GORTON GORTZ and against the Turks in 1828-'9, when he led the sieges of Shumla and Silistria, distinguish- c-.l himself in the war of the Polish revolution (1831) at Grochow, Ostrolenka, and the taking <>f Warsaw, wa> made general of artillery, and in 1846 military governor of Warsaw, where he subsequently often acted as lieutenant of Prince Paskevitch, whom he also accompanied on the invasion of Hungary in 1849. In 1853 he received the command of the army of invasion sent to the Danubian principalities, ceded it soon after to Paskevitch, but took it again after the raising of the siege of Silistria, and led the retreating army to Bessarabia. In 1855 he was appointed commander-in-chief in the Crimea and southern Russia, and suffered defeat on the Tchernaya, but greatly distinguished himself by the gallant defence of Sebastopol, as well as by the skilful retreat to the North fort after the fall of the fortress. In 1856, after the death of Paskevitch, he was appointed gov- ernor of Poland by Alexander II., and he was carrying out that emperor's conciliatory mea- sures at the time of his death. GORTON, Samuel, a New England religious' en- thusiast, the first settler of Warwick, R. I., born in Gorton, England, about 1600, died in Rhode Island in November or December, 1677. He did business in London as a clothier till 1636, when he embarked for New England, and settled at Boston, and afterward at Plymouth, where he began to preach such peculiar doc- trines that he was banished from the colony on a charge of heresy. With a few followers he went to Rhode Island, which had recently been settled by exiles from Massachusetts Bay ; but falling again into trouble, he was publicly whipped for calling the justices "just asses " and for other contemptuous acts, and was forced to seek an asylum with Roger Williams in Providence, about 1641. Here he made him- self so obnoxious that in November of that year a petition was addressed to the authorities of Massachusetts praying that Gorton and his company might be "brought to satisfaction." That colony having acquired a nominal juris- diction over Pawtuxet, where Gorton had set- tled, he was summoned to Boston in September, 1642 ; but he refused to recognize the jurisdic- tion thus assumed, and about the same time removed to Shawomet, on the W. side of Nar- ragansett bay, where he purchased land from the sachem Miantonomo. But in Jurue, 1643, two inferior sachems contested his claims to the land, and applied to the goneral court at Boston for assistance. A body of 40 soldiers was consequently marched to Shawomet, and Gorton and ten of his disciples were carried to Boston, where, the question of the land being laid aside, they were put on trial for their lives as "damnable heretics/' Gorton and six others were found guilty, and sen- tenced to confinement and hard labor in irons. U M:uv!i. IC.H. tln-y v,-re released, and or- dered to leave the colony within 14 days Gorton then went to England to obtain re- dress, and having procured a letter of safe conduct from the earl of Warwick to the Massachusetts magistrates, and an order that his people should be allowed peaceable pos- session of their lands at Shawomet, he returned in 1648 to his colony, which he named after the earl. Though Massachusetts did not re- linquish her claim over the Shawomet settle- ment until some years later, Gorton's remain- ing years seem to have passed quietly. He discharged many important civil offices, and on Sundays used to preach to the colonists and Indians. It is difficult to determine what were his religious opinions. He contemned a clergy and all outward forms, and held that by union with Christ believers partook of the perfection of God, that Christ is both human and divine, and that heaven and hell have no existence save in the mind. He published " Simplicitie's Defence against seven-headed Policy," a vindication of his course in New England (4to, London, 1646 ; reprinted in the collections of the Rhode Island historical so- ciety); "An Incorruptible Key composed of the CX. Psalme " (1647) ; " Saltmarsh returned from the Dead " (1655) ; " An Antidote against the common Plague of the World" (1657); " Certain Copies of Letters," &c. He also left in manuscript a commentary on a part of the Gospel of St. Matthew. See his life by J. M. Mackie in Sparks's "American Biography." GORTYNA, an ancient town of Crete, a little S. of the centre of the island, on a plain watered by the Lethaeus. It was 90 stadia from the Libyan sea, on which it had two ports, Lebena and Metallum. It was next in importance and splendor to Cnossus, in alliance with which it early reduced all the rest of the island to subjection ; but it was afterward at war Avith Cnossus, and also with Cydonia, against which Philopcemen commanded its forces for several years. The site of Gortyna is thought to be near the modern Hagios Dheka. The caverns in the neighborhood have been de- scribed by Savary and Tournefort, and Captain Spratt sees in them the labyrinth of Minos. GORTZ, Georg Heinrich, baron, a Swedish statesman, born in Germany, executed in Stockholm in March, 1719. He belonged to an ancient family, whose original name was Schlitz. He became minister of Holstein, and was sent in 1706 on a mission to Charles XII., who made him his minister of finance and afterward prime minister. In both positions he evinced rare abilities, as well as great un- concern in the choice of his means. He was endeavoring to restore the fallen fortunes of Sweden by an extraordinary diplomatic com- bination (see CHARLES XII.) when the king was killed at the siege of Frederikshald (1718), and he was arrested and sentenced to the block by Ulrica Eleonora and her husband Frederick of Hesse, who succeeded to the Swedish throne. The pretext for his execution was that he had mismanaged the finances and goaded on Charles to fatal enterprises.
