Largely owing to Brown’s efforts, Federation was carried through the House, but on the 21st of December 1865 he resigned from the Coalition government, though continuing to support its Federation policy, and in 1867 he was defeated in South Ontario and never again sat in the House. In great measure owing to his energy, and in spite of much concealed opposition from the French-Canadians, the North-West Territories were purchased by the new Dominion. In December 1873 he was called to the Canadian senate, and in 1874 was appointed by the imperial government joint plenipotentiary with Sir Edward Thornton to negotiate a reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States. The negotiations were successful, but the draft treaty failed to pass the United States Senate. Soon afterwards Brown refused the lieutenant-governorship of Ontario, and on two subsequent occasions the offer of knighthood, devoting himself to the Globe and to a model farm at Bow Park near Brantford. On the 25th of March 1880 he was shot by a discharged employé, and died on the 9th of May.
His candour, enthusiasm and open tolerance of the opinions of others made him many warm friends and many fierce enemies. He was at his best in his generous protests against all privileges, social, political and religious, and in the self-sacrificing patriotism which enabled him to fling aside his personal prejudices, and so to make Federation possible.
See J. C. Dent, Canadian Portrait Gallery (Toronto, 1800). The official Life, by the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, is decidedly partisan. A life by John Lewis is included in the Makers of Canada series (Toronto). (W. L. G.)
BROWN, HENRY KIRKE (1814–1886), American sculptor, was born in Leyden, Massachusetts, on the 24th of February 1814. He began to paint portraits while quite a boy, studied painting in Boston under Chester Harding, learned a little about modelling, and in 1836–1839 spent his summers working as a railroad engineer to earn enough to enable him to study further. He spent four years (1842–1846) in Italy; but returning to New York he remained distinctively American, and was never dominated, as were so many of the early American sculptors, by Italian influence. He died on the 10th of July 1886 at Newburgh, New York. His equestrian statues are excellent, notably that of General Winfield Scott (1874) in Washington, D.C., and one of George Washington (1856) in Union Square, New York City, which was the second equestrian statue made in the United States, following by three years that of Andrew Jackson in Washington by Clark Mills (1815–1883). Brown was one of the first in America to cast his own bronzes. Among his other works are: Abraham Lincoln (Union Square, New York City); Nathanael Greene, George Clinton, Philip Kearny, and Richard Stockton (all in the National Statuary Hall, Capitol, Washington, D.C.); De Witt Clinton and “The Angel of the Resurrection,” both in Greenwood cemetery, New York City; and an “Aboriginal Hunter.”
His nephew and pupil, Henry Kirke Bush-Brown (b. 1857), also became prominent among American sculptors, his “Buffalo Hunt,” equestrian statues of Generals Meade and Reynolds at Gettysburg, and “Justinian” in the New York appellate court-house, being his chief works.
BROWN, JACOB (1775–1828), American soldier, was born of Quaker ancestry, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of May 1775. From 1796 to 1798 he was engaged in surveying public lands in Ohio; in 1798 he settled in New York City, and during the period (1798–1800) when war with France seemed imminent he acted as military secretary to Alexander Hamilton, then inspector-general of the United States army. Subsequently he purchased a large tract of land in Jefferson county, New York, where he founded the town of Brownville. There he served as county judge, and attained the rank (1810) of brigadier-general in the state militia. On the outbreak of the second war with Great Britain (1812) he was placed in command of the New York state frontier from Oswego to Lake St Francis (near Cornwall, Ontario) and repelled the British attacks on Ogdensburg (October 4, 1812) and Sackett’s Harbor (May 29, 1813). In July 1813 he was commissioned brigadier-general in the regular army, and in January 1814 he was promoted major-general and succeeded General James Wilkinson in command of the forces at Niagara. Early in the summer of 1814 he undertook offensive operations, and his forces occupied Fort Erie, and, on the 5th of July, at Chippawa, Ontario, defeated the British under General Phineas Riall (c. 1769–1851). On the 25th of July, with General Winfield Scott, he fought a hotly contested, but indecisive, battle with the British under General Gordon Drummond (1771–1854) at Lundy’s Lane, where he was twice wounded. After the war he remained in the army, of which he was the commanding general from March 1821 until his death at Washington, D.C., on the 24th of February 1828.
BROWN, JOHN (1715–1766), British divine and author, was born at Rothbury, Northumberland, on the 5th of November 1715. His father, a descendant of the Browns of Coalston, near Haddington, became vicar of Wigton in that year. Young Brown was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge; and after graduating at the head of the list of wranglers in 1735, he took holy orders, and was appointed minor canon and lecturer at Carlisle. In 1745 he distinguished himself in the defence of Carlisle as a volunteer, and in 1747 was appointed chaplain to Dr Osbaldiston, on his admission to the bishopric of Carlisle. His poem, entitled “Honour” (1743), was followed by the “Essay on Satire.” This gained for him the friendship of William Warburton, who introduced him to Ralph Allen, of Prior Park, near Bath. In 1751 Brown dedicated to Allen his Essay on the Characteristics of Lord Shaftesbury, containing an able defence of the utilitarian philosophy, praised later by John Stuart Mill (Westminster Review, vol. xxix. p. 477). In 1756 he was promoted by the earl of Hardwicke to the living of Great Horkesley in Essex, and in the following year he took the degree of D.D. at Cambridge. He was the author of two plays, Barbarossa (1754) and Athelstane (1756); Garrick played in both, and the first was a success. The most popular of his works was the Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (2 vols., 1757–1758), a bitter satire which pleased a public depressed by the ill-success in the conduct of the war, and ready to welcome an attack on luxury and kindred evils. Other works are the Additional Dialogue of the Dead between Pericles and Cosmo ... (1760), in vindication of Chatham’s policy; and the Dissertation on the Rise, Union and Power, &c., of Poetry and Music (1763). He was consulted in connexion with a scheme of education which Catherine II. of Russia desired to introduce into her dominions. A memorandum on the subject by Dr Brown led to an offer on her part to entertain him at St Petersburg as her adviser on the subject. He had bought a postchaise and various other things for the journey, when he was persuaded to relinquish the design on account of his gout. He had been subject to fits of melancholy, and, influenced perhaps by disappointment, he committed suicide on the 23rd of September 1766.
There is a detailed account of John Brown by Andrew Kippis in Biographia Britannica (1780), containing the text of the negotiations for his journey to Russia, and of a long letter in which he outlines the principles of the scheme he would have proposed. See also T. Davies, Memoirs of ... David Garrick (1780), chap. xix.
BROWN. JOHN (1722–1787), Scottish divine, was born at Carpow, in Perthshire. He was almost entirely self-educated, having acquired a knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew while employed as a shepherd. His early career was varied, and he was in succession a packman, a soldier in the Edinburgh garrison in 1745, and a school-master. He was, from 1750 till his death, minister of the Burgher branch of the Secession church (see United Presbyterian Church) in Haddington. From 1786 he was professor of divinity for his denomination, and was mainly responsible for the training of its ministry. He gained a just reputation for learning and piety. The best of his many works are his Self-Interpreting Bible and Dictionary of the Bible, works that were long very popular. The former was translated into Welsh. He also wrote an Explication of the Westminster Confession, and a number of biographical and historical sketches.
BROWN, JOHN (1735–1788), Scottish physician, was born in 1735 at Lintlaws or at Preston, Berwickshire. After attending the parish school at Duns, he went to Edinburgh and entered
