Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/599

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GABARET
GADSDEN
567

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GABARET, Jean de (gah-bah-ray), governor of Martinique, b. in the island of Re in 1620; d. in Rochefort, 81 March, l(j97. He entered the navy at the age of sixteen years, and in 1(558 had already obtained the rank of commodore. In 1677 he commanded the vanguard of d'Estree's fleet in the West Indies, entered the port of Tobago at its head, amid the cross-fire of the forts and the Dutch fleet, on 27 Feb., and in 1678 captured the same island, and, after destroying Granada, returned to Europe and participated in the battle of La Hogue, 29 May, 1692. In 1693 he was appoint- ed governor-general of Martinicjue. Although he found the island in a defenceless state, he soon organized troops and armed the forts. An English fleet of tvrenty-eight men-of-war and eight trans- ports, with 4,200 landing troops under Sir Francis Wheeler, anchored in Port Royal on 1 April, and landed 1,600 men under Col. Fonlke. which were defeated and forced to re-embark, while Sir Fran- cis landed with 2.600 men at Diamond bay. On 15 April he received a re-enforcement from Anti- gua under Gen. Codrington, and concentrating all his forces, over 5,000, at Front Cananville, he marched on the capital. Saint Pierre. Gabaret had only 400 disciplined troops and 1,500 armed slaves, but met the invaders on 31 May, 1693, at Precheurs, defeated, and forced them to re-enibark. He even attacked, in 1694, the port of Kingston, Jamaica, and sunk some English ships. After his return he organized the administration, introduced many useful reforms, embellished the capital, built the city-hall, and made improvements in the port in 1695-6. Out of gi-atitude to the negroes who had helped him to defeat the English, he reformed the so-called "black code," and presented, in 1696, to Louis XIV. a project for gradual emancipation, which was printed under the title of " Memoire presente a Sa Majeste par le comte de Gabaret, gouverneur de la Martinique sur remancipation graduelle des esclaves." In this he suggested the colonization of the slaves in Cayenne and Patago- nia, which would encourage the immigration of white settlers to Martinique, and form new and useful French colonies in South America. The minister of war, marquis of Chamillard, favored the project, and reported it to the king, who called Gabaret to France. He sailed in January, 1697, but shortly after his arrival died of exposure to the cold, to which he had not been accustomed.


GABB, William More, paleontologist, b. in Philadelphia, Pa.. 16 Jan., 1839 : d. there, 30 May, 1878. He was educated in Philadelphia, and ac- quired his knowledge of geology in the Academy of natural sciences of that city. In 1862 he was appointed paleontologist to the geological survey of California, under Prof. Josiah D. VVhitney, and continued actively engaged in that work until 1865. The cretaceous" and tertiary fossils were classified by him, and the portion devoted to that subject in the first volume on paleontology of the '• Geological Survey of California " (1864), and the entire second volume, were written by him. In 1868 he undertook a survey in Santo Domingo for the Santo Domingo land and mining company, re- maining on the island from 1869 till 1872. Subse- quently he published an extended memoir " On the Topography and Geology of Santo Domingo," in the " Transactions of the American Philosophical Society," vol. xiv. (Philadelphia, 1873). He then went to Costa Rica under an appointment from the government, and engaged in a topographical and geological survey of that country, where he also made extensive ethnological and natural his- tory collections for the Smithsonian institution. Mr. Gabb published a memoir " On the Topogra- phy of Costa Rica," with a map, in " Petermann's Mittheilungen,"and also one on the" Ethnology of Costa Rica," in the " Transactions of the American Philosophical Society." His report on the geology and paleontology he left unpublished at the time of his death. Besides the foregoing publications he contributed frequent papers to the scientific journals and proceedings of societies. He received an election to the National academy of sciences, was also a member of other scientific societies, and ultimately gained a reputation for greater knowledge of American invertebrate paleontology of the cretaceous and tertiary age than any other scientist of his time.


GABRIAC, Paul Joseph de Cadoinc, Marquis de, French diplomatist, b. in Heidelberg, Baden, 1 March, 1792; d. in Paris, 12 June, 1865. He en- tered the diplomatic corps in 1811 as secretary of the embassy at Naples, and in 1812-'14 was consul- general at New York, and temporarily in charge as minister in Washington. Under the restora- tion he was appointed secretary of legation at Turin in 1815, chief secretary at St. Petersburg in 1820, and minister plenipotentiary at Stockholm in 1823. In 1826 he was appointed by the prime minister. Count Villele, to the Brazilian mission, which had been refused by different ditilomatisfs on account of the difficult situation of affairs, as the emperor, Pedro I., refused to accede to the de- sires of the European governments to establish an independent government in Portugal. Gabriac seconded the demands of England and Austria so effectually that at last the emperor appointed, in 1827, his brother Miguel regent of Portugal in the name of his daughter, Dona Maria da Gloria. He also renewed the commercial treaty with the em- pire, signed 10 Aug., 1828, a convention by which Brazil adopted the French maritime law, and in the same year had the same law adopted by all the South American republics. In 1829 he was sent as minister to Switzerland, but returned when the July revolution of 1830 made his special mission superfluous. In 1837 he was sent on a special mis- sion to Mexico, and in 1839 to Washington ; he was in 1841 made a peer of France, and in 1853 life senator by Napoleon III. He is the author of " La question Bresilienne " (Paris, 1829) ; " Les re- publiques de I'Amerique du Sud considerees dans leur avenir" (1851); and "Dora Pedro I., notes et souvenirs personnels" (1854).


GADSDEN, Christopher, patriot, b. in Charleston, S. C., in 1724; d. there, 28 Aug., 1805. He was sent at an early age to England, where he received his education. He returned to Charleston in 1741, and shortly afterward became a clerk in a counting-house in Philadelphia, where he remained till he was twenty-one years of age. After a second visit to England he began business on his own account in Philadelphia, and such was his success that he was soon able to buy back the estate which his father, in 1733, had lost at play with Admiral Lord Anson. He was one of the first to appreciate the full measure of the difficulty with Great Britain, and from the outset he was sympathetic and resolute on the popular side. He was the friend and correspondent of Samuel