516 BENCOOLEN West Indies. His success was commended by the house of commons, and in 1702, on a second expedition, he encountered the French fleet under Ducasse, and for five days maintained a running light with them. He succeeded in bringing the enemy's sternmost ship to close quarters, but his chief officers refused to second his efforts. Here he lost a leg by a chain-shot, an event which, though it did not abate his ar- dor, gave occasion for some of his captains to agree " that nothing more was to be done." On his return to Jamaica he brought the delin- quents before a court martial, which convict- ed them of disobedience and cowardice, and caused them to be shot. His wound, and the emotion caused by these events, concurred with a pulmonary disease to hasten his death. BENCOOLEN (Malay, Banglca [flu, rolling up- lands). I. A Dutch residency on the 8. W. coast of Sumatra ; area, including the island of Engano, 8,736 sq. m. ; pop. about 100,000. The surface is hilly and undulating. The soil is in- ferior to that of the eastern slope of the island ; it is for the most part a stiff red clay, burnt nearly to the state of a brick where it is ex- posed to the sun. The chief culture was pepper during the first intercourse of Europeans with this country. In 1798 the clove and nutmeg were introduced from the Moluccas ; but the lat- ter alone has succeeded, and that only by ma- nuring and much labor and care. Some of the forests abound in gutta percha and gutta taban trees, which produce a gum of excellent qual- ity. Coffee is cultivated to considerable ex- tent. The styrax benzoin tree, from which the gum benjamin of commerce is obtained, is grown in plantations. The buffalo and goat are the only large animals domesticated. Ti- gers are very numerous, and materially impede the prosperity of the country. The Rejangs, one of the most civilized races of Sumatra, compose the greater portion of the population of this territory. II. The chief town of the residency, in lat. 3 47' S., Ion. 102 19' E. ; pop. about 10,000. The British East India company established a factory at this point for the pepper trade in 1685. In 1714 Fort Maryborough was founded, 3 m. distant. In 1760 the French under Count d'Estaing cap- tured and took possession of the fort and fac- tory ; but they were restored to the company by the treaty of Paris in 1763. By the treaty of London in 1824, the English government ceded the fort and factory, and establishments dependent on them, which then embraced a territory of about 12 sq. m., to the Dutch, in exchange for Malacca and its territory, and a small post near Madras. Bencoolen was an un- profitable dependency of the Bengal presidency, and cost the East India company, on an aver- age, about $60,000 per annum during the whole period of its possession ; it was maintained partly from a point of honor, but chiefly on ac- count of an over-estimate of the advantages expected to grow out of the pepper trade. During the English possession the town con- BENDEMANN tained 20,000 inhabitants, but has now dwindled to one half that number, composed of Eejangs, Malays, Bughis, and a large number of Arabs and Chinese. A Dutch assistant resident is stationed there. l'.i:l* V. I. Franz, a German violinist, bom at Old Benatek, in Bohemia, in 1709, died at Potsdam in 1788. He acquired an extraordi- nary mastery of the violin, receiving his first lessons from a blind musician in a band of strolling players. In 1732 he entered the ser- vice of Frederick the Great, then prince royal, with whom he remained the rest of his long life. He founded a school of violinists, whose method of playing was original and effective. He also published some excellent solos for the violin, il. Georg, a composer, brother of the preceding, born in Bohemia in 1721, died at Kostritz in 1795. He passed many years of his life as a musician in the service of the courts of Prussia and Gotha, and improved his style by a visit to Italy. He composed a number of comic operas, and two of a serious character em titled "Ariadne in Naxos" and "Medea," which are written with much feeling and taste. Be- sides his operas, Benda wrote some excellent sonatas for the harpsichord. BEKDAYID, Lazarus, a German philosopher and mathematician, of Jewish parentage, born in Berlin, Oct. 18, 1762, died there, March 28, 1832. A glass-cutter by trade, he attained great proficiency in mathematics, and the highest praise was awarded by Kastner to his first published disquisition in 1785, Theorieder Paralleten, followed in 1789 by Dai mathema- tische Unendliche. After lecturing in Berlin and studying in Gottingen, he delivered in Vi- enna for about four years lectures on Kantian philosophy and aesthetics which he afterward published. Persecuted in Vienna, he returned to Berlin in 1797, and spent the rest of his life there, engaged in lecturing and literary labors, and in presiding over the Jewish free school, which under his direction rose to great excel- lence. His works include Vorletttngen itber die Kritik der reinen Vernwnft (Vienna, 1795; 2d ed., Berlin, 1802); Venuch uber das Vergnugen (2d ed., Vienna, 1794); Ver- such einer GescJtmaclislehre (Berlin, 1798); Verivch einer EeeJttslehre (1802) ; Uebtr den Ursprung unserer ErTcenntniai (a prize essay, 1802) ; Ueber die Religion der Elraer tor Moses (1812) ; and Zvr Berechmmg des judi- scTien Calenders (1817). i;i:M>l'H V V Edoard, a German painter, of the Dusseldorf school, born in Berlin, Dec. 3, 1811. He is the son of a Jewish banker, and was a pupil of Schadow, who had a very great influence upon his style, and led him to adopt many characteristics exhibited in nearly all his paintings. Bendemann was only 21 years of age when his first great picture, " The Mourning Jews," acquired for him a lasting celebrity. In 1838 he was made professor at the academy of art in Dresden. He was also chosen to dec- orate with frescoes the principal rooms of the
