A Hundred was a former division of an English, and later Irish, shire or county having its own court. It was so called, according to some writers, because each hundred found 100 sureties of the king's peace, or 100 able-bodied men of war. Others think it to have been so called because originally composed of 100 families. Hundreds are said to have been first introduced into England by Alfred. formerly if a crime was committed, such as robbery, arson, killing or maiming cattle, destroying turnpikes or works on navigable rivers, the hundred had to make it good.
In America, during the 18th century, the Hundred was a territorial and political division of a county, borrowed from England, and instituted in some of the colonies, notably in Maryland and Virginia. It was also to be found in Maine and Delaware, and was based upon the old Hundred system of the English counties. In Virginia the Hundred was in some instances synonymous with the parish or the plantation, and again it was subdivided into parishes. The chief officer of the Hundred was usually the constable.
Patrol was a military system adopted by the parishes of most of the Southern colonies of America, notably South Carolina. The patrol was a sort of police for the parish, and was designed especially to prevent and subdue insurrections among the slaves. In South Carolina the patrol was established by law in 1704. The patrollers furnished their own pistols and horses. They rode from plantation to plantation and arrested all slaves who- could not show passes from their owners. This system soon became general through the South, and continued under various forms for many years.
George Mourt was an English sailor. He was born in 1585 and died about 1628. He took emigrants and supplies from England to the Pilgrims in 1623. He edited in England in 1622 'Mourt's Relation of the Beginning and Proceeding of the English Plantation at Plymouth', an important original source. Research George Mourt
John Sterling was a Scottish author. He was born in 1806 at Kames Castle and died in 1844. The son of Captain Edward Sterling, he was educated ay Glasgow University and Trinity College, Cambridge before in 1828 becoming a part proprietor of The Athenaeum. Health problems with his lungs led to him going to St Vincent as a manager of a sugar plantation, but fifteen months later he returned to Britain, took orders, and for a short time was a curate. Research John Sterling
Joseph Hunter was an English civil servant. He was born in 1783 and died in 1861. He was assistant keeper of the public records in London from 1833 until his death. He made valuable researches and discoveries in relation to the early settlements in New England. He secured for the Massachusetts Historical Society a transcript of the 'History of the PlymouthPlantation' by Governor Bradford, from the original in the Fulham Library. Research Joseph Hunter
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1759 at Alloway and died in 1796. His father was a poor gardener and Robert Burns and his brothers had to work non-stop around the house and the market garden his father kept. He was instructed in the ordinary branches of an English education by a teacher engaged by his father and a few neighbours; to these he afterwards added French and a little mathematics. But most of his education was got from the general reading of books, to which he gave himself with passion. In this manner he learned what the best English poets might teach him, and cultivated the instincts for poetry which had been implanted in his nature. At an early age he had to assist in the labours of the farm, and when only fifteen years old he had almost to do the work of a man.
In 1781 he went to learn the business of flax-dresser at Irvine. but the premises were destroyed by fire, and he was thus led to give up the scheme. His father dying in 1784, he took a small farm (Mossgiel) in conjunction with his younger brother Gilbert. He now began to produce poetical pieces which attracted the notice of his neighbours and gained him considerable reputation. His first lines had been written sometime previously, having been inspired by love, a passion to which he was peculiarly susceptible. While at Mossgiel he formed a connection with Jean Armour, a Mauchline girl, which resulted in her becoming pregnant. Robert Burns was willing to marry her, but her father, a respectable master mason, would not permit it, deeming Robert Burns, on account of his poor circumstances, and perhaps for other reasons, no suitable match. This affair rendered the poet's position so uncomfortable, and so wounded his pride, that he determined to emigrate to Jamaica, and engaged himself as assistant over-Beer on a plantation there.
To obtain the funds necessary for the voyage he was induced to publish, by subscription, a volume of his poetical effusions. It was printed at Kilmarnock in 1786, and Robert Burns, having thus obtained the assistance he expected, was about to set sail from his native land, when he was drawn to Edinburgh by a letter from Dr. Blacklock to an Ayrshire friend of his and the poet, recommending that he should take advantage of the general admiration his poems had excited, and publish a new edition of them.
This advice was eagerly adopted, and the result exceeded his most sanguine expectations. After remaining more than a year in the Scottish metropolis, admired, flattered, and caressed by persons of eminence for their rank, fortune, or talents, he retired to the country with the sum of some 500 pounds, which he had realized by the second publication of his poems. A part of this sum he advanced to his brother, and with the remainder took a considerable farm (Ellisland) near Dumfries, to which he subsequently added the office of exciseman.
He now married, his lover Jean Armour. But the farming at Ellisland was not a success, and in about three years Robert Burns removed to Dumfries and relied on his employment as an exciseman alone. He continued to exercise his pen, particularly in the composition of a number of beautiful songs adapted to old Scottish tunes. But his residence in Dumfries, and the society of the idle and the dissipated who gathered round him there, attracted by the brilliant wit that gave its charm to their convivialities, had an evil effect on Robert Burns, whom disappointment and misfortunes were now making somewhat reckless.
In the winter of 1795 his constitution, broken by cares, irregularities, and passions, fell into premature decline; and in July, 1796, a rheumatic fever terminated his life and sufferings at the early age of thirty-seven. He left a wife and four children, for whose support his friends and admirers raised a subscription, and with the same object an edition of his works, in four volumes was published in 1800 by Dr. Currie of Liverpool. His character, though marred by imprudence, was never contaminated by duplicity or meanness. He was an honest, proud, warm-hearted man, combining sound understanding with high passions and a vigorous and excursive imagination. He was alive to every species of emotion; and he is one of the few poets who have at once excelled in humour, in tenderness, and in sublimity. Research Robert Burns
Scotch-Irish was a name used in America to designate immigrants from the north of Ireland, mostly Presbyterians of Scotch descent. Scots had been settled in the north of Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster in the reign of James I. Thence some went to America early. But the large emigrations were just after the famous siege of Londonderry in 1689, and again in 1718 and the years immediately succeeding. The largest settlements of them were made in the hilly parts of Pennsylvania, in the valley of the Shenandoah, and in the Carolinas. In all these, they occupied the highland regions, back from the coast, and formed a sturdy, independent, Presbyterian population. Jackson, John Calhoun, and many other eminent men were of this stock. In New England their chief settlements were at Londonderry, Antrim, etc., in New Hampshire, founded about 1719. Research Scotch-Irish
Toussaint L'Ouverture (real name Francois Dominique Tousaint) was a Haitian Negro leader. He was born in 1746 a slave on a plantation in Haiti and died in 1803. In 1791 having aided his master and his family to escape, he took part in the Negro insurrection, and in 1794 joined the French republicans. Appointed commander-in-chief of the island by the French Convention in 1797, he drove out the French royalists, the British and the Spaniards, and brought the island of Haiti to a state of peace and prosperity. About 1800 he began to work for Haitian independence, and opposed Napoleon when he tried to re-establish slavery. He was captured by the French in 1802 and sent to France, where he was imprisoned at the Fort of Joux where he died. Research Toussaint L'Ouverture
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Hacienda
