Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/724

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GORRITI
GOSFORD

ith was conveyed from tlie Nortli river to Cen- tral Park, where, on 22 Jan., 1881, it was erect- ed on tlie same pedestal on which it had rested in Egypt. The height of the shaft is 69 feet. It was erected by Thothmes III. at Heliopolis about 1000 B. c, and removed to Alexandria in 22 B. c. The total expense of its removal to New York and •erection in Central Park was $103,782, and was paid by William II. Vanderbilt. Subsequently Commander Gorringe criticised naval matters in public with great freedom, and, on being called to account by the department, olTered his resignation, which was accepted. He then engaged actively in forming the American ship-building company, in which he had a controlling interest. He secured several contracts for the construction of vessels, and leased the Reading railroad ship-yard at Port Richmond, Philadelphia, but owing to a want of capital the enterprise proved a failure. Several months before his death in jumping on a train while it was in motion, he received an injury from which he never recovered. The monument erected by friends over his grave at Sparkill, on the Hudson, N. Y., is an exact copy, on a reduced scale, of the obelisk that he transported from Egypt. (See illustration.) He published a " History of Egyptian Obelisks " (New York, 1885).


GORRITI, José Ygnacio (gor-re'-te), Argen- tine soldier, b. in Jujui in 1770; d. in Sucre, Bo- livia, 9 Nov., 1835. lie studied in the University of Cordoba, and then went to Chuquisaca to be graduated as doctor in law, but at the death of liis father in 1791 returned home to take charge of his property. There the revolution of May, 1810. found him, and he at once sided with the cause of independence, serving during the war of upper Peru. During the campaign of Salta and Tucu- man in 1819 and 1820, he spent a great part of his fortune in the maintenance of the Argentine army. In 1820 he was sent as a delegate for the province of Salta to the first constituent congress ; and in the same year, when the governor of Salta, Gen. Gliemes, was called to the field, Gorriti became governor in his place. When the Spanish general Marquiegui invaded the province, Gorriti with a small force defeated and captured his vanguard, and forced the main body to retire to upper Peru. In 1821 there was a revolution against Gliemes, and Gorriti was requested to take charge of the gov- ernment, but he refused and retired to private life. When the province continued in anarchy, he came forward again, and took part in the defence against the last exertions of the royalist armies. He also sti'enuously opposed Quiroga, but, when the latter defeated Gen. Alvarado in 1831, Gorriti emigrated to Bolivia and died there.


GORTON, Samuel, founder of a sect, b. in Gorton, England, about 1600 ; d. in Rhode Island in 1077. He was imperfectly educated, and was in the employ of a clothier of London, but in 1636 went to Boston, Mass., hoping to enjoy greater re- ligious freedom there than at home. He remained in Boston until religious disputes caused him to remove to Plymouth, where he fared still worse, being fined, imprisoned, and finally expelled from the colony in the winter of 1637-'8 for preaching heresy. He then went to Aquidneck (now New- port), R. I., with a few followers, but was publicly whipped for calling the magistrates " just asses," and for other contemptuous acts, and about 1041 was forced to take refuge with Roger Williams at Providence. He then settled at Pawtuxet, and purchased land, but became obnoxious by involv- ing himself in the disputes of the colonists, and in September, 1642, having refused to go to Boston, on being summoned by the authorities, he re- moved to Sliawmut, on the west side of Narra- gansett bay, where he bought land of the sachem, Miantonomo. In June, 1043, two inferior sachems contested his claims to the property, and applied to the general court at Boston for redress. Forty soldiers were in consequence marched to Shawo- met, and Gorton and ten of his followers were taken prisoners to Boston in October, where they were tried as " damnable heretics," and sentenced to imprisonment and hard labor in irons. They were released in March, 1044, and ordered to leave the colony. Gorton then went to England to ob- tain redress, and, having procured from the Earl of Warwick a letter of safe conduct to the Massachu- setts magistrates, and an order that his people should be allowed peaceable possession of their lands at Shawmut, he returned to his colony in 1648, and renamed it Warwick in honor of the earl. Gorton's remaining years seem to have been untroubled, though Massachusetts did not relin- quish lier claim to the Shawomet settlement until some years later. After his return he discharged many important civil officers, and preached on Sundays to the colonists and Indians. He re- garded the clergy and all outward forms with con- tempt, and held that by union with Christ be- lievers partook of the perfection of God, and that heaven and hell have no actual existence. His sect survived hiin about one hundred years. He published " Simplicitie's Defence against Seven- Headed Policy," a vindication of his course in New England (London, 1046; reprinted in the collections of the Rhode Island historical society) ; '• An Incorruptible Key composed of the CX Psalm " (1647) ; " Saltmarsh returned from the Dead" (1055); "An Antidote against the Common Plague of the World "(1057) ; and " Certain Copies of Letters." Gov. Edward Winslovv replied to " Sim- plicitie's Defence," and also published a "Narrative of Disturbances made in New England by Samuel Gorton and his Accomplices" (1049). See his life, by John M. Mackie, in Sparks's " American Biog- raphy" (Boston, 1845).


GOSFORD, Archibald Acheson, Earl of, governor-general of Canada, b. in England about 1775 ; d. 27 March, 1849. He was the^second earl of the name, and was created a peer of the United Kingdom, as Lord Worlingham, 13 June, 1835. He was appointed governor-general of Canada in 1835, and arrived at Quebec in August of that year. A spirit of intense dissatisfaction, fomented in Up- per Canada by WilHam Lyon Mackenzie and in Lower Canada by Papineau, prevailed in both those provinces at the time of Earl Gosford's ap- pointment. He was one of a royal commission, of which the other members were Sir Charles E. Gray and Sir George Gipps, which had been appoint- ed to investigate the grievances complained of in Canada. Both as chief of the commission and as governor. Lord Gosford pushed to the utmost limit the policy of concession and conciliation which he had been instructed by the home govern- ment to pursue. But all efl:orts to allay disaffec- tion were in vain, and the treasonable character of the declaration made at the meeting of the six counties, held at St. Charles, 23 Oct., 1837, led the governor-general to apprise the British govern- ment that a sterner policy must be adopted if Canada's connection with the empire was to be maintained. At the same time he begged to be relieved of his office, and this request was granted by the home government, which approved all that Gosford had done in Canada, though his mission was a failure. He left Canada on 20 Feb., 1838.