of Edinburgh, by the North British railway. Pop. (1891) 7035; (1901) 6812. It is an important agricultural centre, and has every week one of the largest grain-markets in Scotland. Besides milling, brewing and tanning, the chief industries are the making of carpets, brushes and bricks, and iron and brass founding. Near Eskbank, a handsome residential quarter with a railway station, coal-mining is carried on. Market-gardening, owing to the proximity of the capital, flourishes. The parish church—an old Gothic edifice, which was originally the Castle chapel, and was restored in 1852—the municipal buildings, corn exchange, Foresters’ hall and Newmills hospital are among the principal public buildings. Dalkeith was the birthplace of Professor Peter Guthrie Tait, the mathematician (1831–1901). Dalkeith Palace, a seat of the duke of Buccleuch, was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1700 for the widow of the duke of Monmouth, countess of Buccleuch in her own right. It occupies the site of a castle which belonged first to the Grahams and afterwards to the Douglases, and was sold in 1642 by William, seventh or eighth earl of Morton, to Francis, second earl of Buccleuch, for the purpose of raising money to assist Charles I. in the Civil War. The palace has been the residence of several sovereigns during their visits to Edinburgh, among them George IV. in 1822, Queen Victoria in 1842, and Edward VII. in 1903. The picture gallery possesses important examples of the Old Masters; the gardens are renowned for their fruit and flowers; and the beautiful park of over 1000 acres—containing a remnant of the Caledonian Forest, with oaks, beeches and ashes of great girth and height—is watered by the North and South Esk, which unite before they leave the policy. About 1 m. south is Newbattle Abbey, the seat of the marquess of Lothian, delightfully situated on the South Esk. It is built on the site of an abbey founded by David I., the ancient crypt being incorporated in the mansion. The library contains many valuable books and illuminated MSS., and excellent pictures and carvings. In the park are several remarkable trees, among them one of the largest beeches in the United Kingdom. Two miles still farther south lies Cockpen, immortalized by the Baroness Nairne’s humorous song “The Laird of Cockpen,” and Dalhousie Castle, partly ancient and partly modern, which gives a title to the earls of Dalhousie. About 6 m. south-east of Dalkeith are Borthwick and Crichton castles, 1 m. apart, both now in ruins. Queen Mary spent three weeks in Borthwick Castle, as in durance vile, after her marriage with Bothwell, and fled from it to Dunbar in the guise of a page. The castle, which is a double tower, was besieged by Cromwell, and the marks of his cannon-balls are still visible. In the manse of the parish of Borthwick, William Robertson, the historian, was born in 1721. About 4 m. west of Dalkeith is the village of Burdiehouse, the limestone quarries of which are famous for fossils. The name is said to be a corruption of Bordeaux House, which was bestowed on it by Queen Mary’s French servants, who lived here when their mistress resided at Craigmillar.
DALKEY, a small port and watering-place of Co. Dublin, Ireland, in the south parliamentary division; 9 m. S.E. of Dublin by the Dublin & South-Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 3398. It is pleasantly situated on and about Sorrento Point, the southern horn of Dublin Bay. Dalkey Island, lying off the town, has an ancient ruined chapel, of the history of which nothing is certainly known, and a disused battery, which protected the harbour, a landing-place of some former importance. A castle in the town, of the 15th century, is restored to use as offices for the urban district council. There are also ruins of an old church, the dedication of which, like the island chapel, is ascribed to one St Begnet, perhaps a diminutive form of Bega, but the identity is not clear. Until the close of the 18th century Dalkey was notorious for the burlesque election of a “king,” a mock ceremony which became invested with a certain political importance.
DALLAS, ALEXANDER JAMES (1759–1817), American statesman and financier, was born on the island of Jamaica, West Indies, on the 21st of June 1759, the son of Dr Robert C. Dallas (d. 1774), a Scottish physician then practising there. Dr Dallas soon returned to England with his family, and Alexander was educated at Edinburgh and Westminster. He studied law for a time in the Inner Temple, and in 1780 returned to Jamaica. There he met the younger Lewis Hallam (1738–1808), a pioneer American theatrical manager and actor, who induced him to remove to the United States, and in 1783 he settled in Philadelphia, where he at once took the oath of allegiance to the United States, was admitted to practise law in 1785, and rapidly attained a prominent position at the bar. He was interested in the theatrical projects of Hallam, for whom he wrote several dramatic compositions, and from 1787 to 1789 he edited The Columbian Magazine. From 1791 to 1801 he was secretary of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Partly owing to his publication of an able pamphlet against the Jay treaty in 1795, he soon acquired a position of much influence in the Democratic-Republican party in the state. During the Whisky Insurrection he was paymaster-general of the state militia. His official position as secretary did not entirely prevent him from continuing his private law practice, and, with Jared Ingersoll, he was the counsel of Senator William Blount in his impeachment trial. Dallas was United States attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania from 1801 until 1814, a period marked by bitter struggles between the Democratic-Republican factions in the state, in which he took a leading part in alliance with Governor Thomas M‘Kean and Albert Gallatin, and in opposition to the radical factions led by Michael Leib (1759–1822) and William Duane (1760–1835), of the Aurora. The quarrel led in 1805 to the M’Kean party seeking Federalist support. By such an alliance, largely due to the political ingenuity of Dallas, M’Kean was re-elected. In October 1814 President Madison appointed Dallas secretary of the treasury, to succeed George W. Campbell (1768–1848), whose brief and disastrous term had been marked by wholesale bank suspensions, and an enormous depreciation of state and national bank notes. The appointment itself inspired confidence, and Dallas’s prompt measures still further relieved the situation. He first issued new interest-bearing treasury notes of small denominations, and in addition proposed the re-establishment of a national bank, by which means he expected to increase the stability and uniformity of the circulating medium, and furnish the government with a powerful engine in the upholding of its credit. In spite of his already onerous duties, Dallas, with characteristic energy, served also as secretary of war ad interim from March to August 1815, and in this capacity successfully reorganized the army on a peace footing. Although peace brought a more favourable condition of the money market, Dallas’s attempt to fund the treasury notes on a satisfactory basis was unsuccessful, but a bill, reported by Calhoun, as chairman of the committee on national currency, for the establishment of a national bank, became law on the 10th of April 1816. Meanwhile (12th of February 1816) Dallas, in a notable report, recommended a protective tariff, which was enacted late in April, largely in accordance with his recommendation. Although Dallas left the cabinet in October 1816, it was through his efforts that the new bank began its operations in the following January, and specie payments were resumed in February. Dallas, who belonged to the financial school of Albert Gallatin, deserves to rank among America’s greatest financiers. He found the government bankrupt, and after two years at the head of the treasury he left it with a surplus of $20,000,000; moreover, as Henry Adams points out, his measures had “fixed the financial system in a firm groove for twenty years.” He retired from office to resume his practice of the law, but the burden of his official duties had undermined his health, and he died suddenly at Philadelphia on the 16th of June 1817. He was the author of several notable political pamphlets and state papers, and in addition edited The Laws of Pennsylvania, 1700–1801 (1801), and Reports of Cases ruled and adjudged by the Courts of the United States and of Pennsylvania before and since the Revolution (4 vols., 1790–1807; new edition with notes by Thomas J. Wharton, 1830). He wrote An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the War of 1812–15 (1815), which was republished
