke out. It was captured by treachery in the same year and destroyed; but its place was taken in the following year by the colony of Fabrateria Nova, 3 m. to the S.E. on the opposite bank of the Liris, while a post station Fregellanum (mod. Ceprano) is mentioned in the itineraries; Fregellae itself, however, continued to exist as a village even under the empire. The site is clearly traceable about ½ m. E. of Ceprano, but the remains of the city are scanty.
See G. Colasanti,Fregellae, storia e topografia(1906).
See G. Colasanti,Fregellae, storia e topografia(1906).
(T. As.)
FREIBERG,orFreyberg, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Münzbach, near its confluence with the Mulde, 19 m. S.W. of Dresden on the railway to Chemnitz, with a branch to Nossen. Pop. (1905) 30,896. Its situation, on the rugged northern slope of the Erzgebirge, is somewhat bleak and uninviting, but the town is generally well built and makes a prosperous impression. A part of its ancient walls still remains; the other portions have been converted into public walks and gardens. Freiberg is the seat of the general administration of the mines throughout the kingdom, and its celebrated mining academy (Bergakademie), founded in 1765, is frequented by students from all parts of the world. Connected with it are extensive collections of minerals and models, a library of 50,000 volumes, and laboratories for chemistry, metallurgy and assaying. Among its distinguished scholars it reckons Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750-1817), who was also a professor there, and Alexander von Humboldt. Freiberg has extensive manufactures of gold and silver lace, woollen cloths, linen and cotton goods, iron, copper and brass wares, gunpowder and white-lead. It has also several large breweries. In the immediate vicinity are its famous silver and lead mines, thirty in number, and of which the principal ones passed into the property of the state in 1886. The castle of Freudenstein or Freistein, as rebuilt by the elector Augustus in 1572, is situated in one of the suburbs and is now used as a military magazine. In its grounds a monument was erected to Werner in 1851. The cathedral, rebuilt in late Gothic style after its destruction by fire in 1484 and restored in 1893, was founded in the 12th century. Of the original church a magnificent German Romanesque doorway, known as the Golden Gate (Goldene Pforte), survives. The church contains numerous monuments, among others one to Prince Maurice of Saxony. Adjoining the cathedral is the mausoleum (Begräbniskapelle), built in 1594 in the Italian Renaissance style, in which are buried the remains of Henry the Pious and his successors down to John George IV., who died in 1694. Of the other four Protestant churches the most noteworthy is the Peterskirche which, with its three towers, is a conspicuous object on the highest point of the town. Among the other public buildings are the old town-hall, dating from the 15th century, the antiquarian museum, and the natural history museum. There are a classical and modern, a commercial and an agricultural school, and numerous charitable institutions.
Freiberg owes its origin to the discovery of its silver mines (c.1163). The town, with the castle of Freudenstein, was built by Otto the Rich, margrave of Meissen, in 1175, and its name, which first appears in 1221, is derived from the extensive mining franchises granted to it about that time. In all the partitions of the territories of the Saxon house of Wettin, from the latter part of the 13th century onward, Freiberg always remained common property, and it was not till 1485 (the mines not till 1537) that it was definitively assigned to the Albertine line. The Reformation was introduced into Freiberg in 1536 by Henry the Pious, who resided here. The town suffered severely during the Thirty Years’ War, and again during the French occupation from 1806 to 1814, during which time it had to support an army of 700,000 men and find forage for 200,000 horses.
See H. Gerlach,Kleine Chronik von Freiberg(2nd ed., Freiberg, 1898); H. Ermisch,Das Freiberger Stadtrecht(Leipzig, 1889); Ermisch and O. Posse,Urkundenbuch der Stadt Freiberg, inCodex diplom. Sax. reg.(3 vols., Leipzig, 1883-1891);Freibergs Berg- und Hüttenwesen, published by the Bergmännischer Verein (Freiberg, 1883); Ledebur,Über die Bedeutung der Freiberger Bergakademie(ib.1903); Steche,Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler der Amtshauptmannschaft Freiberg(Dresden, 1884).
See H. Gerlach,Kleine Chronik von Freiberg(2nd ed., Freiberg, 1898); H. Ermisch,Das Freiberger Stadtrecht(Leipzig, 1889); Ermisch and O. Posse,Urkundenbuch der Stadt Freiberg, inCodex diplom. Sax. reg.(3 vols., Leipzig, 1883-1891);Freibergs Berg- und Hüttenwesen, published by the Bergmännischer Verein (Freiberg, 1883); Ledebur,Über die Bedeutung der Freiberger Bergakademie(ib.1903); Steche,Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler der Amtshauptmannschaft Freiberg(Dresden, 1884).
FREIBURG,a town of Germany in Prussian Silesia, on the Polsnitz, 35 m. S.W. of Breslau, on the railway to Halbstadt. Pop. (1905) 9917. It has an Evangelical and Roman Catholic church, and its industries include watch-making, linen-weaving and distilling. In the neighbourhood are the old and modern castles of the Fürstenstein family, whence the town is sometimes distinguished as Freiburg unter dem Fürstenstein. At Freiburg, on the 22nd of July 1762, the Prussians defended themselves successfully against the superior forces of the Austrians.
FREIBURG IM BREISGAU,an archiepiscopal see and city of Germany in the grand duchy of Baden, 12 m. E. of the Rhine, beautifully situated on the Dreisam at the foot of the Schlossberg, one of the heights of the Black Forest range, on the railway between Basel and Mannheim, 40 m. N. of the former city. Pop. (1905) 76,285. The town is for the most part well built, having several wide and handsome streets and a number of spacious squares. It is kept clean and cool by the waters of the river, which flow through the streets in open channels; and its old fortifications have been replaced by public walks, and, what is more unusual, by vineyards. It possesses a famous university, the Ludovica Albertina, founded by Albert VI., archduke of Austria, in 1457, and attended by about 2000 students. The library contains upwards of 250,000 volumes and 600 MSS., and among the other auxiliary establishments are an anatomical hall and museum and botanical gardens. The Freiburg minster is considered one of the finest of all the Gothic churches of Germany, being remarkable alike for the symmetry of its proportions, for the taste of its decorations, and for the fact that it may more correctly be said to be finished than almost any other building of the kind. The period of its erection probably lies for the most part between 1122 and 1252; but the choir was not built till 1513. The tower, which rises above the western entrance, is 386 ft. in height, and it presents a skilful transition from a square base into an octagonal superstructure, which in its turn is surmounted by a pyramidal spire of the mostexquisite open work in stone. In the interior of the church are some beautiful stained glass windows, both ancient and modern, the tombstones of several of the dukes of Zähringen, statues of archbishops of Freiburg, and paintings by Holbein and by Hans Baldung (c.1470-1545), commonly called Grün. Among the other noteworthy buildings of Freiburg are the palaces of the grand duke and the archbishop, the old town-hall, the theatre, theKaufhausor merchants’ hall, a 16th-century building with a handsome façade, the church of St Martin, with a graceful spire restored 1880-1881, the new town-hall, completed 1901, in Renaissance style, and the Protestant church, formerly the church of the abbey of Thennenbach, removed hither in 1839. In the centre of the fish-market square is a fountain surmounted by a statue of Duke Berthold III. of Zähringen; in the Franziskaner Platz there is a monument to Berthold Schwarz, the traditional discoverer here, in 1259, of gunpowder; the Rotteck Platz takes its name from the monument of Karl Wenzeslaus von Rotteck (1775-1840), the historian, which formerly stood on the site of the Schwarz statue; and in Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse a bronze statue was erected in 1876 to the memory of Herder, who in the early part of the 19th century founded in Freiburg an institute for draughtsmen, engravers and lithographers, and carried on a famous bookselling business. On the Schlossberg above the town there are massive ruins of two castles destroyed by the French in 1744; and about 2 m. to the N.E. stands the castle of Zähringen, the original seat of the famous family of the counts of that name. Situated on the ancient road which runs by the Höllenpass between the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine, Freiburg early acquired commercial importance, and it is still the principal centre of the trade of the Black Forest. It manufactures buttons, chemicals, starch, leather, tobacco, silk thread, paper, and hempen goods, as well as beer and wine.
Freiburg is of uncertain foundation. In 1120 it became a free town, with privileges similar to those of Cologne; but in 1219 it fell into the hands of a branch of the family of Urach. After it had vainly attempted to throw off the yoke by force of arms, it purchased its freedom in 1366; but, unable to reimburse the creditors who had advanced the money, it was, in 1368, obliged to recognize the supremacy of the house of Hapsburg. In the 17th and 18th centuries it played a considerable part as a fortified town. It was captured by the Swedes in 1632, 1634 and 1638; and in 1644 it was seized by the Bavarians, who shortly after, under General Mercy, defeated in the neighbourhood the French forces under Enghien and Turenne. The French were in possession from 1677 to 1697, and again in 1713-1714 and 1744; and when they left the place in 1748, at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, they dismantled the fortifications. The Baden insurgents gained a victory at Freiburg in 1848, and the revolutionary government took refuge in the town in June 1849, but in the following July the Prussian forces took possession and occupied it until 1851. Since 1821 Freiburg has been the seat of an archbishop with jurisdiction over the sees of Mainz, Rottenberg and Limburg.
See Schreiber,Geschichte und Beschreibung des Münsters zu Freiburg(1820 and 1825);Geschichte der Stadt und Universität Freiburgs(1857-1859);Der Schlossberg bei Freiburg(1860); and Albert,Die Geschichtsschreibung der Stadt Freiburg(1902).
See Schreiber,Geschichte und Beschreibung des Münsters zu Freiburg(1820 and 1825);Geschichte der Stadt und Universität Freiburgs(1857-1859);Der Schlossberg bei Freiburg(1860); and Albert,Die Geschichtsschreibung der Stadt Freiburg(1902).
Battles of Freiburg, 3rd, 5th and 10th of August 1644.—During the Thirty Years’ War the neighbourhood of Freiburg was the scene of a series of engagements between the French under Louis de Bourbon, due d’Enghien (afterwards called the great Condé), and Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, and the Bavarians and Austrians commanded by Franz, Freiherr von Mercy.
At the close of the campaign of 1643 the French “Army of Weimar,” having been defeated and driven into Alsace by the Bavarians, had there been reorganized under the command of Turenne, then a young general of thirty-two and newly promoted to the marshalate. In May 1644 he opened the campaign by recrossing the Rhine and raiding the enemy’s posts as far as Überlingen on the lake of Constance and Donaueschingen on the Danube. The French then fell back with their booty and prisoners to Breisach, a strong garrison being left in Freiburg. The Bavarian commander, however, revenged himself by besieging Freiburg (June 27th), and Turenne’s first attempt to relieve the place failed. During July, as the siege progressed, the French government sent the duc d’Enghien, who was ten years younger still than Turenne, but had just gained his great victory of Rocroy, to take over the command. Enghien brought with him a veteran army, called the “Army of France,” Turenne remaining in command of the Army of Weimar. The armies met at Breisach on the 2nd of August, by which date Freiburg had surrendered. At this point most commanders of the time would have decided not to fight, but to manœuvre Mercy away from Freiburg; Enghien, however, was a fighting general, and Mercy’s entrenched lines at Freiburg seemed to him a target rather than an obstacle. A few hours after his arrival, therefore, without waiting for the rearmost troops of his columns, he set the combining armies in motion for Krozingen, a village on what was then the main road between Breisach and Freiburg. The total force immediately available numbered only 16,000 combatants. Enghien and Turenne had arranged that the Army of France was to move direct upon Freiburg by Wolfenweiter, while the Army of Weimar was to make its way by hillside tracks to Wittnau and thence to attack the rear of Mercy’s lines while Enghien assaulted them in front. Turenne’s march (August 3rd, 1644) was slow and painful, as had been anticipated, and late in the afternoon, on passing Wittnau, he encountered the enemy. The Weimarians carried the outer lines of defence without much difficulty, but as they pressed on towards Merzhausen the resistance became more and more serious. Turenne’s force was little more than 6000, and these were wearied with a long day of marching and fighting on the steep and wooded hillsides of the Black Forest. Thus the turning movement came to a standstill far short of Uffingen, the village on Mercy’s line of retreat that Turenne was to have seized, nor was a flank attack possible against Mercy’s main line, from which he was separated by the crest of the Schönberg. Meanwhile, Enghien’s army had at the prearranged hour (4P.M.) attacked Mercy’s position on the Ebringen spur. A steep slope, vineyards, low stone walls and abatis had all to be surmounted, under a galling fire from the Bavarian musketeers, before the Army of France found itself, breathless and in disorder, in front of the actual entrenchments of the crest. A first attack failed, as did an attempt to find an unguarded path round the shoulder of the Schönberg. The situation was grave in the extreme, but Enghien resolved on Turenne’s account to renew the attack, although only a quarter of his original force was still capable of making an effort. He himself and all the young nobles of his staff dismounted and led the infantry forward again, the prince threw his baton into the enemy’s lines for the soldiers to retrieve, and in the end, after a bitter struggle, the Bavarians, whose reserves had been taken away to oppose Turenne in the Merzhausen defile, abandoned the entrenchments and disappeared into the woods of the adjoining spur. Enghien hurriedly re-formed his troops, fearing at every moment to be hurled down the hill by a counter-stroke; but none came. The French bivouacked in the rain, Turenne making his way across the mountain to confer with the prince, and meanwhile Mercy quietly drew off his army in the dark to a new set of entrenchments on the ridge on which stood the Loretto Chapel. On the 4th of August the Army of France and the Army of Weimar met at Merzhausen, the rearmost troops of the Army of France came in, and the whole was arranged by the major-generals in the plain facing the Loretto ridge. This position was attacked on the 5th. Enghien had designed his battle even more carefully than before, but as the result of a series of accidents the two French armies attacked prematurely and straight to their front, one brigade after another, and though at one moment Enghien, sword in hand, broke the line of defence with his last intact reserve, a brilliant counterstroke, led by Mercy’s brother Kaspar (who was killed), drove out the assailants. It is said that Enghien lost half his men on this day and Mercy one-third of his, so severe was the battle. But the result couldnot be gainsaid; it was for the French a complete and costly failure.
For three days after this the armies lay in position without fighting, the French well supplied with provisions and comforts from Breisach, the Bavarians suffering somewhat severely from want of food, and especially forage, as all their supplies had to be hauled from Villingen over the rough roads of the Black Forest. Enghien then decided to make use of the Glotter Tal to interrupt altogether this already unsatisfactory line of supply, and thus to force the Bavarians either to attack him at a serious disadvantage, or to retreat across the hills with the loss of their artillery and baggage and the disintegration of their army by famine and desertion. With this object, the Army of Weimar was drawn off on the morning of the 9th of August and marched round by Betzenhausen and Lehen to Langen Denzling. The infantry of the Army of France, then the trains, followed, while Enghien with his own cavalry faced Freiburg and the Loretto position.
Before dawn on the 10th the advance guard of Turenne’s army was ascending the Glotter Tal. But Mercy had divined his adversary’s plan, and leaving a garrison to hold Freiburg, the Bavarian army had made a night march on the 9/10th to the Abbey of St Peter, whence on the morning of the 10th Mercy fell back to Graben, his nearest magazine in the mountains. Turenne’s advanced guard appeared from the Glotter Tal only to find a stubborn rearguard of cavalry in front of the abbey. A sharp action began, but Mercy hearing the drums and fifes of the French infantry in the Glotter Tal broke it off and continued his retreat in good order. Enghien thus obtained little material result from his manœuvre. Only two guns and such of Mercy’s wagons that were unable to keep up fell into the hands of the French. Enghien and Turenne did not continue the chase farther than Graben, and Mercy fell back unmolested to Rothenburg on the Tauber.
The moral results of this sanguinary fighting were, however, important and perhaps justified the sacrifice of so many valuable soldiers. Enghien’s pertinacity had not achieved a decision with the sword, but Mercy had been so severely punished that he was unable to interfere with his opponent’s new plan of campaign. This, which was carried out by the united armies and by reinforcements from France, while Turenne’s cavalry screened them by bold demonstrations on the Tauber, led to nothing less than the conquest of the Rhine Valley from Basel to Coblenz, a task which was achieved so rapidly that the Army of France and its victorious young leader were free to return to France in two months from the time of their appearance in Turenne’s quarters at Breisach.
FREIDANK(Vrîdanc), the name by which a Middle High German didactic poet of the early 13th century is known. It has been disputed whether the word, which is equivalent to “free-thought,” is to be regarded as the poet’s real name or only as a pseudonym; the latter is probably the case. Little is known of Freidank’s life. He accompanied Frederick II. on his crusade to the Holy Land, where, in the years 1228-1229, a portion at least of his work was composed; and it is said that on his tomb (if indeed it was not the tomb of another Freidank) at Treviso there was inscribed, with allusion to the character of his style, “he always spoke and never sang.” Wilhelm Grimm originated the hypothesis that Freidank was to be identified with Walther von der Vogelweide; but this is no longer tenable. Freidank’s work bears the name ofBescheidenheit,i.e.“practical wisdom,” “correct judgment,” and consists of a collection of proverbs, pithy sayings, and moral and satirical reflections, arranged under general heads. Its popularity till the end of the 16th century is shown by the great number of MSS. extant.
Sebastian Brant published theBescheidenheitin a modified form in 1508. Wilhelm Grimm’s edition appeared in 1834 (2nd ed. 1860), H. F. Bezzenberger’s in 1872. A later edition is by F. Sandvoss (1877). The old Latin translation,Fridangi Discretio, was printed by C. Lemcke in 1868; and there are two translations into modern German, A. Bacmeister’s (1861) and K. Simrock’s (1867). See also F. Pfeiffer,Über Freidank(Zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, 1855), and H. Paul,Über die ursprüngliche Anordnung von Freidanks Bescheidenheit(1870).
Sebastian Brant published theBescheidenheitin a modified form in 1508. Wilhelm Grimm’s edition appeared in 1834 (2nd ed. 1860), H. F. Bezzenberger’s in 1872. A later edition is by F. Sandvoss (1877). The old Latin translation,Fridangi Discretio, was printed by C. Lemcke in 1868; and there are two translations into modern German, A. Bacmeister’s (1861) and K. Simrock’s (1867). See also F. Pfeiffer,Über Freidank(Zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, 1855), and H. Paul,Über die ursprüngliche Anordnung von Freidanks Bescheidenheit(1870).
FREIENWALDE,a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Oder, 28 m. N.E. of Berlin, on the Frankfort-Angermünde railway. Pop. (1905) 7995. It has a small palace, built by the Great Elector, an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and manufactures of furniture, machinery, &c. The neighbouring forests and its medicinal springs make it a favourite summer resort of the inhabitants of Berlin. A new tower commands a fine view of the Oderbruch (seeOder). Freienwalde, which must be distinguished from the smaller town of the same name in Pomerania, first appears as a town in 1364.
FREIESLEBENITE,a rare mineral consisting of sulphantimonite of silver and lead, (Pb, Ag2)5Sb4S11. The monoclinic crystals are prismatic in habit, with deeply striated prism and dome faces. The colour is steel-grey, and the lustre metallic; hardness 2½, specific gravity 6.2. It occurs with argentite, chalybite and galena in the silver veins of the Himmelsfürst mine at Freiberg, Saxony, where it has been known since 1720. The species was named after J. K. Freiesleben, who had earlier called itSchilf-Glaserz. Other localities are Hiendelaencina near Guadalajara in Spain, Kapnik-Bánya in Hungary, and Guanajuato in Mexico. A species separated from freieslebenite by V. von Zepharovich in 1871, because of differences in crystalline form, is known as diaphorite (fromδιαφορά, “difference”); it is very similar to freieslebenite in appearance and has perhaps the same chemical composition (or possibly Ag2PbSb2S5), but is orthorhombic in crystallization. A third mineral also very similar to freieslebenite in appearance is the orthorhombic andorite, AgPbSb3S6, which is mined as a silver ore at Oruro in Bolivia.
FREIGHT,(pronounced like “weight”; derived from the Dutchvrachtorvrecht, in Fr.fret, the Eng. “fraught” being the same word, and formerly used for the same thing, but now only as an adjective = “laden”), the lading or cargo of a ship, and the hire paid for their transport (seeAffreightment); from the original sense of water-transport of goods the word has also come to be used for land-transit (particularly in America, by railroad), and by analogy for any load or burden.
FREILIGRATH, FERDINAND(1810-1876), German poet, was born at Detmold on the 17th of June 1810. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native town, and in his sixteenth year was sent to Soest, with a view to preparing him for a commercial career. Here he had also time and opportunity to acquire a taste for French and English literature. The years from 1831 to 1836 he spent in a bank at Amsterdam, and 1837 to 1839 in a business house at Barmen. In 1838 hisGedichteappeared and met with such extraordinary success that he gave up theidea of a commercial life and resolved to devote himself entirely to literature. His repudiation of the political poetry of 1841 and its revolutionary ideals attracted the attention of the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV., who, in 1842, granted him a pension of 300 talers a year. He married, and, to be near his friend Emanuel Geibel, settled at St Goar. Before long, however, Freiligrath was himself carried away by the rising tide of liberalism. In the poemEin Glaubensbekenntnis(1844) he openly avowed his sympathy with the political movement led by his old adversary, Georg Herwegh; the day, he declared, of his own poetic trifling with Romantic themes was over; Romanticism itself was dead. He laid down his pension, and, to avoid the inevitable political persecution, took refuge in Switzerland. As a sequel to theGlaubensbekenntnishe publishedÇa ira!(1846), which strained still further his relations with the German authorities. He fled to London, where he resumed the commercial life he had broken off seven years before. When the Revolution of 1848 broke out, it seemed to Freiligrath, as to all the liberal thinkers of the time, the dawn of an era of political freedom; and, as may be seen from the poems in his collection ofPolitische und soziale Gedichte(1849-1851), he welcomed it with unbounded enthusiasm. He returned to Germany and settled in Düsseldorf; but it was not long before he had again called down upon himself the ill-will of the ruling powers by a poem,Die Toten an die Lebenden(1848). He was arrested on a charge oflèse-majesté, but the prosecution ended in his acquittal. New difficulties arose; his association with the democratic movement rendered him an object of constant suspicion, and in 1851 he judged it more prudent to go back to London, where he remained until 1868. In that year he returned to Germany, settling first in Stuttgart and in 1875 in the neighbouring town of Cannstatt, where he died on the 18th of March 1876.
As a poet, Freiligrath was the most gifted member of the German revolutionary group. Coming at the very close of the Romantic age, his own purely lyric poetry re-echoes for the most part the familiar thoughts and imagery of his Romantic predecessors; but at an early age he had been attracted by the work of French contemporary poets, and he reinvigorated the German lyric by grafting upon it the orientalism of Victor Hugo. In this reconciliation of French and German romanticism lay Freiligrath’s significance for the development of the lyric in Germany. His remarkable power of assimilating foreign literatures is also to be seen in his translations of English and Scottish ballads, of the poetry of Burns, Mrs Hemans, Longfellow and Tennyson (Englische Gedichte aus neuerer Zeit, 1846;The Rose, Thistle and Shamrock, 1853, 6th ed. 1887); he also translated Shakespeare’sCymbeline,Winter’s TaleandVenus and Adonis, as well as Longfellow’sHiawatha(1857). Freiligrath is most original in his revolutionary poetry. His poems of this class suffer, it is true, under the disadvantage of all political poetry—purely temporary interest and the unavoidable admixture of much that has no claim to be called poetry at all—but the agitator Freiligrath, when he is at his best, displays a vigour and strength, a power of direct and cogent poetic expression, not to be found in any other political singer of the age.
Freiligrath’sGedichtehave passed through some fifty editions, and hisGesammelte Dichtungen, first published in 1870, have reached a sixth edition (1898).Nachgelassenes(including a translation of Byron’sMazeppa) was published in 1883. A selection of Freiligrath’s best-known poems in English translation was edited by his daughter, Mrs Freiligrath-Kroeker, in 1869; alsoSongs of a Revolutionary Epochwere translated by J. L. Joynes in 1888. Cp. E. Schmidt-Weissenfels,F. Freiligrath, eine Biographie(1876); W. Buchner,F. Freiligrath, ein Dichterleben in Briefen(2 vols., 1881); G. Freiligrath,Erinnerungen an F. Freiligrath(1889); P. Besson,Freiligrath(Paris, 1899); K. Richter,Freiligrath als Übersetzer(1899).
Freiligrath’sGedichtehave passed through some fifty editions, and hisGesammelte Dichtungen, first published in 1870, have reached a sixth edition (1898).Nachgelassenes(including a translation of Byron’sMazeppa) was published in 1883. A selection of Freiligrath’s best-known poems in English translation was edited by his daughter, Mrs Freiligrath-Kroeker, in 1869; alsoSongs of a Revolutionary Epochwere translated by J. L. Joynes in 1888. Cp. E. Schmidt-Weissenfels,F. Freiligrath, eine Biographie(1876); W. Buchner,F. Freiligrath, ein Dichterleben in Briefen(2 vols., 1881); G. Freiligrath,Erinnerungen an F. Freiligrath(1889); P. Besson,Freiligrath(Paris, 1899); K. Richter,Freiligrath als Übersetzer(1899).
(J. G. R.)
FREIND, JOHN(1675-1728), English physician, younger brother of Robert Freind (1667-1751), headmaster of Westminster school, was born in 1675 at Croton in Northamptonshire. He made great progress in classical knowledge under Richard Busby at Westminster, and at Christ Church, Oxford, under Dean Aldrich, and while still very young, produced, along with Peter Foulkes, an excellent edition of the speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes on the affair of Ctesiphon. After this he began the study of medicine, and having proved his scientific attainments by various treatises was appointed a lecturer on chemistry at Oxford in 1704. In the following year he accompanied the English army, under the earl of Peterborough, into Spain, and on returning home in 1707, wrote an account of the expedition, which attained great popularity. Two years later he published hisPrelectiones chimicae, which he dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton. Shortly after his return in 1713 from Flanders, whither he had accompanied the British troops, he took up his residence in London, where he soon obtained a great reputation as a physician. In 1716 he became fellow of the college of physicians, of which he was chosen one of the censors in 1718, and Harveian orator in 1720. In 1722 he entered parliament as member for Launceston in Cornwall, but, being suspected of favouring the cause of the exiled Stuarts, he spent half of that year in the Tower. During his imprisonment he conceived the plan of his most important work,The History of Physic, of which the first part appeared in 1725, and the second in the following year. In the latter year he was appointed physician to Queen Caroline, an office which he held till his death on the 26th of July 1728.
A complete edition of his Latin works, with a Latin translation of theHistory of Physic, edited by Dr John Wigan, was published in London in 1732.
A complete edition of his Latin works, with a Latin translation of theHistory of Physic, edited by Dr John Wigan, was published in London in 1732.
FREINSHEIM[Freinshemius],JOHANN(1608-1660), German classical scholar and critic, was born at Ulm on the 16th of November 1608. After studying at the universities of Marburg, Giessen and Strassburg, he visited France, where he remained for three years. He returned to Strassburg in 1637, and in 1642 was appointed professor of eloquence at Upsala. In 1647 he was summoned by Queen Christina to Stockholm as court librarian and historiographer. In 1650 he resumed his professorship at Upsala, but early in the following year he was obliged to resign on account of ill-health. In 1656 he became honorary professor at Heidelberg, and died on the 31st of August 1660. Freinsheim’s literary activity was chiefly devoted to the Roman historians. He first introduced the division into chapters and paragraphs, and by means of carefully compiled indexes illustrated the lexical peculiarities of each author. He is best known for his famous supplements to Quintus Curtius and Livy, containing the missing books written by himself. He also published critical editions of Curtius and Florus.
FREIRE, FRANCISCO JOSÉ(1719-1773), Portuguese historian and philologist, was born at Lisbon on the 3rd of January 1719. He belonged to the monastic society of St Philip Neri, and was a zealous member of the literary association known as the Academy of Arcadians, in connexion with which he adopted the pseudonym of Candido Lusitano. He contributed much to the improvement of the style of Portuguese prose literature, but his endeavour to effect a reformation in the national poetry by a translation of Horace’sArs poëticawas less successful. The work in which he set forth his opinions regarding the vicious taste pervading the current Portuguese prose literature is entitledMaximas sobre a Arte Oratoria(1745) and is preceded by a chronological table forming almost a social and physical history of Portugal. His best known work, however, is hisVida do Infante D. Henrique(1758), which has given him a place in the first rank of Portuguese historians, and has been translated into French (Paris, 1781). He also wrote a poetical dictionary (Diccionario poetico) and a translation of Racine’sAthalie(1762), and hisRéflexions sur la langue portugaisewas published in 1842 by the Lisbon society for the promotion of useful knowledge. He died at Mafra on the 5th of July 1773.
FREISCHÜTZ,in German folklore, a marksman who by a compact with the devil has obtained a certain number of bullets destined to hit without fail whatever object he wishes. As the legend is usually told, six of theFreikugelnor “free bullets” are thus subservient to the marksman’s will, but the seventh is at the absolute disposal of the devil himself. Various methods were adopted in order to procure possession of the marvellous missiles. According to one the marksman, instead of swallowing the sacramental host, kept it and fixed it on a tree, shot at itand caused it to bleed great drops of blood, gathered the drops on a piece of cloth and reduced the whole to ashes, and then with these ashes added the requisite virtue to the lead of which his bullets were made. Various vegetable or animal substances had the reputation of serving the same purpose. Stories about the Freischütz were especially common in Germany during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries; but the first time that the legend was turned to literary profit is said to have been by Apel in theGespensterbuchor “Book of Ghosts.” It formed the subject of Weber’s operaDer Freischütz(1821), the libretto of which was written by Friedrich Kind, who had suggested Apel’s story as an excellent theme for the composer. The name by which the Freischütz is known in French is Robin des Bois.
See Kind,Freyschützbuch(Leipzig, 1843);Revue des deux mondes(February 1855); Grässe,Die Quelle des Freischütz(Dresden, 1875).
See Kind,Freyschützbuch(Leipzig, 1843);Revue des deux mondes(February 1855); Grässe,Die Quelle des Freischütz(Dresden, 1875).
FREISING,a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Isar, 16 m. by rail N.N.E. of Munich. Pop. (1905) 13,538. Among its eight Roman Catholic churches the most remarkable is the cathedral, which dates from about 1160 and is famous for its curious crypt. Noteworthy also are the old palace of the bishops, now a clerical seminary, the theological lyceum and the town-hall. There are several schools in the town, and there is a statue to the chronicler, Otto of Freising, who was bishop here from 1138 to 1158. Freising has manufactures of agricultural machinery and of porcelain, while printing and brewing are carried on. Near the town is the site of the Benedictine abbey of Weihenstephan, which existed from 725 to 1803. This is now a model farm and brewery. Freising is a very ancient town and is said to have been founded by the Romans. After being destroyed by the Hungarians in 955 it was fortified by the emperor Otto II. in 976 and by Duke Welf of Bavaria in 1082. A bishopric was established here in 724 by St Corbinianus, whose brother Erimbert was consecrated second bishop by St Boniface in 739. Later on the bishops acquired considerable territorial power and in the 17th century became princes of the Empire. In 1802 the see was secularized, the bulk of its territories being assigned to Bavaria and the rest to Salzburg, of which Freising had been a suffragan bishopric. In 1817 an archbishopric was established at Freising, but in the following year it was transferred to Munich. The occupant of the see is now called archbishop of Munich and Freising.
See C. Meichelbeck,Historiae Frisingensis(Augsburg, 1724-1729, new and enlarged edition 1854).
See C. Meichelbeck,Historiae Frisingensis(Augsburg, 1724-1729, new and enlarged edition 1854).
FRÉJUS,a town in the department of the Var in S.E. France. Pop. (1906) 3430. It is 28½ m. S.E. of Draguignan (the chief town of the department), and 22½ m. S.W. of Cannes by rail. It is only important on account of the fine Roman remains that it contains, for it is now a mile from the sea, its harbour having been silted up by the deposits of the Argens river. Since the 4th century it has been a bishop’s see, which is in the ecclesiastical province of Aix en Provence. In modern times the neighbouring fishing village at St Raphaël (2½ m. by rail S.E., and on the seashore) has become a town of 4865 inhabitants (in 1901); in 1799 Napoleon disembarked there, on his return from Egypt, and reembarked for Elba in 1814, while nowadays it is much frequented as a health resort, as is also Valescure (2 m. N.W. on the heights above). The cathedral church in part dates from the 12th century, but only small portions of the old medieval episcopal palace are now visible, as it was rebuilt about 1823. The ramparts of the old town can still be traced for a long distance, and there are fragments of two moles, of the theatre and of a gate. The amphitheatre, which seated 12,000 spectators, is in a better state of preservation. The ruins of the great aqueduct which brought the waters of the Siagnole, an affluent of the Siagne, to the town, can still be traced for a distance of nearly 19 m. The original hamlet was the capital of the tribe of the Oxybii, while the town of Forum Julii was founded on its site by Julius Caesar in order to secure to the Romans a harbour independent of that of Marseilles. The buildings of which ruins exist were mostly built by Caesar or by Augustus, and show that it was an important naval station and arsenal. But the town suffered much at the hands of the Arabs, of Barbary pirates, and of its inhabitants, who constructed many of their dwellings out of the ruined Roman buildings. The ancient harbour (really but a portion of the lagoons, which had been deepened) is now completely silted up. Even in early times a canal had to be kept open by perpetual digging, while about 1700 this was closed, and now a sandy and partly cultivated waste extends between the town and the seashore.
See J. A. Aubenas,Histoire de Fréjus(Fréjus, 1881); Ch. Lenthéric,La Provence Maritime ancienne et moderne(Paris, 1880), chap. vii.
See J. A. Aubenas,Histoire de Fréjus(Fréjus, 1881); Ch. Lenthéric,La Provence Maritime ancienne et moderne(Paris, 1880), chap. vii.
(W. A. B. C.)
FRELINGHUYSEN, FREDERICK THEODORE(1817-1885), American lawyer and statesman, of Dutch descent, was born at Millstone, New Jersey, on the 4th of August 1817. His grandfather, Frederick Frelinghuysen (1753-1804), was an eminent lawyer, one of the framers of the first New Jersey constitution, a soldier in the War of Independence, and a member (1778-1779 and 1782-1783) of the Continental Congress from New Jersey, and in 1793-1796 of the United States senate; and his uncle, Theodore (1787-1862), was attorney-general of New Jersey from 1817 to 1829, was a United States senator from New Jersey in 1829-1835, was the Whig candidate for vice-president on the Clay ticket in 1844, and was chancellor of the university of New York in 1839-1850 and president of Rutgers College in 1850-1862. Frederick Theodore, left an orphan at the age of three, was adopted by his uncle, graduated at Rutgers in 1836, and studied law in Newark with his uncle, to whose practice he succeeded in 1839, soon after his admission to the bar. He became attorney for the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Morris Canal and Banking Company, and other corporations, and from 1861 to 1867 was attorney-general of New Jersey. In 1861 he was a delegate to the peace congress at Washington, and in 1866 was appointed by the governor of New Jersey, as a Republican, to fill a vacancy in the United States senate. In the winter of 1867 he was elected to fill the unexpired term, but a Democratic majority in the legislature prevented his re-election in 1869. In 1870 he was nominated by President Grant, and confirmed by the senate, as United States minister to England to succeed John Lothrop Motley, but declined the mission. From 1871 to 1877 he was again a member of the United States senate, in which he was prominent in debate and in committee work, and was chairman of the committee on foreign affairs during the Alabama Claims negotiations. He was a strong opponent of the reconstruction measures of President Johnson, for whose conviction he voted (on most of the specific charges) in the impeachment trial. He was a member of the joint committee which drew up and reported (1877) the Electoral Commission Bill, and subsequently served as a member of the commission. On the 12th of December 1881 he was appointed secretary of state by President Arthur to succeed James G. Blaine, and served until the inauguration of President Cleveland in 1885. Retiring, with his health impaired by overwork, to his home in Newark, he died there on the 20th of May, less than three months after relinquishing the cares of office.
FREMANTLE,a seaport of Swan county, Western Australia, at the mouth of the Swan river, 12 m. by rail S.W. of Perth. It is the terminus of the Eastern railway, and is a town of some industrial activity, shipbuilding, soap-boiling, saw-milling, smelting, iron-founding, furniture-making, flour-milling, brewing and tanning being its chief industries. The harbour, by the construction of two long moles and the blasting away of the rocks at the bar, has been rendered secure. The English, French and German mail steamers call at the port. Fremantle became a municipality in 1871; but there are now three separate municipalities—Fremantle, with a population in 1901 of 14,704; Fremantle East (2494); and Fremantle North (3246). At Rottnest Island, off the harbour, there are government salt-works and a residence of the governor, also penal and reformatory establishments.
FRÉMIET, EMMANUEL(1824- ), French sculptor, born in Paris, was a nephew and pupil of Rude; he chiefly devoted himself to animal sculpture and to equestrian statues in armour. His earliest work was in scientific lithography (osteology), andfor a while he served in times of adversity in the gruesome office of “painter to the Morgue.” In 1843 he sent to the Salon a study of a “Gazelle,” and after that date was very prolific in his works. His “Wounded Bear” and “Wounded Dog” were produced in 1850, and the Luxembourg Museum at once secured this striking example of his work. From 1855 to 1859 Frémiet was engaged on a series of military statuettes for Napoleon III. He produced his equestrian statue of “Napoleon I.” in 1868, and of “Louis d’Orléans” in 1869 (at the Château de Pierrefonds) and in 1874 the first equestrian statue of “Joan of Arc,” erected in the Place des Pyramides, Paris; this he afterwards (1889) replaced with another and still finer version. In the meanwhile he had exhibited his masterly “Gorilla and Woman” which won him a medal of honour at the Salon of 1887. Of the same character, and even more remarkable, is his “Ourang-Outangs and Borneo Savage” of 1895, a commission from the Paris Museum of Natural History. Frémiet also executed the statue of “St Michael” for the summit of the spire of the Église St Michel, and the equestrian statue of Velasquez for the Jardin de l’Infante at the Louvre. He became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1892, and succeeded Barye as professor of animal drawing at the Natural History Museum of Paris.
FRÉMONT, JOHN CHARLES(1813-1890), American explorer, soldier and political leader, was born in Savannah, Georgia, on the 21st of January 1813. His father, a native of France, died when the boy was in his sixth year, and his mother, a member of an aristocratic Virginia family, then removed to Charleston, South Carolina. In 1828, after a year’s special preparation, young Frémont entered the junior class of the college of Charleston, and here displayed marked ability, especially in mathematics; but his irregular attendance and disregard of college discipline led to his expulsion from the institution, which, however, conferred upon him a degree in 1836. In 1833 he was appointed teacher of mathematics on board the sloop of war “Natchez,” and was so engaged during a cruise along the South American coast which was continued for about two and a half years. Soon after returning to Charleston he was appointed professor of mathematics in the United States navy, but he chose instead to serve as assistant engineer of a survey undertaken chiefly for the purpose of finding a pass through the mountains for a proposed railway from Charleston to Cincinnati. In July 1838 he was appointed second lieutenant of Topographical Engineers in the United States army, and for the next three years he was assistant to the French explorer, Jean Nicholas Nicollet (1786-1843), employed by the war department to survey and map a large part of the country lying between the upper waters of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. In 1841 Frémont surveyed, for the government, the lower course of the Des Moines river. In the same year he married Jessie, the daughter of Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, and it was in no small measure through Benton’s influence with the government that Frémont was enabled to accomplish within the next few years the exploration of much of the territory between the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Ocean.
When the claim of the United States to the Oregon territory was being strengthened by occupation, Frémont was sent, at his urgent request, to explore the frontier beyond the Missouri river, and especially the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the South Pass, through which the American immigrants travelled. Within four months (1842) he surveyed the Pass and ascended to the summit of the highest of the Wind River Mountains, since known as Frémont’s Peak, and the interest aroused by his descriptions was such that in the next year he was sent on a second expedition to complete the survey across the continent along the line of travel from Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia river. This time he not only carried out his instructions but, by further explorations together with interesting descriptions, dispelled general ignorance with respect to the main features of the country W. of the Rocky Mountains: the Great Salt Lake, the Great Basin, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the fertile river basins of the Mexican province of California.
His report of this expedition upon his return to Washington, D.C., in 1844, aroused much solicitude for California, which, it was feared, might, in the event of war then threatening between the United States and Mexico, be seized by Great Britain. In the spring of 1845 Frémont was despatched on a third expedition for the professed purposes of further exploring the Great Basin and the Pacific Coast, and of discovering the easiest lines of communication between them, as well as for the secret purpose of assisting the United States, in case of war with Mexico, to gain possession of California. He and his party of sixty-two arrived there in January 1846. Owing to the number of American immigrants who had settled in California, the Mexican authorities there became suspicious and hostile, and ordered Frémont out of the province. Instead of obeying he pitched his camp near the summit of a mountain overlooking Monterey, fortified his position, and raised the United States flag. A few days later he was proceeding toward the Oregon border when new instructions from Washington caused him to retrace his steps and, perhaps, to consider plans for provoking war. The extent of his responsibility for the events that ensued is not wholly clear, and has been the subject of much controversy; his defenders have asserted that he was not responsible for the seizure of Sonoma or for the so-called “Bear-Flag War”; and that he played a creditable part throughout. (For an opposite view seeCalifornia.) Commodore John D. Sloat, after seizing Monterey, transferred his command to Commodore Robert Field Stockton (1795-1866), who made Frémont major of a battalion; and by January 1847 Stockton and Frémont completed the conquest of California. In the meantime General Stephen Watts Kearny (1794-1848) had been sent by the Government to conquer it and to establish a government. This created a conflict of authority between Stockton and Kearny, both of whom were Frémont’s superior officers. Stockton, ignoring Kearny, commissioned Frémont military commandant and governor. But Kearny’s authority being confirmed about the 1st of April, Frémont, for repeated acts of disobedience, was sent under arrest to Washington, where he was tried by court-martial, found guilty (January 1847) of mutiny, disobedience and conduct prejudicial to military discipline, and sentenced to dismissal from the service. President Polk approved of the verdict except as to mutiny, but remitted the penalty, whereupon Frémont resigned.
With the mountain-traversed region he had been exploring acquired by the United States, Frémont was eager for a railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and in October 1848 he set out at his own and Senator Benton’s expense to find passes for such a railway along a line westward from the headwaters of the Rio Grande. But he had not gone far when he was led astray by a guide, and after the loss of his entire outfit and several of his men, and intense suffering of the survivors from cold and hunger, he turned southward through the valley of the Rio Grande and then westward through the valley of the Gila into southern California. Late in the year 1853, however, he returned to the place where the guide had led him astray, found passes through the mountains to the westward between latitudes 37° and 38° N., and arrived in San Francisco early in May 1854. From the conclusion of his fourth expedition until March 1855, when he removed to New York city, he lived in California, and in December 1849 was elected one of the first two United States senators from the new state. But as he drew the short term, he served only from the 10th of September 1850 to the 3rd of March 1851. Although a candidate for re-election, he was defeated by the pro-slavery party. His opposition to slavery, however, together with his popularity—won by the successes, hardships and dangers of his exploring expeditions, and by his part in the conquest of California—led to his nomination, largely on the ground of “availability,” for the presidency in 1856 by the Republicans (this being their first presidential campaign), and by the National Americans or “Know-Nothings.” In the ensuing election he was defeated by James Buchanan by 174 to 114 electoral votes.
Soon after the Civil War began, Frémont was appointed major-general and placed in command of the western departmentwith headquarters at St Louis, but his lack of judgment and of administrative ability soon became apparent, the affairs of his department fell into disorder, and Frémont seems to have been easily duped by dishonest contractors whom he trusted. On the 30th of August 1861 he issued a proclamation in which he declared the property of Missourians in rebellion confiscated and their slaves emancipated. For this he was applauded by the radical Republicans, but his action was contrary to an act of congress of the 6th of August and to the policy of the Administration. On the 11th of September President Lincoln, who regarded the action as premature and who saw that it might alienate Kentucky and other border states, whose adherence he was trying to secure, annulled these declarations. Impelled by serious charges against Frémont, the president sent Montgomery Blair, the postmaster-general, and Montgomery C. Meigs, the quartermaster-general, to investigate the department; they reported that Frémont’s management was extravagant and inefficient; and in November he was removed. Out of consideration for the “Radicals,” however, Frémont was placed in command of the Mountain Department of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. In the spring and summer of 1862 he co-operated with General N. P. Banks against “Stonewall” Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, but showed little ability as a commander, was defeated by General Ewell at Cross Keys, and when his troops were united with those of Generals Banks and McDowell to form the Army of Virginia, of which General John Pope was placed in command, Frémont declined to serve under Pope, whom he outranked, and retired from active service. On the 31st of May 1864 he was nominated for the presidency by a radical faction of the Republican party, opposed to President Lincoln, but his following was so small that on the 21st of September he withdrew from the contest. From 1878 to 1881 he was governor of the territory of Arizona, and in the last year of his life he was appointed by act of congress a major-general and placed on the retired list. He died in New York on the 13th of July 1890.