Part 9

In naval warfare the term is used to describe a method adopted for defending merchant ships against capture. It was usually applied to the vessels to be protected--as for example "the Baltic convoy," or "Captain Montray's convoy." Until the 17th century the English term was "to waft" and the warship employed to guard the traders on their way was called "a wafter." The practice of sailing in convoy for mutual protection was common in the middle ages, when all ships were more or less armed and the war vessel was not entirely differentiated from the trader. Thus the ships of the great German confederation of cities known as the Hanseatic League were required to sail in convoy. So were the six trading squadrons which sailed yearly from Venice. The masters of all the vessels were required to obey the authority of an officer who had the general command. In the 16th century the Spanish trade with America was compelled by law to sail in convoys (_flotas_), in order to avoid the danger of capture by pirates to which single ships were exposed. In the 17th and 18th centuries the use of convoy was universal. Dutch, French or British ships were collected at a rendezvous, and were accompanied by warships till they reached the point at which they were compelled to separate in order to go to their various destinations. The main danger was near the enemy's ports. An example of the way the duty was discharged may be found in the Newfoundland convoy. They sailed from England under the direction of a naval officer and the protection of his ships, commonly a forty- or fifty-gun ship with a smaller vessel in attendance. The convoy sailed to the banks of Newfoundland. When they had filled up with stock fish, they were escorted across the Atlantic by the same officer. He accompanied those of them bound to the Mediterranean to the port of Leghorn, and, when they had unloaded and reloaded, saw them home. All cases were not so simple. The ships engaged in the East and West India trade, for instance, sailed together. In the Channel they were protected by the main strength of the fleet. When beyond the Scilly Islands they were left to the care of a smaller force, and continued together till in the neighbourhood of Madeira, when they separated. Convoys were subject to attack in two forms, by strong squadrons which overpowered the guard, and by privateers, corsairs and isolated cruisers. This latter peril was much increased in the case of British commerce by the reluctance of the merchant captains to obey the naval officers. They were very much inclined to separate from the convoy as they approached their destination in the hope of forestalling rivals. As a natural consequence they were frequently captured by hostile privateers. French naval officers had authority and large powers of punishment over merchant skippers. The British naval officers had not. In 1803-34, on the renewal of the war with France, the British government saw the necessity for regulating convoy more strictly than had hitherto been the case. It therefore passed "an act for the better protection of the trade of the United Kingdom during the present hostilities with France." By this act (the 43rd Geo. III. Cap. 57) all vessels not exempted by special licence were required to sail in convoy and to conform to strict regulations, under penalties of £1000 (or, when the goods included government stores, of £1500) and the loss of all claim to insurance in case of capture. (D. H.)

The object of convoying is to attach an official public character to the convoyed ships, i.e. a sort of assimilation of them to the escorting ship or ships of war. Thus European states and jurists hold that the declaration of the commander of the convoy, that there is no contraband of war on board the convoyed ships, pledges the national good faith, and must be assumed to be correct in the same way as it is assumed that the convoy itself is carrying no contraband of war. Great Britain has never taken this view. Down to 1907 she had maintained that it is materially impossible for any neutral state to exercise the necessary supervision to secure absolute accuracy of the ship's papers. Number 29, however, of the instructions given by the government to the British plenipotentiaries at the Hague Conference of 1907 stated that "H.M. government would ... be glad to see the right of search limited in every practicable way, e.g. by the adoption of a system of consular certificates declaring the absence of contraband from the cargo...." As the greater includes the smaller, we may assume that, if a consular certificate might suffice to exempt from the exercise of search, the state guarantee of a convoy would certainly suffice. The London Convention on the Laws and Customs of Naval War has laid down the rules as to convoys in the following terms:

Neutral vessels under national convoy are exempt from search. The commander of a convoy gives, in writing, at the request of the commander of a belligerent warship, all information as to the character of the vessels and their cargoes, which could be obtained by search.--Art. 61.

If the commander of the belligerent warship has reason to suspect that the confidence of the commander of the convoy has been abused, he communicates his suspicions to him. In such a case it is for the commander of the convoy alone to investigate the matter. He must record the result of such investigation in a report, of which a copy is handed to the officer of the warship. If, in the opinion of the commander of the convoy, the facts shown in the report justify the capture of one or more vessels, the protection of the convoy must be withdrawn from such vessels.--Art. 62. (T. BA.)

CONVULSIONS, the pathological condition of body associated with abnormal, violent and spasmodic contractions and relaxations of the muscles, taking the form of a fit. Convulsions may be a symptom resulting from various diseases, but the term is commonly restricted to the infantile variety, occurring in association with teething, or other causes which upset the child's nervous system. The treatment (plunging into a hot bath, or administration of chloroform) must be prompt, as convulsions are responsible for a large part of infant mortality.

The name "Convulsionaries" (Fr. _Convulsionnaires_) was given to certain Jansenist fanatics in France in the 18th century, owing to the convulsions, regarded by them as proofs of divine inspiration, which were the result of their religious ecstasies (see JANSENISM). The term "Convulsionists" is sometimes applied to them, as also, more loosely, to other religious enthusiasts who exhibit the same symptoms.

CONWAY, HENRY SEYMOUR (1721-1795), English field marshal and statesman, was the second son of Francis Seymour, of Ragley, Warwickshire, who took the name of Conway on succeeding to the estates of the earl of Conway in 1699 and was created Baron Conway in 1703 (see SEYMOUR or ST MAUR). Henry Seymour Conway's elder brother, Francis, 2nd Baron Conway, was created marquess of Hertford in 1793; his mother was a sister of Sir Robert Walpole's wife, and he was therefore first cousin to Horace Walpole, with whom he was on terms of intimate friendship throughout his life. Having entered the army at an early age, Conway was elected to the Irish parliament in 1741 as member for Antrim, which he continued to represent for twenty years; in the same year he became a member of the English House of Commons, sitting for Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, and he remained in parliament, representing successively a number of different constituencies, almost without interruption for more than forty years. Meantime he saw much service in the army abroad, where he served with conspicuous bravery and not without distinction. In 1745 he became aide-de-camp to the duke of Cumberland in Germany, and was present at Fontenoy; in the following year he had command of a regiment at Culloden. In 1755 he went to Ireland as secretary to the lord-lieutenant, a position which he held for one year only; and on his return to England he received a court appointment, having already been promoted major-general. In 1757 he was associated with Sir John Mordaunt in command of an abortive expedition against Rochfort, the complete failure of which brought Conway into discredit and involved him in a pamphlet controversy. In 1759 he became lieutenant-general, and served under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick in the campaigns of 1761-1763. Returning to England he took part in the debates in parliament on the Wilkes case, in which he opposed the views of the court, speaking strongly against the legality of general warrants. His conduct in this matter highly incensed the king, who insisted on Conway being deprived of his military command as well as of his appointment in the royal household. His dismissal along with other officers was the occasion of another paper controversy in which Conway was defended by Horace Walpole, and gave rise to much constitutional dispute as to the right of the king to remove military officers for their conduct in parliament--a right that was tacitly abandoned by the Crown when the Rockingham ministry of 1765 reinstated the officers who had been removed.

In this ministry Conway took office as secretary of state, with the leadership of the House of Commons. In the dispute with the American colonies his sympathies were with the latter, and in 1766 he carried the repeal of the Stamp Act. When in July of that year Rockingham gave place to Chatham, Conway retained his office; and when Chatham became incapacitated by illness he tamely acquiesced in Townshend's reversal of the American policy which he himself had so actively furthered in the previous administration. In January 1768, offended by the growing influence of the Bedford faction which joined the government, Conway resigned the seals of office, though he was persuaded by the king to remain a member of the cabinet and "Minister of the House of Commons." When, however, Lord North became premier in 1770, Conway resigned from the cabinet and was appointed to the command of the royal regiment of horse guards; and in 1772 he became governor of Jersey, the island being twice invaded by the French during his tenure of command. In 1780 and 1781 he took an active part in opposition to Lord North's American policy, and it was largely as the result of his motion on the 22nd of February in the latter year, demanding the cessation of the war against the colonies, when the ministerial majority was reduced to one, that Lord North resigned office. In the Rockingham government that followed General Conway became commander-in-chief with a seat in the cabinet; and he retained office under Shelburne when Rockingham died a few months later. On Pitt's elevation to the premiership, Conway supported Fox in opposition; but after the dissolution of parliament in 1784 he retired from political life. He was made field marshal in 1793, and died at Henley-on-Thames on the 9th of July 1795. Conway married in 1747 Caroline, daughter of General Campbell (afterwards duke of Argyll), and widow of the earl of Aylesbury. He had one daughter, Anne, who married John Darner, son of Lord Milton, and who inherited a life interest in Strawberry Hill under the will of Horace Walpole.

Conway was personally one of the most popular men of his day. He was handsome, conciliatory and agreeable, and a man of refined taste and untarnished honour. As a soldier he was a dashing officer, but a poor general. He was weak, vacillating and ineffective as a politician, lacking in judgment and decision, and without any great parliamentary talent. In his later years he dabbled in literature and the drama, and interested himself in arboriculture in his retirement at Henley-on-Thames.

See Horace Walpole, _Letters_, edited by P. Cunningham (9 vols., London, 1857), many of the letters being addressed to Conway; _Memoirs of the Last Ten years of the Reign of George II._ (2 vols., London, 1822); _Memoirs of the Reign of George III._, edited by Sir D. le Marchant (4 vols., London, 1845); _Journal of the Reign of George III._, 1771-1783 (2 vols., London, 1859). See also the duke of Buckingham and Chandos, _Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George III._ (4 vols., London, 1853). Much information about Conway will also be found in the biographies of his leading contemporaries, Rockingham, Shelburne, Chatham, Pitt and Fox. (R. J. M.)

CONWAY, HUGH, the nom-de-plume of FREDERICK JOHN FARGUS (1847-1885), English novelist, who was born at Bristol on the 26th of December 1847, the son of an auctioneer. He was intended for his father's business, but at the age of thirteen joined the training-ship "Conway" in the Mersey. In deference to his father's wishes, however, he gave up the idea of becoming a sailor, and returned to Bristol, where he was articled to a firm of accountants till on his father's death in 1868 he took over the family business. While a clerk he had written the words for various songs, adopting the nom-de-plume Hugh Conway in memory of his days on the training-ship. Mr Arrowsmith, the Bristol printer and publisher, took an interest in his work, and Fargus's first short story appeared in _Arrowsmith's Miscellany_. In 1883 Fargus published through Arrowsmith his first long story, _Called Back_, of which over 350,000 copies were sold within four years. A dramatic version of this book was produced in London in 1884, and in this year Fargus published another story, _Dark Days_. Ordered to the Riviera for his health, he caught typhoid fever, and died at Monte Carlo on the 15th of May 1885. Several other books from his pen appeared posthumously, notably _A Family Affair_.

CONWAY, MONCURE DANIEL (1832-1907), American clergyman and author, was born of an old Virginia family in Stafford county, Virginia, on the 17th of March 1832. He graduated at Dickinson College in 1849, studied law for a year, and then became a Methodist minister in his native state. In 1852, owing largely to the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, his religious and political views underwent a radical change, and he entered the Harvard Divinity School, where he graduated in 1854. Here he fell under the influence of "transcendentalism," and became an outspoken abolitionist. On his return to Virginia this fact and his rumoured connexion with the attempt to rescue the fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, in Boston aroused the bitter hostility of his old neighbours and friends, and in consequence he left the state. In 1854-1856 he was pastor of a Unitarian church at Washington, D.C., but his anti-slavery views brought about his dismissal. From 1856 to 1861 he was a Unitarian minister in Cincinnati, Ohio, where, also, he edited a short-lived liberal periodical called _The Dial_. Subsequently he was an editor of the _Commonwealth_ in Boston, Mass., and wrote _The Rejected Stone_ (1861) and _The Golden Hour_ (1862), both powerful pleas for emancipation. In 1862-1863, during the Civil War, he lectured in England in behalf of the North. From 1863 to 1884 he was the minister of the South Place chapel, Finsbury, London; and during this time wrote frequently for the London press. In 1884 he returned to the United States to devote himself to literary work. In addition to those above mentioned, his publications include _Tracts for To-day_ (1858), _The Natural History of the Devil_ (1859), _Testimonies Concerning Slavery_ (1864), _The Earthward Pilgrimage_ (1870), _Republican Superstitions_ (1872), _Idols and Ideals_ (1871), _Demonology and Devil Lore_ (2 vols., 1878), _A Necklace of Stories_ (1879), _Thomas Carlyle_ (1881), _The Wandering Jew_ (1881), _Emerson at Home and Abroad_ (1882), _Pine and Palm_ (2 vols., 1887), _Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph_ (1888), _The Life of Thomas Paine_ with an unpublished sketch of Paine by William Cobbett (2 vols., 1892), _Solomon and Solomonic Literature_ (1899), his _Autobiography_ (2 vols., 1900), and _My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East_ (1906). Conway died on the 15th of November 1907.

CONWAY, SIR WILLIAM MARTIN (1856- ), English art critic and mountaineer, son of the Rev. William Conway, afterwards canon of Westminster, was born at Rochester, and was educated at Repton and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became interested in early printing and engraving, and in 1880 made a tour of the principal libraries of Europe in pursuit of his studies, the result appearing in 1884 as a _History of the Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century_. His later works on art included _Early Flemish Artists_ (1887); _The Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer_ (1889); _The Dawn of Art in the Ancient World_ (1891), dealing with Chaldaean, Assyrian and Egyptian art; _Early Tuscan Artists_ (1902). From 1884 to 1887 he was professor of art at University College, Liverpool; and in 1901-1904 he was Slade professor of the fine arts at Cambridge. He was knighted in 1895. Sir Martin Conway early became a member of the Alpine Club, of which he was president from 1902 to 1904. In 1892 he beat the climbing record by ascending to a height of 23,000 ft. in the Himalayas in the course of an exploring and mountaineering expedition undertaken under the auspices of the Royal Society, the Royal Geographical Society and the British Association. In 1896-1897 he explored the interior of Spitsbergen, and in the next year he explored and surveyed the Bolivian Andes, climbing Sorata (21,500 ft.) and Illimani (21,200 ft.). He also ascended Aconcagua (23,080 ft.) and explored Tierra del Fuego. At the Paris exhibition of 1900 he received the gold medal for mountain surveys, and the founder's medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1905. His expeditions are described in his _Climbing and Exploration in the Kara-Koram Himalayas_ (1894), _The Alps from End to End_ (1895), _The First Crossing of Spitsbergen_ (1897), _The Bolivian Andes_ (1901), &c.; _No Man's Land, a History of Spitsbergen from ... 1596 ..._ was published in 1906.

CONWAY (_Conwy_, or _Aberconwy_), a municipal borough in the Arfon parliamentary division of Carnarvonshire, N. Wales, 14 m. by the London & North-Western railway from Bangor, and 225 m. N.W. from London. Pop. (1901) 4681. The town is enclosed by a high wall, roughly triangular, about 1 m. round, with twenty-one dilapidated round towers, pierced by three principal gateways with two strong towers. The castle in the south-east angle, built in 1284 by Edward I., was inhabited, in 1389, by Richard II., who here agreed to abdicate. Held for Charles I. by Archbishop Williams, it was taken by General Mytton in 1646. Dismantled by the new proprietor, Earl Conway, it remains a ruin. It is oblong, with eight massive towers, and has, within, a hall 130 ft. in length, known as Llewelyn's. The parliamentary borough of Conway, returning, with five other towns, one member, extends over to the right bank of the stream Conwy (Conway). In 1885 the mayor of Conway was made a constable. Llandudno with Great and Little Orme's Heads are at some 4 m. distance. Two bridges, a tubular for the railway (40 ft. shorter than that of the Menai) and a suspension, designed by Stephenson (1846-1848) and Telford (1822-1826) respectively, cross the stream. St Mary's church is Gothic; the Elizabethan Plâs Mawr is the _locale_ of the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art. There are still some fragments of the 1185 Cistercian Abbey. There are golf links here and at Llandudno. The Conwy stream, on which a steamboat runs from Deganwy (2 m. below Conway town) to Trefriw, opposite Llanrwst, in summer, has some coasting trade in sulphur and slates. It is about 30 m. long, its valley (a haunt of artists) containing the towns last mentioned and Bettws y coed. Its pearls are mentioned in Drayton's _Polyolbion_ and Spenser's _Faerie Queene_. Pearl fisheries existed at Conway for many centuries, dating back to the Roman occupation. Tacitus, _Agricola_, 12, says of Britain "gignit et Oceanus margarita, sed subfusca ac liventia," as are those found to-day. Diganhwy (Dyganwy, Deganwy) is mentioned in the _Mabinogion_ (_Geraint and Enid_), if the reading is sound; it is certainly mentioned in the _Annales Cambriae_ (years 812-822) and in the _Black Book of Caerfyrddin_ (Carmarthen), xxiii. 1. Caer-hyn, 4½ m. from Conway, is on the highroad from London to Holyhead, and is the _Conovium_ of the Romans. The site of the camp can still be traced, consisting of a square, strengthened by four parallel walls, extending to a distance from the main work. The camp is on a height, with the Conwy in front and a wood on each flank. At the foot of the hill, near the stream, was a Roman bath, with walls, pavement and pillars. Camden's _Britannia_ mentions tiles, with marks of the 10th or Antoninus's legion, as being found here, perhaps mistakenly. _Gleini nadroedd_ (possibly amulets) and _vitrum_ have been found here. In Bwlch y ddwy faen ("two rock ravine"), on the way to Aber, are the remains of a Roman road and antiquities.