United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Boyd was a soldier of fortune and one of the most striking military adventurers of that day. A short sketch of him as given by Benson J. Lossing is as follows: "John Parke Boyd was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, December 21, 1764. His father was from Scotland, and his mother was a descendant of Tristam Coffin, the first of that family who emigrated to America.
The next year Nuño Tristam went farther down the African coast; and, off Adeget, one of the Arguim Islands, captured eighty natives, whom he brought to Portugal. These, however, were not negroes, but Azeneghis. The tide of popular opinion was now not merely turned, but was rushing in full flow, in favor of Prince Henry and his discoveries.
Two other results followed incidentally this controversy about the battle of Lake Erie. One had the nature of comedy, the other partook rather of that of tragedy. Perry, as has been said, was a Rhode Islander, and many of the men he had with him had come from that state. Tristam Burges, in his lecture, had, in many instances, allowed his eloquence to get the better of his sense.
The late Tristam Burgess, of Rhode Island, in a speech in Congress, first month, 1828, said "At the commencement of the Revolutionary War, Rhode Island had a number of slaves. A regiment of them were enlisted into the Continental service, and no braver men met the enemy in battle; but not one of them was permitted to be a soldier until he had first been made a freeman."
So sickening a dread, yet quite an inexplicable one, a dread of the vague unknown, came upon them that, brave men as they were, they could not proceed to the wood pile, and, like Tristam, returned empty handed. "Where is the wood?" was the general cry. "Let no one go out for wood tonight," said Hubert.
"But how?" "Ordgar the guide, whom we thought we had secured so opportunely, led us into the marshes and left us therein; and while we were there, the English fired the reeds and bulrushes on all sides." "And the baron?" "He and all have perished; I only have escaped to tell thee. Where are the rest who were left behind?" "Here they are," cried Tristam, as a group of old warriors approached.
One night in that year he is thought to have had a dream of promise, for on the ensuing morning he suddenly ordered two vessels to be got ready forthwith, and to be placed under the command of two gentlemen of his household, Joham Gonçalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz, whom he ordered to proceed down the Barbary coast on a voyage of discovery.
The debarcadere has the usual lamp and the three iron chains intended to prevent accidents. The prosperous little fishing-village, formerly the capital of the Tristam, lies as usual upon a wady, the S. Gonsales, and consists of a beach, an Alameda, a church with a square tower, and some good houses.
"They found there a race of people living in no settled polity, but not altogether barbarous or savage, and possessing a kindly and most fertile soil." I give this description of the first land discovered by Prince Henry's captains, thinking it would well apply to many other lands about to be found out by his captains and by other discoverers. Joham Gonçalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz returned.
The late Tristam Burgess, of Rhode Island, in a speech in Congress, first month, 1828, said "At the commencement of the Revolutionary War, Rhode Island had a number of slaves. A regiment of them were enlisted into the Continental service, and no braver men met the enemy in battle; but not one of them was permitted to be a soldier until he had first been made a freeman."
Word Of The Day