Jefferson was about 6 ft. in height, large-boned, slim, erect and sinewy. He had angular features, a very ruddy complexion, sandy hair, and hazel-flecked, grey eyes. Age lessened the unattractiveness of his exterior. In later years he was negligent in dress and loose in bearing. There was grace, nevertheless, in his manners; and his frank and earnest address, his quick sympathy (yet he seemed cold to strangers), his vivacious, desultory, informing talk, gave him an engaging charm. Beneath a quiet surface he was fairly aglow with intense convictions and a very emotional temperament. Yet he seems to have acted habitually, in great and little things, on system. His mind, no less trenchant and subtle than Hamilton’s, was the most impressible, the most receptive, mind of his time in America. The range of his interests is remarkable. For many years he was president of the American philosophical society. Though it is a biographical tradition that he lacked wit, Molière andDon Quixoteseem to have been his favourites; and though the utilitarian wholly crowds romanticism out of his writings, he had enough of that quality in youth to prepare to learn Gaelic in order to translate Ossian, and sent to Macpherson for the originals! His interest in art was evidently intellectual. He was singularly sweet-tempered, and shrank from the impassioned political bitterness that raged about him; bore with relative equanimity a flood of coarse and malignant abuse of his motives, morals, religion,23personal honesty and decency; cherished very few personal animosities; and better than any of his great antagonists cleared political opposition of ill-blooded personality. In short, his kindness of heart rose above all social, religious or political differences, and nothing destroyed his confidence in men and his sanguine views of life.Authorities.—See the editions of Jefferson’sWritingsby H. A. Washington (9 vols., New York, 1853-1854), and—the best—by PaulLeicester Ford (10 vols., New York, 1892-1899); letters in Massachusetts Historical Society,Collections, series 7, vol. i.; S. E. Forman,The Letters and Writings of Thomas Jefferson, including all his Important Utterances on Public Questions(1900); J. P. Foley,The Jefferson Cyclopaedia(New York, 1900); theMemoir, Correspondence, &c., by T. J. Randolph (4 vols., Charlottesville, Va., 1829); biographies by James Schouler (“Makers of America Series,” New York, 1893); John T. Morse (“American Statesmen Series,” Boston, 1883); George Tucker (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1837); James Parton (Boston, 1874); and especially that by Henry S. Randall (3 vols., New York, 1853), a monumental work, although marred by some special pleading, and sharing Jefferson’s implacable opinions of the “Monocrats.” See also Henry Adams,History of the United States 1801-1817, vols. 1-4 (New York, 1889-1890); Herbert B. Adams,Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia(U. S. bureau of education, Washington, 1888); Sarah N. Randolph,Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson(New York, 1871); and an illuminating appreciation by W. P. Trent, in hisSouthern Statesmen of the Old Régime(New York, 1897); that by John Fiske, Essays,Historical and Literary, vol. i. (New York, 1902), has slighter merits.
Jefferson was about 6 ft. in height, large-boned, slim, erect and sinewy. He had angular features, a very ruddy complexion, sandy hair, and hazel-flecked, grey eyes. Age lessened the unattractiveness of his exterior. In later years he was negligent in dress and loose in bearing. There was grace, nevertheless, in his manners; and his frank and earnest address, his quick sympathy (yet he seemed cold to strangers), his vivacious, desultory, informing talk, gave him an engaging charm. Beneath a quiet surface he was fairly aglow with intense convictions and a very emotional temperament. Yet he seems to have acted habitually, in great and little things, on system. His mind, no less trenchant and subtle than Hamilton’s, was the most impressible, the most receptive, mind of his time in America. The range of his interests is remarkable. For many years he was president of the American philosophical society. Though it is a biographical tradition that he lacked wit, Molière andDon Quixoteseem to have been his favourites; and though the utilitarian wholly crowds romanticism out of his writings, he had enough of that quality in youth to prepare to learn Gaelic in order to translate Ossian, and sent to Macpherson for the originals! His interest in art was evidently intellectual. He was singularly sweet-tempered, and shrank from the impassioned political bitterness that raged about him; bore with relative equanimity a flood of coarse and malignant abuse of his motives, morals, religion,23personal honesty and decency; cherished very few personal animosities; and better than any of his great antagonists cleared political opposition of ill-blooded personality. In short, his kindness of heart rose above all social, religious or political differences, and nothing destroyed his confidence in men and his sanguine views of life.
Authorities.—See the editions of Jefferson’sWritingsby H. A. Washington (9 vols., New York, 1853-1854), and—the best—by PaulLeicester Ford (10 vols., New York, 1892-1899); letters in Massachusetts Historical Society,Collections, series 7, vol. i.; S. E. Forman,The Letters and Writings of Thomas Jefferson, including all his Important Utterances on Public Questions(1900); J. P. Foley,The Jefferson Cyclopaedia(New York, 1900); theMemoir, Correspondence, &c., by T. J. Randolph (4 vols., Charlottesville, Va., 1829); biographies by James Schouler (“Makers of America Series,” New York, 1893); John T. Morse (“American Statesmen Series,” Boston, 1883); George Tucker (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1837); James Parton (Boston, 1874); and especially that by Henry S. Randall (3 vols., New York, 1853), a monumental work, although marred by some special pleading, and sharing Jefferson’s implacable opinions of the “Monocrats.” See also Henry Adams,History of the United States 1801-1817, vols. 1-4 (New York, 1889-1890); Herbert B. Adams,Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia(U. S. bureau of education, Washington, 1888); Sarah N. Randolph,Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson(New York, 1871); and an illuminating appreciation by W. P. Trent, in hisSouthern Statesmen of the Old Régime(New York, 1897); that by John Fiske, Essays,Historical and Literary, vol. i. (New York, 1902), has slighter merits.
(F. S. P.)
1It was embarrassed with a debt, however, of £3749, which, owing to conditions caused by the War of Independence, he really paid three times to his British creditors (not counting destruction on his estates, of equal amount, ordered by Lord Cornwallis). This greatly reduced his income for a number of years.2The first law of its kind in Christendom, although not the earliest practice of such liberty in America.3George Mason and Thomas L. Lee were members of the commission, but they were not lawyers, and did little actual work on the revision.4Capital punishment was confined to treason and murder; the former was not to be attended by corruption of blood, drawing, or quartering; all other felonies were made punishable by confinement and hard labour, save a few to which was applied, against Jefferson’s desire, the principle of retaliation.5This plan applied to the south-western as well as to the north-western territory, and was notable for a provision that slavery should not exist therein after 1800. This provision was defeated in 1784, but was adopted in 1787 for the north-western territory—a step which is very often said to have saved the Union in the Civil War; the south-western territory (out of which were later formed Mississippi, Alabama, &c.) being given over to slavery. Thus the anti-slavery clause of the ordinance of 1784 was not adopted; and it was preceded by unofficial proposals to the same end; yet to it belongs rightly some special honour as blazoning the way for federal control of slavery in the territories, which later proved of such enormous consequence. Jefferson in the first draft of the Ordinance of 1784, suggested the names to be given to the states eventually to be formed out of the territory concerned. For his suggestions he has been much ridiculed. The names are as follows: Illinoia, Michigania, Sylvania, Polypotamia, Assenisipia, Charronesus, Pelisipia, Saratoga, Metropotamia and Washington.6He owned at one time above 150 slaves. His overseers were under contract never to bleed them; but he manumitted only a few at his death.7During this time he assisted in negotiating a treaty of amity and commerce with Prussia (1785) and one with Morocco (1789), and negotiated with France a “convention defining and establishing the functions and privileges of consuls and vice-consuls” (1788).8Patrick Henry humorously declaimed before a popular audience that Jefferson, who favoured French wine and cookery, had “abjured his native victuals.”9Jefferson did not sympathize with the temper of his followers who condoned the zealous excesses of Genet, and in general with the “misbehaviour” of the democratic clubs; but, as a student of English liberties, he could not accept Washington’s doctrine that for a self-created permanent body to declare “this act unconstitutional, and that act pregnant with mischiefs” was “a stretch of arrogant presumption” which would, if unchecked, “destroy the country.”10John Basset Moore,American Diplomacy(New York, 1905).11Compare C. D. Hazen,Contemporary American opinion of the French Revolution(Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1897).12It was at this period of his life that Jefferson gave expression to some of the opinions for which he has been most severely criticized and ridiculed. For the Shays’ rebellion he felt little abhorrence, and wrote: “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing ... an observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government” (Writings, Ford ed., iv. 362-363). Again, “Can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted?... God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.... What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure” (Ibid. iv. 467). Again he says: “Societies exist under three forms—(1) without government, as among our Indians; (2) under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence.... (3) under governments of force.... It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condition is not the best.” (Ibid. iv. 362.)13He turned law students from Blackstone’s toryism to Coke on Littleton; and he would not read Walter Scott, so strong was his aversion to that writer’s predilection for class and feudalism.14Hamilton wrote for the papers himself; Jefferson never did. A talented clerk in his department, however, Philip Freneau, set up an anti-administration paper. It was alleged that Jefferson appointed him for the purpose, and encouraged him. Undoubtedly there was nothing in the charge. The Federalist outcry could only have been silenced by removal of Freneau, or by disclaimers or admonitions, which Jefferson did not think it incumbent upon himself—or, since he thought Freneau was doing good, desirable for him—to make.15Contrary to the general belief that Hamilton dominated Washington in the cabinet, there is the president’s explicit statement that “there were as many instances” of his deciding against as in favour of the secretary of the treasury.16See also Jefferson to E. Gerry, 26th of January 1799 (Writings, vii. 325), and to Dupont de Nemours (x. 23). Cf. Hamilton to J. Dayton, 1799 (Works, x. 329).17In 1786 he suggested to James Monroe that the society of friends he hoped to gather in Albemarle might, in sumptuary matters, “set a good example” to a country (i.e.Virginia) that “needed” it.18See C. R. Fish,The Civil Service and the Patronage(Harvard Historical Studies, New York, 1905), ch. 2.19Jefferson’s dislike of a navy was due to his desire for an economical administration and for peace. Shortly after his inauguration he expressed a desire to lay up the larger men of war in the eastern branch of the Potomac, where they would require only “one set of plunderers to take care of them.” To Thomas Paine he wrote in 1807: “I believe that gunboats are the onlywaterdefence which can be useful to us and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy.” (Works, Ford ed., ix. 137.) The gunboats desired by Jefferson were small, cheap craft equipped with one or two guns and kept on shore under sheds until actually needed, when they were to be launched and manned by a sort of naval militia. A large number of these boats were constructed and they afforded some protection to coasting vessels against privateers, but in bad weather, or when employed against a frigate, they were worse than useless, and Jefferson’s “gunboat system” was admittedly a failure.20Seee.g.his letters in 1787 on the Shays’ rebellion, and his speculations on the doctrine that one generation may not bind another by paper documents. With the latter may be compared present-day movements like the initiative and referendum, and not a few discussions of national debts. Jefferson’s distrust of governments was nothing exceptional for a consistent individualist.21In his last years he carefully sifted and revised his contemporary notes evidencing, as he believed, the existence of such a party, and they remain as hisAna(chiefly Hamiltoniana). The only just judgment of these notes is to be obtained by looking at them, and by testing his suspicions with the letters of Hamilton, Ames, Oliver Wolcott, Theodore Sedgwick, George Cabot and the other Hamiltonians. Such a comparison measures also the relative judgment, temper and charity of these writers and Jefferson. It must still remain true, however, that Jefferson’sAnapresent him in a far from engaging light.22“Jefferson, in 1789, wrote some such stuff about the will of majorities, as a New Englander would lose his rank among men of sense to avow.”—Fisher Ames (Jan. 1800).23He was classed as a “French infidel” and atheist. His attitude toward religion was in fact deeply reverent and sincere, but he insisted that religion was purely an individual matter, “evidenced, as concerns the world by each one’s daily life,” and demanded absolute freedom of private judgment. He looked on Unitarianism with much sympathy and desired its growth. “I am a Christian,” he wrote in 1823, “in the only sense in which he (Jesus) wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.”
1It was embarrassed with a debt, however, of £3749, which, owing to conditions caused by the War of Independence, he really paid three times to his British creditors (not counting destruction on his estates, of equal amount, ordered by Lord Cornwallis). This greatly reduced his income for a number of years.
2The first law of its kind in Christendom, although not the earliest practice of such liberty in America.
3George Mason and Thomas L. Lee were members of the commission, but they were not lawyers, and did little actual work on the revision.
4Capital punishment was confined to treason and murder; the former was not to be attended by corruption of blood, drawing, or quartering; all other felonies were made punishable by confinement and hard labour, save a few to which was applied, against Jefferson’s desire, the principle of retaliation.
5This plan applied to the south-western as well as to the north-western territory, and was notable for a provision that slavery should not exist therein after 1800. This provision was defeated in 1784, but was adopted in 1787 for the north-western territory—a step which is very often said to have saved the Union in the Civil War; the south-western territory (out of which were later formed Mississippi, Alabama, &c.) being given over to slavery. Thus the anti-slavery clause of the ordinance of 1784 was not adopted; and it was preceded by unofficial proposals to the same end; yet to it belongs rightly some special honour as blazoning the way for federal control of slavery in the territories, which later proved of such enormous consequence. Jefferson in the first draft of the Ordinance of 1784, suggested the names to be given to the states eventually to be formed out of the territory concerned. For his suggestions he has been much ridiculed. The names are as follows: Illinoia, Michigania, Sylvania, Polypotamia, Assenisipia, Charronesus, Pelisipia, Saratoga, Metropotamia and Washington.
6He owned at one time above 150 slaves. His overseers were under contract never to bleed them; but he manumitted only a few at his death.
7During this time he assisted in negotiating a treaty of amity and commerce with Prussia (1785) and one with Morocco (1789), and negotiated with France a “convention defining and establishing the functions and privileges of consuls and vice-consuls” (1788).
8Patrick Henry humorously declaimed before a popular audience that Jefferson, who favoured French wine and cookery, had “abjured his native victuals.”
9Jefferson did not sympathize with the temper of his followers who condoned the zealous excesses of Genet, and in general with the “misbehaviour” of the democratic clubs; but, as a student of English liberties, he could not accept Washington’s doctrine that for a self-created permanent body to declare “this act unconstitutional, and that act pregnant with mischiefs” was “a stretch of arrogant presumption” which would, if unchecked, “destroy the country.”
10John Basset Moore,American Diplomacy(New York, 1905).
11Compare C. D. Hazen,Contemporary American opinion of the French Revolution(Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1897).
12It was at this period of his life that Jefferson gave expression to some of the opinions for which he has been most severely criticized and ridiculed. For the Shays’ rebellion he felt little abhorrence, and wrote: “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing ... an observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government” (Writings, Ford ed., iv. 362-363). Again, “Can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted?... God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.... What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure” (Ibid. iv. 467). Again he says: “Societies exist under three forms—(1) without government, as among our Indians; (2) under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence.... (3) under governments of force.... It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condition is not the best.” (Ibid. iv. 362.)
13He turned law students from Blackstone’s toryism to Coke on Littleton; and he would not read Walter Scott, so strong was his aversion to that writer’s predilection for class and feudalism.
14Hamilton wrote for the papers himself; Jefferson never did. A talented clerk in his department, however, Philip Freneau, set up an anti-administration paper. It was alleged that Jefferson appointed him for the purpose, and encouraged him. Undoubtedly there was nothing in the charge. The Federalist outcry could only have been silenced by removal of Freneau, or by disclaimers or admonitions, which Jefferson did not think it incumbent upon himself—or, since he thought Freneau was doing good, desirable for him—to make.
15Contrary to the general belief that Hamilton dominated Washington in the cabinet, there is the president’s explicit statement that “there were as many instances” of his deciding against as in favour of the secretary of the treasury.
16See also Jefferson to E. Gerry, 26th of January 1799 (Writings, vii. 325), and to Dupont de Nemours (x. 23). Cf. Hamilton to J. Dayton, 1799 (Works, x. 329).
17In 1786 he suggested to James Monroe that the society of friends he hoped to gather in Albemarle might, in sumptuary matters, “set a good example” to a country (i.e.Virginia) that “needed” it.
18See C. R. Fish,The Civil Service and the Patronage(Harvard Historical Studies, New York, 1905), ch. 2.
19Jefferson’s dislike of a navy was due to his desire for an economical administration and for peace. Shortly after his inauguration he expressed a desire to lay up the larger men of war in the eastern branch of the Potomac, where they would require only “one set of plunderers to take care of them.” To Thomas Paine he wrote in 1807: “I believe that gunboats are the onlywaterdefence which can be useful to us and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy.” (Works, Ford ed., ix. 137.) The gunboats desired by Jefferson were small, cheap craft equipped with one or two guns and kept on shore under sheds until actually needed, when they were to be launched and manned by a sort of naval militia. A large number of these boats were constructed and they afforded some protection to coasting vessels against privateers, but in bad weather, or when employed against a frigate, they were worse than useless, and Jefferson’s “gunboat system” was admittedly a failure.
20Seee.g.his letters in 1787 on the Shays’ rebellion, and his speculations on the doctrine that one generation may not bind another by paper documents. With the latter may be compared present-day movements like the initiative and referendum, and not a few discussions of national debts. Jefferson’s distrust of governments was nothing exceptional for a consistent individualist.
21In his last years he carefully sifted and revised his contemporary notes evidencing, as he believed, the existence of such a party, and they remain as hisAna(chiefly Hamiltoniana). The only just judgment of these notes is to be obtained by looking at them, and by testing his suspicions with the letters of Hamilton, Ames, Oliver Wolcott, Theodore Sedgwick, George Cabot and the other Hamiltonians. Such a comparison measures also the relative judgment, temper and charity of these writers and Jefferson. It must still remain true, however, that Jefferson’sAnapresent him in a far from engaging light.
22“Jefferson, in 1789, wrote some such stuff about the will of majorities, as a New Englander would lose his rank among men of sense to avow.”—Fisher Ames (Jan. 1800).
23He was classed as a “French infidel” and atheist. His attitude toward religion was in fact deeply reverent and sincere, but he insisted that religion was purely an individual matter, “evidenced, as concerns the world by each one’s daily life,” and demanded absolute freedom of private judgment. He looked on Unitarianism with much sympathy and desired its growth. “I am a Christian,” he wrote in 1823, “in the only sense in which he (Jesus) wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.”
JEFFERSON CITY(legally and officially the City of Jefferson), the capital of Missouri, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Cole county, on the Missouri river, near the geographical centre of the state, about 125 m. W. of St Louis. Pop. (1890), 6742; (1900), 9664, of whom 786 were foreign-born and 1822 were negroes; (1910 census), 11,850. It is served by the Missouri Pacific, the Chicago & Alton, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways. Its site is partly in the bottom-lands of the river and partly on the steep banks at an elevation of about 600 ft. above the sea. A steel bridge spans the river. The state capitol, an imposing structure built on a bluff above the river, was built in 1838-1842 and enlarged in 1887-1888; it was first occupied in 1840 by the legislature, which previously had met (after 1837) in the county court house. Other prominent buildings are the United States court house and post office, the state supreme court house, the county court house, the state penitentiary, the state armoury and the executive mansion. The penitentiary is to a large extent self-supporting; in 1903-1904 the earnings were $3493.80 in excess of the costs, but in 1904-1906 the costs exceeded the earnings by $9044. Employment is furnished for the convicts on thepenitentiarypremises by incorporated companies. The state law library here is one of the best of the kind in the country, and the city has a public library. In the city is Lincoln Institute, a school for negroes, founded in 1866 by two regiments of negro infantry upon their discharge from the United States army, opened in 1868, taken over by the state in 1879, and having sub-normal, normal, college, industrial and agricultural courses. Coal and limestone are found near the city. In 1905 the total value of the factory product was $3,926,632, an increase of 28.2% since 1900. The original constitution of Missouri prescribed that the capital should be on the Missouri river within 40 m. of the mouth of the Osage, and a commission selected in 1821 the site of Jefferson City, on which a town was laid out in 1822, the name being adopted in honour of Thomas Jefferson. The legislature first met here in 1826; Jefferson City became the county-seat in 1828, and in 1839 was first chartered as a city. The constitutional conventions of 1845 and 1875, and the state convention which issued the call for the National Liberal Republican convention at Cincinnati in 1872, met here, and so for some of its sessions did the state convention of 1861-1863. In June 1861 Jefferson City was occupied by Union forces, and in September-October 1864 it was threatened by Confederate troops under General Sterling Price.
JEFFERSONVILLE,a city and the county-seat of Clark county, Indiana, U.S.A., situated on the N. bank of the Ohio river, opposite Louisville, Kentucky, with which it is connected by several bridges. Pop. (1890), 10,666; (1900), 10,774, of whom 1818 were of negro descent and 615 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 10,412. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio South-western, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railways, and by three inter-urban electric lines. It is attractively situated on bluffs above the river, which at this point has a descent (known as the falls of the Ohio) of 26 ft. in 2 m. This furnishes good water power for manufacturing purposes both at Jeffersonville and at Louisville. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $4,526,443, an increase of 20% since 1900. The Indiana reformatory (formerly the Southern Indiana penitentiary) and a large supply dépôt of the United States army are at Jeffersonville. General George Rogers Clark started (June 24, 1778) on his expedition against Kaskaskia and Vincennes from Corn Island (now completely washed away) opposite what is now Jeffersonville. In 1786 the United States government established Fort Finney (built by Captain Walter Finney), afterwards re-named Fort Steuben, on the site of the present city; but the fort was abandoned in 1791, and the actual beginning of Jeffersonville was in 1802, when a part of the Clark grant (the site of the present city) was transferred by its original owner, Lieut. Isaac Bowman, to three trustees, under whose direction a town was laid out. Jeffersonville was incorporated as a town in 1815, and was chartered as a city in 1839.
JEFFREY, FRANCIS JEFFREY,Lord(1773-1850), Scottish judge and literary critic, son of a depute-clerk in the Court of Session, was born at Edinburgh on the 23rd of October 1773. After attending the high school for six years, he studied at the university of Glasgow from 1787 to May 1789, and at Queen’s College, Oxford, from September 1791 to June 1792. He had begun the study of law at Edinburgh before going to Oxford, and now resumed his studies there. He became a member of the speculative society, where he measured himself in debate with Scott, Brougham, Francis Horner, the marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Kinnaird and others. He was admitted to the Scotch bar in December 1794, but, having abandoned the Tory principles in which he had been educated, he found that his Whig politics seriously prejudiced his legal prospects. In consequence of his lack of success at the bar he went to London in 1798 to try his fortune as a journalist, but without success; he also made more than one vain attempt to obtain an office which would have secured him the advantage of a small but fixed salary. His marriage with Catherine Wilson in 1801 made the question of a settled income even more pressing. A project for a new review was brought forward by Sydney Smith in Jeffrey’s flat in the presence of H. P. Brougham (afterwards Lord Brougham), Francis Horner and others; and the scheme resulted in the appearance on the 10th of October 1802 of the first number of theEdinburgh Review. At the outset theReviewwas not under the charge of any special editor. The first three numbers were, however, practically edited by Sydney Smith, and on his leaving for England the work devolved chiefly on Jeffrey, who, by an arrangement with Constable, the publisher, was eventually appointed editor at a fixed salary. Most of those associated in the undertaking were Whigs; but, although the general bias of the Review was towards social and political reforms, it was at first so little of a party organ that for a time it numbered Sir Walter Scott among its contributors; and no distinct emphasis was given to its political leanings until the publication in 1808 of an article by Jeffrey himself on the work of Don Pedro Cevallos on theFrench Usurpation of Spain. This article expressed despair of the success of the British arms in Spain, and Scott at once withdrew his subscription, theQuarterlybeing soon afterwards started in opposition. According to Lord Cockburn the effect of the first number of theEdinburgh Reviewwas “electrical.” The English reviews were at that time practically publishers’ organs, the articles in which were written by hackwriters instructed to praise or blame according to the publishers’ interests. Few men of any standing consented to write for them. TheEdinburgh Review, on the other hand, enlisted a brilliant and independent staff of contributors, guided by the editor, not the publisher. They received sixteen guineas a sheet (sixteen printed pages), increased subsequently to twenty-five guineas in many cases, instead of the two guineas which formed the ordinary London reviewer’s fee. Further, the review was not limited to literary criticism. It constituted itself the accredited organ of moderate Whig public opinion. The particular work which provided the starting-point of an article was in many cases merely the occasion for the exposition, alwaysbrilliant and incisive, of the author’s views on politics, social subjects, ethics or literature. These general principles and the novelty of the method ensured the success of the undertaking even after the original circle of exceptionally able men who founded it had been dispersed. It had a circulation, great for those days, of 12,000 copies. The period of Jeffrey’s editorship extended to about twenty-six years, ceasing with the ninety-eighth number, published in June 1829, when he resigned in favour of Macvey Napier.
Jeffrey’s own contributions, according to a list which has the sanction of his authority, numbered two hundred, all except six being written before his resignation of the editorship. Jeffrey wrote with great rapidity, at odd moments of leisure and with little special preparation. Great fluency and ease of diction, considerable warmth of imagination and moral sentiment, and a sharp eye to discover any oddity of style or violation of the accepted canons of good taste, made his criticisms pungent and effective. But the essential narrowness and timidity of his general outlook prevented him from detecting and estimating latent forces, either in politics or in matters strictly intellectual and moral; and this lack of understanding and sympathy accounts for his distrust and dislike of the passion and fancy of Shelley and Keats, and for his praise of the half-hearted and elegant romanticism of Rogers and Campbell. (For his treatment of the lake poets seeWordsworth, William.)
A criticism in the fifteenth number of theReviewon the morality of Moore’s poems led in 1806 to a duel between the two authors at Chalk Farm. The proceedings were stopped by the police, and Jeffrey’s pistol was found to contain no bullet. The affair led to a warm friendship, however, and Moore contributed to theReview, while Jeffrey made ample amends in a later article onLalla Rookh(1817).
Jeffrey’s wife had died in 1805, and in 1810 he became acquainted with Charlotte, daughter of Charles Wilkes of New York, and great-niece of John Wilkes. When she returned to America, Jeffrey followed her, and they were married in 1813. Before returning to England they visited several of the chief American cities, and his experience strengthened Jeffrey in the conciliatory policy he had before advocated towards the States. Notwithstanding the increasing success of theReview, Jeffrey always continued to look to the bar as the chief field of his ambition. As a matter of fact, his literary reputation helped his professional advancement. His practice extended rapidly in the civil and criminal courts, and he regularly appeared before the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, where his work, though not financially profitable, increased his reputation. As an advocate his sharpness and rapidity of insight gave him a formidable advantage in the detection of the weaknesses of a witness and the vulnerable points of his opponent’s case, while he grouped his own arguments with an admirable eye to effect, especially excelling in eloquent closing appeals to a jury. Jeffrey was twice, in 1820 and 1822, elected lord rector of the university of Glasgow. In 1829 he was chosen dean of the faculty of advocates. On the return of the Whigs to power in 1830 he became lord advocate, and entered parliament as member for the Perth burghs. He was unseated, and afterwards returned for Malton, a borough in the interest of Lord Fitzwilliam. After the passing of the Scottish Reform Bill, which he introduced in parliament, he was returned for Edinburgh in December 1832. His parliamentary career, which, though not brilliantly successful, had won him high general esteem, was terminated by his elevation to the judicial bench as Lord Jeffrey in May 1834. In 1842 he was moved to the first division of the Court of Session. On the disruption of the Scottish Church he took the side of the seceders, giving a judicial opinion in their favour, afterwards reversed by the house of lords. He died at Edinburgh on the 26th of January 1850.
Some of his contributions to theEdinburgh Reviewappeared in four volumes in 1844 and 1845. This selection includes the essay on “Beauty” contributed to theEncy. Brit.TheLife of Lord Jeffrey, with a Selection from his Correspondence, by Lord Cockburn, appeared in 1852 in 2 vols. See also theSelected Correspondence of Macvey Napier(1877); the sketch of Jeffrey in Carlyle’sReminiscences, vol. ii. (1881); and an essay by Lewis E. Gates inThree Studies in Literature(New York, 1899).
Some of his contributions to theEdinburgh Reviewappeared in four volumes in 1844 and 1845. This selection includes the essay on “Beauty” contributed to theEncy. Brit.TheLife of Lord Jeffrey, with a Selection from his Correspondence, by Lord Cockburn, appeared in 1852 in 2 vols. See also theSelected Correspondence of Macvey Napier(1877); the sketch of Jeffrey in Carlyle’sReminiscences, vol. ii. (1881); and an essay by Lewis E. Gates inThree Studies in Literature(New York, 1899).
JEFFREYS, GEORGE JEFFREYS,1st Baron(1648-1689), lord chancellor of England, son of John Jeffreys, a Welsh country gentleman, was born at Acton Park, his father’s seat in Denbighshire, in 1648. His family, though not wealthy, was of good social standing and repute in Wales; his mother, a daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland of Bewsey, Lancashire, was “a very pious good woman.” He was educated at Shrewsbury, St Paul’s and Westminster schools, at the last of which he was a pupil of Busby, and at Trinity College, Cambridge; but he left the university without taking a degree, and entered the Inner Temple as a student in May 1663. From his childhood Jeffreys displayed exceptional talent, but on coming to London he occupied himself more with the pleasures of conviviality than with serious study of the law. Though he never appears to have fallen into the licentious immorality prevalent at that period, he early became addicted to hard drinking and boisterous company. But as the records of his early years, and indeed of his whole life, are derived almost exclusively from vehemently hostile sources, the numerous anecdotes of his depravity cannot be accepted without a large measure of scepticism. He was a handsome, witty and attractive boon-companion, and in the taverns of the city he made friends among attorneys with practice in the criminal courts. Thus assisted he rose so rapidly in his profession that within three years of his call to the bar in 1668, he was elected common serjeant of the city of London. Such advancement, however, was not to be attained even in the reign of Charles II. solely by the aid of disreputable friendships. Jeffreys had remarkable aptitude for the profession of an advocate—quick intelligence, caustic humour, copious eloquence. His powers of cross-examination were masterly; and if he was insufficiently grounded in legal principles to become a profound lawyer, nothing but greater application was needed in the opinion of so hostile a critic as Lord Campbell, to have made him the rival of Nottingham and Hale. Jeffreys could count on the influence of respectable men of position in the city, such as Sir Robert Clayton and his own namesake Alderman Jeffreys; and he also enjoyed the personal friendship of the virtuous Sir Matthew Hale. In 1667 Jeffreys had married in circumstances which, if improvident, were creditable to his generosity and sense of honour; and his domestic life, so far as is known, was free from the scandal common among his contemporaries. While holding the judicial office of common serjeant, he pursued his practice at the bar. With a view to further preferment he now sought to ingratiate himself with the court party, to which he obtained an introduction possibly through William Chiffinch, the notorious keeper of the king’s closet. He at once attached himself to the king’s mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth; and as early as 1672 he was employed in confidential business by the court. His influence in the city of London, where opposition to the government of Charles II. was now becoming pronounced, enabled Jeffreys to make himself useful to Danby. In September 1677 he received a knighthood, and his growing favour with the court was further marked by his appointment as solicitor-general to James, duke of York; while the city showed its continued confidence in him by electing him to the post of recorder in October 1678.
In the previous month Titus Oates had made his first revelations of the alleged popish plot, and from this time forward Jeffreys was prominently identified, either as advocate or judge, with the memorable state trials by which the political conflict between the Crown and the people was waged during the remainder of the 17th century. The popish plot, followed by the growing agitation for the exclusion of the duke of York from the succession, widened the breach between the city and the court. Jeffreys threw in his lot with the latter, displaying his zeal by initiating the movement of the “abhorrers” (q.v.) against the “petitioners” who were giving voice to the popular demand for the summoning of parliament. He was rewarded with the coveted office of chief justice of Chester on the 30thof April 1680; but when parliament met in October the House of Commons passed a hostile resolution which induced him to resign his recordership, a piece of pusillanimity that drew from the king the remark that Jeffreys was “not parliament-proof.” Jeffreys nevertheless received from the city aldermen a substantial token of appreciation for his past services. In 1681 he was created a baronet. In June 1683 the first of the Rye House conspirators were brought to trial. Jeffreys was briefed for the crown in the prosecution of Lord William Howard; and, having been raised to the bench as lord chief justice of the king’s bench in September, he presided at the trials of Algernon Sidney in November 1683 and of Sir Thomas Armstrong in the following June. In the autumn of 1684 Jeffreys, who had been active in procuring the surrender of municipal charters to the crown, was called to the cabinet, having previously been sworn of the privy council. In May 1685 he had the satisfaction of passing sentence on Titus Oates for perjury in the plot trials; and about the same time James II. rewarded his zeal with a peerage as Baron Jeffreys of Wem, an honour never before conferred on a chief justice during his tenure of office. Jeffreys had for some time been suffering from stone, which aggravated the irritability of his naturally violent temper; and the malady probably was in some degree the cause of the unmeasured fury he displayed at the trial of Richard Baxter (q.v.) for seditious libel—if the unofficialex partereport of the trial, which alone exists, is to be accepted as trustworthy.
In August 1685 Jeffreys opened at Winchester the commission known in history as the “bloody assizes,” his conduct of which has branded his name with indelible infamy. The number of persons sentenced to death at these assizes for complicity in the duke of Monmouth’s insurrection is uncertain. The official return of those actually executed was 320; many hundreds more were transported and sold into slavery in the West Indies. In all probability the great majority of those condemned were in fact concerned in the rising, but the trials were in many cases a mockery of the administration of justice. Numbers were cajoled into pleading guilty; the case for the prisoners seldom obtained a hearing. The merciless severity of the chief justice did not however exceed the wishes of James II.; for on his return to London Jeffreys received from the king the great seal with the title of lord chancellor. For the next two years he was a strenuous upholder of prerogative, though he was less abjectly pliant than has sometimes been represented. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his attachment to the Church of England; for although the king’s favour was capricious Jeffreys never took the easy and certain path to secure it that lay through apostasy; and he even withstood James on occasion, when the latter pushed his Catholic zeal to extremes. Though it is true that he accepted the presidency of the ecclesiastical commission, Burnet’s statement that it was Jeffreys who suggested that institution to James is probably incorrect; and he was so far from having instigated the prosecution of the seven bishops in 1688, as has been frequently alleged, that he disapproved of the proceedings and rejoiced secretly at the acquittal. But while he watched with misgiving the king’s preferment of Roman Catholics, he made himself the masterful instrument of unconstitutional prerogative in coercing the authorities of Cambridge University, who in 1687 refused to confer degrees on a Benedictine monk, and the fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, who declined to elect as their president a disreputable nominee of the king.
Being thus conspicuously identified with the most tyrannical measures of James II., Jeffreys found himself in a desperate plight when on the 11th of December 1688 the king fled from the country on the approach to London of William of Orange. The lord chancellor attempted to escape like his master; but in spite of his disguise as a common seaman he was recognized in a tavern at Wapping—possibly, as Roger North relates, by an attorney whom Jeffreys had terrified on some occasion in the court of chancery—and was arrested and conveyed to the Tower. The malady from which he had long suffered had recently made fatal progress, and he died in the Tower on the 18th of April 1689. He was succeeded in the peerage by his son, John (2nd Baron Jeffreys of Wem), who died without male issue in 1702, when the title became extinct.
It is impossible to determine precisely with what justice tradition has made the name of “Judge Jeffreys” a byword of infamy. The Revolution, which brought about his fall, handed over his reputation at the same time to the mercy of his bitterest enemies. They alone have recorded his actions and appraised his motives and character. Even the adherents of the deposed dynasty had no interest in finding excuse for one who served as a convenient scapegoat for the offences of his master. For at least half a century after his death no apology for Lord Jeffreys would have obtained a hearing; and none was attempted. With the exception therefore of what is to be gathered from the reports of the state trials, all knowledge of his conduct rests on testimony tainted by undisguised hostility. Innumerable scurrilous lampoons vilifying the hated instrument of James’s tyranny, but without a pretence of historic value, flooded the country at the Revolution; and these, while they fanned the undiscriminating hatred of contemporaries who remembered the judge’s severities, and perpetuated that hatred in tradition, have not been sufficiently discounted even by modern historians like Macaulay and Lord Campbell. The name of Jeffreys has therefore been handed down as that of a coarse, ignorant, dissolute, foul-mouthed, inhuman bully, who prostituted the seat of justice. That there was sufficient ground for the execration in which his memory was long held is not to be gainsaid. But the portrait has nevertheless been blackened overmuch. An occasional significant admission in his favour may be gleaned even from the writings of his enemies. Thus Roger North declares that “in matters indifferent,”i.e.where politics were not concerned, Jeffreys became the seat of justice better than any other that author had seen in his place. Sir J. Jekyll, master of the rolls, told Speaker Onslow that Jeffreys “had great parts and made a great chancellor in the business of his court. In mere private matters he was thought an able and upright judge wherever he sat.” His keen sense of humour, allied with a spirit of inveterate mockery and an exuberant command of pungent eloquence, led him to rail and storm at prisoners and witnesses in grossly unseemly fashion. But in this he did not greatly surpass most of his contemporaries on the judicial bench, and it was a failing from which even the dignified and virtuous Hale was not altogether exempt. The intemperance of Jeffreys which shocked North, certainly did not exceed that of Saunders; in violence he was rivalled by Scroggs; though accused of political apostasy, he was not a shameless renegade like Williams; and there is no evidence that in pecuniary matters he was personally venal, or that in licentiousness he followed the example set by Charles II. and most of his courtiers. Some of his actions that have incurred the sternest reprobation of posterity were otherwise estimated by the best of his contemporaries. His trial of Algernon Sidney, described by Macaulay and Lord Campbell as one of the most heinous of his iniquities, was warmly commended by Dr William Lloyd, who was soon afterwards to become a popular idol as one of the illustrious seven bishops (see letter from the bishop of St Asaph in H. B. Irving’sLife of Judge Jeffreys, p. 184). Nor was the habitual illegality of his procedure on the bench so unquestionable as many writers have assumed. Sir James Stephen inclined to the opinion that no actual abuse of law tainted the trials of the Rye House conspirators, or that of Alice Lisle, the most prominent victim of the “bloody assizes.” The conduct of the judges in Russell’s trial was, he thinks, “moderate and fair in general”; and the trial of Sidney “much resembled that of Russell.” The same high authority pronounces that the trial of Lord Delamere in the House of Lords was conducted by Jeffreys “with propriety and dignity.” And if Jeffreys judged political offenders with cruel severity, he also crushed some glaring abuses; conspicuous examples of which were the frauds of attorneys who infested Westminster Hall, and the systematic kidnapping practised by the municipal authorities of Bristol. Moreover, if any value is to be attached to the evidence of physiognomy, thetraditional estimate of the character of Jeffreys obtains no confirmation from the refinement of his features and expression as depicted in Kneller’s portrait in the National Portrait Gallery of London. But even though the popular notion requires to be thus modified in certain respects, it remains incontestable that Jeffreys was probably on the whole the worst example of a period when the administration of justice in England had sunk to the lowest degradation, and the judicial bench had become the too willing tool of an unconstitutional and unscrupulous executive.
Bibliography.—The chief contemporary authorities for the life of Jeffreys are Bishop Burnet’sHistory of my own Time(1724), and see especially the edition “with notes by the Earls of Dartmouth and Hardwick Speaker Onslow and Dean Swift” (Oxford Univ. Press, 1833); Roger North’sLife of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron of Guildford(1808) andAutobiography(ed. by Augustus Jessopp, 1887);Ellis Correspondence, Verney Papers(Hist. MSS. Comm.),Hatton Correspondence(Camden Soc. pub.); the earl of Ailesbury’sMemoirs; Evelyn’sDiary. The only trustworthy information as to the judicial conduct and capacity of Jeffreys is to be found in the reports of theState Trials, vols. vii.-xii.; and cf. Sir J. F. Stephen’sHistory of the Criminal Law of England(1883). For details of the “bloody assizes,” seeHarl. MSS., 4689; George Roberts,The Life, Progresses and Rebellion of James Duke of Monmouth, vol. ii. (1844); also many pamphlets, lampoons, &c., in the British Museum, as to which see the article on “Sources of History for Monmouth’s Rebellion and the Bloody Assizes,” by A. L. Humphreys, inProceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural Hist. Soc.(1892). Later accounts are by H. W. Woolrych,Memoirs of the Life of Judge Jeffreys(1827); Lord Campbell,The Lives of the Lord Chancellors(1845), 1st series, vol. iii.; E. Foss,The Judges of England(1864), vol. vii.; Henry Roscoe,Lives of Eminent British Lawyers(1830); Lord Macaulay,History of England(1848; and many subsequent editions). Most of these works, and especially those by Macaulay and Campbell, are uncritical in their hostility to Jeffreys, and are based for the most part on untrustworthy authorities. The best modern work on the subject, though unduly favourable to Jeffreys, is H. B. Irving’sLife of Judge Jeffreys(1898), the appendix to which contains a full bibliography.
Bibliography.—The chief contemporary authorities for the life of Jeffreys are Bishop Burnet’sHistory of my own Time(1724), and see especially the edition “with notes by the Earls of Dartmouth and Hardwick Speaker Onslow and Dean Swift” (Oxford Univ. Press, 1833); Roger North’sLife of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron of Guildford(1808) andAutobiography(ed. by Augustus Jessopp, 1887);Ellis Correspondence, Verney Papers(Hist. MSS. Comm.),Hatton Correspondence(Camden Soc. pub.); the earl of Ailesbury’sMemoirs; Evelyn’sDiary. The only trustworthy information as to the judicial conduct and capacity of Jeffreys is to be found in the reports of theState Trials, vols. vii.-xii.; and cf. Sir J. F. Stephen’sHistory of the Criminal Law of England(1883). For details of the “bloody assizes,” seeHarl. MSS., 4689; George Roberts,The Life, Progresses and Rebellion of James Duke of Monmouth, vol. ii. (1844); also many pamphlets, lampoons, &c., in the British Museum, as to which see the article on “Sources of History for Monmouth’s Rebellion and the Bloody Assizes,” by A. L. Humphreys, inProceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural Hist. Soc.(1892). Later accounts are by H. W. Woolrych,Memoirs of the Life of Judge Jeffreys(1827); Lord Campbell,The Lives of the Lord Chancellors(1845), 1st series, vol. iii.; E. Foss,The Judges of England(1864), vol. vii.; Henry Roscoe,Lives of Eminent British Lawyers(1830); Lord Macaulay,History of England(1848; and many subsequent editions). Most of these works, and especially those by Macaulay and Campbell, are uncritical in their hostility to Jeffreys, and are based for the most part on untrustworthy authorities. The best modern work on the subject, though unduly favourable to Jeffreys, is H. B. Irving’sLife of Judge Jeffreys(1898), the appendix to which contains a full bibliography.
(R. J. M.)
JEHOIACHIN(Heb. “Yah[weh] establisheth”), in the Bible, son of Jehoiakim and king of Judah (2 Kings xxiv. 8 sqq.; 2 Chron, xxxvi. 9 seq.). He came to the throne at the age of eighteen in the midst of the Chaldean invasion of Judah, and is said to have reigned three months. He was compelled to surrender to Nebuchadrezzar and was carried off to Babylon (597B.C.). This was the First Captivity, and from it Ezekiel (one of the exiles) dates his prophecies. Eight thousand people of the better class (including artisans, &c.) were removed, the Temple was partially despoiled (see Jer. xxvii. 18-20; xxiii.v. 3 seq.),1and Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah (son of Josiah) was appointed king. Jehoiachin’s fate is outlined in Jer. xxii. 20-30 (cf. xxvii. 20). Nearly forty years later, Nebuchadrezzar II. died (562B.C.) and Evil-Merodach (Amil-Marduk) his successor released the unfortunate captive and gave him precedence over the other subjugated kings who were kept prisoners in Babylon. With this gleam of hope for the unhappy Judaeans both the book of Kings and the prophecies of Jeremiah conclude (2 Kings xxv. 27-30; Jer. lii. 31-34).
See, further,Jeremiah(especially chaps. xxiv., xxvii. seq.), andJews, § 17.
See, further,Jeremiah(especially chaps. xxiv., xxvii. seq.), andJews, § 17.
12 Kings xxiv. 13 seq. gives other numbers and a view of the disaster which is more suitable for the Second Captivity. (SeeZedekiah.)
12 Kings xxiv. 13 seq. gives other numbers and a view of the disaster which is more suitable for the Second Captivity. (SeeZedekiah.)
JEHOIAKIM(Heb. “Yah[weh] raiseth up”), in the Bible, son of Josiah (q.v.) and king of Judah (2 Kings xxiii. 34-xxiv. 6). On the defeat of Josiah at Megiddo his younger brother Jehoahaz (or Shallum) was chosen by the Judaeans, but the Egyptian conquerer Necho summoned him to his headquarters at Riblah (south of Hamath on the Orontes) and removed him to Egypt, appointing in his stead Eliakim, whose name (“El [God] raiseth up”) was changed to its better-known synonym, Jehoiakim. For a time Jehoiakim remained under the protection of Necho and paid heavy tribute; but with the rise of the new Chaldean Empire under Nebuchadrezzar II., and the overthrow of Egypt at the battle of Carchemish (605B.C.) a vital change occurred. After three years of allegiance the king revolted. Invasions followed by Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites, perhaps the advance troops despatched by the Babylonian king; the power of Egypt was broken and the whole land came into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar. It was at the close of Jehoiakim’s reign, apparently just before his death, that the enemy appeared at the gates of Jerusalem, and although he himself “slept with his fathers” his young son was destined to see the first captivity of the land of Judah (597B.C.). (SeeJehoiachin.)
Which “three years” (2 Kings xxiv. 1) are intended is disputed; it is uncertain whether Judah suffered in 605B.C.(Berossus in Jos.c. Ap.i. 19) or was left unharmed (Jos.Ant.x. 6. 1); perhaps Nebuchadrezzar made his first inroad against Judah in 602B.C.because of its intrigue with Egypt (H. Winckler,Keilinschrift. u. d. alte Test., pp. 107 seq.), and the three years of allegiance extends to 599. The chronicler’s tradition (2 Chron. xxxvi. 5-8) speaks of Jehoiakim’s captivity, apparently confusing him with Jehoiachin. The Septuagint, however, still preserves there the record of his peaceful death, in agreement with the earlier source in 2 Kings, but against the prophecy of Jeremiah (xxii. 18 seq., xxxvi. 30), which is accepted by Jos.Ant.x. 6. 3. The different traditions can scarcely be reconciled. Nothing certain is known of the marauding bands sent against Jehoiakim; for Syrians (Aram) one would expect Edomites (Edom), but see Jer. xxxv. 11; some recensions of the Septuagint even include the “Samaritans”! (For further references to this reign see especiallyJeremiah; see alsoJews:History, § 17.)
Which “three years” (2 Kings xxiv. 1) are intended is disputed; it is uncertain whether Judah suffered in 605B.C.(Berossus in Jos.c. Ap.i. 19) or was left unharmed (Jos.Ant.x. 6. 1); perhaps Nebuchadrezzar made his first inroad against Judah in 602B.C.because of its intrigue with Egypt (H. Winckler,Keilinschrift. u. d. alte Test., pp. 107 seq.), and the three years of allegiance extends to 599. The chronicler’s tradition (2 Chron. xxxvi. 5-8) speaks of Jehoiakim’s captivity, apparently confusing him with Jehoiachin. The Septuagint, however, still preserves there the record of his peaceful death, in agreement with the earlier source in 2 Kings, but against the prophecy of Jeremiah (xxii. 18 seq., xxxvi. 30), which is accepted by Jos.Ant.x. 6. 3. The different traditions can scarcely be reconciled. Nothing certain is known of the marauding bands sent against Jehoiakim; for Syrians (Aram) one would expect Edomites (Edom), but see Jer. xxxv. 11; some recensions of the Septuagint even include the “Samaritans”! (For further references to this reign see especiallyJeremiah; see alsoJews:History, § 17.)