MADEC, RENÉ-MARIE(1736-1784)—called Medoc in Anglo-Indian writings—French adventurer in India, was born at Quimper in Brittany on the 7th of February 1736, of poor parents. He went out to India and served under Dupleix and Lally, but being taken prisoner by the British he enlisted in the Bengal army. Deserting with some of his companions shortly before the battle of Buxar (1764), he became military instructor to various native princes, organizing successively the forces of Shuja-ud-Dowlah, nawab of Oudh, and of the Jats and Rohillas. He took service under the emperor Shah Alam in 1772, and when that prince was defeated at Delhi by the Mahrattas, Madec rejoined his own countrymen in Pondicherry, where he took an active part in the defence of the town (1778). After the capitulation of Pondicherry he returned to France with a considerable fortune, and died there in 1784. At one time he formed a scheme for a French alliance with the Mogul emperor against the British, but the project came to nothing.
See Émile Barbé,Le Nabab René Madec(1894).
See Émile Barbé,Le Nabab René Madec(1894).
MADEIRA,orThe Madeiras, a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, which belong to Portugal, and consist of two inhabited islands named Madeira and Porto Santo and two groups of uninhabited rocks named the Desertas and Selvagens. Pop. (1900), 150,574; area, 314 sq. m. Funchal, the capital of the archipelago, is on the south coast of Madeira Island, in 32° 37′ 45″ N. and 16° 54′ W. It is about 360 m. from the coast of Africa, 535 from Lisbon, 1215 from Plymouth, 240 from Teneriffe, and 480 from Santa Maria, the nearest of the Azores.
Madeira(pop. 1900, 148,263), the largest island of the group, has a length of 30 m., an extreme breadth of 12 m., and a coast-line of 80 or 90 m. Its longer axis lies east and west, in which direction it is traversed by a mountain chain, the backbone of the island, having a mean altitude of 4000 ft., up to which many deep ravines penetrate from both coasts and render travel by land very difficult. Pico Ruivo, the highest summit, stands in the centre of the island, and has a height of 6056 ft., while some of the adjacent summits are very little lower. The depth and narrowness of the ravines, the loftiness of the rugged peaks, often covered with snow, that tower above them, the bold precipices of the coast, and the proximity of the sea, afford many scenes of picturesque beauty or striking grandeur. The greater part of the interior is uninhabited, though cultivated, for the towns, villages and scattered huts are usually built either at the mouths of ravines or upon the lower slopes that extend from the mountains to the coast. The ridges between the ravines usually terminate in lofty headlands, one of which, called Cabo Girão, has the height of 1920 ft., and much of the seaboard is bound by precipices of dark basalt. The north coast, having been more exposed to the erosion of the sea, is more precipitous than the south, and presents everywhere a wilder aspect. On the south there is left very little of the indigenous forest which once clothed the whole island and gave it the name it bears (from the Portuguesemadeira, Lat.materia, wood), but on the north some of the valleys still contain native trees of fine growth. A long, narrow and comparatively low rocky promontory forms the eastern extremity of the island; and here is a tract of calcareous sand, known as the Fossil Bed, containing land shells and numerous bodies resembling the roots of trees, probably produced by infiltration.
Porto Santois about 25 m. N.E. of Madeira. Pop. (1900), 2311. It has a length of 61⁄3m. and a width of 3 m. The capital is Porto Santo, called locally thevillaor town. The island is very unproductive, water being scarce and wood wholly absent. Around the little town there is a considerable tract of pretty level ground covered by calcareous sand containing fossil land-shells. At each end of the island are hills, of which Pico do Facho, the highest, reaches the altitude of 1663 ft. Barley, but little else,is grown here, the limited requirements of the inhabitants being supplied from Funchal.
The Desertaslie about 11 m. S.E. of Madeira, and consist of three islands, Ilheo Chão, Bugio and Deserta Grande, together with Sail Rock off the north end of Ilheo Chão. They present lofty precipices to the sea on all sides. Rabbits and goats abound on them. The archil weed grows on the rocks, and is gathered for exportation. The largest islet (Deserta Grande) is 6½ m. long, and attains the height of 1610 ft. These rocks are conspicuous objects in the sea-views from Funchal.
TheSelvagensorSalvagesare a group of three islands, 156 m. from Madeira, and between Madeira and the Canary Islands. The largest island is the Great Piton, 3 m. long, and 1 m. broad. The inclusion of the Selvagens in the Madeira Archipelago is due to political rather than to geographical reasons.
Geology.—All the islands of the group are of volcanic origin. They are the summits of very lofty mountains which have their bases in an abyssal ocean. The greater part of what is now visible in Madeira is of subaerial formation, consisting of basaltic and trachytic lavas, beds of tuff and other ejectamenta, the result of a long and complicated series of eruptions from innumerable vents. Besides this building up by the emission of matter from craters and clefts, a certain amount of upheaval in mass has taken place, for at a spot about 1200 ft. above the sea in the northern valley of São Vicente, and again at about the same height in Porto Santo, there have been found fragments of limestone accompanied by tuffs containing marine shells and echinoderms of the Miocene Tertiary epoch. We have here proof that during or since that epoch portions at least of these islands have been bodily uplifted more than 1000 ft. The fossils are sufficiently well preserved to admit of their genera, and in many instances even their species, being made out.There were pauses of considerable duration whilst the island of Madeira was being increased in height. The leaf bed and the accompanying carbonaceous matter, frequently termed lignite, although it displays no trace of structure, which lie under 1200 ft. of lavas in the valley of São Jorge, afford proof that there had been sufficient time for the growth of a vegetation of high order, many of the leaf impressions belonging to species of trees and shrubs which still exist on the island. Moreover, great alterations and dislocations had taken place in the rocks of various localities before other lavas and tuffs had been thrown upon them.There are no data for determining when volcanic action began in this locality, but looking at the enormous depth of the surrounding sea it is clear that a vast period of time must have elapsed to allow of a great mountain reaching the surface and then rising several thousand feet. Again, considering the comparatively feeble agents for effecting the work of denudation (neither glaciers nor thick accumulations of alpine snow being found here), and then the enormous erosion that has actually taken place, the inference is inevitable that a very great lapse of time was required to excavate the deep and wide ravines that everywhere intersect the island. Nor is anything known as to the period of the cessation of volcanic action. At the present day there are no live craters or smoking crevices, as at the Canaries and Cape Verdes, nor any hot springs, as at the Azores.In one of the northern ravines of Madeira by Porto da Cruz some masses of a coarsely crystalline Essexite are exposed to view; this rock is evidently the deep-seated representative of the Trachydoleritic and Nepheline basalt lavas. Fragments of a sodalite-syenite have also been found at Soca in the same neighbourhood.In the eastern part of the island several small crater rings are to be seen; their rims are formed of spheroidal basalt, while within the craters themselves masses of bauxite are found accompanied by evidences of fumerolic action.In the sections afforded by the ravines, which strike north and south from the central ridge of Madeira to the sea, the nucleus of the island is seen to consist of a confused mass of more or less stratified rock, upon which rest beds of tuff, scoriae and lava, in the shape of basalt, trap and trachyte, the whole traversed by dykes. These beds are thinnest near the central axis; as they approach the coast they become thicker and less intersected by dykes.In various parts are elevated tracts of comparatively level ground. These are supposed to have been formed by the meeting of numerous streams of lava flowing from cones and points of eruption in close proximity, various ejectamenta assisting at the same time to fill up inequalities. Deep down in some of the lateral ravines may be seen ancient cones of eruption which have been overwhelmed by streams of melted matter issuing from the central region, and afterwards exposed to view by the same causes that excavated the ravines. These ravines may be regarded as having been formed at first by subterranean movements, both gradual and violent, which dislocated the rocks and cut clefts through which streams flowed to the sea. In course of time the waters, periodically swollen by melted snows and the copious rains of winter, would cut deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountains, and would undermine the lateral cliffs, until the valleys became as large as we now find them. Even the Curral, which from its rounded shape and its position in the centre of the island has been usually deemed the ruins of a crater, is thought to be nothing more than a valley scooped out in the way described. The rarity of crateriform cavities in Madeira is very remarkable. There exists, however, to the east of Funchal, on a tract 2000 ft. high, the Lagoa, a small but perfect crater, 500 ft. in diameter, and with a depth of 150 ft.; and there is another, which is a double one, in the district known as Fanal, in the north-west of Madeira, nearly 5000 ft. above the sea. The basalt, of which much of the outer part of the island is composed, is of a dark colour and a tough texture, with small disseminated crystals of olivine and augite. It is sometimes full of vesicular cavities, formed by the expansion of imprisoned gases. A rudely columnar structure is very often seen in the basalt, but there is nothing so perfect as the columns of Staffa or the Giant’s Causeway. The trachytic rocks are small in quantity compared with those of the basaltic class. The tufa is soft and friable, and generally of a yellow colour; but where it has been overflowed by a hot stream of lava it has assumed a red colour. Black ashes and fragments of pumice are sometimes found in the tufaceous strata.There are no metallic ores, nor has any sulphur been found; but a little iron pyrites and specular iron are occasionally met with. The basalt yields an excellent building-stone, various qualities of which are quarried near Camara de Lobos, five or six miles west of Funchal.In Porto Santo the trachytic rocks bear a much greater proportion to the basaltic than in Madeira. An adjacent islet is formed of tuffs and calcareous rock, indicating a submarine origin, upon which supramarine lavas have been poured. The older series contains corals and shells (also of the Miocene Tertiary epoch), with water-worn pebbles, cemented together by carbonate of lime, the whole appearing to have been a coral reef near an ancient beach. The calcareous rock is taken in large quantities to Funchal, to be burnt into lime for building purposes.Climate.—Observations taken at Funchal Observatory (80 ft. above sea-level) in the last twenty years of the 19th century showed that the mean annual temperature is about 65° F. The mean minimum for the coldest part of the year (October to May inclusive) does not fall below 55°, and the average daily variation of temperature in the same period does not exceed 10°. Madeira thus has a remarkably mild climate, though it lies only 10° north of the Tropic of Cancer. This mildness is due to the surrounding ocean, from which the atmosphere obtains a large supply of watery vapour. The mean humidity of the air is about 75 (saturation = 100). The prevalent winds are from the north or from a few points east or west of north, but these winds are much mitigated on the south coast by the central range of mountains. The west wind usually brings rain. That from the east is a dry wind. A hot and dry wind, the leste of the natives, occasionally blows from the east-south-east, the direction of the Sahara, and causes the hill region to be hotter than below; but even on the coast the thermometer under its influence sometimes indicates 93°. Thelesteis often accompanied by sandstorms. As the thermometer has never been known to fall as low as 46° at Funchal, frost and snow are there wholly unknown; but snow falls on the mountains once or twice during the winter, very seldom, however, below the altitude of 2000 ft. Thunderstorms are rare, and scarcely ever violent.Madeira has long had a high reputation as a sanatory resort for persons suffering from diseases of the chest. Notwithstanding the ever-increasing competition of other winter resorts, a considerable number of invalids, especially English and German, winter at Funchal.Fauna.—No species of land mammal is indigenous to the Madeiras. Some of the early voyagers indeed speak of wild goats and swine, but these animals must have escaped from confinement. The rabbit, black rat, brown rat and mouse have been introduced. The first comers encountered seals, and this amphibious mammal (Monachus albiventer) still lingers at the Desertas. Amongst the thirty species of birds which breed in these islands are the kestrel, buzzard and barn owl, the blackbird, robin, wagtail, goldfinch, ring sparrow, linnet, two swifts, three pigeons, the quail, red-legged partridge, woodcock, tern, herring gull, two petrels and three puffins. Only one species is endemic, and that is a wren (Regulus madeirensis), but five other species are known elsewhere only at the Canaries. These are the green canary (Fringilla butyracea, the parent of the domesticated yellow variety), a chaffinch (Fringilla tintillon), a swift (Cypselus unicolor), a wood pigeon (Columba trocaz) and a petrel (Thalassidroma Bulwerii). There is also a local variety of the blackcap, distinguishable from the common kind by the extension in the male of the cap to the shoulder. About seventy other species have been seen from time to time in Madeira, chiefly stragglers from the African coast, many of them coming with thelestewind.The only land reptile is a small lizard (Lacerta dugesii), which is abundant and is very destructive to the grape crop. The loggerhead turtle (Caouana caretta, Gray) is frequently captured, and is cooked for the table, but the soup is much inferior to that made from the green turtle of the West Indies. A single variety of frog (Rana esculenta) has been introduced; there are no other batrachians.About 250 species of marine fishes taken at Madeira have been scientifically determined, the largest families beingScombridaewith 35 species, the sharks with 24, theSparidaewith 15, the rays with 14, theLabridaewith 13, theGadidaewith 12, the eels with 12, thePercidaewith 11, and theCarangidaewith 10. Many kinds, such as the mackerel, horse mackerel, groper, mullet, braise, &c.., are caught in abundance, and afford a cheap article of diet to the people. Several species of tunny are taken plentifully in spring and summer, one of them sometimes attaining the weight of 300 ℔. The only freshwater fish is the common eel, which is found in one or two of the streams.According to T. V. Wollaston (Testacea atlantica, 1878), there have been found 158 species of mollusca on the land, 6 inhabiting fresh water, and 7 littoral species, making a total of 171. A large majority of the land shells are considered to be peculiar. Many of the species are variable in form or colour, and some have an extraordinary number of varieties. Of the land mollusca 91 species are assigned to the genusHelix, 31 to the genusPupa, and 15 to the genusAchatina(orLovea). About 43 species are found both living and fossil in superficial deposits of calcareous sand in Madeira or Porto Santo. These deposits were assigned by Lyell to the Newer Pliocene period. Some 12 or 13 species have not been hitherto discovered alive. More than 100 species ofPolyzoa(Bryozoa) have been collected, among them are some highly interesting forms.The only order of insects which has been thoroughly examined is that of theColeoptera. By the persevering researches of T. V. Wollaston the astonishing number of 695 species of beetles has been brought to light at the Madeiras. The proportion of endemic kinds is very large, and it is remarkable that 200 of them are either wingless or their wings are so poorly developed that they cannot fly, while 23 of the endemic genera have all their species in this condition. With regard to theLepidoptera, 11 or 12 species of butterflies have been seen, all of which belong to European genera. Some of the species are geographical varieties of well-known types. Upward of 100 moths have been collected, the majority of them being of a European stamp, but probably a fourth of the total number are peculiar to the Madeiran group. Thirty-seven species ofNeuropterahave been observed in Madeira, 12 of them being so far as is known peculiar.The bristle-footed worms of the coast have been studied by Professor P. Langerhans, who has met with about 200 species, of which a large number were new to science. There are no modern coral reefs, but several species of stony and flexible corals have been collected, though none are of commercial value. There is, however, a white stony coral allied to the red coral of the Mediterranean which would be valuable as an article of trade if it could be obtained in sufficient quantity. Specimens of a rare and handsome red Paragorgia are in the British Museum and Liverpool Museum.Flora.—The vegetation is strongly impressed with a south-European character. Many of the plants in the lower region undoubtedly were introduced and naturalized after the Portuguese colonization. A large number of the remainder are found at the Canaries and the Azores, or in one of these groups, but nowhere else. Lastly, there are about a hundred plants which are peculiarly Madeiran, either as distinct species or as strongly marked varieties. The flowering plants found truly wild belong to about 363 genera and 717 species,—the monocotyledons numbering 70 genera and 128 species, the dicotyledons 293 genera and 589 species. The three largest orders are theCompositae,LeguminosaeandGraminaceae. Forty-one species of ferns grow in Madeira, three of which are endemic species and six others belong to the peculiar flora of the North Atlantic islands. About 100 species of moss have been collected, and 47 species ofHepaticae. A connexion between the flora of Madeira and that of the West Indies and tropical America has been inferred from the presence in the former of six ferns found nowhere in Europe or North Africa, but existing on the islands of the east coast of America or on the Isthmus of Panama. A further relationship to that continent is to be traced by the presence in Madeira of the beautiful ericaceous treeClethra arborea, belonging to a genus which is otherwise wholly American, and of aPersea, a tree laurel, also an American genus. The dragon tree (Dracaena Draco) is almost extinct. Amongst the trees most worthy of note are four of the laurel order belonging to separate genera, anArdisia,Pittosporum,Sideroxylon,Notelaea,RhamnusandMyrica,—a strange mixture of genera to be found on a small Atlantic island. Two heaths of arborescent growth and a whortleberry cover large tracts on the mountains. In some parts there is a belt of the Spanish chestnut about the height of 1500 ft. There is no indigenous pine tree as at the Canaries; but large tracts on the hills have been planted withPinus pinaster, from which the fuel of the inhabitants is mainly derived. A European juniper (J. Oxycedrus), growing to the height of 40 or 50 ft., was formerly abundant, but has been almost exterminated, as its scented wood is prized by the cabinet-maker. Several of the native trees and shrubs now grow only in situations which are nearly inaccessible, and some of the indigenous plants are of the greatest rarity. But some plants of foreign origin have spread in a remarkable manner. Among these is the common cactus or prickly pear (Opuntia Tuna), which in many spots on the coast is sufficiently abundant to give a character to the landscape. As toAlgae, the coast is too rocky and the sea too unquiet for a luxuriant marine vegetation, consequently the species are few and poor.
Geology.—All the islands of the group are of volcanic origin. They are the summits of very lofty mountains which have their bases in an abyssal ocean. The greater part of what is now visible in Madeira is of subaerial formation, consisting of basaltic and trachytic lavas, beds of tuff and other ejectamenta, the result of a long and complicated series of eruptions from innumerable vents. Besides this building up by the emission of matter from craters and clefts, a certain amount of upheaval in mass has taken place, for at a spot about 1200 ft. above the sea in the northern valley of São Vicente, and again at about the same height in Porto Santo, there have been found fragments of limestone accompanied by tuffs containing marine shells and echinoderms of the Miocene Tertiary epoch. We have here proof that during or since that epoch portions at least of these islands have been bodily uplifted more than 1000 ft. The fossils are sufficiently well preserved to admit of their genera, and in many instances even their species, being made out.
There were pauses of considerable duration whilst the island of Madeira was being increased in height. The leaf bed and the accompanying carbonaceous matter, frequently termed lignite, although it displays no trace of structure, which lie under 1200 ft. of lavas in the valley of São Jorge, afford proof that there had been sufficient time for the growth of a vegetation of high order, many of the leaf impressions belonging to species of trees and shrubs which still exist on the island. Moreover, great alterations and dislocations had taken place in the rocks of various localities before other lavas and tuffs had been thrown upon them.
There are no data for determining when volcanic action began in this locality, but looking at the enormous depth of the surrounding sea it is clear that a vast period of time must have elapsed to allow of a great mountain reaching the surface and then rising several thousand feet. Again, considering the comparatively feeble agents for effecting the work of denudation (neither glaciers nor thick accumulations of alpine snow being found here), and then the enormous erosion that has actually taken place, the inference is inevitable that a very great lapse of time was required to excavate the deep and wide ravines that everywhere intersect the island. Nor is anything known as to the period of the cessation of volcanic action. At the present day there are no live craters or smoking crevices, as at the Canaries and Cape Verdes, nor any hot springs, as at the Azores.
In one of the northern ravines of Madeira by Porto da Cruz some masses of a coarsely crystalline Essexite are exposed to view; this rock is evidently the deep-seated representative of the Trachydoleritic and Nepheline basalt lavas. Fragments of a sodalite-syenite have also been found at Soca in the same neighbourhood.
In the eastern part of the island several small crater rings are to be seen; their rims are formed of spheroidal basalt, while within the craters themselves masses of bauxite are found accompanied by evidences of fumerolic action.
In the sections afforded by the ravines, which strike north and south from the central ridge of Madeira to the sea, the nucleus of the island is seen to consist of a confused mass of more or less stratified rock, upon which rest beds of tuff, scoriae and lava, in the shape of basalt, trap and trachyte, the whole traversed by dykes. These beds are thinnest near the central axis; as they approach the coast they become thicker and less intersected by dykes.
In various parts are elevated tracts of comparatively level ground. These are supposed to have been formed by the meeting of numerous streams of lava flowing from cones and points of eruption in close proximity, various ejectamenta assisting at the same time to fill up inequalities. Deep down in some of the lateral ravines may be seen ancient cones of eruption which have been overwhelmed by streams of melted matter issuing from the central region, and afterwards exposed to view by the same causes that excavated the ravines. These ravines may be regarded as having been formed at first by subterranean movements, both gradual and violent, which dislocated the rocks and cut clefts through which streams flowed to the sea. In course of time the waters, periodically swollen by melted snows and the copious rains of winter, would cut deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountains, and would undermine the lateral cliffs, until the valleys became as large as we now find them. Even the Curral, which from its rounded shape and its position in the centre of the island has been usually deemed the ruins of a crater, is thought to be nothing more than a valley scooped out in the way described. The rarity of crateriform cavities in Madeira is very remarkable. There exists, however, to the east of Funchal, on a tract 2000 ft. high, the Lagoa, a small but perfect crater, 500 ft. in diameter, and with a depth of 150 ft.; and there is another, which is a double one, in the district known as Fanal, in the north-west of Madeira, nearly 5000 ft. above the sea. The basalt, of which much of the outer part of the island is composed, is of a dark colour and a tough texture, with small disseminated crystals of olivine and augite. It is sometimes full of vesicular cavities, formed by the expansion of imprisoned gases. A rudely columnar structure is very often seen in the basalt, but there is nothing so perfect as the columns of Staffa or the Giant’s Causeway. The trachytic rocks are small in quantity compared with those of the basaltic class. The tufa is soft and friable, and generally of a yellow colour; but where it has been overflowed by a hot stream of lava it has assumed a red colour. Black ashes and fragments of pumice are sometimes found in the tufaceous strata.
There are no metallic ores, nor has any sulphur been found; but a little iron pyrites and specular iron are occasionally met with. The basalt yields an excellent building-stone, various qualities of which are quarried near Camara de Lobos, five or six miles west of Funchal.
In Porto Santo the trachytic rocks bear a much greater proportion to the basaltic than in Madeira. An adjacent islet is formed of tuffs and calcareous rock, indicating a submarine origin, upon which supramarine lavas have been poured. The older series contains corals and shells (also of the Miocene Tertiary epoch), with water-worn pebbles, cemented together by carbonate of lime, the whole appearing to have been a coral reef near an ancient beach. The calcareous rock is taken in large quantities to Funchal, to be burnt into lime for building purposes.
Climate.—Observations taken at Funchal Observatory (80 ft. above sea-level) in the last twenty years of the 19th century showed that the mean annual temperature is about 65° F. The mean minimum for the coldest part of the year (October to May inclusive) does not fall below 55°, and the average daily variation of temperature in the same period does not exceed 10°. Madeira thus has a remarkably mild climate, though it lies only 10° north of the Tropic of Cancer. This mildness is due to the surrounding ocean, from which the atmosphere obtains a large supply of watery vapour. The mean humidity of the air is about 75 (saturation = 100). The prevalent winds are from the north or from a few points east or west of north, but these winds are much mitigated on the south coast by the central range of mountains. The west wind usually brings rain. That from the east is a dry wind. A hot and dry wind, the leste of the natives, occasionally blows from the east-south-east, the direction of the Sahara, and causes the hill region to be hotter than below; but even on the coast the thermometer under its influence sometimes indicates 93°. Thelesteis often accompanied by sandstorms. As the thermometer has never been known to fall as low as 46° at Funchal, frost and snow are there wholly unknown; but snow falls on the mountains once or twice during the winter, very seldom, however, below the altitude of 2000 ft. Thunderstorms are rare, and scarcely ever violent.
Madeira has long had a high reputation as a sanatory resort for persons suffering from diseases of the chest. Notwithstanding the ever-increasing competition of other winter resorts, a considerable number of invalids, especially English and German, winter at Funchal.
Fauna.—No species of land mammal is indigenous to the Madeiras. Some of the early voyagers indeed speak of wild goats and swine, but these animals must have escaped from confinement. The rabbit, black rat, brown rat and mouse have been introduced. The first comers encountered seals, and this amphibious mammal (Monachus albiventer) still lingers at the Desertas. Amongst the thirty species of birds which breed in these islands are the kestrel, buzzard and barn owl, the blackbird, robin, wagtail, goldfinch, ring sparrow, linnet, two swifts, three pigeons, the quail, red-legged partridge, woodcock, tern, herring gull, two petrels and three puffins. Only one species is endemic, and that is a wren (Regulus madeirensis), but five other species are known elsewhere only at the Canaries. These are the green canary (Fringilla butyracea, the parent of the domesticated yellow variety), a chaffinch (Fringilla tintillon), a swift (Cypselus unicolor), a wood pigeon (Columba trocaz) and a petrel (Thalassidroma Bulwerii). There is also a local variety of the blackcap, distinguishable from the common kind by the extension in the male of the cap to the shoulder. About seventy other species have been seen from time to time in Madeira, chiefly stragglers from the African coast, many of them coming with thelestewind.
The only land reptile is a small lizard (Lacerta dugesii), which is abundant and is very destructive to the grape crop. The loggerhead turtle (Caouana caretta, Gray) is frequently captured, and is cooked for the table, but the soup is much inferior to that made from the green turtle of the West Indies. A single variety of frog (Rana esculenta) has been introduced; there are no other batrachians.
About 250 species of marine fishes taken at Madeira have been scientifically determined, the largest families beingScombridaewith 35 species, the sharks with 24, theSparidaewith 15, the rays with 14, theLabridaewith 13, theGadidaewith 12, the eels with 12, thePercidaewith 11, and theCarangidaewith 10. Many kinds, such as the mackerel, horse mackerel, groper, mullet, braise, &c.., are caught in abundance, and afford a cheap article of diet to the people. Several species of tunny are taken plentifully in spring and summer, one of them sometimes attaining the weight of 300 ℔. The only freshwater fish is the common eel, which is found in one or two of the streams.
According to T. V. Wollaston (Testacea atlantica, 1878), there have been found 158 species of mollusca on the land, 6 inhabiting fresh water, and 7 littoral species, making a total of 171. A large majority of the land shells are considered to be peculiar. Many of the species are variable in form or colour, and some have an extraordinary number of varieties. Of the land mollusca 91 species are assigned to the genusHelix, 31 to the genusPupa, and 15 to the genusAchatina(orLovea). About 43 species are found both living and fossil in superficial deposits of calcareous sand in Madeira or Porto Santo. These deposits were assigned by Lyell to the Newer Pliocene period. Some 12 or 13 species have not been hitherto discovered alive. More than 100 species ofPolyzoa(Bryozoa) have been collected, among them are some highly interesting forms.
The only order of insects which has been thoroughly examined is that of theColeoptera. By the persevering researches of T. V. Wollaston the astonishing number of 695 species of beetles has been brought to light at the Madeiras. The proportion of endemic kinds is very large, and it is remarkable that 200 of them are either wingless or their wings are so poorly developed that they cannot fly, while 23 of the endemic genera have all their species in this condition. With regard to theLepidoptera, 11 or 12 species of butterflies have been seen, all of which belong to European genera. Some of the species are geographical varieties of well-known types. Upward of 100 moths have been collected, the majority of them being of a European stamp, but probably a fourth of the total number are peculiar to the Madeiran group. Thirty-seven species ofNeuropterahave been observed in Madeira, 12 of them being so far as is known peculiar.
The bristle-footed worms of the coast have been studied by Professor P. Langerhans, who has met with about 200 species, of which a large number were new to science. There are no modern coral reefs, but several species of stony and flexible corals have been collected, though none are of commercial value. There is, however, a white stony coral allied to the red coral of the Mediterranean which would be valuable as an article of trade if it could be obtained in sufficient quantity. Specimens of a rare and handsome red Paragorgia are in the British Museum and Liverpool Museum.
Flora.—The vegetation is strongly impressed with a south-European character. Many of the plants in the lower region undoubtedly were introduced and naturalized after the Portuguese colonization. A large number of the remainder are found at the Canaries and the Azores, or in one of these groups, but nowhere else. Lastly, there are about a hundred plants which are peculiarly Madeiran, either as distinct species or as strongly marked varieties. The flowering plants found truly wild belong to about 363 genera and 717 species,—the monocotyledons numbering 70 genera and 128 species, the dicotyledons 293 genera and 589 species. The three largest orders are theCompositae,LeguminosaeandGraminaceae. Forty-one species of ferns grow in Madeira, three of which are endemic species and six others belong to the peculiar flora of the North Atlantic islands. About 100 species of moss have been collected, and 47 species ofHepaticae. A connexion between the flora of Madeira and that of the West Indies and tropical America has been inferred from the presence in the former of six ferns found nowhere in Europe or North Africa, but existing on the islands of the east coast of America or on the Isthmus of Panama. A further relationship to that continent is to be traced by the presence in Madeira of the beautiful ericaceous treeClethra arborea, belonging to a genus which is otherwise wholly American, and of aPersea, a tree laurel, also an American genus. The dragon tree (Dracaena Draco) is almost extinct. Amongst the trees most worthy of note are four of the laurel order belonging to separate genera, anArdisia,Pittosporum,Sideroxylon,Notelaea,RhamnusandMyrica,—a strange mixture of genera to be found on a small Atlantic island. Two heaths of arborescent growth and a whortleberry cover large tracts on the mountains. In some parts there is a belt of the Spanish chestnut about the height of 1500 ft. There is no indigenous pine tree as at the Canaries; but large tracts on the hills have been planted withPinus pinaster, from which the fuel of the inhabitants is mainly derived. A European juniper (J. Oxycedrus), growing to the height of 40 or 50 ft., was formerly abundant, but has been almost exterminated, as its scented wood is prized by the cabinet-maker. Several of the native trees and shrubs now grow only in situations which are nearly inaccessible, and some of the indigenous plants are of the greatest rarity. But some plants of foreign origin have spread in a remarkable manner. Among these is the common cactus or prickly pear (Opuntia Tuna), which in many spots on the coast is sufficiently abundant to give a character to the landscape. As toAlgae, the coast is too rocky and the sea too unquiet for a luxuriant marine vegetation, consequently the species are few and poor.
Inhabitants.—The inhabitants are of Portuguese descent, with probably some intermixture of Moorish and negro blood amongst the lower classes. The dress of the peasantry, without being picturesque, is peculiar. Both men and women in the outlying country districts wear thecarapuça, a small cap made of blue cloth in shape something like a funnel, with the pipe standing upwards. The men have trousers of linen, drawn tight, and terminating at the knees; a coarse shirt enveloping the upper part of their person, covered by a short jacket, completes their attire, with the exception of a pair of rough yellow boots. The women’s outer garments consist of a gaudily coloured gown, made from island material, with a small cape of coarse scarlet or blue woollen cloth. The population tends to increase rapidly. In 1900 it amounted to 150,574, including 890 foreigners, of whom the majority were British. The number of females exceeds that of males by about 6000, partly because many of the able-bodied males emigrate to Brazil or the United States. The density of population (479.5 per sq. m.) is very great for a district containing no large town and chiefly dependent on agriculture and viticulture.
Agriculture.—A large portion of the land was formerly entailed in the families of the landlords (morgados), but entails have been abolished by the legislature, and the land is now absolutely free. The deficiency of water is a great obstacle to the proper cultivation of the land, and the rocky nature or steep inclination of the upper parts of the islands is an effectual bar to all tillage. An incredible amount of labour has been expended upon the soil, partly in the erection of walls intended to prevent its being washed away by the rains, and to build up the plots of ground in the form of terraces. Watercourses have been constructed for purposes of irrigation, without which at regular intervals the island would not produce a hundredth part of its present yield. These watercourses originate high up in the ravines, are built of masonry or driven through the rock, and wind about for miles until they reach the cultivated land. Some of them are brought by tunnels from the north side of the island through the central crest of hill. Each occupier takes his turn at the running stream for so many hours in the day or night at a time notified to him beforehand. In this climate flowing water has a saleable value as well as land, which is useless without irrigation.
The agricultural implements employed are of the rudest kind, and the system of cultivation is extremely primitive. Very few of the occupiers own the land they cultivate; but they almost invariably own the walls, cottages and trees standing thereon, the land alone belonging to the landlord. The tenant can sell his share of the property without the consent of the landlord, and if he does not sodispose of it that share passes to his heirs. In this way the tenant practically enjoys fixity of tenure, for the landlord is seldom in a position to pay the price at which the tenant’s share is valued. Money rents are rare, the métayer system regulating almost universally the relations between landlord and tenant; that is, the tenant pays to the owner a certain portion of the produce, usually one half or one third. The holdings are as a rule rarely larger than one man can cultivate with a little occasional assistance. There are few meadows and pastures, the cattle being stall-fed when not feeding on the mountains. Horses are never employed for draught, all labour of that kind being done by oxen.The two staple productions of the soil are wine and sugar. The vine was introduced from Cyprus or Crete soon after the discovery of the island by the Portuguese (1420), but it was not actively cultivated until the early part of the 16th century. The vines, after having been totally destroyed by the oidium disease, which made its first appearance in the island in 1852, were replanted, andWine.in a few years wine was again made. The phylloxera also made its way to the island, and every vineyard in Madeira was more or less affected by it. The wine usually termed Madeira is made from a mixture of black and white grapes, which are also made separately into wines called Tinta and Verdelho, after the names of the grapes. Other high-class wines, known as Bual, Sercial and Malmsey, are made from varieties of grapes bearing the same names. (See alsoWine.)The sugar cane is said to have been brought from Sicily about 1452, and in course of time its produce became the sole staple of the island. The cultivation languished, however, as the more abundant produce of tropical countries came into the European market, and sugar had long ceased to be made when the destruction of the vines compelled the peasants to turn their attention to other things. Its cultivation was resumed and sugar machinery imported. ASugar.considerable quantity of spirit is made by the distillation of the juice or of the molasses left after extracting the sugar, and this is consumed on the island. The cane does not flourish here as luxuriantly as within the tropics; but in localities below 1000 ft., where there is a good supply of water, it pays the cultivator well.The grain produced on the island (principally wheat, barley and Indian corn) is not sufficient for the consumption of the people. The common potato, sweet potato and gourds of various kinds are extensively grown, as well as theColocasia esculenta, thekaloof the Pacific islanders, the root of which yields an insipid food. Most of the common table vegetables of Europe are plentiful. Besides apples, pears and peaches, all of poor quality, oranges, lemons, guavas, mangoes, loquats, custard-apples, figs, bananas and pineapples are produced, the last two forming articles of export. The date palm is occasionally grown, but its fruit is scarcely edible. On the hills large quantities of the Spanish chestnut afford an item in the food of the common people. A little tobacco is grown, and is made into cigars of inferior quality.The total foreign trade of Madeira was valued at £628,000 in 1900. The principal exports are wine, sugar, embroidery, vegetables, fruits and wicker goods. Coal is imported for the ships calling at Funchal, which is the headquarters of Madeiran commerce and industry. Spirits, beer, olive oil, soap, butter, linen and woollen goods, straw hats and leather, are manufactured for home consumption, and there are important fisheries.
The agricultural implements employed are of the rudest kind, and the system of cultivation is extremely primitive. Very few of the occupiers own the land they cultivate; but they almost invariably own the walls, cottages and trees standing thereon, the land alone belonging to the landlord. The tenant can sell his share of the property without the consent of the landlord, and if he does not sodispose of it that share passes to his heirs. In this way the tenant practically enjoys fixity of tenure, for the landlord is seldom in a position to pay the price at which the tenant’s share is valued. Money rents are rare, the métayer system regulating almost universally the relations between landlord and tenant; that is, the tenant pays to the owner a certain portion of the produce, usually one half or one third. The holdings are as a rule rarely larger than one man can cultivate with a little occasional assistance. There are few meadows and pastures, the cattle being stall-fed when not feeding on the mountains. Horses are never employed for draught, all labour of that kind being done by oxen.
The two staple productions of the soil are wine and sugar. The vine was introduced from Cyprus or Crete soon after the discovery of the island by the Portuguese (1420), but it was not actively cultivated until the early part of the 16th century. The vines, after having been totally destroyed by the oidium disease, which made its first appearance in the island in 1852, were replanted, andWine.in a few years wine was again made. The phylloxera also made its way to the island, and every vineyard in Madeira was more or less affected by it. The wine usually termed Madeira is made from a mixture of black and white grapes, which are also made separately into wines called Tinta and Verdelho, after the names of the grapes. Other high-class wines, known as Bual, Sercial and Malmsey, are made from varieties of grapes bearing the same names. (See alsoWine.)
The sugar cane is said to have been brought from Sicily about 1452, and in course of time its produce became the sole staple of the island. The cultivation languished, however, as the more abundant produce of tropical countries came into the European market, and sugar had long ceased to be made when the destruction of the vines compelled the peasants to turn their attention to other things. Its cultivation was resumed and sugar machinery imported. ASugar.considerable quantity of spirit is made by the distillation of the juice or of the molasses left after extracting the sugar, and this is consumed on the island. The cane does not flourish here as luxuriantly as within the tropics; but in localities below 1000 ft., where there is a good supply of water, it pays the cultivator well.
The grain produced on the island (principally wheat, barley and Indian corn) is not sufficient for the consumption of the people. The common potato, sweet potato and gourds of various kinds are extensively grown, as well as theColocasia esculenta, thekaloof the Pacific islanders, the root of which yields an insipid food. Most of the common table vegetables of Europe are plentiful. Besides apples, pears and peaches, all of poor quality, oranges, lemons, guavas, mangoes, loquats, custard-apples, figs, bananas and pineapples are produced, the last two forming articles of export. The date palm is occasionally grown, but its fruit is scarcely edible. On the hills large quantities of the Spanish chestnut afford an item in the food of the common people. A little tobacco is grown, and is made into cigars of inferior quality.
The total foreign trade of Madeira was valued at £628,000 in 1900. The principal exports are wine, sugar, embroidery, vegetables, fruits and wicker goods. Coal is imported for the ships calling at Funchal, which is the headquarters of Madeiran commerce and industry. Spirits, beer, olive oil, soap, butter, linen and woollen goods, straw hats and leather, are manufactured for home consumption, and there are important fisheries.
Chief Towns and Communications.—Funchal (pop. 20,850) is described in a separate article. The other chief towns are Camara de Lobos (7150), Machico (6128), Santa Cruz (5876), Ponta do Sol (5665), São Vicente (4896), Calheta (3475), Sant’ Anna (3011) and Porto Santo (2311). Each of these is the capital of a commune (concelho), to which it gives its name. Madeira is connected by regular lines of steamships with Great Britain, Germany, Portugal, Cape Colony, Brazil and the United States. There is no railway in the archipelago, and partly owing to the irregularities of the surface of the roads, of which there are some 580 m., are bad, except in the neighbourhood of Funchal. Wheel carriages are rare, and all heavy goods are transported either on the backs of mules or upon rude wooden sledges drawn by bullocks. When horses are not employed, locomotion is effected either by means of hammocks or by bullock cars. The hammock (rêde) is a piece of stout canvas gathered up and secured at each end to a long pole carried by a couple of bearers. In place of cabs, curtained cars on sledges, made to hold four persons, and drawn by a pair of bullocks, are employed. They are convenient, but the rate of progress is very slow.
Administration.—The archipelago is officially styled the district of Funchal; it returns members to the Portuguese Cortes, and is regarded as an integral part of the kingdom. The district is subdivided into the eight communes already enumerated, and is administered in accordance with the same laws that regulate local government on the mainland (seePortugal). Funchal is a Roman Catholic bishopric in the archiepiscopal province of Lisbon. Education is compulsory in name only, for less than 2% of the population could read when the census of 1900 was taken. An infantry regiment and a battery of garrison artillery are permanently stationed in Madeira.
History.—It has been conjectured, but on insufficient evidence, that the Phoenicians discovered Madeira at a very early period. Pliny mentions certain Purple or Mauretanian Islands, the position of which with reference to the Fortunate Islands or Canaries might seem to indicate the Madeiras. There is a romantic story, to the effect that two lovers, Robert Machim, à Machin, or Macham, and Anna d’Arfet, fleeing from England to France (c.1370) were driven out of their course by a violent storm and cast on the coast of Madeira at the place subsequently named Machico, in memory of one of them. Both perished here, but some of their crew escaped to the Barbary coast, and were made slaves. Among them was the pilot Pedro Morales of Seville, who is said to have been ransomed and to have communicated his knowledge of Madeira to João Gonçalvez Zarco (or Zargo). How far this story is true cannot now be ascertained. It is, however, certain that Zarco first sighted Porto Santo in 1418, having been driven thither by a storm while he was exploring the coast of West Africa. Madeira itself was discovered in 1420. It is probable that the whole archipelago had been explored at an earlier date by Genoese adventurers, and had been forgotten; for an Italian map dated 1351 (the Laurentian portolano) shows the Madeiras quite clearly, and there is some reason to believe that they were known to the Genoese before 1339. When Zarco visited Madeira in 1420 the islands were uninhabited, but Prince Henry the Navigator at once began their colonization, aided by the knights of the Order of Christ. Sanctioned by the pope and by two charters which the king of Portugal granted in 1430 and 1433, the work proceeded apace; much land was deforested and brought into cultivation, and the Madeiran sugar trade soon became important. For the sixty years 1580-1640 Madeira, with Portugal itself, was united with Spain. Slavery was abolished in Madeira in 1775, by order of Pombal. In 1801 British troops, commanded by General Beresford, occupied the island for a few months, and it was again under the British flag from 1807 to 1814. It shared in the civil disturbances brought about by the accession of Dom Miguel (seePortugal:History), but after 1833 its history is a record of peaceful commercial development.
See A. S. Brown,Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Azores(1903), a comprehensive study of the three archipelagoes.The Land of the Wine, by A. J. D. Biddle (Philadelphia, 1901) is generally valuable, but its history cannot be trusted. See also P. Langerhaus,Handbuch für Madeira(1884) and Vahl,Madeira’s Vegetation(Copenhagen, 1904).
See A. S. Brown,Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Azores(1903), a comprehensive study of the three archipelagoes.The Land of the Wine, by A. J. D. Biddle (Philadelphia, 1901) is generally valuable, but its history cannot be trusted. See also P. Langerhaus,Handbuch für Madeira(1884) and Vahl,Madeira’s Vegetation(Copenhagen, 1904).
MADELENIAN,a term derived from La Madeleine, a cave in the Vézère, about midway between Moustier and Les Eyzies, France, and given by the French anthropologist Gabriel de Mortillet to the third stage of his system of cave-chronology, synchronous with the fourth or most recent division of the Quaternary Age. The Madelenian epoch was a long one, represented by numerous stations, whose contents show progress in the arts and general culture. It was characterized by a cold and dry climate, the existence of man in association with the reindeer, and the extinction of the mammoth. The use of bone and ivory for various implements, already begun in the preceding Solutrian epoch, was much increased, and the period is essentially a Bone age. The bone instruments are very varied: spear-points, harpoon-heads, borers, hooks and needles. Most remarkable is the evidence La Madeleine affords of prehistoric art. Numbers of bones, reindeer antlers and animals’ teeth were found, with rude pictures, carved or etched on them, of seals, fishes, reindeer, mammoths and other creatures. The best of these are a mammoth engraved on a fragment of its own ivory; a dagger of reindeer antler, with handle in form of a reindeer; a cave-bear cut on a flat piece of schist; a seal on a bear’s tooth; a fish well drawn on a reindeer antler; and a complete picture, also on reindeer antler, showing horses, an aurochs, trees, and a snake biting a man’s leg. The man is naked, and this and the snake suggest a warmclimate, in spite of the presence of the reindeer. The fauna of the Madelenian epoch seems, indeed, to have included tigers and other tropical species side by side with reindeer, blue foxes, Arctic hares and other polar creatures. Madelenian man appears to have been of low stature, dolichocephalic, with low retreating forehead and prominent brow ridges. Besides La Madeleine the chief stations of the epoch are Les Eyzies, Laugerie Basse, and Gorge d’Enfer in Dordogne; Grotte du Placard in Charente and others in south-west France.
See G. de Mortillet,Le Préhistorique(1900); Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy,Reliquiae Aquitanicae(1865-1875); Edouard Dupont,Le Temps préhistorique en Belgique(1872); Lord Avebury,Prehistoric Times(1900).
See G. de Mortillet,Le Préhistorique(1900); Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy,Reliquiae Aquitanicae(1865-1875); Edouard Dupont,Le Temps préhistorique en Belgique(1872); Lord Avebury,Prehistoric Times(1900).
MADELEY,a market town in the municipal borough of Wenlock, and the Wellington (Mid) parliamentary division of Shropshire, England, 159 m. N.W. from London, with stations on the London & North Western (Madeley Market) and Great Western railways (Madeley Court). Pop. of civil parish (1901), 8442. There are large ironworks, ironstone and coal are mined, and potter’s clay is raised. The church of St Michael (1796) replaced a Norman building. The living was held from 1760 to 1783 by John William Fletcher or de la Flechêre, a close friend of the Wesleys. The parish includes a portion of Coalbrookdale (q.v.), and the towns of Ironbridge and Coalport.Ironbridge, a town picturesquely situated on the steep left bank of the Severn, adjoins Madeley on the south-west. It takes its name from the iron bridge of one span crossing the river, erected in 1779. This bridge is a remarkable work considering its date; it was probably the first erected, at any rate on so large a scale, and attracted great attention. It is the work of Abraham Darby, the third of the name, one of the famous family of iron-workers in Coalbrookdale. Here are brick and tile works and lime-kilns. There is a station (Ironbridge and Broseley) on the Great Western railway, across the river.Coalportlies also on the Severn, S. of Madeley and 2 m. S.E. of Ironbridge, with a station on the Great Western railway. It has large china works, founded at the close of the 18th century, which subsequently incorporated those of Caughley, across the Severn, and of Nantgarw in Glamorganshire.
MĀDHAVA ĀCHĀRYA(fl.c.1380), Hindu statesman and philosopher, lived at the court of Vijayanagar (the modern Humpi in the district of Bellary), the vigorous Southern Hindu kingdom that so long withstood Mahommedan influence and aggression. His younger brother Sāyaṇa (d. 1387) was associated with him in the administration and was a famous commentator on theRigveda. Sāyaṇa’s commentaries were influenced by and dedicated to Mādhava, who is best known as the author of theSarvadarsana Samgraha(Compendium of Speculations). With remarkable mental detachment he places himself in the position of an adherent of sixteen distinct systems. Mādhava also wrote a commentary on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras. He died as abbot of the monastery of Sringeri.
MADI(A-Madi), a negro race of the Nile valley, occupying both banks of the Bahr-el-Jebel immediately north of Albert Nyanza. Tradition makes them immigrants from the north-west. They are remarkable for the consideration shown to their women, who choose their own husbands, are never ill-treated or hard-worked, and take part in tribal deliberations. The Madi build sepulchral monuments of an elaborate type, two huge narrow stones sloping towards each other with two smaller slabs covering the opening between them. They have been much harried by the Azandeh and Abarambo. They were visited by W. Junker in 1882-1883, and described by him inPetermann’s Mittheilungenfor May 1883.
MADISON, JAMES(1751-1836), fourth president of the United States, was born at Port Conway, in King George county, Virginia, on the 16th of March 1751. His first ancestor in America may possibly have been Captain Isaac Maddyson, a colonist of 1623 mentioned by John Smith as an excellent Indian fighter. His father, also named James Madison, was the owner of large estates in Orange county, Virginia. In 1769 the son entered the college of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where, in the same year, he founded the well-known literary club, “The American Whig Society.” He graduated in 1771, but remained for another year at Princeton studying, apparently for the ministry, under the direction of John Witherspoon (1722-1794). In 1772 he returned to Virginia, where he pursued his reading and studies, especially theology and Hebrew, and acted as a tutor to the younger children of the family. In 1775 he became chairman of the committee of public safety for Orange county, and wrote its response to Patrick Henry’s call for the arming of a colonial militia, and in the spring of 1776 he was chosen a delegate to the new Virginia convention, where he was on the committee which drafted the constitution for the state, and proposed an amendment (not adopted) which declared that “all men are equally entitled to the full and free exercise” of religion, and was more radical than the similar one offered by George Mason. In 1777, largely, it seems, because he refused to treat the electors with rum and punch, after the custom of the time, he was not re-elected, but in November of the same year he was chosen a member of the privy council or council of state, in which he acted as interpreter for a few months, as secretary prepared papers for the governor, and in general took a prominent part from the 14th of January 1778 until the end of 1779, when he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress.
He was in Congress during the final stages of the War of Independence, and in 1780 drafted instructions to Jay, then representing the United States at Madrid, that in negotiations with Spain he should insist upon the free navigation of the Mississippi and upon the principle that the United States succeeded to British rights affirmed by the treaty of Paris of 1763. When the confederation was almost in a state of collapse because of the failure of the states to respond to requisitions of Congress for supplies for the federal treasury, Madison was among the first to advocate the granting of additional powers to Congress, and urged that congress should forbid the states to issue more paper money. In 1781 he favoured an amendment of the Articles of Confederation giving Congress power to enforce its requisitions, and in 1783, in spite of the open opposition of the Virginia legislature, which considered the Virginian delegates wholly subject to its instructions, he advocated that the states should grant to Congress for twenty-five years authority to levy an import duty, and suggested a scheme to provide for the interest on the debt not raised by the import duty—apportioning it among the states on the basis of population, counting three-fifths of the slaves, a ratio suggested by Madison himself. Accompanying this plan was an address to the states drawn up by Madison, and one of the ablest of his state papers. In the same year, with Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts. Gunning Bedford of Delaware, and John Rutledge of South Carolina, he was a member of the committee which reported on the Virginia proposal as to the terms of cession to the Confederation of the “back lands,” or unoccupied Western territory, held by several of the states; the report was a skilful compromise made by Madison, which secured the approval of the rather exigent Virginia legislature.
In November 1783 Madison’s term in Congress expired, and he returned to Virginia and took up the study of the law. In the following year he was elected to the House of Delegates. As a member of its committee on religion, he opposed the giving of special privileges to the Episcopal (or any other) church, and contended against a general assessment for the support of the churches of the state. His petition of remonstrance against the proposed assessment, drawn up at the suggestion of George Nicholas (c.1755-1799), was widely circulated and procured its defeat. On the 26th of December 1785 Jefferson’s Bill for establishing religious freedom in Virginia, which had been introduced by Madison, was passed. In theVirginiaHouse of Delegates, as in the Continental Congress, he opposed the further issue of paper money; and he tried to induce the legislature to repeal the law confiscating British debts, but he did not lose sight of the interests of the Confederacy. The boundary between Virginia and Maryland, according to the Baltimore grant, was the south shore of the Potomac, a line to which Virginia had agreed on condition of freenavigation of the river and the Chesapeake Bay. Virginia now feared that too much had been given up, and desired joint regulation of the navigation and commerce of the river by Maryland and Virginia. On Madison’s proposal commissioners from the two states met at Alexandria (q.v.) and at Mount Vernon in March 1785. The Maryland legislature approved the Mount Vernon agreement and proposed to invite Pennsylvania and Delaware to join in the arrangement. Madison, seeing an opportunity for more general concert in regard to commerce and trade (and possibly for the increase of the power of Congress), proposed that all the states should be invited to send commissioners to consider commercial questions, and a resolution to that effect was adopted (on Jan. 21, 1786) by the Virginia legislature. This led to the Annapolis convention of 1786, and that in turn led to the Philadelphia convention of 1787. In April 1787 Madison had written a paper,The Vices of the Political System of the United States, and from his study of confederacies, ancient and modern, later summed up in numbers 17, 18, and 19 ofThe Federalist, he had concluded that no confederacy could long endure if it acted upon states only and not directly upon individuals. As the time for the convention of 1787 approached he drew up an outline of a new system of government, the basis of the “Virginia plan” presented in the convention by Edmund Jennings Randolph. Madison’s scheme, as expressed in a letter to Washington dated the 16th of April 1787, was that individual sovereignty of states was irreconcilable with aggregate sovereignty, but that the “consolidation of the whole into one simple republic would be as inexpedient as it is unattainable.” He considered as a practical middle ground changing the basis of representation in Congress from states to population; giving the national government “positive and complete authority in all cases which require uniformity”; giving it a negative on all state laws, a power which might best be vested in the Senate, a comparatively permanent body; electing the lower house, and the more numerous, for a short term; providing for a national executive, for extending the national supremacy over the judiciary and the militia, for a council to revise all laws, and for an express statement of the right of coercion; and finally, obtaining the ratification of a new constitutional instrument from the people, and not merely from the legislatures. The “Virginia plan” was the basis of the convention’s deliberations which resulted in the constitution favourably voted on by the convention on the 17th of September 1787. Among the features of the plan which were not embodied in the constitution were the following: proportionate representation in the Senate and the election of its members by the lower house “out of a proper number of persons nominated by the individual legislatures”; the vesting in the national Congress of power to negative state acts; and the establishment of a council of revision (the executive and a convenient number of national judges) with veto power over all laws passed by the national Congress. Madison, always an opponent of slavery, disapproved of the compromise (in Art. I. § 9 and Art. V.) postponing to 1808 (or later) the prohibition of the importation of slaves. He took a leading part in the debates of the convention, of which he kept full and careful notes, afterwards published by order of Congress (3 vols., Washington, 1843). Many minute and wise provisions are due to him, and he spoke before the convention more frequently than any delegate except James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris. In spite of the opposition to the constitution of the Virginia leaders George Mason and E. J. Randolph, Madison induced the state’s delegation to stand by the constitution in the convention. His influence largely shaped the form of the final draft of the constitution, but the labour was not finished with this draft; that the constitution was accepted by the people was due in an eminent degree to the efforts of Madison, who, to place the new constitution before the public in its true light, and to meet the objections brought against it, joined Alexander Hamilton (q.v.) and John Jay in writingThe Federalist, a series of eighty-five papers, out of which twenty certainly, and nine others probably, were written by him. In the Virginia convention for ratifying the constitution (June 1788), when eight states had ratified and it seemed that Virginia’s vote would be needed to make the necessary nine (New Hampshire’s favourable vote was cast only shortly before that of Virginia), and it appeared that New York would vote against the constitution if Virginia did not ratify it, Madison was called upon to defend that instrument again, and he appeared at his best against its opponents, Patrick Henry, George Mason, James Monroe, Benjamin Harrison, William Grayson and John Tyler. He answered their objections in detail, calmly and with an intellectual power and earnestness that carried the convention. The result was a victory against an originally adverse public opinion and against the eloquence of the opponents of the constitution, for Madison and for his lieutenants, Edmund Pendleton, John Marshall, George Nicholas, Harry Innes and Henry Lee. At the same time Madison’s labours in behalf of the constitution alienated from him valuable political support in Virginia. He was defeated by Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson in his candidacy for the United States Senate, but in his own district he was chosen a representative to Congress, defeating James Monroe, who seems to have had the powerful support of Patrick Henry.
Madison took his seat in the House of Representatives in April 1789, and assumed a leading part in the legislation necessary to the organization of the new government. He drafted a Tariff Bill giving certain notable advantages to nations with which the United States had commercial treaties, hoping to force Great Britain into a similar treaty; but his policy of discrimination against England was rejected by Congress. It was his belief that such a system of retaliation would remove the possibility of war arising from commercial quarrels. He introduced resolutions calling for the establishment of three executive departments, foreign affairs, treasury and war, the head of each removable by the president. Most important of all, he proposed nine amendments to the constitution, embodying suggestions made by a number of the ratifying states, especially those made by Virginia at the instance of George Mason; and the essential principles of Madison’s proposed amendments were included in a Bill of Rights, adopted by the states in the form of ten amendments. The absence of a Bill of Rights from the constitution as first adopted had been the point on which the opposition had made common cause, and the adoption of this now greatly weakened the same opposition. Although a staunch friend of the constitution, Madison believed, however, that the instrument should be interpreted conservatively and not be made the means of introducing radical innovations. The tide of strict construction was setting in strongly in his state, and he was borne along with the flood. It is very probable that Jefferson’s influence over Madison, which was greater than Hamilton’s, contributed to this result. Madison now opposed Hamilton’s measures for the funding of the debt, the assumption of state debts, and the establishment of a National Bank, and on other questions he sided more and more with the opposition, gradually assuming its leadership in the House of Representatives and labouring to confine the powers of the national government within the narrowest possible limits; his most important argument against Hamilton’s Bank was that the constitution did not provide for it explicitly, and could not properly be construed into permitting its creation. Madison, Jefferson and Randolph were consulted by Washington, and they advised him not to sign the bill providing for the Bank, but Hamilton’s counter-argument was successful. On the same constitutional grounds Madison objected to the carrying out of the recommendations in Hamilton’s famous report on manufactures (Dec. 5, 1791), which favoured a protective tariff. In the presidential campaign of 1792 Madison seems to have lent his influence to the determined efforts of the Jeffersonians to defeat John Adams by electing George Clinton vice-president. In 1793-1796 he strongly criticized the administration for maintaining a neutral position between Great Britain and France, writing for the public press five papers (signed “Helvidius”), attacking the “monarchical prerogative of the executive” as exercised in the proclamation of neutrality in 1793 and denying the president’s right to recognize foreign states. He found in Washington’s attitude—as in Hamilton’s failure to pay an instalment of the moneysdue France—an “Anglified complexion,” in direct opposition to the popular sympathy with France and French Republicanism. In 1794 he tried again his commercial weapons, introducing in the House of Representatives resolutions based on Jefferson’s report on commerce, advising retaliation against Great Britain and discrimination in commercial and navigation laws in favour of France; and he declared that the friends of Jay’s treaty were “a British party systematically aiming at an exclusive connexion with the British government,” and in 1796 strenuously but unsuccessfully opposed the appropriation of money to carry this treaty into effect. Still thinking that foreign nations could be coerced through their commercial interests, he scouted as visionary the idea that Great Britain would go to war on a refusal to carry Jay’s treaty into effect, thinking it inconceivable that Great Britain “would wantonly make war” upon a country which was the best market she had in the world for her manufactures, and one with which her export trade was so much larger than her import.
In 1797 Madison retired from Congress, but not to a life of inactivity. In 1798 he joined Jefferson in opposing the Alien and Sedition Laws, and Madison himself wrote the resolutions of the Virginia legislature declaring that it viewed “the powers of the Federal government as resulting from the compact to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact; as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are parties thereto, have the right and are in duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.” The Virginia resolutions and the Kentucky resolutions (the latter having been drafted by Jefferson) were met by dissenting resolutions from the New England states, from New York, and from Delaware. In answer to these, Madison, who had become a member of the Virginia legislature in the autumn of 1799, wrote for the committee to which they were referred a report elaborating and sustaining in every point the phraseology of the Virginia resolutions.1
Upon the accession of the Republican party to power in 1801, Madison became secretary of state in Jefferson’s cabinet, a position for which he was well fitted both because he possessed to a remarkable degree the gifts of careful thinking and discreet and able speaking, and of large constructive ability; and because he was well versed in constitutional and international law and practised a fairness in discussion essential to a diplomat. During the eight years that he held the portfolio of state, he had continually to defend the neutral rights of the United States against the encroachments of European belligerents; in 1806 he publishedAn Examination of the British Doctrine which subjects to Capture a Neutral Trade not open in Time of Peace, a careful argument—with a minute examination of authorities on international law—against the rule of war of 1756 extended by Great Britain in 1793 and 1803.
During Jefferson’s presidency and whilst Madison was secretary of state, by the purchase of Louisiana, Madison’s campaign begun in 1780 for the free navigation of the Mississippi was brought to a successful close. The candidate in 1808 of the Republican party, although bitterly opposed in the party by John Randolph and George Clinton, Madison was elected president, defeating C. C. Pinckney, the Federalist candidate, by 122 votes to 47. Madison had no false hopes of placating the Federalist opposition, but as the preceding administration was one with which he was in harmony, his position was different from that of Jefferson in 1801, and he had less occasion for removing Federalists from office. Jefferson’s peace policy—or, more correctly, Madison’s peace policy—of commercial restrictions to coerce Great Britain and France he continued to follow until 1812, when he was forced to change these futile commercial weapons for a policy of war, which was very popular with the extreme French wing of his party. There is a charge, which has never been proved or disproved, that Madison’s real desire was for peace, but that in order to secure the renomination he yielded to that wing of his party which was resolved on war with Great Britain. The only certain fact is that Madison, whatever were his personal feelings in this matter, acted according to the wishes of a majority of the Republicans; but whether in doing so he was influenced by the desire of another nomination is largely a matter of conjecture. Madison was renominated on the 18th of May 1812, issued his war message on the 1st of June, and in the November elections he was re-elected, defeating De Witt Clinton by 128 votes to 89. His administration during the war was pitiably weak. His cabinet in great part had been dictated to him in 1809 by a senatorial clique, and it was hopelessly discordant; for two years he was to all intents and purposes his own secretary of state, Robert Smith being a mere figure-head of whom he gladly got rid in 1811, giving Monroe the vacant place. Madison himself had attempted alternately to prevent war by his “commercial weapons” and to prepare the country for war, but he had met with no success, because of the tricky diplomacy of Great Britain and of France, and because of the general distrust of him coupled with the particular opposition to the war of the prosperous New England Federalists, who suggested with the utmost seriousness that his resignation should be demanded. In brief, Madison was too much the mere scholar to prove a strong leader in such a crisis. The supreme disgrace of the administration was the capture and partial destruction in August 1814 of the city of Washington—this was due, however, to incompetence of the military and not to any lack of prudence on the cabinet’s part. In general, Congress was more blamable than either the president or his official family, or the army officers. With the declaration of peace the president again gained a momentary popularity much like that he had won in 1809 by his apparent willingness at that time to fight France.
Retiring from the presidency in 1817, Madison returned to his home, Montpelier (in Orange county, Virginia), which he left in no official capacity save in 1829, when he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention and served on several of its committees. Montpelier, like Jefferson’s Monticello and Monroe’s Oak-Hill, was an expensive bit of “gentleman farming,” which with his generous Virginia hospitality nearly ruined its owner financially. Madison’s home was peculiarly a centre for literary travellers in his last years; when he was eighty-three he was visited by Harriet Martineau, who reported her conversations with him in herRetrospect of Western Travel(1838). He took a great interest in education—his library was left to the university of Virginia, where it was burned in 1895—in emancipation, and in agricultural questions, to the very last. He died at Montpelier on the 28th of June 1836. Madison married, in 1794, Dorothy Payne Todd (1772-1849), widow of John Todd, a Philadelphia lawyer. She had great social charm, and upon Madison’s entering Jefferson’s cabinet became “first lady” in Washington society. Her plump beauty was often remarked—notably by Washington Irving—in contrast to her husband’s delicate and feeble figure and wizened face—for even in his prime Madison was, as Henry Adams says, “a small man, quiet, somewhat precise in manner, pleasant, fond of conversation, with a certainmixture of ease and dignity in his address.” Her son, spoiled by his mother and his step-father, became a wild young fellow, and added his debts to the heavy burden of Montpelier upon Madison.