Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/313

This page needs to be proofread.
VETHAKE
VEUILLOT

da and New England ; but, having failed, he went to England in 1708, and with the full authoriza- tion of the colony of New York proposed to Queen Anne the seizure of Canada. The queen regarded the proposal with , favor and forwarded by Col. Vetch her instructions to the colonial governors to aid in rendering the project effective. On landing at Boston he laid his instructions before the gov- ernor and council of Massachusetts, and also for- warded similar documents to the governors of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jer- sey, and Pennsylvania. In consequence of the non-arrival of the fleet that was promised by the queen, the expedition against Canada -was aban- doned. Returning to Boston, he called a meeting of prominent citizens, at which it was decided to fit out an expedition for the capture of Port Royal (now Annapolis), Nova Scotia, and at the same time a requisition was made for men-of-war to as- sist in the enterprise. The expedition was com- manded by Sir Francis Nicholson, Col. Vetch be- ing adjutant-general, and after the capitulation of Port Royal, 2 Oct., 1710, the latter remained as governor of the conquered colony. Gov. Vetch next sent a delegation to the French governor- general at Quebec, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, to announce that Acadia had fallen into the hands of the British and to offer an exchange of prisoners that had been captured at Annapolis for British sub- jects that were then in Montreal and Quebec. Noth- ing came of this ; but Vetch and his small garrison, who had held precarious possession of the conquered province, were finally relieved from the fear of re- prisals on the part of the French and Iroquois by the treaty of Utrecht, 11 April, 1713. Shortly afterward he was removed from the governorship of Nova Scotia in consequence of his great zeal for George I., soon after whose accession he was restored to his post ; but he was soon removed again. The cause of his second removal is unknown, though it is surmised that his harsh treatment of the plotting priests and the people of the province was the chief reason. After his departure from Annapolis he went to Boston, annoyed the war and state de- partments with his claims for back-pay, and peti- tioned the king to be allowed £3,000 a year till he had been provided with a post in America as had been promised. Receiving neither the post nor the money, he returned finally to England, where he was residing in 1719. He was a man of great natural ability and formed for command, but preju- diced in politics and religion. A manuscript jour- nal covering the Port Royal period is in the pos- session of Mrs. James Speyers, of New York, as is also the portrait by Sir Peter Lely, which has been engraved for the first time for this work. See " An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia," by Thomas C. Haliburton (Halifax, 1829) ; " Journal of the Voyage of the Sloop Mary " (1701 ; new ed., with introduction and notes by Edmund B. O'Callaghan, New York, 1866) ; " History and General Description of New France," by Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, translated with notes by John G. Shea (New York, 1866-'72) ; and " An Acadian Governor," by James Grant Wilson, in " International Review " (November, 1881).


VETHAKE, Henry, educator, b. in Essequibo county (now united with Demerara), British Guiana, in 1792 ; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 16 Dec, 1866. He was brought to the United States by his parents at the age of four years, was graduated at Columbia in 1808, and afterward studied law. In 1813 he be- came instructor in mathematics and geography at Columbia, and later in the same year professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Queen's college (now Rutgers). He went to Princeton in 1817 as professor of the same sciences, and for the first year of chemistry also, resigning in 1821 in order to take the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy in Dickinson college, where he remained till 1829. He taught the same subjects in the Uni- versity of the city of New York from 1832 till 1835, and then filled for a year the office of presi- dent of Washington college, Lexington, Va., taking the chair of intellectual and moral philosophy. He was professor of mathematics from 1836 till 1855, and subsequently till 1859 of intellectual and moral philosophy in the University of Pennsyl- vania, being chosen vice-provost in 1846, and pro- vost in 1854. From 1859 till his death he occupied the chair of the higher mathematics in the Phila- delphia polytechnic college. He received the de- gree of LL. D. from Columbia in 1836. He pub- lished " Principles of Political Economy " (Phila- delphia, 1838; 2d ed., 1844), besides contribu- tions to periodicals. He edited, with additions, John R. McCulloch's '"Dictionary of Commerce" (Philadelphia, 1843), and a supplemental volume of the "Encyclopaedia Americana," which was in great part written by himself (1847).


VETROMILE, Eugene, Italian missionary, b. in Gallipoli, Italy, 22 Feb., 1819; d. there, 21 Aug., 1880. He came to the United States in 1840 and entered Georgetown college, Georgetown, D. G, where he finished his studies and obtained his first knowledge of the Abnaki language. He was then ordained a priest, and assigned to missionary duty at Port Tobacco, Md. He was afterward professor in a college at Washington, and in 1858 was given charge of the mission of Old Town, Me. His labors among the Penobscot Indians for more than a quarter of a century affected his health, and he re- turned to Italy shortly before his death. He pub- lished " Travels in Europe, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria," and " The Abnaki and their History." His knowledge of the Indian dialects made him widely known. Rev. Edward Ballard, of Brunswick, Me., says, in the " Collections of the Maine Historical Society," that Vetromile was the only person who could "read a verse of John Eliot's Indian Bible with a true understanding of the words of that transla- tion." His chief Indian works are " Aln'amby Uli Awikhigan," a volume that comprises devotions and instructions in various Abnaki dialects ; " Ahiami- hewintuhangun," a collection of hymns set to music ; " Vetromile Wewessi Ubibian," an Indian Bible ; and an " Abnaki Dictionary " in three folio volumes, which occupied him twenty-one years.


YEUILLOT, Désiré (vuh-yo), French explorer, b. in Cahors in 1653 ; d. in London, England, in 1732. He was employed till 1684 as inspector-general of the establishment of the West Indian company in the Antilles, Louisiana, and Alabama, and made an exploration of Mississippi river in 1683, penetrating as far as the Missouri, and returning by way of Arkansas. As he was a Protestant, he was forced, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, to renounce the land-grant that he had obtained in upper Mississippi and for the settlement of which he was preparing an expedition, and eventually he left France and took refuge in London, where he obtained employment in the office of the secretary of foreign relations. He wrote " Description des cotes de la Louisiane, avec un voyage fait le long du cours du fleuve Mississipi" (2 vols., London, 1708), and "Notice historique sur la Compagnie du Mississipi et sur les etablissements fondes par les Francais en Louisiane" (2 vols., 1714), which was translated into English (1715).