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TOREADOR—TORENO
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attacked her but in the English captain he met his match. The combat lasted all day, was interrupted by nightfall, and renewed again indecisively the following morning. Wessel’s free and easy ways procured him many enemies in the Danish navy. He was accused of unnecessarily endangering his majesty’s war-ships in the affairs with the frigate and he was brought before a court-martial. But the spirit with which he defended himself and the contempt he poured on his less courageous comrades took the fancy of King Frederick IV., who cancelled the proceedings and raised Wessel to the rank of captain. When in the course of 1715 the return of Charles XII. from Turkey to Stralsund put a new life into the jaded and dispirited Swedish forces, Wessel distinguished himself in numerous engagements off the Pomeranian coast and did the enemy infinite damage by cutting out their frigates and destroying their transports. On returning to Denmark in the beginning of 1716 he was ennobled under the title of “Tordenskjold” (Thundershield). When in the course of 1716 Charles XII. invaded Norway and sat down before the fortress of Fredrikshald, Tordenskjold compelled him to raise the siege and retire to Sweden by pouncing upon the Swedish transport fleet laden with ammunition and other military stores which rode at anchor in the narrow and dangerous strait of Dynekil, utterly destroying the Swedish fleet with little damage to himself. For this, his greatest exploit, he was promoted to the rank of commander, but at the same time incurred the enmity of his superior officer Admiral Gabel, whom he had omitted to take into his confidence on the occasion. Tordenskjold’s first important command was the squadron with which he was entrusted in the beginning of 1717 for the purpose of destroying the Swedish Gothenburg squadron which interrupted the communications between Denmark and Norway. Owing to the disloyalty of certain of his officers who resented serving under the young adventurer, Tordenskjold failed to do all that was expected of him. His enemies were not slow to take advantage of his partial failure. The old charge of criminal recklessness was revived against him at a second court-martial before which he was summoned in 1718; but his old patron Admiral U. C. Gyldenlove again intervened energetically in his behalf and the charge was quashed. In December 1718 Tordenskjold brought to Frederick IV. the welcome news of the death of Charles XII. and was made a rear-admiral for his pains. Tordenskjold’s last feat of arms was his capture of the Swedish fortress of Marstrand, when he partially destroyed and partially captured the Gothenburg squadron which had so long eluded him. He was rewarded with the rank of vice-admiral. Tordenskjold did not long survive the termination of the war. On the 20th of November 1720 he was killed in a duel with a Livonian colonel, Jakob Axel Stael von Holstein. Although, Dynekil excepted, Tordenskjold’s victories were of far less importance than Sehested’s at Stralsund and Gyldenlove’s at Rtigen, he is certainly, after Charles XII., the most heroic figure of the Great Northern War. His courage was fully equal to the courage of “The Lion of the North,” but he lacked that absolute self-command which gives to the bravery of Charles XII. its peculiar, almost superhuman, character.

See Carstensen and Liitken, Tordenskjold (Copenhagen, 1887).  (R. N. B.) 


TOREADOR, a Spanish word derived from torear, to engage in a bull-fight, toro, a bull, Latin taurus, for one of the principal performers in the national sport of bull-fighting (q.v.).


TORELL, OTTO MARTIN (1828–1900), Swedish geologist, was born in Varberg on the 5th of June 1828. He was educated at Lund for the medical profession, but became interested in zoological and geological studies, and being of independent means he devoted himself to science. He gave his attention first especially to the invertebrate fauna and the physical changes of pleistocene and recent times. He studied the glacial phenomena of Switzerland, Spitzbergen and Greenland, making two Arctic expeditions in company with A. E. Nordenskiöld. In 1866 he became professor of zoology and geology in the University at Lund, and in 1871 he was appointed chief of the Swedish Geological Survey. In the latter capacity he laboured until 1897. His published contributions, though of much interest and importance, were not large, but his influence in promoting a knowledge of geology in Sweden was of great service. His Arctic experiences enabled him to interpret the method of origin of the drift deposits in northern Europe, and to show that they were largely of glacial or fluvio-glacial origin. In the English drifts he recognized many boulders of Scandinavian origin. He died on the 11th of September 1900.

His publications include: Bidrag till Spitsbergens molluskfauna (1859); and memoirs to accompany several sheets of the Geological Survey map of Sweden.

Obituary with portrait, in Geol. Mag. (May 1902), reproduced in abridged form from memoir by L. Holmström, in Geologiska foreningen i Stockholm’s forhandlingar, xxiii.


TORENO, JOSÉ MARIA QUIEPO DE LLANO RUIZ DE SARAVIA, Count of (1786–1843), Spanish politician and historian, was born at Oviedo on the 25th of November 1786. His family was wealthy and belonged to the most ancient nobility of Asturias. His mother, Dominga Ruiz de Saravia, had property in the province of Cuenca. The son received a better education in classics, mathematics and modern languages than was usual at that time. The young viscount of Matarrosa, the title he bore in his father’s lifetime, was introduced to the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau by the abbot of the Benedictine house of Monserrat in Madrid. He was present at Madrid when the city rose against Murat on the 2nd of May 1808, and took part in the struggle which was the beginning of the Peninsular War. From Madrid he escaped to Asturias, and on the 30th of May he embarked in a Jersey privateer at Gijon, with other delegates, in order to ask for the help of England against the French. The deputation was enthusiastically received in London. By the 30th of December he was back in Asturias, his father having died in the interval. During the Peninsular War he saw some service in the first occupation of Asturias by the French, but he was mainly occupied by his duties as a member of the Cortes. In 1809 he was at Seville, where one of his uncles was a member of the central Junta. In the following year he was a leader of the party which compelled the Regency to summon the Cortes—to which he was elected by Asturias early in 1811 though he wanted some months of the legal age of twenty-five. His election was opposed by some of his own relatives who did not share his advanced opinions, but it was ratified by the Cortes. Toreno was conspicuous among the well-meaning men who framed the constitution of 1812, which was made as if it was meant for some imaginary republic and not for Catholic and monarchical Spain. When Ferdinand VII. returned from prison in France in 1814 Toreno foresaw a reaction, and put himself out of reach of the king. He was the more an object of suspicion because his brother-in-law, Porlier, perished in a wild attempt to support the constitution by force. Toreno remained in exile till the outbreak of the revolution of 1820. Between that year and 1823 he was in Spain serving in the restored Cortes, and experience had abated his radical ardour. When the French intervened in 1823 Toreno had again to go into exile, and remained abroad till the king published the amnesty of the 15th of October 1832. He returned home in July 1833, but remained on his estates till the king’s death on the 29th of September. As hereditary standard bearer of Asturias (Alferez Mayor) it fell to him to proclaim the young queen, Isabella II. In 1834 his now moderate opinions pointed him out to the queen regent, Maria Christina, as a useful man for office. In June 1834 he was minister of finance, and became prime minister on the 7th of June. His tenure of the premiership lasted only till the 14th of September of the same year, when the regent’s attempt to retain a practically despotic government under a thin constitutional veil broke down. The greater part of the remainder of his life was spent in voluntary exile, and he died in Paris on the 16th of September 1843. As a politician he felt the need for a revision of the worn out despotism which ruled till 1808, but he was destitute of any real political capacity. Toreno is chiefly remembered as the author of the History of the Rising, War