1799
1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800
Neapolitans proclaim a Parthenopean Republic January 23 with support from the French occupation force and from Admiral Francesco Caracciolo, 47, duca di Brienza, who accepts command of the new republic's navy (see 1798). Ferdinand IV recaptures Naples in June, the republic is overthrown, its supporters are massacred in violation of a peace treaty, and Ferdinand is restored to his throne along with his consort, Maria Carolina; Caracciolo is tried for treason on orders from Horatio Nelson, found guilty, and hanged aboard his flagship Minerva June 28.
General Bonaparte invades Syria from Egypt in February with 13,000 men following a declaration of war by Constantinople (see 1798). The Syrian leader Djessar, pasha of Damascus, has raised a 35,000-man army to invade Egypt and drive out the infidel; General Jean Baptiste Kléber, 45, launches an assault April 16 with only 1,500 men at what will be remembered as the Battle of Mt. Tabor south of Acre, and the Turks threaten to overwhelm his two small squares. Kléber's men fight off the enemy for 8 hours, and they are about to exhaust their ammunition when Bonaparte arrives with another 2,500 men and two cannon, attacking quickly and routing the Turks. The French have lost only two dead and 60 wounded They storm Jaffa, massacre its inhabitants, and take 3,000 Ottoman prisoners. Unable to feed them or to spare enough men to march them to Cairo, Bonaparte has them killed, bayonetting them on the beach to save ammunition. The Turks at Acre are too well fortified for Bonaparte to take the place, so he simply sends word to Cairo that Acre has fallen. Plague breaks out among the French, and the army retreats to Egypt, but although he has left half his army in Palestine, Bonaparte reenters Cairo as a hero. The Battle of Abukir July 25 ends in triumph for Bonaparte and his cavalry commander Joachim Murat, 32, over a Turkish force landed at Abukir from Rhodes with British naval support. Former first lord of the Admiralty Lord Richard Howe dies August 5 at age 73. Bonaparte storms the Turkish entrenchments with a 6,000-man army and routs a force of 18,000; some 12,000 Turks are killed, wounded, or driven into the sea to drown, and another 6,000 are taken prisoner. The French lose only 900 killed and wounded, but General Barthélemy Catherine Joubert is defeated and killed August 15 at the Battle of Novi.
Bonaparte embarks in secret for France August 22 with a small company to stiffen the sagging French armies in Europe; he abandons his dispirited army, leaving General Kléber to command at Cairo (see 1800). Bonaparte has been living at Cairo with the 20-year-old wife of a minor officer, and now he returns home in October to find that his wife, Josephine, has been spending his money wildly, purchasing the beautiful but rundown château Malmaison outside town in April, furnishing it extravagantly, and creating a scandal by letting herself be seen about town in the company of young wastrels. Bonaparte has a violent argument with Josephine but pays off the 300,000 francs still owed for the château and hires two fashionable architects to redecorate it. The general has medals struck depicting him as the conqueror of Egypt, although his expedition there has actually been disastrous.
Russian forces defeat a French army under General Masséna June 4 to 7 at Zürich, General Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov, 69, inflicts major losses on the Polish legion of General Dabrowski at the Trebbia from June 17 to 19 and routs a French army under the command of General Jacques (-Etienne-Joseph)-Alexandre Macdonald, 33, as he marches north to relieve General Moreau at Genoa. But Masséna drives the Russians out of Zürich September 26 and blocks another Russian army from advancing into Italy, thus saving France from any immediate threat of invasion. The Russians have been reduced in number by starvation, and Moscow withdraws from the coalition October 22, complaining that Austria and the other allies have given her no support.
Russian and Ottoman forces drive French occupation troops out of the Ionian Islands and organize them into the Septinsular Republic.
General Bonaparte becomes first consul of France November 9 (18 Brumaire) in a coup d'état engineered by revolutionists who include the abbé Sieyes (Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes), 51, and Pierre Roger Ducos, 52. General Augereau and others have opposed the coup, and Augereau will be given unimportant commands until 1805. Lazare Carnot and others return from exile, the Constitution of the Year VIII receives overwhelming support from the public in a vote held December 24, the Directory that has ruled since 1795 is ended, and Bonaparte is established as dictator of France.
Chinese courtier Heshen (Ho-shen) is forced to commit suicide at Beijing (Peking) February 22 at age 48 (see 1798). The White Lotus Rebellion continues.
British forces in southwestern India drive the pro-French ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sahib, into his Seringapatam fortress and lay siege to the place April 6 in an effort to break Tippoo Sahib's power in the Fourth Mysore War. General George Harris, 52, commands 6,000 British and Indian troops, and after weeks of artillery bombardment he finally storms the fortress May 3, killing and wounding 8,500 of Tipu Sahib's estimated 30,000 men while suffering 1,464 killed and wounded himself. Tipu Sahib is killed in combat and his sons are imprisoned at Vellore (see mutiny, 1806).
Patrick Henry dies at his Virginia estate in Charlotte County June 6 at age 63; former president George Washington at Mount Vernon December 14 at age 67 after repeated bloodletting (at Washington's insistence) by physician Benjamin Rush. Washington's body is found to measure six feet three and a half inches. When news of his death reaches Philadelphia 4 days later, his wartime cavalry general Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee is chosen to deliver the funeral oration: "First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life."
Federal authorities in Rhode Island seize the schooner Lucy at Bristol and the brig Eliza at Warren on charges of their having broken the 1794 U.S. law prohibiting traffic in slaves (see 1797). Merchant John Brown has recently been acquitted of trafficking in slaves, his onetime captain James De Wolf and De Wolf's brother Charles own the Lucy, and their ship is sold at auction July 25 along with the Eliza.
George Washington's will provides for the emancipation of the 125 slaves he has owned in his own right, but only upon the death of his widow, Martha. He has changed his will to that effect this year, having been persuaded a decade ago by the idea that slavery is an evil and economically unsound, but he has made no public statement to that effect. Martha Washington owns 193 slaves herself; fearing for her life, she will go to court and have her late husband's slaves freed, but her own slaves (who include her half sister, Ann Dandridge), will not go free until her death in 1802.
Travels in the Interior of Africa by Mungo Park is published at London (see 1796). Park has returned from 19 months of travels that followed his escape from 4 months' imprisonment after being captured by an Arab chief. He will make a second expedition to the Niger in 1805 and will reach Bamako before perishing in the rapids during an attack by the natives in 1806.
The world's first general income tax bill passes Parliament January 9 and produces revenue of £6 million for the year. Introduced by Britain's prime minister William Pitt as a war measure, the law exempts incomes below £60 but levies a standard rate of 10 percent (2s per pound sterling) on incomes over £200, taxes incomes of £60 to £199 at reduced rates, allows deductions for children, life insurance premiums, repairs to property, and tithes, and will raise £175 million before it is allowed to lapse in 1815 (see 1802).
Parliament passes the Combination Act, making trade unionism illegal in Britain; it will pass a second such act next year, and the laws will not be repealed until 1824. Together with the various amendments that will be added, they will make any workingman who collaborates with another to gain a wage rise or a decrease in working hours, or who solicits anyone else to quit work, or who objects to working with any other workingman subject to a 3-year jail sentence or to 2 months' hard labor. Defendants may be forced to testify against each other, appeal is extremely difficult, and anyone who contributes to the expenses of a workingman convicted under the new laws makes himself subject to a fine.
Welsh industrialist Robert Owen, 28, marries the daughter of Scottish industrialist David Dale, 60, and becomes manager and co-owner of Dale's cotton mill in England's Lancashire. He determines "to make arrangements to supersede the evil conditions [of the millhands] . . . by good conditions" (see 1806).
The Dutch East India Company dissolves as its charter expires after 198 years in which stockholders have received annual dividends averaging 18 percent. Mincing Lane, London, becomes the spice-trading center of the world.
Frankfurt-born London bill broker Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 21, establishes a firm that will survive into the 21st century as N. M. Rothschild & Sons. He settled last year at Manchester as a textile merchant, will gain a position in society by marrying a daughter of Levi Barent Cohen in 1806, and although brusque and off-handed in manner will come to dominate the London exchanges (see 1812).
The first British savings bank opens at Wendover, Buckinghamshire, where clergyman Joseph Smith has acted on the suggestion of Jeremy Bentham (see 1765; first American savings bank, 1816).
Pennsylvania rebel John Fries, 48, leads an armed force of more than 120 German-born landowners against tax assessors to protest the federal property tax levied last year in connection with the undeclared war with France. Failure to pay the tax may result in forfeiture of property, which may be sold, and a Philadelphia judge has issued warrants for the arrest of some landowners who have defied the laws. Fries has raised men in two counties north of Philadelphia to protest. They force a federal marshal to release prisoners held at Bethlehem, no shots are fired, and the mob is dispersed without incident, but President Adams orders federal troops into the area, they arrest Fries, and he is convicted of treason after a trial at Philadelphia in which Supreme Court Justice William Paterson and a Judge Peters preside. Treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution. Absent a state of war, the Constitution says, "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them" (Article III, Section 3), and Fries's lawyers have argued that his armed rebellion was aimed only at one law, not at the United States; they appeal Fries's conviction (see 1800).
The Manhattan Company is chartered in March following passage of a "water bill" in the New York State assembly near the end of its session (see environment, 1798). Aaron Burr has introduced the measure, but the chief justice warns Governor Jay before he signs it that there is more than "pure and wholesome water" in the bill's final paragraph. The words in question state, "That it shall and may be lawful for the said company to employ all such surplus capital as may belong or accrue to the said company in the purchase of public or other stock or any other monied transactions not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of this state or of the United States, for the sole benefit of said Company." The Bank of New York founded in 1784 and a branch of the Bank of the United States have been the only two banks in town, the Federalists have blocked creation of any rivals, the Gazette and General Advertiser charges Burr and his friends with "scandalous duplicity," and Burr is defeated along with the entire Republican slate by 900 votes in the April Assembly elections that come 4 weeks after the charter has been granted. Burr is accused of chicanery by Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists, especially after the Bank of the Manhattan Company opens its doors September 1 on a site that will later be 40 Wall Street (see Chase Manhattan, 1955).
Former postmaster general Timothy Pickering writes a letter November 29 describing Lynn, Massachusetts-born Salem merchant William Gray, 49, as "a man of unspoted character and for mercantile talents and extent of business, the first merchant in the United States." Gray will soon be employing 300 seamen per year; by the times he moves to Boston 10 years hence he will own 15 ships, seven barks, 13 brigs, and a schooner, and by 1815 he will own at least 113 vessels (see 1807).
French economist Pierre S. (Samuel) du Pont de Nemours, 60, emigrates late in the year to the United States, having been imprisoned for a time as a collaborator of the late A. R. Jacques Turgot (see 1774; 1776). Du Pont is a disciple of the late Physiocrat François Quesnay (see E. I. Du Pont de Nemours, 1802).
Chinese authorities issue an edict against importation of opium, which has been coming into the country from British India (see 1729). Many men have become addicted, using money for the drug that should be used to feed their families, but the edict does little to discourage the opium trade (see 1816).
Gas lighting is pioneered by French chemist and civil engineer Philippe Lebon, 30, who develops methods for producing inflammable gas from wood. Lebon will make important contributions to the theory of gas lighting and will foresee most 19th-century uses of illuminating gas (see 1801).
Scottish steam engineer William Murdock, 45, develops methods for purifying and storing gas. He has worked in Cornwall for Boulton and Watt since 1779 and carried out experiments in the distillation of coal, peat, and wood.
Balloonist Jacques Etienne Montgolfier dies at Serrières August 2 at age 54.
Engineer Marc Isambard Brunel sails to England from New York and lays before the Admiralty a method he has perfected for making ships' blocks (pulleys) by mechanical means rather than by hand (see 1793). Now 30, Brunel is given responsibility for overseeing the installation of his machines at the Portsmouth dockyard, where 10 men operating 43 machines will soon be producing more blocks, and better-made ones, than 100 men could make by hand.
Engineer William Smith dictates a table of strata in the vicinity to an amateur geologist at Bath (see 1793). The table will become widely known among geologists, as will Smith's revolutionary discoveries (see Brongniart, 1811).
A letter announcing "the discovery at Rosetta of some inscriptions that may offer much interest" arrives at the Institute of Egypt, founded by General Bonaparte at Paris to gather knowledge about the country he is conquering and colonizing. An Army Corps of Engineers captain named Boucard has found a large block of basalt whose polished surface has been chiseled with Greek characters, with hieroglyphs, and with characters that will later be called demotic (see decree of Ptolemy V Epiphanes, 196 B.C.). Boucard suspects that all three inscriptions may say the same thing and that this Rosetta stone may be the key to an understanding of the Egyptian language of antiquity and its hieroglyphic writings (see Champollion, 1821).
Baron Cuvier in France introduces the term phylum to denote a category more general than classes (see 1798; Linnaeus, 1737); he takes the word from the Greek for "tribe."
Prussian naturalist Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, 30, sails from Coruma, Spain, for Spanish America aboard the Pizarro. Accompanying him is French botanist Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland (originally Goujuad), 26, who will travel with von Humboldt in Cuba, Mexico, and the Andes, will be a professor of natural sciences at Buenos Aires from 1818 to 1821, and will be imprisoned by the dictator of Paraguay from 1821 to 1830 (see Humboldt, 1800).
Mathematician Maria Agnesi dies at Milan January 4 at age 81. She turned her home into a hospital and has spent the last 15 years of her life administering the Po Alberto Trivulzio Public Institution for Care of the Elderly and Homeless; physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani dies at Pavia February 11 at age 70; physician-plant physiologist Jan Ingenhousz near Bowood Park outside Calne, Wiltshire, September 7 at age 68; chemist Joseph Black at Edinburgh December 6 at age 71.
France's National Convention fixes values of meters and kilograms in the law of the 10th of December, making use of the metric system compulsory (see 1791). Most of the world will follow the French example, but Britain and the United States will cling to inches, feet, miles, and pounds, resisting metrics for more than 2 centuries (see 1851).
Digitalis is perceived to be related to heart disease for the first time by physician John Ferriar, who notes the effect of dried foxglove leaves on heart action and relegates to secondary importance the use of foxglove as a diuretic (see Withering, 1785).
An Inquiry Into the Symptoms and Causes of the Syncope Anginosa Commonly Called Angina Pectoris, illustrated by Dissections by Gloucestershire-born Bath physician and physiologist Caleb (Hillier) Parry, 44, pioneers understanding of the chest pains experienced in heart disease (see Heberdeen, 1768). Parry has conducted a series of experiments on sheep to study the effects of impairing vascular supply (see nitroglycerin, 1879).
English chemist Humphry Davy, 21, produces nitrous oxide ("laughing gas"), inhales 16 quarts of it, and finds that it makes him "absolutely intoxicated" and immune to pain. He suggests that the gas may have use as an anesthetic in minor surgery (see 1800; Wells, 1844).
Harvard Medical School professor Benjamin Waterhouse, now 35, administers the first U.S. vaccination against smallpox (see 1800; Jenner, 1798).
A Philadelphia jury finds journalist Thomas Cobbett guilty of libel against physician Benjamin Rush December 14 and orders him to pay Rush $5,000 (see 1793). Cobbett writes, "On the same day, and in the very same hour, that a ruinous fine was imposed on me for endeavoring to put a stop to the practice of Dr. Rush, General Washington was expiring under the operation of that very practice."
French forces take Pope Pius VI to France in March (see politics, 1798); a seizure deprives the pontiff of the use of his legs, he reaches Valence in southeastern France July 14, and he dies there August 29 at age 81 after a 24-year reign that has seen the decline of the ancien régime in France, a French invasion of Italy, and the rise of incredulity in Europe's Enlightenment (see 1800). The French sack the Benedictine abbey and monastery of Monte Cassino outside Naples, but it will be rebuilt as it has been many times before.
Roman Catholic missionary Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine dies at Qi Nhon, central Vietnam, October 9 at age 57 and is buried with full military honors at Saigon, having befriended the imperial heir Nguyen Phuc Anh but failed to convert him.
The Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, is founded at Camberley, England, to train officers.
Fiction: Ormond, or The Secret Witness by Charles Brockden Brown; Hyperion by German poet-novelist (Johann Christian) Friedrich Hölderlin, 29, who has been helped by Frankfurt banker's wife Susette Gontard (he tutored her children and she fell in love with him). The first volume appeared 2 years ago.
Poetry: "The Pleasures of Hope" by Scottish poet Thomas Campbell, 21: "Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,/ And robes the mountain in its azure hue."
Painting: Queen Maria Luisa, on Horseback and La Tirana by Francisco de Goya; Return of Marcus Sextus by Paris-born French painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, 25; Young Woman Reading by Pauline Auzou.
Theater: The Piccolominos (Die Piccolomini) by Friedrich von Schiller 1/10 at Weimar's Hoftheater; The Death of Wallenstein (Wallenstein's Tod) by Schiller 4/20 at Weimar's Hoftheater (the plays complete the trilogy begun last year).
A new Comédie-Française theater is created at Paris through a merger of the troupe of the old Comédie-Francaise with that of François-Joseph Talma, now 36, who has developed a new level of realism in staging at his Théatre de la République (see 1789).
Playwright Pierre A. C. de Beaumarchais dies at Paris May 18 at age 67.
First performances: The Creation (Die Schoepfung) by Joseph Haydn 3/19 at Vienna under the direction of the composer; Sonate Pathétique by Ludwig van Beethoven.
The Times of London says December 26, "The present century will not terminate till January 1, 1801 . . . We shall not pursue this question further . . . It is a silly, childish discussion, and only exposes the want of brains of those who maintain a contrary opinion to what we have stated." But those holding the contrary opinion include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller.
Cultivation of beets as a root vegetable gains importance in parts of Europe, but most farmers continue to cultivate the plant only for its greens.
Prussia's Friedrich Wilhelm III receives a loaf of beet sugar from Berlin chemist Franz Karl Achard and is persuaded to give Achard some land at Cunern in Silesia and finance his work with sugar beets (see 1793; 1801).
1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800
