d'Estat …’ 1653. A few years afterwards he was at the Hague, engaged in a project concerning a gold and silver mine in America, described in ‘Waerachtige Verklaringe nopende de Goude en Silvere Mijne,’ &c., and ‘Tweede Deel van de Waerachtige Verclaringe nopende de Goude en Silvere Mijne,’ &c. These were followed by ‘Derde Verclaringe aengaende de Goude ende Silvere Mijne aenghewesen door den Ridder Balthazar Gerbier, Baron Douvily, dienende tot wederlegginghe van een Fameux Libel uytgespogen tegens de Waerheyd van de saecke ende zyn Persoon.’ These three tracts are dated ‘In 's Gravenhage, 1656,’ a fourth appearing at the Hague in November 1657: ‘Waarachtige Verklaringe van den Ridder Balthazar Gerbier, B. Douvilij; noopende sijn saeke van Goude en Silvere Mijnen,’ &c. He had made some proposals to the English committee for trade and foreign affairs (Proceedings, 28 May 1652), but they would grant him no monopolies. In 1658 he offered his assistance to the English government during the war with Spain, promising to get up a revolt in the towns of the Spanish Netherlands (Thurloe, vii. 275). He now obtained a patent from the States-General, and styled himself ‘Patroon ende Commandeur van de Geoctroyeerde Guiaense Colonie’ in his ‘Gebedt,’ or prayer for the success of the undertaking, published in 1659 at Amsterdam. He sailed from Texel to carry out his mining schemes in Guiana with his wife and family and a number of colonists. He touched at Cayenne, where a mutiny took place, 7 May 1660, among his followers. They killed his daughter Katherine and wounded another. He was saved by the arrival of the governor. On 9 Sept. 1660 he had returned to Amsterdam, and was making his depositions of the murder before the magistrates there, publishing two tracts: ‘Informatie voor de Rechtsgeleerde die van wegen d'Edele Heeren Bewinthebbers van de Gheoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnye gherequireert syn hare advisen te geven op den Moorde in Cajany begaen, en waervan gemelt is in het Sommier Verhael door den Baron Douvily in druck contbaer gemaeckt,’ and ‘Sommier Verhael van sekere Amerikaensche Voyagie, gedaen door den Ridder Balthasar Gerbier,’ &c. Upon the restoration he resolved to return to England, sending before him a pamphlet he printed at Rotterdam, entitled ‘A Sommary Description, Manifesting that greater Profits are to bee done in the hott then in the could parts off the Coast off America,’ &c., with a second, headed, ‘Advertissement for men inclyned to Plantasions in America.’ He also addressed to Charles II, on 5 Dec. 1660, ‘An Humble Remonstrance concerning expedients whereby his sacred Matie may increase his revenue, with greate advantage to his Loyall subjects.’ On 10 Dec. 1660 a warrant was issued to suspend him from the office of the master of the ceremonies. In 1661 he came to England and petitioned the king for the restitution of his appointment, and the payment of moneys owing to him by Charles I; at the same time presenting various schemes for increasing the revenue and beautifying London.
Being unable to regain his position at court, he once more turned to architecture, and in 1662 supplied the designs for Lord Craven's house at Hampstead Marshall, in Berkshire, since destroyed by fire. In the same year he published ‘A Brief Discourse concerning the Three chief Principles of Magnificent Building,’ &c., and in the following year, 1663, ‘Counsel and Advise to all Builders,’ &c.; the most interesting of his pamphlets from incidental references to English architecture in the seventeenth century. There are forty dedicatory epistles, addressed to various eminent persons, from the queen-mother and the Duke of York to Sir Kenelm Digby. His last piece was called ‘Subsidium Peregrinantibus. Or an Assistance to a Traveller,’ &c., Oxford, 1665. He died at Hampstead Marshall in 1667 while superintending the building of Lord Craven's house, and was buried in the chancel of the church there.
Besides the family piece at Windsor, Vandyck painted a half-length of Gerbier himself; two engraved portraits, are prefixed to some of his pamphlets. Some of his drawings are in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. He had three sons, George, James, and Charles, and five daughters, Elizabeth, Susan, Mary, Katherine, and Deborah. George Gerbier wrote a play and other literary pieces, and seems to be identical with George Gerbier D'Ouvilly [q. v.] Three of Gerbier's daughters in great distress petitioned the king for the payment of 4,000l., owing to their father by Charles I (State Papers, Dom. lxxix. 68).
[Works cited; Walpole's Anecdotes of the Painters, ed. Wornum, 1849; Sainsbury's Papers illustrative of the Life of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, 1859; Gardiner's Hist. of England; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
GEREDIGION, DANIEL du o, Welsh poet. [See Evans, Daniel, 1792–1846.]
GEREE, JOHN (1601?–1649), puritan divine, was born in Yorkshire. In 1615, being then in his fifteenth year, he became either batler or servitor of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. He graduated B.A. on 27 Jan. 1619, M.A. on 12 June 1621. Having taken orders
