State. Its physical features, the customs and occupations of the colonists and natives, the Creek Confederacy, and the missionary efforts of Wesley and the Moravians all receive due attention. manhood, of honor, of friendship, of generosity, of integrity, of courage, of fidelity, of love for his fellow-man, and of interest in whatever was elevating and of good report, which was quite remarkable in one of his advanced age, confirmed habits, station, and opportunities. We search in vain for a sin The style of the book is attractive and sometimes eloquent. The following passage describes a landscape of great beauty: "Fre-gle instance of duplicity, a doubtful word, a derica was chosen as the headquarters of the settlements. The colonists were delighted with the scene. The magnificent forests of cedar, bay, laurel and live-oak, the luxuriant vines drooping in graceful festoons even to the water's edge, the voices of song birds filling the soft air with sounds sweeter far than they had ever heard in Europe, the vernal atmosphere, redolent of jessamines, orange blossoms, and the thousand delightful flowers which lend their commingled fragrance and beauty to this charming spot, the presence of game and fish in great variety, and the generous appearance of the soil, all inspired the emigrants with a sense of satisfaction, happiness and hope." The details of the Mico's visit to England are replete with interest and anecdote. His views concerning religion are given with much force, and with a full appreciation of the difficulties that presented themselves in the evangelization of the native Indians. In his remarks to Mr. Wesley he says: "We would not be made Christians as the Spaniards make Christians. We would be taught, and then, when we understand all clearly, be baptized." At a later interview, when Mr. Wesley urged Tomo-chi-chi to hearken to the doctrines of Christianity and become a convert, the old man scornfully responded: "Why these are Christians at Savannah! Those are Christians at Frederica! Christians drunk ! Christians beat men! Christians tell lies! Me no Christian." breach of faith, a criminal indulgence, a manifestation of hypocrisy. His impulses were good, his influence on the side of truth and justice, and his sentiments at times not unworthy a disciple of Plato." An account of the funeral of the mico and a mournful allusion to the neglect of the Georgians to erect the monument to his memory ordered by Gen. Oglethorpe, concludes the sketch. The details of the mico's death are reprinted from Stephen's Journal and the Gentleman's Magazine, and are followed by a sentence, a page in length, detailing the ante-mortem sayings of many great men, having but little, if any connection with the subject under consideration. The volume is well printed; but the page is a little too long, and the colored ornamental (?) initial letter T, in the preface, is rather more suggestive of a young lady's story book than of the scholarly monograph which we cordially commend to all students of American history. The Merchants' and Bankers' Almanac for 1869. New York: Published at the office of the Bankers' Magazine and Statistical Register, No. 41 Pine street. This Almanac, edited by J. Smith Homans, Jr., contains, among other useful matter, the Daily Price of Gold from January 1864, to December, 1868, List of 1,650 National Banks, Lists of State and Private The author concludes a brilliant portrait of Banks, Members of the Sock Exchange, and his hero with a deserving panegyric. "In all the recorded acts and incidents,and they are but few,-which illustrate the life of Tomo-chi-hi, there runs a vein of a large amount of general information indispensable to Bankers, Brokers, and Insurance Officers. NOTES AND QUERIES. BUCCANEERS.-CHARLES II. There is a passage in Bryan Edward's History of the West Indies (vol. i., p. 164. 4to edit., 1793), in which he gives an opinion that the buccaneers of Jamaica were not the pirates and robbers that they have been commonly represented; and mentions, on the authority of a MS. journal of Sir William Beeston, that Charles II. had a pecuniary interest in the buccaneering, and continued to Jeceive a share of the booty after he had publicly ordered the suppression of buccaneering: and also, speaking of Sir Henry Morgan, and the honors he received from Charles II., gives an opinion that the stories told of Morgan's cruelty are untrue. Can any of your readers tell me who Sir William Beeston was, and what or where his journal is, or refer me to any accessible information about Charles II.'s connection with the buccaneers, or that may support Bryan Edward's favourable opinion of the Jamaica buccaneers and of Capt. Henry Morgan? PRINCE MADOC. I was much gratified on reading "T. T.'s" note, commenting on my observations respecting the Mandan language, as he proves the existence of Celtic words amongst the American Indians. Regarding "T. T.'s" doubts as to the Mandans being descended from the followers of Madoc, I confess that my opinions on the point do not differ very widely from his own. The circumstances attending Madoc's emigration, in the paucity of its numbers and the entire separation from the mother country, with the character of the Indians, would almost ensure the ultimate destruction of the settlement, or the ultimate absorption of its remains by those who might have had friendly relations with the Welsh. In this most favorable view, the evidences of the presence of the Welsh seven centuries since would be few indeed at the present day. The most striking circumstance of this nature that I met with in Mr. Catlin's work, is a description of what he calls a "bull-boat," from its being covered with a bull's hide, which, in construction and form, is perfectly identical with the Welsh "curygl. Yet, strong as this resemblance is, it will have but little weight if unsupported by other evidence. In conclusion, I would observe, that I never supposed Prince Madoc to be the discoverer of America, but that his voyage was induced by the knowledge that other lands existed in the great ocean (see Humboldt's Examen critique). The emblems found in America, and said to be crosses, are obviously the taut, or symbol of life, and can have no connection with Christianity. GOMER. THE MOSQUITO COUNTRY.-ORIGIN OF THE I be 1. As to the origin of the name. lieve it to be probably derived from a native name of a tribe of Indians in that part of America. The Spanish Central Americans speak of Moscos. Juarros, a Spanish Central American author, in his History of Guatemala, names the Moscos among other Indians inhabiting the north-eastern corner of the tract of country now called Mosquito; and in the "Musquito Correspondence" laid before Parliament in 1848, the inhabitants of Mosquito are called Moscos in the Spanish state papers. How and when would Mosco have become Mosquito? Was it a Spanish elongation of the name, or an English corruption? In the former case it would probably have been another name of the people; in the latter, probably a probably a name given to the part of the coast near which the Moscos lived. The form Mosquito, or Moskito, or Muskito (as the word is variously spelt in our old books), is doubtless as old as the earliest English intercourse with the Indians of the Mosquito coast; and that may be as far back as about 1630; it is certainly as far back as 1650. If the name came from the synonymous insect, would it have been given by the Spaniards or the English? Mosquito is the Spanish diminutive name of a fly; but what we call a mosquito the Spaniards in Central America call by another name, sanchujo. The Spaniards had very little connexion at any time with the Mosquito Indians; and as mosquitoes are not more abundant on their parts of the coast than other parts, or in the interior, where the Spaniards settled, there would have been no reason for their giving the name on account of insects. Nor, indeed, would the English, who went to the coast from Jamaica, or other West India Islands, where mosquitoes are quite as abundant, have had any such reason either. At Bluefields, where the writer has resided, which was one of the first places on the Mosquito coast frequented by English, and which derives its name from an old English buccaneer, there are no mosquitoes at all. At Grey Town, at the mouth of the river San The subject of the Mosquito country has Juan, there are plenty, but not more than in lately acquired a general interest. I am Jamaica, or in the towns of the interior state There is a passage in Southey's Omniana (vol. i., p. 21) giving an account of a curious custom among the Mozcas, a tribe of New Granada; his authority is Hist. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, 1. i. c. 4. These are some way south of the other Moscos, but it is probably the same word. One of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies has the name of Mosquito. Some "Mosquito Kays" are laid down on the chart off Cape Gracias a Dios, on the Mosquito coast, but these probably would have been named from the Mosquito Indians of the continent. And these Mosquito Indians appear to have spread themselves from Cape Gracias a Dios. It is stated, however, in Strangeway's Account of the Mosquito Shore (not a work of authority), that these Mosquito Kays give the name to the country: "This country, as is generally supposed, derives its name from a clustre of small islands or banks situated near its coasts, and called the Mosquitos." 1. I should be glad if these Notes and Queries would bring assistance to settle the origin of the name of the Mosquito country from some of your correspondents who are learned in the history of Spanish conquest and English enterprise in that part of America, or who may have attended to the languages of the American Indians. 2. I propose to jot down a few Notes as to the early connexion between the English and the Mosquito Indians, and shall be thankful for references to additional sources of information. I have read somewhere, that a Mosquito king or prince was brought to England in Charles I.'s reign by Richard Earl of Warwick, who had commanded a ship in the West Indies, but I forget where I read it. I remember, however, that no authority was given for the statement. Can any of your readers give information about this? Dampier mentions a party of English who, about the year 1654, ascended the Cape River (the mouth of which is at Cape Gracias a Dios,) to Segovia, a Spanish town in the interior; and another party of English and French who, after the year 1684, when he was in these parts, crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic, descending the Cape River. (Harris' Collection of Voyages, vol. i., p. 92.) Are there any accounts of these expeditions? Dampier also speaks of a confederacy having been formed between a party of English under a Captain Wright and the San Blas Indians of Darien, which was brought about by Captain Wright's taking two San Blas boys. to be educated "in the country of the Moskitoes," and afterwards faithfully restoring them, and which opened to the English the way by land to the Pacific Sea. (Harris, vol. i., p. 97.) Are there any accounts of English travellers by this way, which would be in the very part of the isthmus of which Humboldt has lately recommended a careful survey? (See Aspects of Nature, Sabine's translation.) Esquemeling, in his History of the Buccaneers, of whom he was one, says that in 1671 many of the Indians at Cape Gracias spoke English and French from their intercourse with the pirates. He gives a curious and not very intelligible account of Cape Gracias, as an island of about thirty leagues round [formed, I suppose, by rivers and the sea], containing about 1600 or 1700 persons, who have no king, [this is quite at variance with all other accounts of the Mosquito Indians of Cape Gracias,] and having, he proceeds to say, no correspondence with the neighboring islands. [I cannot explain this; there is certainly no island ninety miles in circumference at sea near Cape Gracias.] A quarto volume published by Cadell in 1789, entitled The Case of His Majesty's subjects having property in and lately estab lished upon the Mosquito Shore, gives the fullest account of the early connexion between the Mosquito Indians and the English. The writer says that Jeremy, king of the Mosquitos, in Charles II.'s reign, after formally ceding his country to officers sent to him by the Governor of Jamaica to receive the cession, went to Jamaica, and thence to England, where he was generously received by Charles II., "who had him often with him in his private parties of pleasure, admired. his activity, strength, and manly accomplishments; and not only defrayed every expense, but loaded him with presents." Is there any notice of this visit in any of our numerous memoirs and diaries of Charles II.'s reign? A curious tract, printed in the sixth volume of Churchill's Voyages, "The Mosquito Indian and his Golden River, being a familiar description of the Mosquito Kingdom, &c., written in or about the year 1699 by M. W.," from which Southey drew some touches of Indian manners for his "Madoc," speaks of another King Jeremy, son of the previous one, who, it is said, esteemed himself a subject of the King of England, and had visited the Duke of Albemarle in Jamaica. His father had been carried to England, and received from the King of England a crown and commission. The writer of this account says that the Mosquito Indians generally esteem themselves English : "And, indeed, they are extremely courteous to all Englishmen, esteeming themselves to be such, although some Jamaica men have very much abused them." I will conclude this communication, whose length will, I hope, be excused for the newness of the subject, by an amusing passage of a speech of Governor Johnstone in a debate in the House of Commons on the Mosquito country in 1777: "I see the noble lord [Lord North] now collects his knowledge by piecemeal from those about him. While my hon. friend [some one was whispering Lord North] now whispers the noble lord, will he also tell him, and the more aged gentlemen of the House, before we yield up our right to the Mosquito shore, that it is from thence we receive the greatest part of our delicious turtle? May I tell the younger part, before they give their consent, that it is from thence comes the sarsaparilla to purify our blood?-Parl. Hist., vol. xix., p. 54. AMERICAN ABORIGINES CALLED INDIANS. C. I believe the reason is that the continent in which they live passed under the name of India, with the whole of the New World discovered at the close of the fifteenth century. It is, of course, unnecessary to dwell upon the fact of Columbus believing he had discovered a new route to India by sailing due west; or upon the acquiescence of the whole world in that idea, the effects of which have not yet passed away; for we not only hear in Seville, even now, of the "India House" meaning house of management of affairs for the "New World," but we even retain ourselves the name of the West Indies, given unwarrantably to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. It is needless to do more than allude to this, and to other misnomers still prevalent, notwithstanding the fact of the notions or ideas under which the names were originally given having long since been exploded; such as the "four quarters of the globe," the "four elements," &c. If your correspondent searches for the solution of his difficulty on different grounds from those I have mentioned, it would not satisfy him to be more diffuse; and if the whole reason be that which I conceive, quite enough has been said upon the subject. G. W. 89, Hamilton Terrace, St. John's Wood. "NORTHMAN" is informed, that on the discovery of America by Columbus, when he landed at Guanahani (now called Cat Island), he thought, in conformity with his theory of the spherical shape of the earth, that he had landed on one of the islands lying at the eastern extremity of India; and with this belief he gave the inhabitants the name of Indians. The following quotations will perhaps be interesting: "America persæpe dicitur, sed improprie, India Occidentales, les Indes Occidentales, Gallis, West Inde, Belgis: Non tantum ab Hispanis, qui illam denominationem primi usurparunt, sed etiam a Belgis, Anglis, et aliquando a Francis, quod eodem fere tempore detecta sit ad occidentem, quo ad Orientem India reperta est."-Hoffmanni Lexicon Univ. 1667, sub titulo "America." "At eadem terra nonnullis India Occidentalis nuncupatur, quia eodem tempore, quo India Orientalis in Asia, hæc etiam detecta fuit; tum quod utriusque incolis similis ac pene eadem vivendi ratio; nudi quippe utrique agunt."-P. Cluveri Introduct. in Univ. Geographiam, Cap. xi. (iv.) 1711. "The most improper name of all, and yet not much less used than that of America, is the West Indies: West, in regard of the western situation of it from these parts of Europe; and Indies, either as mistook for some part of India at the first discovery, or else because the seamen used to call all countries, if remote and rich, by the name of India."-Heylyn's Cosmography, 1677, Book iv., sub initio. It is almost needless to mention, that India received its name from the river Indus, and that Indus and 'Iugoc are the Roman and Greek forms of Sindo, the name it was known by among the natives. HENRY KERSLEY. [We have received many other replies to this Query, referring "NORTHMAN " to Robertson's History of America, and Humboldt's Aspects, &c., vol. ii., p. 139.] DU SIMITIERE. "This M. Du Simitiere is a very curious man; he has begun a collection of materials for a history of this revolution; he begins with the first advices of the tea ships; he cuts out of the newspapers every scrap of intelligence, and every piece of speculation, and pastes it upon clean paper, arranging them under the head of that state to which they belong, and intends to bind them in volumes. He has a list of every speculation and pamphlet concerning independence, and another of those concerning forms of government." MR. EDITOR-The above I extract from a letter of John Adams', dated at Philadelphia, August 14th, 1776, and desire information as to what became of his scrapbooks or list. If in existence they would be worth republishing. I have never heard of them except as above. ALEX. J. SHELDEN. optimo reip. statu, deq. nova insula Utopia authore clarissimo viro Thoma Moro inclytæ civitatis Londinensis, cive et vicecomite, cura M. Petri Ægidii Antverpiensis, et arte Theodorici Martini Alustensis, Typographi Alma Lovaniensium Academiæ nunc primum accuratissime editus, 1516. 4to, the first edition, with "Utopie Insulæ Figura," Utopiensium Alphabetum," "Tetrastichon vernacula Utopiensium lingua.” "The only work of genius that England can boast in this age, the Utopia of Sir Thomas More. The Utopia is said to have been first printed at Louvain in 1516; it certainly appeared at the close of the preceding year; but the edition of Basle in 1518, under the care of Erasmus, is the earliest that bears a date. It was greatly admired on the continent; indeed there had been little or nothing of equal spirit and originality in Latin since the revival of letters." Hallam's Literature of Europe, where, in a note, it is stated, "It appears from a letter of Montjoy to Erasmus, dated January 4th, 1516, that he had received the Utopia, which must therefore have been printed in 1515; and it was reprinted, once at least, in 1516 or 1517." In this conclusion, that because Montjoy had the work in January, 1516, it was published in 1515, Mr. Hallam quite forgot that then the year commenced on the 25th of March, and that, therefore, January was at the end of the year, instead of being, as now, the first month. More accompanied Bishop Tonstall in his embassy to the Low Countries in 1516; and it is evident from the Prefatory Epistles, that at this very time the Utopia was printed. Further particulars may be found in Memoirs of the Life of Sir Thomas More, to which is added his History of Utopia, translated, with notes, by F. Warner. 1758. 8vo. BOOKS PUBLISHED DURING FEBRUARY 1869. |