A blockade is the rendering of intercourse with the seaports of an enemy unlawful on the part of neutrals, and it consists essentially in the presence of a sufficient naval force to make such intercourse difficult. It must be declared or made public, so that neutrals may have notice of it. If a blockade is instituted by a sufficient authority, and maintained by a sufficient force, a neutral is so far affected by it that an attempt to trade with the place invested subjects vessel and cargo to confiscation by the blockading power. The term is also used to describe the state of matters when hostile forces sit down around a place and keep possession of all the means of access to it, so as to entirely cut off its communication with the outside world, and so compel surrender from want of supplies. Research Blockade
Catholic Emancipation was the abolition of those civil and ecclesiastical restraints to which the Roman Catholics of Great Britain, and particularly of Ireland, were once subjected. By the statutes of William III. Roman Catholics were forbidden to hold property in land, and their spiritual instructors were open to the penalties of felony; and although latterly these restrictions had not been enforced, they remained unrepealed in England until 1778. The proposal to repeal similar enactments on the Scotch statute-books was delayed by the strenuous opposition of the Protestant associations, in connection with which the Lord Gordon riots occurred. In 1791, however, a bill was passed allowing Roman Catholics who took the oath of allegiance to hold landed property, enter the legal profession, and enjoy freedom of education.
In Ireland the Roman Catholics had been even more unjustly treated. Their public worship was proscribed, all offices and the learned professions were closed against them, they were deprived of the guardianship of their children, and if they had landed estates they were forbidden to marry Protestants. Burke and a strong body of followers took up their cause, and in 1792 and 1793 the worst of the disabilities were removed by the Irish parliament. Restraints on worship, education, and disposition of property were removed; they were admitted to the franchise, and to some of the higher civil and military offices, and to the honours and endowments of the Dublin University. They continued to be excluded, however, from thirty public offices, and from parliament = an arrangement which could not be changed without a repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. It was part of Pitt's scheme when the union with Ireland was formulated in 1799 to admit Irish Roman Catholics to the parliament of the United Kingdom and to offices of state.
To this proposal, however, George III. was strongly hostile, and in 1801 Pitt was compelled to resign. Between that year and 1828 numerous attempts were made to abolish remaining disabilities, but without success, the Lords throwing out the bills passed latterly in the Commons, and George IV proving not less unyielding than his father. At length, on April the 10th 1829 an emancipation bill was carried through the Commons by Mr. Peel, and through the Lords by the Duke of Wellington. By this act Catholics became eligible to all offices of state, excepting the lord-chancellorships of England and Ireland, the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, the office of regent or guardian of the United Kingdom, and that of High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland. They were still excluded from the right of presentation to livings, and all places connected with the ecclesiastical courts and establishment. The church patronage attached to any office in the hands of a Catholic was vested in the Archbishop of Canterbury. Attached to the bill was a clause for the gradual suppression of the Jesuits and monastic orders (religious establishments of females excepted). During the 20th century full emancipation was realised. Research Catholic Emancipation
Jacobinism, as a belief in a nationally uniform and centralised government, hostile to the division of parcellization of sovereignty remains in current political usage, especially in France. Robespierre's Jacobins established a revolutionary dictatorship when France was at war with and encircled by the reactionary European powers. Their conduct of government, through the Committee of Public Safety, gave rise to a different meaning of Jacobinism in which the Reign of Terror from 1793 to 1794 was seen as the logical end- product. In this sense Jacobinism is understood as a form of elitist insurrectionary politics, in which an elite possessed of true social and political knowledge, believes itself entitled to seize and hold political power in the name of the people. Thus Jacobinism is used pejoratively to describe groups which advocate the overthrow of the state or regime without regard to the will of the people or the majority and in this sense,
Jacobinism is often seen as a forerunner of Bolshevism. Jacobinism is also sometimes used to describe the practice of those who engage in nation- building, forging national homogeneity out of diverse peoples, without much regard to their consent. Research Jacobinism
The Jacobins were a radical French political group. The Jacobins stood for the establishment of a single, uniform, rational and centralised nation- state, which would be a democratic republic, expressing the sovereignty of the people. Jacobins were entirely hostile to aristocratic privileges and to all feudal forms of government. They were originally called the Club Breton when they were formed in Versailles, but on moving to Paris in 1789 were renamed the Jacobins. After successive purges they became the instrument of the Reign of Terror under Robespierre's dictatorship. See Jacobinism Research Jacobins
Spirit-worship is the form of ritual homage offered to incorporeal beings or powers conceived as dwelling in visible objects or in the invisible world. In its stricter sense, spirit-worship denotes the veneration of, or appeal through offering or prayer to, friendly agencies below the rank of deities. Its common usage embraces also the proposition of evil agencies or hostile demons under the impulse of fear. Research Spirit-Worship
Terrorism is the systematic use of violence and intimidation to coerce a government or a community into adopting certain specific political ends, such as national independence for a region, or reunification or self-government, or even the adoption of a political system more sympathetic to another country's economic interests. The term terrorism was first coined in England referring to the French revolution, the agents of which were called 'terrorists' by the hostile English press, particularly the Daily Telegraph. Terrorism is so called because of the employment of 'terror' tactics, typically the bombing of property and the murder of civilians which leads to general unrest and pressure from the public onto a government or encourages the public to remove a leader. Within this definition, resistance fighters - civilians who take up arms against another country's uniformed soldiers occupying their country - are not terrorists, but a country which bullies another country with threats of war unless political changes occur within the country, perhaps the adoption of a government more sympathetic to the bullying country's economic interests, clearly is an example of terrorism. Recent examples of terrorism included the Republican terrorists of northern Ireland which sought reunification with the Republic of Ireland through making attacks on the British people in an attempt to coerce the British government into agreeing to their terms. The Islamic fundamentalist attack on the Twin Towers on September the 11th 2001 were not seeking a stated political end, and as such were not a terrorist attack, but were a criminal act of murder and destruction. America's threats to the country of Iraq unless they change their leader - President Saddam Hussein - could be construed as terrorism as the alternative for the Iraqi people is clearly all out war, in which many civilians would be killed and lose their property. A clear use of intimidation for political ends. Research Terrorism
Antonio Maria Sacchini was an Italian composer. He was born in 1734 at Pozzuoli and died in 1786. A pupil of Francesco Durante, he lived in Rome, then Venice, London and Paris. In London he met with a hostile reception. He principally wrote operas, including 'Il Gran Cid', 'Tamerlano', 'Lucio Vero' and ' Oedipe e Colone', the cold reception of the last in Paris indirectly causing his death. Research Antonio Sacchini
Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and naturalist. He was born in 384 BC at Stagira, in Macedonia, died in 322 BC.. He was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy, His father, Nicomachus, was physician to Amyntas II, king of Macedonia, and claimed to be descended from Aesculapius. Aristotle had lost his parents before he came, at about the age of seventeen, to Athens to study in the school of Plato. With that philosopher he remained for twenty years, became pre-eminent among his pupils, and was known as the Intellect of the School. Upon the death of Plato in 848 BC, he took up his residence at Atarneus, in Mysia, on the invitation of his former pupil Hermeias, the ruler of that city, on whose assassination by the Persians in 343 BC, he fled to Mitylene with his wife Pythia, the niece of Hermeias.
During his residence at Mitylene he received an invitation from Philip of Macedon to superintend the education of his son Alexander, then in his fourteenth year. This relationship between the great philosopher and the future conqueror continued for five or six years, during which the prince was instructed in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, logic, ethics, and politics, and in those branches of physics which had even then made some considerable progress. On Alexander succeeding to the throne Aristotle continued to live with him as his friend and councillor until he set out on his Asiatic campaign in 334 BC. He returned to Athens and established his school in the Lyceum, a gymnasium attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceius, which was assigned to him by the state. He delivered his lectures in the wooded walks of the Lyceum while walking up and down with his pupils. From the action itself, or more probably from the name of the walks (peripatoi), his school was called Peripatetic. Pupils gathered to him from all parts of Greece, and his school became by far the most popular in Athens. The statement that he had two circles of pupils, the exoteric and the esoteric has given rise to much controversy.
By some it has been held that Aristotle published during his lifetime popular discourses with a view to make way for his doctrines in Athenian society, then impregnated with Platonic theories, and that these are called exoteric in contradistinction to those in which are embodied his matured opinions. It was during the time of his teaching at Athens that Aristotle is believed to have composed the great bulk of his works. On the death of Alexander a revolution occurred in Athenshostile to the Macedonian interests with which Aristotle was identified. He therefore retired to Chalcis, where he soon after died.
According to Strabo he bequeathed all his works to Theophrastus, who, with other disciples of Aristotle, amended and continued them. They afterwards passed through various hands, until, about 50 BC, Andronicus of Rhodes put the various fragments together and classified them according to a systematic arrangement. Many of the books bearing his name are spurious, others are of doubtful genuineness. The whole are generally divided into logical, theoretical, and practical. The logical works are comprehended under the title Organon (instrument). The theoretical are divided into physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. The physical works (including those on natural history) are on the General Principles of Physical Science, The Heavens, Generation and Destruction, Meteorology, Natural History of Animals, On the Parts of Animals, On the Generation of Animals, On the Locomotion of Animals, On the Soul, On Memory, Sleep and Waking, Dreams, Divination. In mathematics there are two treatises, On Indivisible Lines and Mechanical Problems. The Metaphysics consist of fourteen books: the title (Tametata Physika, 'the things following the Physics') is the invention of an editor. The practical works embrace ethics, politics, economics, and treatises on art, and comprise the Nicomachaean Ethics (so called because dedicated to his son Nicomachus), the Politics, (Economics, Poetry, and Rhetoric). Among the lost works are the dialogues and others to which the term exoteric is applied, and which were published during Aristotle's lifetime. His style is devoid of grace and elegance. His works were first printed in a Latin translation, with the commentaries of Averroes, at Venice in 1489; the first Greek edition was that of Aldus Manutius (published in five volules between 1495 and 1498). Research Aristotle
King Canute was a Viking King who ruled England from 1016 to 1035. When Canute became the undisputed King of England his rivals (Ethelred's surviving sons and Edmund's son) fled abroad. In 1018, the last Danegeld of 82,500 pounds was paid to Canute. Ruthless but capable, Canute consolidated his position by marrying Ethelred's widow Emma (Canute's first English partner - the Church did not recognise her as his wife - was set aside, later appointed regent of Norway).
During his reign, Canute also became King of Denmark and Norway; his inheritance and formidable personality combined to make him overlord of a huge northern empire. During his inevitable absences in Scandinavia, Canute used powerful English and Danish earls to assist in England's government - English law and methods of government remained unchanged. A second-generation Christian for reasons of politics as well as faith, Canute went on pilgrimage to Rome in from 1027 to 1028. (It was allegedly Christian humility which made him reject his courtiers' flattery by demonstrating that even he could not stop the waves; later hostile chroniclers were to claim it showed madness). Canute was buried at Winchester. Research Canute
Charles Maurice De Talleyrand-Perigord was a French statesman. He was born in 1754 and died in 1838. A son of the Comte de Talleyrand-Perigord, and accident in childhood rendered him lame and precluded his entry into military service with the result that the family title passed to a younger brother and he joined the church. In 1789 he was made bishop of Autun. He sided with the Revolution and acquired a position of distinction in the National Assembly, and took a leading part in attacking the privileges of the church, relinquishing his orders in 1791. In 1792 he went to England on an unofficial political mission, the French monarchy not having as yet been formally ended. While there he was denounced by extremists in the Revolution, and he stayed in England until the fall of Robespierre. In 1797 he became foreign minister of the Directory, and barring a short retirement held the post until 1807 when he retired with the title of prince of Benevento.
He was minister of foreign affairs in France when Pinckney, Marshall and Gerry were sent from the United States on a special mission in 1797. He demanded (i) a disavowal of President Adams' hostile expressions toward France; (2) a loan, and (3) douceurs, which the American envoys refused to concede. The unofficial French negotiators, Hottinguer, Bellamy and Hauteval, were designated as X, Y and Z in the reports sent to the United States. These X, Y, Z papers aroused great indignation against France. Later, Charles Maurice De Talleyrand-Perigord made overtures for more favourable negotiations. He had visited the United States in 1794. He was still Minister at the time of the Louisiana cession of 1803.
Charles De Talleyrand-Perigord subsequently differed with Napoleon and took a lead in the faction which worked against the emperor and on his deposition in 1814 was rewarded with the post of foreign minister to Louis XVIII. He finally retired in 1834. Research Charles De Talleyrand-Perigord
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Abbreviations
Research Blockade
