Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/895

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CAN—CAN
811
of the subject of the preceding notice, and was born at Brompton, near London, on the 14th December 1812. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B. A. in 1833, as first class in classics and second class in mathematics. In 1836 he entered Parliament, being returned as member for the town of Warwick in the Conservative interest. He did not, however, sit long in the House of Commons; for, on the death of his mother in 1837, he succeeded to the peerage which had been conferred on her with remainder to her only surviving son, and as Viscount Canning took his seat in the House of Lords. His first official appointment was that of Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the administration formed by Sir Robert Peel in 1841,—his chief being the earl of Aberdeen. This post he held till January 1846; and from January to July of that year, when the Peel administration was broken up, Lord Canning filled the post of Commissioner of Woods and Forests. He declined to accept office under the earl of Derby; but on the formation of the Coalition Ministry under the earl of Aberdeen in January 1853, he received the appointment of Postmaster-General. In this office he showed not only a large capacity for hard work, but also general administrative ability, and much zeal for the improvement of the service. He retained his post under Lord Palmerston's ministry until July 1855, when, in consequence of the death of Lord Dalhousie, and a vacancy in the governor-generalship of India, he was selected by Lord Palmerston to succeed to that great position. This appointment appears to have been made rather on the ground of his father's great services than from any proof as yet given of special personal fitness on the part of Lord Canning. The new governor sailed from England in December 1855, and entered upon the duties of his office in India at the close of February 1856. His strong common sense and sound practical judgment led him to adopt a policy of conciliation towards the native princes, and to promote measures tending to the betterment of the condition of the people.

In the year following his accession to office the deep-seated discontent of the people broke out in the mutiny which grew into the Sepoy War. Fears were entertained, and even the friends of the viceroy to some extent shared them, that he was not equal to the crisis. But the fears proved groundless. He had a clear eye for the gravity of the situation, a calm judgment, and a prompt, swift hand to do what was really necessary. By the union of great moral qualities with high, though not the highest, intellectual faculties, he carried the Indian empire safely through the stress of the storm, and, what was perhaps a harder task still, he dealt wisely with the enormous difficulties arising at the close of such a war, established a more liberal policy and a sounder financial system, and left the people more contented than they were before. While rebellion was raging in Oude, he issued a proclamation declaring the lands of the province forfeited; and this step gave rise to much angry controversy. A "secret despatch," couched in arrogant and offensive terms, was addressed to the viceroy by Lord Ellenborough, then a member of the Derby administration, which would have justified the viceroy in immediately resigning. But from a strong sense of duty he continued at his post; and ere long the general condemnation of the despatch was so strong that the writer felt it necessary to retire from office. Lord Canning replied to the despatch, calmly and in a statesman-like manner, explaining and vindicating his censured policy. In April 1859 he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for his great services during the mutiny. He was also made an Extra Civil Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath; and in May of the same year he was raised to the dignity of an earl. By the strain of anxiety and hard work his health and strength were seriously impaired; and in the hope that rest in his native land might restore him, he left India, reaching England in April 1862. But it was too late. He died in London on the 17th of June following. About a month before his death he was created K.G. As he died without issue the title became extinct.

CANNON. See Guns and Gunnery and Artillery.

CANO, Alonzo (1600-1667), one of the most vigorous of the Spanish painters, and also, like Michelangelo, with whom he is usually compared, an architect and sculptor of great merit. He has left in Spain a very great number of specimens of his genius, which display the boldness of his design, the facility of his pencil, the purity of his flesh-tints, and his knowledge of chiaroscuro. He was a native of Granada, and a contemporary of Velasquez and Pacheco, whom he rivalled without imitating. As a statuary, his most famous works are the Madonna and Child in the church of Nebrissa, and the colossal figures of San Pedro and San Pablo. As an architect, he indulged in too profuse ornamentation, and gave way too much to the fancies of his day. Philip IV. made him royal architect and king's painter, and gave him the church preferment of a canon. He was notorious for his ungovernable temper; and it is said that once he risked his life by committing the then capital offence of dashing to pieces the statue of a saint, when in a rage with the purchaser who grudged the price he demanded. His known passionateness also (according to another story) caused him to be suspected, and even tortured, for the murder of his wife, though all other circumstances pointed to his servant as the culprit.

CANO, or Canus, Melchior (1523-1560), a learned Spanish bishop and theologian, who was pupil and successor of Vittoria as professor of theology at Salamanca. He had one, and only one, rival as to erudition in Spain, Bartolomeo de Carranza, like himself a Dominican, and the university was divided between the partizans of the two professors. On account of his violent opposition to the establishment of the Jesuits in his native country, he was summoned by Pope Paul III. to the Council of Trent, and appointed to the distant see of the Canaries. But his influence with Philip II. procured his recall to Castile, where he became provincial of the Dominican order. His principal works are entitled Prælections de Pœnitentia, De Sacramentis, and Locorum Thcologicorum Libri XII.

CANOE, a species of boat. In several Eastern languages the word kan means something hollow, with a certain degree of strength. Pliny says some Indian reeds are long enough to form a boat for three men between the joints. The French canot, Spanish canoa, Italian canoe, are derived from the Latin canna; but a canoe is sometimes called in France bateau, bôt, pirogue, caique, chaloupe, navire, nacelle, or périssoir, and the paddle pagaye, and the canoeist payayeur. The English word "canoe" may be defined as a boat propelled by one or more paddles used without a fixed fulcrum on the boat, and therefore invariably with the sitter facing towards the bow. The Venetian gondola and the Maltese boats, and many others, are rowed by men who face the bows, but they always have a fixed rest for the rowlock. Canoes are made of various substances. Those of the Esquimaux are of seal skin stretched over whalebone, and are propelled by the double-bladed paddle, 7 feet long and 6 inches broad, used by one man, whose dress is united with the deck covering, so as to be watertight.

The North American "dug-out" canoe is made from a tree hollowed by fire, while the bark canoes are formed by birch bark sewn together, according to the size required, until the craft will hold as many as seventy men. Paper canoes have been used in the United States. Cork leather