henceforth all children born of slaves were free from birth, and that all slaves became free on the death of their master.
See the Annual Reports on the colony published by the colonial office, London, which give the latest official information; C. P. Lucas’s Historical Geography of the British Colonies, vol. iii., West Africa (2nd ed., Oxford, 1900) (this book contains valuable bibliographical notes); and The Gambia Colony and Protectorate, an official handbook (with map and considerable historical information), by F. B. Archer, treasurer of the colony (London, 1906). Early accounts of the country will be found in vol. ii. of Thomas Astley’s New General Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1745–1747). See also Major W. Gray and Surgeon Dochard, Travels in Western Africa in 1818–1821, from the River Gambia . . . to the River Niger (London, 1829). The flora has been the subject of a special study, A. Rançon, La Flore utile du bassin de la Gambie (Bordeaux, 1895). Most of the books mentioned under Gold Coast also deal with the Gambia.
GAMBIER, JAMES GAMBIER, Baron (1756–1833), English admiral, was born on the 13th of October 1756 at the Bahamas, of which his father, John Gambier, was at that time lieutenant-governor. He entered the navy in 1767 as a midshipman on board the “Yarmouth,” under the command of his uncle; and, his family interest obtaining for him rapid promotion, he was raised in 1778 to the rank of post-captain, and appointed to the “Raleigh,” a fine 32-gun frigate. At the peace of 1783 he was
placed on half-pay; but, on the outbreak of the war of the
French Revolution, he was appointed to the command of the
74–gun ship “Defence,” under Lord Howe; and in her he had
an honourable share in the battle on the 1st of June 1794. In
recognition of his services on this occasion, Captain Gambier
received the gold medal, and was made a colonel of marines;
the following year he was advanced to the rank of rear-admiral,
and appointed one of the lords of the admiralty. In this office he
continued for six years, till, in February 1801, he, a vice-admiral
of 1799, hoisted his flag on board the “Neptune,” of 98 guns,
as third in command of the Channel Fleet under Admiral Cornwallis,
where, however, he remained for but a year, when he was
appointed governor of Newfoundland and commander-in-chief
of the ships on that station. In May 1804 he returned to the
admiralty, and with a short intermission in 1806, continued
there during the naval administration of Lord Melville, of his
uncle, Lord Barham, and of Lord Mulgrave. In November 1805
he was raised to the rank of admiral; and in the summer of 1807,
whilst still a lord of the admiralty, he was appointed to the
command of the fleet ordered to the Baltic, which, in concert
with the army under Lord Cathcart, reduced Copenhagen, and
enforced the surrender of the Danish navy, consisting of nineteen
ships of the line, besides frigates, sloops, gunboats, and naval
stores. This service was considered by the government as worthy
of special acknowledgment; the naval and military commanders,
officers, seamen and soldiers received the thanks of both Houses
of Parliament, and Admiral Gambier was rewarded with a peerage.
In the spring of the following year he gave up his seat at the admiralty on being appointed to the command of the Channel Fleet; and in that capacity he witnessed the partial, and prevented the total, destruction of the French fleet in Basque Roads, on the 12th of April 1809. It is in connexion with this event, which might have been as memorable in the history of the British navy as it is in the life of Lord Dundonald (see Dundonald), that Lord Gambier’s name is now best known. A court-martial, assembled by order of a friendly admiralty, and presided over by a warm partisan, “most honourably acquitted” him on the charge “that, on the 12th of April, the enemy’s ships being then on fire, and the signal having been made that they could be destroyed, he did, for a considerable time, neglect or delay taking effectual measures for destroying them”; but this decision was in reality nothing more than a party statement of the fact that a commander-in-chief, a supporter of the government, is not to be condemned or broken for not being a person of brilliant genius or dauntless resolution. No one now doubts that the French fleet should have been reduced to ashes, and might have been, had Lord Gambier had the talents, the energy, or the experience of many of his juniors. He continued to hold the command of the Channel Fleet for the full period of three years, at the end of which time—in 1811—he was superseded. In 1814 he acted in a civil capacity as chief commissioner for negotiating a treaty of peace with the United States; for his exertions in which business he was honoured with the Grand Cross of the Bath. In 1830 he was raised to the high rank of admiral of the fleet, and he died on the 19th of April 1833.
Lord Gambier was a man of earnest, almost morbid, religious principle, and of undoubted courage; but the administration of the admiralty has seldom given rise to such flagrant scandals as during the time when he was a member of it; and through the whole war the self-esteem of the navy suffered no such wound as during Lord Gambier’s command in the Bay of Biscay.
The so-called Memorials, Personal and Historical, of Admiral Lord Gambier, by Lady Chatterton (1861), has no historical value. The life of Lord Gambier is to be read in Marshall’s Royal Naval Biography, in Ralfe’s Naval Biography, in Lord Dundonald’s Autobiography of a Seaman, in the Minutes of the Courts-Martial and in the general history of the period.
GAMBIER, a village of College township, Knox county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Kokosing river, 5 m. E. of Mount Vernon. Pop.
(1900) 751; (1910) 537. It is served by the Cleveland, Akron &
Columbus railway. The village is finely situated, and is the seat
of Kenyon College and its theological seminary, Bexley Hall
(Protestant Episcopal), and of Harcourt Place boarding school
for girls (1889), also Protestant Episcopal. The college was incorporated
in 1824 as the “Theological Seminary of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Ohio”; but in 1891
“Kenyon College,” the name by which the institution has always
been known, became the official title. Its first exercises were held
at Worthington, Ohio, in the home of Philander Chase (1775–1852), first Protestant Episcopal bishop in the North-west
Territory, by whose efforts the funds for its endowment had been
raised in England in 1823–1824, the chief donors being Lords
Kenyon and Gambier. The first permanent building, “Old
Kenyon” (still standing, and used as a dormitory), was erected
on Gambier Hill in 1827 in the midst of a forest. In 1907–1908
the theological seminary had 18 students and the collegiate
department 119.
Some account of the founding of the college may be found in Bishop Chase’s Reminiscences; an Autobiography, comprising a History of the Principal Events in the Author’s Life to 1847 (2 vols., New York, 1848).
GAMBOGE (from Camboja, a name of the district whence it is
obtained), a gum-resin procured from Garcinia Hanburii, a
dioecious tree with leathery, laurel-like leaves, small yellow
flowers, and usually square-shaped and four-seeded fruit, a
member of the natural order Guttiferae, and indigenous to
Cambodia and parts of Siam and of the south of Cochin China,
formerly comprised in Cambojan territory. The juice, which
when hardened constitutes gamboge, is contained in the bark of
the tree, chiefly in numerous ducts in its middle layer, and from
this it is procured by making incisions, bamboo joints being
placed to receive it as it exudes. Gamboge occurs in commerce
in cylindrical pieces, known as pipe or roll gamboge, and also,
usually of inferior quality, in cakes or amorphous masses. It is
of a dirty orange externally; is hard and brittle, breaks with a
conchoidal and reddish-yellow, glistening fracture, and affords a
brilliant yellow powder; is odourless, and has a taste at first
slight, but subsequently acrid; forms with water an emulsion;
and consists of from 20 to 25% of gum soluble in water, and from
70 to 75% of a resin. Its commonest adulterants are rice-flour
and pulverized bark.
Gamboge (Cambogia) is a drastic hydragogue cathartic, causing much griping and irritation of the intestine. A small quantity is absorbed, adding a yellow ingredient to the urine and acting as a mild diuretic. Its irritant action on the skin may cause the formation of pustules. It is less active only than croton oil and elaterium, and may be given in doses of half to two grains, combined with some sedative such as hyoscyamus, in apoplexy and in extreme cases of dropsy. Gamboge is used as a pigment, and as a colouring matter for varnishes. It appears to have been first brought into Europe by merchants from the East at the close of the 16th century.
GAMBRINUS, a mythical Flemish king who is credited with the first brewing of beer. His name is usually derived from that of Jan Primus, i.e. Jan (John) I., the victorious duke of Brabant, from 1261 to 1294, who was president of the Brussels gild of
