Part 827

"This celebrated personage was not, in the strict sense of the word, a traveller. He was one of those professional politicians of the Middle Ages who are familiar to the student of Italian history. The son of a travelling Venetian merchant, who had already passed many years in Tartary, and been regarded with welcome and consideration by the Grand Khan himself, he was taken at an early age to the Grand Khan's court, and apprenticed, as it were, to the Grand Khan's service. The young adventurer possessed in a high degree that subtlety and versatility which opinion attributes to his nation. Profiting by his opportunities, he soon succeeded in transmuting himself into a Tartar. {2560} He adopted the Tartar dress, studied the Tartar manners, and mastered the four languages spoken in the Grand Khan's dominions. Kublai appears first to have employed him as a secretary, and then to have sent him on confidential missions: and during a service of seventeen years Marco was engaged in this way, in journeys by land and sea, in every part of the Grand Khan's empire and dependencies. More than this, he travelled on his own account, everywhere, it would appear, recording his notes and observations, partly for his own use, and partly for the information or entertainment of his master. These notes and observations were given to the world of Europe under the following circumstances. After a residence of seventeen years, Marco obtained permission to revisit Venice, accompanied by his father and uncle. Not long after his return, he was taken in a sea-fight with the Genoese, and committed to prison. To relieve the ennui of his confinement, he procured his rough notes from Venice, and dictated to a fellow–prisoner the narrative which passes under his name. This narrative soon became known to the world: and from its publication may be dated that intense and active interest in the East which has gone on steadily increasing ever since. The rank and dignified character of this famous adventurer, the romance of his career, the wealth which he amassed, the extent of his observations, the long series of years they had occupied, the strange and striking facts which he reported, and the completeness and perspicuity of his narrative, combined to produce a marked effect on the Italian world. Marco Polo was the true predecessor of Columbus. From an early time we find direct evidence of his influence on the process of exploration. … Wherever the Italian captains went, the fame of the great Venetian's explorations was noised abroad: and, as we shall presently see, the Italian captains were the chief directors of navigation and discovery in every seaport of Western Europe. The work dictated by Marco Polo to his fellow-captive, though based upon his travels both in form and matter, is no mere journal or narrative of adventure. A brief account of his career in the East is indeed prefixed, and the route over which he carries his reader is substantially that chronologically followed by himself; for he takes his reader successively overland to China, by way of the Black Sea, Armenia, and Tartary, backwards and forwards by land and sea, throughout the vast dominions of the Grand Khan, and finally homeward by the Indian Ocean, touching by the way at most of those famous countries which bordered thereon. Yet the book is no book of travels. It is rather a Handbook to the East for the use of other European travellers, and was clearly compiled as such and nothing more. Perhaps no compiler has ever laid down a clearer or more practical plan, adopted a more judicious selection of facts, or relieved it by a more attractive embroidery of historical anecdote. … It is not here to the purpose to dwell on his notices of Armenia, Turcomania, and Persia: his descriptions of the cities of Bagdad, Ormus, Tabriz, and many others, or to follow him to Kashmir, Kashghar, and Samarkhand, and across the steppes of Tartary. The main interest of Marco Polo lies in his description of the Grand Khan's Empire, and of those wide-spread shores, all washed by the Indian Ocean, which from Zanzibar to Japan went by the general name of India. … The Pope alone, among European potentates of the 15th century, could be ranked as approaching in state and dignity to the Tartar sovereign of China. For any fair parallel, recourse must be had to the Great Basileus of Persia: and in the eyes of his Venetian secretary the Grand Khan appeared much as Darius or Cyrus may have appeared to the Greek adventurers who crowded his court, and competed for the favour of a mighty barbarian whom they at once flattered and despised."

_E. J. Payne, History of the New World, book 1._

ALSO IN: _The Book of Ser Marco Polo; edited by Colonel H. Yule._

_T. W. Knox, Travels of Marco Polo for Boys and Girls._

_G. M. Towle, Marco Polo._

See, also, CHINA: A. D. 1259-1294.

POLONNA, Battle of (1792).

See POLAND: A. D. 1791-1792.

POLYNESIANS, The.

See MALAYAN RACE.

POLYPOTAMIA, The proposed State of.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1784.

POMERANIANS, The.

"Adam of Bremen first mentions these Pomeranians [east of the Oder], and he mentions them as Slavonians, the Oder being their boundary to the West. On the east they were conterminous with the Prussians. Their name is Slavonic, 'po'='on' and 'more'='sea,'='coastmen.' All their antiquities and traditions are equally so; in other words there is neither evidence, nor shadow of evidence, of their ever having dispossessed an older Germanic population. Nor are they wholly extinct at the present moment. On the promontories which project into the Gulf of Dantzig we find the Slavonic Kassub, Cassubitæ, or Kaszeb. Their language approaches the Polish."

_R. G. Latham, The Germania of Tacitus, Prolegomena, section 7._

POMERIUM, The Roman.

"The pomerium was a hallowed space, along the whole circuit of the city, behind the wall, where the city auspices were taken, over which the augurs had full right, and which could never be moved without their first consulting the will of the gods. The pomerium which encircled the Palatine appears to have been the space between the wall and the foot of the hill."

_H. M. Westropp, Early and Imperial Rome, page 40._

POMPADOUR, Madame de, Ascendancy of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1723-1774.

POMPÆ.

The solemn processions of the ancient Athenians, on which they expended great sums of money, were so called.

_A. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, book 2, chapter 12._

POMPEII.

"Pompeii was a maritime city at the mouth of the river Sarnus, the most sheltered recess of the Neapolitan Crater. Its origin was lost in antiquity, and the tradition that it was founded by Hercules, together with the other spot [Herculaneum] which bore the name of the demigod, was derived perhaps from the warm springs with which the region abounded. The Greek plantations on the Campanian coast had been overrun by the Oscans and Samnites; nevertheless the graceful features of Grecian civilization were still everywhere conspicuous, and though Pompeii received a Latin name, and though Sulla, Augustus, and Nero had successively endowed it with Roman colonists, it retained the manners and to a great extent the language of the settlers from beyond the sea."

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 60._

{2561}

Pompeii, and the neighboring city of Herculaneum, were overwhelmed by a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius, on the 23rd of August, A. D. 79. They were buried, but did not perish; they were death-stricken, but not destroyed; and by excavations, which began at Pompeii A. D. 1748, they have been extensively uncovered, and made to exhibit to modern times the very privacies and secrets of life in a Roman city of the age of Titus.

_Pliny the Younger, Letters, book 6, epistles 16 and 20._

ALSO IN: _T. H. Dyer, Pompeii._

POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM, Exhumed Libraries of.

See LIBRARIES, ANCIENT: HERCULANEUM.

POMPEIUS, the Great, and the first Triumvirate.

See ROME: B. C. 78-68, to B. C. 48; and ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 48-47.

PONCAS, PONKAS, PUNCAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY, and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

PONDICHERRY: Start--------

PONDICHERRY: A. D. 1674-1697. Founded by the French. Taken by the Dutch. Restored to France.

See INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743.

PONDICHERRY: A. D. 1746. Siege by the English.

See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.

PONDICHERRY: A. D. 1761. Capture by the English.

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

PONDICHERRY: End--------

PONIATOWSKY, Stanislaus Augustus, King of Poland, A. D. 1764-1795.

PONKAS.

See PONCAS.

PONS ÆLII.

A Roman bridge and military station on the Tyne, where Newcastle is now situated.

_H. M. Scarth, Roman Britain, chapter 8._

PONS SUBLICIUS, The.

See SUBLICIAN BRIDGE.

PONT ACHIN, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).

PONTCHARRA, Battle of (1591).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1591-1593.

PONTE NUOVO, Battle of (1769).

See CORSICA: A. D. 1729-1769.

PONTIAC'S WAR (A. D. 1763-1764).

"With the conquest of Canada and the expulsion of France as a military power from the continent, the English colonists were abounding in loyalty to the mother country, were exultant in the expectation of peace, and in the assurance of immunity from Indian wars in the future; for it did not seem possible that, with the loose system of organization and government common to the Indians, they could plan and execute a general campaign without the co–operation of the French as leaders. This feeling of security among the English settlements was of short duration. A general discontent pervaded all the Indian tribes from the frontier settlements to the Mississippi, and from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The extent of this disquietude was not suspected, and hence no attempt was made to gain the goodwill of the Indians. There were many real causes for this discontent. The French had been politic and sagacious in their intercourse with the Indian. They gained his friendship by treating him with respect and justice. They came to him with presents, and, as a rule, dealt with him fairly in trade. They came with missionaries, unarmed, heroic, self-denying men. … Many Frenchmen married Indian wives, dwelt with the native tribes, and adopted their customs. To the average Englishman, on the other hand, Indians were disgusting objects; he would show them no respect, nor treat them with justice except under compulsion. … The French had shown little disposition to make permanent settlements; but the English, when they appeared, came to stay, and they occupied large tracts of the best land for agricultural purposes. The French hunters and traders, who were widely dispersed among the native tribes, kept the Indians in a state of disquietude by misrepresenting the English, exaggerating their faults, and making the prediction that the French would soon recapture Canada and expel the English from the Western territories. Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas [see CANADA: A. D. 1760], was the Indian who had the motive, the ambition, and capacity for organization which enabled him to concentrate and use all these elements of discontent for his own malignant and selfish purposes. After the defeat of the French, be professed for a time to be friendly with the English, expecting that, under the acknowledged supremacy of Great Britain, he would be recognized as a mighty Indian prince, and be assigned to rule over his own, and perhaps a confederacy of other tribes. Finding that the English government had no use for him, he was indignant, and he devoted all the energies of his vigorous mind to a secret conspiracy of uniting the tribes west of the Alleghanies to engage in a general war against the English settlements ['The tribes thus banded together against the English comprised, with a few unimportant exceptions, the whole Algonquin stock, to whom were united the Wyandots, the Senecas, and several tribes of the lower Mississippi. The Senecas were the only members of the Iroquois confederacy who joined in the league, the rest being kept quiet by the influence of Sir William Johnson.'

_F. Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac, volume 1, page 187._

… His scheme was to make a simultaneous attack on all the Western posts in the month of May, 1763; and each attack was assigned to the neighboring tribes. His summer home was on a small island at the entrance of Lake St. Clair; and being near Detroit, he was to conduct in person the capture of that fort. On the 6th of May, 1763, Major Gladwin, in command at Detroit, had warning from an Indian girl that the next day an attempt would be made to capture the fort by treachery. When Pontiac, on the appointed morning, accompanied by 60 of his chiefs, with short guns concealed under their blankets, appeared at the fort, and, as usual, asked for admission, he was startled at seeing the whole garrison under arms, and that his scheme of treachery had miscarried. For two months the savages assailed the fort, and the sleepless garrison gallantly defended it, when they were relieved by the arrival of a schooner from Fort Niagara, with 60 men, provisions, and ammunition. Fort Pitt, on the present site of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, was in command of Captain Ecuyer, another trained soldier, who had been warned of the Indian conspiracy by Major Gladwin in a letter written May 5th. Captain Ecuyer, having a garrison of 330 soldiers and backwoodsmen, immediately made every preparation for defence. On May 27th, a party of Indians appeared at the fort under the pretence of wishing to trade, and were treated as spies. {2562} Active operations against Fort Pitt were postponed until the smaller forts had been taken. Fort Sandusky was captured May 16th; Fort St. Joseph (on the St. Joseph River, Michigan), May 25th; Fort Ouatanon (now Lafayette, Indiana), May 31st; Fort Michillimaekinac (now Mackinaw, Michigan), June 2d; Fort Presqu' Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania), June 17th; Fort Le Bœuf (Erie County, Pennsylvania), June 18th; Fort Venango (Venango County, Pennsylvania), June 18th; and the posts at Carlisle and Bedford, Pennsylvania, on the same day. No garrison except that at Presqu' Is]e had warning of danger. The same method of capture was adopted in each instance. A small party of Indians came to the fort with the pretence of friendship, and were admitted. Others soon joined them, when the visitors rose upon the small garrisons, butchered them, or took them captive. At Presqu' Isle the Indians laid siege to the fort for two days, when they set it on fire. At Venango no one of the garrison survived to give an account of the capture. On June 22d, a large body of Indians surrounded Fort Pitt and opened fire on all sides, but were easily repulsed. … The Indians departed next day and did not return until July 26th," when they laid siege to the fort for five days and nights, with more loss to themselves than to the garrison. They "then disappeared, in order to intercept the expedition of Colonel Bouquet, which was approaching from the east with a convoy of provisions for the relief of Fort Pitt. It was fortunate for the country that there was an officer stationed at Philadelphia who fully understood the meaning of the alarming reports which were coming in from the Western posts. Colonel Henry Bouquet was a gallant Swiss officer who had been trained in war from his youth, and whose personal accomplishments gave an additional charm to his bravery and heroic energy. He had served seven years in fighting American Indians, and was more cunning than they in the practice of their own artifices. General Amherst, the commander-in–chief, was slow in appreciating the importance and extent of the Western conspiracy; yet he did good service in directing Colonel Bouquet to organize an expedition for the relief of Fort Pitt. The promptness and energy with which this duty was performed, under the most embarrassing conditions, make the expedition one of the most brilliant episodes in American warfare. The only troops available for the service were about 500 regulars recently arrived from the siege of Havana, broken in health." At Bushy Run, 25 miles east of Fort Pitt, Bouquet fought a desperate battle with the savages, and defeated them by the stratagem of a pretended retreat, which drew them into an ambuscade. Fort Pitt was then reached in safety. "On the 29th of July Detroit was reinforced by 280 men under Captain Dalzell, who in June had left Fort Niagara in 22 barges, with several cannon and a supply of provisions and ammunition. The day after his arrival, Captain Dalzell proposed, with 250 men, to make a night attack on Pontiac's camp and capture him. Major Gladwin discouraged the attempt, but finally, against his judgment, consented. Some Canadians obtained the secret and carried it to Pontiac, who waylaid the party in an ambuscade [at a place called Bloody Bridge ever since]. Twenty of the English were killed and 39 wounded. Among the killed was Captain Dalzell himself. Pontiac could make no use of this success, as the fort was strongly garrisoned and well supplied. … Elsewhere there was nothing to encourage him." His confederation begun to break, and in November he was forced to raise the siege of Detroit. "There was quietness on the frontiers during the winter of 1763-64. In the spring of 1764 scattered war parties were again ravaging the borders. Colonel Bouquet was recruiting in Pennsylvania, and preparing an outfit for his march into the valley of the Ohio. In June, Colonel Bradstreet, with a force of 1,200 men, was sent up the great lakes," where he made an absurd and unauthorized treaty with some of the Ohio Indians. He arrived at Detroit on the 26th of August. "Pontiac had departed, and sent messages of defiance from the banks of the Maumee." Colonel Bouquet had experienced great difficulty in raising troops and supplies and it was not until September, 1764, that he again reached Fort Pitt. But before two months passed he had brought the Delawares and Shawanees to submission and had delivered some 200 white captives from their hands. Meantime, Sir William Johnson, in conjunction with Bradstreet, had held conferences with a great council of 2,000 warriors at Fort Niagara, representing Iroquois, Ottawas, Ojibways, Wyandots and others, and had concluded several treaties of peace. By one of these, with the Senecas, a strip of land four miles wide on each side of Niagara River, from Erie to Ontario, was ceded to the British government. "The Pontiac War, so far as battles and campaigns were concerned, was ended; but Pontiac was still at large and as untamed as ever. His last hope was the Illinois country, where the foot of an English soldier had never trod;" and there he schemed and plotted without avail until 1765. In 1769 he was assassinated, near St. Louis.

_W. F. Poole, The West, 1763-1783 (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 6, chapter 9)._

ALSO IN: _F. Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac._

_S. Farmer, History of Detroit and Michigan, chapter 38._

_Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition._

_A. Henry, Travels and Adventures in Canada, part 1, chapters 9-23._

_W. L. Stone, Life and Times of Sir William Johnson, volume 2, chapters 9-12._

_J. R. Brodhead, Documents Relative to Colonial History New York, volume 7._

PONTIFEX MAXIMUS. PONTIFICES, Roman.

See AUGURS.

PONTIFF, The Roman.

The Pope is often alluded to as the Roman Pontiff, the term implying an analogy between his office and that of the Pontifex Maximus of the ancient Romans.

PONTIFICAL INDICTIONS.

See INDICTIONS.

PONTUS.

See MITHRIDATIC WARS.

PONTUS EUXINUS, EUXINUS PONTUS.

The Black Sea, as named by the Greeks.

PONZA, Naval Battle of (1435).

See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.

POOR LAWS, The English.