1795
1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800
French forces under the command of General Pichegru enter Amsterdam January 19; the French cavalry charges across the ice January 23 and captures the Dutch fleet lying frozen in the Texel; the stadholder Willem V takes refuge in England; a British army completes its retreat from the Lowlands with Scottish-born brigade leader Ralph Abercromby, 60, commanding the rear column (he is made a knight of the Bath upon his return and given command of British forces in the West Indies); and a treaty imposed by the French at The Hague May 16 recognizes a Batavian republic, which will continue until 1806.
France signs a treaty with the grand duchy of Tuscany February 9 guaranteeing Tuscan neutrality.
The Treaty of Basel March 5 removes Prussia from the war against France. Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse-Cassel soon follow suit.
Royalists (Chouans) and republicans in Brittany agree to a cease-fire January 3, and the royalists agree April 20 to recognize the republic and cease their efforts to restore the monarchy.
Thermidoreans at Paris bring the Reign of Terror's chief prosecutor Antoine-Quentin Fouquier-Tinville to trial; he claims he was only obeying orders from the Revolutionary Tribunal when he prosecuted Girondists, Hébertists, and so many other "counterrevolutionaries," sending them to the guillotine. But his defense fails and he goes to the guillotine at Paris May 7 at age 48.
Orders go out for the arrest and deportation of revolutionist Bertrand Barère, but he escapes to Bordeaux. Royalists in southern France kill 700 unarmed "terrorists" in the Marseilles prison fortress of Saint Jean June 5.
The duchy of Luxembourg surrenders to the French June 7 after 82 years of Austrian rule.
Louis XVII dies of scrofula (tuberculosis of the lymph glands) in the Temple prison at Paris June 8 at age 10, his body encrusted with scabies sores. Since Louis XVII has been deprived of fresh air and exercise, kept in the dark for long periods of time, and barely fed, his health has deteriorated, and his body is dumped in a mass grave, but rumors abound that another boy has died and that the young king has somehow been spirited to safety. More than 100 men will claim in years to come that they are the surviving Louis XVII, and it will be 205 years before modern technology proves that the mummified heart of the uncrowned king, stolen by a royalist physician who conceals it in a handkerchief, was really his; the boy's uncle and regent Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, comte de Provence, proclaims himself Louis XVIII, but he remains abroad and will not assume the throne until 1814.
Rich Parisians try to take over the Convention by force of arms October 15, but the Convention calls upon the dissolute rake Paul François Jean Nicolas, 40, comte de Barras, to defend it. Barras met the Corsican artillery officer Napoleon Bonaparte during the siege of Toulon in 1793, has installed his Martinique-born Creole mistress Marie Rose Tascher de la Pagerie in Bonaparte's bed (he dislikes the name Rose and will change it to Josephine), and gives Bonaparte and other Jacobin officers command of forces defending the Convention. Bonaparte drives the mob from the streets with a "whiff of grapeshot," killing about 200 on "The Day of the Sections" October 5 (13 Vendemaire). The Convention promptly names Bonaparte commander of the Armée d'Interieur for having saved the Tuileries Palace with his artillery cannonade from the Church of St. Rochelle. The Convention dissolves October 26 after voting that relatives of émigrés may not hold office. The five-man Executive Directory that will govern France until 1799 takes power, and its most powerful member is the comte de Barras.
London sends a new lord lieutenant (viceroy) to Ireland in March: former lord of the Admiralty and then of the treasury, John Jeffreys Pratt, 36, 2nd earl of Camden, arrives at Dublin, exhibits open hostility to the idea of Catholic emancipation (representation of Roman Catholics in the Irish Parliament) and imposes repressive measures that will soon antagonize also the Society of United Irishmen, whose Ulster Presbyterians will look for French support of their efforts to obtain independence from Britain (see 1796).
Britain's George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, now 32, is formally married at London April 8 to Princess Caroline (Amelia Elisabeth) of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, 26, although he still considers himself married to Mrs. Fitzherbert (see 1785; 1794). The prince surrounds himself with dissipated rakes, scoundrels, gamblers, racing jockeys, actresses, men of fashion, and beautiful women from various walks of life; there are rumors that the match is bigamous, but they do not reach Parliament or the king (see 1811).
The second Treaty of Basel gives Santo Domingo (Saint Domingue) to France; negotiated by Manuel de Godoy (who is granted the title "Prince of the Peace") and signed June 22, it returns territory in Catalonia and Guipuizcoa to Spain.
Explorer Alejandro Malaspina tries in September to influence Spanish politics with proposals and memoranda that reflect poorly on Prime Minister Godoy (see exploration, 1794). Malaspina has earlier concluded that instead of plundering her American and Asian colonies economically, Spain should develop a trading bloc based at Acapulco to carry on international trade, but Godoy persuades the Council of State headed by Carlos IV to arrest Malaspina on charges of plotting against the state and authorities seize him November 23 (see 1796).
Russia, Prussia, and Austria partition Poland for a third time October 24 (see 1794; second partition, 1793). Russia takes the remainder of Lithuania and the Ukraine, Prussia takes Mazovia and its city of Warsaw, Austria obtains the remainder of the Krakców region north of the Vistula and east to the Bug. Stanislaw II Augustus abdicates November 25 at age 63 after a 31-year reign in which his country has lapsed into anarchy. The Czartoryski palace at Pulawy is destroyed and the family estates confiscated; Prince Adam Czartoryski goes to St. Petersburg, joins the Russian government service in an effort to recover his property, and becomes friendly with the grand duke Alexander, to whom he will become a close adviser (see 1814).
Persian invaders led by Agha Mohammad Khan sack the Georgian capital Tiflis (Tblisi) and burn it to the ground (it has been destroyed several times in its 1,337-year history). Georgia's king Aragvi is rescued in battle by 300 warriors who sacrifice their lives to save him, but Agha Mohammad is crowned shahanshah (king of kings) and reincorporates Georgia into the Persian Empire.
Warren Hastings wins acquittal April 23 on charges of "high crimes and misdemeanours" while governor general of Bengal from 1773 to 1784 (see 1788). His trial has lasted 7 years, during which time he has been made the scapegoat for offenses committed by the East India Company; half the royal family and the entire House of Lords has witnessed the longest and most expensive legal proceeding in British history, and the judgment is unanimous on all 21 counts that concern his personal honor, but the £80,000 with which Hastings returned from India has vanished, most of his large salary having gone to help friends and relatives, repurchase his lost family estates, and pay staggeringly high legal expenses.
The British send a representative to the Burmese capital of Amarapura to negotiate with the king Bodawpaya, who has created tensions by campaigning in Assam (see 1794; Anglo-Burmese War, 1824).
The Chinese emperor Qianlong (Ch'ien-lung), now 85, announces October 15 that he has designated his fifth son, Yu Yan, as his successor (see 1796).
The British begin seizing Dutch colonies September 16, beginning with the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon at the invitation of the deposed stadholder Willem V, who is tried for high treason September 29. A British force of 15,000 sails for the Caribbean in November under the command of General Ralph Abercromby with orders to seize the rich French sugar islands (see 1796).
The Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified February 7 declares that federal courts may not try any case brought against a state by a citizen of another state or foreign government.
Congress amplifies its 1792 Insurrection Act February 28 in response to last year's Whiskey Rebellion. It authorizes the president to call in the militia of other states when a state legislature asks for outside help to suppress an uprising (or when a legislature cannot be convened and a governor makes the request) (see 1807).
Robert Rogers of Rogers' Rangers fame dies in poverty at London May 18 at age 63.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay returns from London to his native New York May 28, learns that he has been nominated as candidate for the state's governorship, wins election June 5, resigns his office as chief justice June 29, and is sworn in July 1 (see 1794). The text of Jay's Treaty is published July 2, and political opponents denounce the governor, but the "Camillus Papers" written by Alexander Hamilton and Rufus King with help from Jay defend the treaty. South Carolina-born John Rutledge, 55, has served as associate justice and is nominated to succeed Jay as chief justice. He presides over the August term, but he is so bitter in his denunciation of Federalists after publication of the terms of Jay's Treaty that the Senate refuses to confirm him in December (see Ellsworth, 1796).
The Treaty of San Lorenzo (Pinckney's treaty) signed October 27 permits U.S. ships to store cargo at New Orleans. U.S. Minister to Britain Thomas Pinckney, 45, has negotiated the treaty with Spain, which grants free navigation of the Mississippi.
Former postmaster general Timothy Pickering, who has served as secretary of war since early in the year, is appointed acting secretary of state August 20, and is commissioned to that office December 10. Now 50, he will serve until his dismissal in May 1800 (see XYZ Affair, 1798).
The Treaty of Greenville settles disputes on the American frontier between U.S. settlers and tribesmen (see 1794). The Shawnee chief Tecumseh tells other chiefs that the treaty has been negotiated with all the tribes in the Ohio Valley and assures them that unceded lands will remain theirs (see Treaty of Fort Wayne, 1809).
The Yazoo land fraud stirs political passions in Georgia when it comes to light that the state's legislators have accepted $500,000 in bribes to allow four land companies to acquire most of the lands that will later constitute the state of Mississippi (the Yazoo River runs through the region). Much of the legislature will be defeated in next year's election, the new lawmakers will rescind the act that permitted the sale and offer to return the money, but third parties will have acquired a good deal of the land and will refuse the money, maintaining their claims to the property which they have purchased quite legally (see 1802).
Continental Army general (and three-term New Hampshire governor) John Sullivan dies at Durham, New Hampshire, January 23 at age 54; Revolutionary War soldier Francis Marion at his Berkeley County, South Carolina, plantation February 27 at age 62; former Continental Army colonel William Prescott at his Pepperell, Massachusetts, farm October 13 at age 69; former British general Sir Henry Clinton at Gibraltar December 11 at age 57. He distinguished himself in the American Revolution and last year was appointed governor of Gibraltar.
The White Terror sweeps across France in May, with "reactionaries" threatening the life of anyone suspected of being a "terrorist" or a political militant. Thousands of rioters enter the jails at Lyons May 8 and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners; sans-culottes riot at Paris beginning May 20, smash the gates of the Assembly shouting, "Bread or death," kill a deputy, brandish his severed head on a pike in front of the Convention's president, and hold out until May 23, when artillery is mounted against the mob's barricades in the Saint Antoine district.
Thomas Paine speaks out in support of universal suffrage at the Convention July 7, but a new French constitution sharply restricts suffrage; ratified September 23 after overwhelming approval in a public referendum (although only one eighth of the population votes), it provides that only male taxpayers and French-born veterans 21 years old or older (about 5 million men) may vote in elections for members of local assemblies in the various departements, and the 30,000 citizens in these assemblies must be at least 25 years old and have substantial incomes.
A mass meeting of working men at Lambeth, south of London, June 29, demands manhood suffrage, annual parliaments, and an end to the "cruel and unnecessary" war against France. At least 10,000 people are in the crowd (its organizers claim 500,000), the government deploys a large force of cavalry and guards to discourage violence, but the people disperse peacefully after endorsing a loyal address to George III.
English magistrates meeting at the Pelican Inn at Speenhamland, Berkshire, order a Poor Law providing bread to England's poor on a sliding scale based on the price of bread and the number of children in the family (see Malthus, 1798). A poor English harvest has driven up the price of bread, which now consists of 95 percent of wheat flour.
The Female Society of Philadelphia for the Relief and Employment of the Poor is founded by local Quaker spinster Ann Parrish.
Milwaukee has its beginnings in a trading post established by the North West Company on Lake Michigan (see Juneau, 1818).
Edmonton, Alberta, has its beginnings in a Hudson's Bay Company fur-trading post established on the North Saskatchewan River and named by some accounts for a borough of London. It is across the river from the North West Company trading post of Fort Augustus. Both posts will be abandoned in 1810 and five other forts will subsequently be built along the river (see transportation, 1891).
The Paris Bourse reopens March 3, but the city has bread riots April 1 (12 Germinal) as stockpiles reach an all-time low and food prices soar; grenadiers with bayonetted rifles round up the rioters and martial law is declared; reactionary sentiment sweeps the peasantry, which has grown rich supplying the black market and wants to maintain its position. The Convention adopts harsh measures against the rioters April 10, arrests "Thermidoreans" suspected of wanting to revive the policies of the late Robespierre, annuls a decree that forbade trading in gold and silver April 26 as the value of paper money collapses, and creates a new monetary unit, the franc, August 15 (see 1792; inflation, 1796).
Britain has widespread economic troubles as exports collapse; at Norwich, 25,000 are on poor relief (the total population is only 40,000).
U.S. merchant-land speculator Nathaniel Gorham dies at Charlestown, Massachusetts, June 11 at age 58 (see 1788). He and his partner Oliver Phelps have not been able to sell enough of the land that they bought to settlers, and they have therefore been unable to meet the payments required by the state.
A patent for a steam engine issued March 25 to Hebron, Connecticut-born Orford, New Hampshire, inventor Samuel Morey, 32, will lead to improved paddle-wheel steamboats, with power applied by a crank motion. Morey will build a steamboat in 1797 with a paddle-wheel on each side, he will obtain additional patents in March 1799 and November 1800, but he will not patent the paddle-wheel arrangement (see Fulton, 1807; internal combustion engine, 1826).
Theory of the Earth by Scottish geologist James Hutton, 69, appears 1 year after his Investigations of Principles of Knowledge and pioneers scientific geology (see Lehmann, 1756). Hutton will be credited with originating the modern theory of the formation of the Earth's crust and proposing the doctrine of "uniformitarianism"—that the forces now slowly changing the Earth's surface have always operated in the same way at the same rate (as opposed to the doctrine of "catastrophism") (see Smith, 1799; Brongniart, 1811; Lyell, 1833).
"A Treatise on the Epidemic of Puerperal Fever of Aberdeen" by Scottish surgeon Alexander Gordon suggests that the fever is contagious. It is not, he writes, "a miasma in the air" as is commonly believed because it is not indiscriminate but is suffered only by a woman visited by a practitioner who has previously attended a woman with the fever. "By observation, I plainly perceived the channel by which it was propagated, and I arrived at that certainty in the matter, that I could venture to foretell what women would be affected with the disease upon hearing by what midwife they were to be delivered, or by what nurse they were to be attended, during their lying in; and almost in every instance, my prediction was verified" (see White, 1773). Gordon recommends fumigation of hospital wards, clothing, and bedding (see Holmes, 1842).
French physician Philippe Pinel assumes responsbility for the mental patients at l'Hopital de la Salpêtrière where he continues the humane treatment that he began 2 years ago at l'Hospice de Bicêtre. Many patients who would otherwise have been doomed will recover with compassionate treatment by Pinel's trained staff, and he will introduce the practice of keeping case histories.
The London Missionary Society is founded to proclaim "the glorious gospel of the blessed God." Supported mainly by Congregationalists, the Evangelical Revival society will be incorporated in years to come into the Council for World Mission of the United Reformed Church.
The Institut National is founded at Paris to replace the academies closed in 1791.
Union University has its beginnings at Schenectady, New York.
Yale president Ezra Stiles dies at New Haven May 12 at age 67 after 17 years in office.
An improved lead pencil patented January 3 by French inventor Jacques Conté, employs a mixture of ground graphite, clay, and water, poured into wooden molds that are then fired in a kiln and covered over with matching molds (see 1565). Britain has a monopoly on graphite, French supplies are limited, and Conté's invention stretches those supplies; it also creates the prototype of the modern pencil. Rubber from the West Indies is used separately as an eraser (see Osgood, 1814).
Nonfiction: Prolegomena ad Homerum by German classical scholar and philologist Friedrich August Wolf, 36, at the University of Halle convinces many scholars that Homer was not alone in writing the Iliad and Odyssey of antiquity. Others have since ancient times questioned the authorship of the great works, and Wolf theorizes that more than one person composed them orally and that an artistic unity was subsequently imposed upon them; Tableau historique des progrés de l'esprit humain gives a classic exposition of the idea of human progress and suggests the ultimate perfectability of mankind. Author Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, was arrested with other Girondists in the Reign of Terror. he was found dead in his prison cell March 28 of last year at age 50, and his work is published posthumously; Réflexions sur la paix intérieure by Mme. de Staël, who has returned to Paris to start a salon but is advised to go back to Coppet; English Grammar by Pennsylvania-born grammarian Lindley Murray, 50, who prospered as a lawyer and merchant in New York before the Revolution and moved to England in 1784. He maintains that "correct" English must, like Latin, be based on universally valid standards of logic, which determine usage; his book will go through more than 130 editions and, despite numerous errors, have sales of more than 2 million copies.
Biographer-diarist James Boswell dies at London May 19 at age 54; Encylopaedia Britannica compiler William Smellie at his native Edinburgh June 24 at age 54.
Fiction: Wilhelm Maisters Lehrjahre by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Hesperus of Forty-Five Days from the Post to the Dog by German novelist Jean-Paul (Johann Paul Friedrich) Richter, 32; Aline et Valcour by the marquis de Sade.
Archaeologist-novelist Jean-Jacques Barthélemy dies at Terror-ridden Paris April 30 at age 79.
Painting: Isabey and His Daughter by French painter François Pascal Simon Gerard, 25, who has studied with Jacques Louis David; Madame Seriziat and Her Daughter by J. L. David; Daphne and Phyllis by French painter Pauline Auzou (née Desmarquets), 20; The Alchemist in Search of the Philosopher's Stone Discovers Phosphorous by Joseph Wright.
First performances: Symphony No. 102 in B flat major by Joseph Haydn 2/2 at London; Concerto No. 2 in B flat major for Pianoforte and Orchestra by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, 24, 3/29 at Vienna's Burgtheater, in Beethoven's debut as composer and virtuoso (he has studied piano and violin under Haydn and, briefly, with the late W. A. Mozart); Symphony No. 103 in E major (Drumroll) and Symphony No. 104 in D major (London) by Haydn 5/12 at London.
The Paris Conservatoire de Musique is founded.
Composer-chess master François-André Philidor (né Danican) dies at London August 24 at age 68, having written several successful operas before devoting himself to chess competition 50 years ago.
Charlatan-magician-adventurer Alessandro, conte di Cagliostro, dies in prison at San Leo in the Appenine Mountains of the Papal States August 26 at age 42.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives moves into a new state house; the "Sacred Cod" is moved to hang in the House chamber opposite the speaker's desk (see 1784). Bostonians at their tables prefer young cod, known as "scrod."
The average weight of cattle sold at London's Smithfield market is twice what it was in 1710 (see 1732; Bakewell, 1769; Coke, 1772).
Britain and France have poor crops, pushing up the price of grain and bread in both countries and creating political unrest.
Emigré U.S. physician Benjamin Thompson, 42, invents a stove that economizes on fuel. Having abandoned his wife and daughter at Concord, Massachusetts, after the outbreak of the American Revolution and now known as Count Rumford (the elector of Bavaria gave him the Holy Roman Empire title in 1791), he shows that 1,200 of the poor of Munich can be fed on barley soup thickened with potatoes and bread and seasoned with vinegar at a cost of $3.44 per day, but the poor resist the idea of eating potatoes. Count Rumford will be the first to apply the term "science of nutrition" to the study of human food and the first to apply science to the preparation of food.
The Royal Navy orders lime juice rations aboard all naval vessels after the fifth or sixth week at sea following confirmation last year of James Lind's theory that citrus juice is an antiscorbutic (see 1794). The juice (actually lemon juice as a rule) is usually combined with the rum ration (see 1740; 1805). Some seamen will trade their rum rations for tobacco, however, and come down with scurvy as a result (see 1884).
Paris brewer-pickler-confectioner-chef Nicolas (François) Appert, 45, begins work on a method for preserving food in response to last year's offer by General Bonaparte of a reward for an effective process. Appert will move in the next year from Lombard Street to Ivry-sur-Seine to devote all his efforts to the project (see 1804).
Porcelain maker Josiah Wedgwood dies at Etruria near Stoke-on-Trent January 3 at age 64, having built the world's largest pottery business. His tombstone says that he "converted a rude and inconsiderable Manufactory into an elegant Art and an important part of National Commerce." The factory will remain in family hands into the 21st century.
José Cuervo tequila has its beginnings in New Spain, where distiller José Maria Guadalupe Cuervo receives the first license from Spain's Carlos IV to produce the liquor from cactus. His father, José Antonio de Cuervo, acquired a land grant from the late Ferdinand VI in 1758, and his tequila will become world famous.
James B. Beam Distilling Company has its beginnings in a distillery started on Hardin's Creek by Kentucky farmer Jacob Beam. His son David, grandson David M., great-grandson Jim, and other descendants will carry on the operation at Clermont, using iron-free limestone water to make the bourbon whiskey that will be sold as Jim Beam.
The cocktail gets its name by some accounts from the coquetier, or egg cup, used by New Orleans apothecary Antoine Amadé Peychaud to make the first mixed drinks to be so called (but see 1776; see also1806).
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