Part 15

COLBERT DE CROISSY, CHARLES, MARQUIS (1625-1696), French diplomatist, like his elder brother Jean Baptiste Colbert, began his career in the office of the minister of war Le Tellier. In 1656 he bought a counsellorship at the parlement of Metz, and in 1658 was appointed intendant of Alsace and president of the newly-created sovereign council of Alsace. In this position he had to re-organize the territory recently annexed to France. The steady support of his brother at court gained for him several diplomatic missions--to Germany and Italy (1659-1661). In 1662 he became marquis de Croissy and _président à mortier_ of the parlement of Metz. After various intendancies, at Soissons (1665), at Amiens (1666), and at Paris (1667), he turned definitely to diplomacy. In 1668 he represented France at the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle; and in August of the same year was sent as ambassador to London, where he was to negotiate the definite treaty of alliance with Charles II. He arranged the interview at Dover between Charles and his sister Henrietta of Orleans, gained the king's personal favour by finding a mistress for him, Louise de Kéroualle, maid of honour to Madame, and persuaded him to declare war against Holland. The negotiation of the treaty of Nijmwegen (1676-1678) still further increased his reputation as a diplomatist and Louis XIV. made him secretary of state for foreign affairs after the disgrace of Arnauld de Pomponne, brought about by his brother, 1679. He at once assumed the entire direction of French diplomacy. Foreign ambassadors were no longer received and diplomatic instructions were no longer given by other secretaries of state. It was he, not Louvois, who formed the idea of annexation during a time of peace, by means of the chambers of reunion. He had outlined this plan as early as 1658 with regard to Alsace. His policy at first was to retain the territory annexed by the chambers of reunion without declaring war, and for this purpose he signed treaties of alliance with the elector of Brandenburg (1681), and with Denmark (1683); but the troubles following upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685) forced him to give up his scheme and to prepare for war with Germany (1688). The negotiations for peace had been begun again when he died, on the 28th of July 1696. His clerk, Bergeret, was his invaluable assistant.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--His papers, preserved in the _Archives des affaires étrangères_ at Paris, have been partially published in the _Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France_ (since 1884). See especially the volumes:--_Autriche_ (t. i.), _Suède_ (t. ii.), _Rome_ (t. vi.), _Bavière_ (t. viii.), _Savoie_ (t. xiv.), _Prusse_ (t. xvi.). Other documents have been published in Mignet's _Négociations relatives à la succession d'Espagne_, vol. iv., and in the collection of _Lettres et négociations ... pour la paix de Nimègue_, 1676-1677 (La Haye, 1710). In addition to the _Mémoires_ of the time, see Spanheim, _Relation de la cour de France en 1690_, ed. E. Bourgeois (Paris and Lyons, 1900); Baschet, _Histoire du depôt des affaires étrangères_; C. Rousset, _Histoire de Louvois_ (4 vols., Paris, 1863); E. Bourgeois, "Louvois, et Colbert de Croissy," in the _Revue historique_, vol. xxxiv. (1887); A. Waddington, _Le Grand Électeur et Louis XIV_ (Paris, 1905); G. Pagis, _Le Grand Électeur et Louis XIV_ (Paris, 1905).

COLBURN, HENRY (d. 1855), British publisher, obtained his earliest experience of bookselling in London at the establishment of W. Earle, Albemarle Street, and afterwards as an assistant at Morgan's Library, Conduit Street, of which in 1816 he became proprietor. He afterwards removed to New Burlington Street, where he established himself as a publisher, resigning the Conduit Street Library to Messrs Saunders & Otley. In 1814 he originated the _New Monthly Magazine_, of which at various times Thomas Campbell, Bulwer Lytton, Theodore Hook and Harrison Ainsworth were editors. Colburn published in 1818 _Evelyn's Diary_, and in 1825 the _Diary of Pepys_, edited by Lord Braybrooke, paying £2200 for the copyright. He also issued Disraeli's first novel, _Vivian Grey_, and a large number of other works by Theodore Hook, G. P. R. James, Marryat and Bulwer Lytton. In 1829 Richard Bentley (q.v.) was taken into partnership; and in 1832 Colburn retired, but set up again soon afterwards independently in Great Marlborough Street; his business was taken over in 1841 by Messrs Hurst & Blackett. Henry Colburn died on the 16th of August 1855, leaving property to the value of £35,000.

COLBURN, ZERAH (1804-1840), American mathematical prodigy, was born at Cabot, Vermont, on the 1st of September 1804. At a very early age he developed remarkable powers of calculating with extreme rapidity, and in 1810 his father began to exhibit him. As a performing prodigy he visited Great Britain and France. From 1816 to 1819 he studied in Westminster school, London. After the death of his father in 1824 he returned to America, and from 1825 to 1834 he was a Methodist preacher. As he grew older his extraordinary calculating powers diminished. From 1835 until his death, on the 2nd of March 1840, he was professor of languages at the Norwich University in Vermont. He published a _Memoir_ of his life in 1833.

His nephew, also named ZERAH COLBURN (1832-1870), was a well-known mechanical engineer; the editor successively of the _Railroad Advocate_, in New York, _The Engineer_, in London, and _Engineering_, in London; and the author of a work entitled _The Locomotive Engine_ (1851).

COLBY, THOMAS FREDERICK (1784-1852), British major-general and director of ordnance survey, was born at St Margaret's, Rochester, on the 1st of September 1784, a member of a South Wales family. Entering the Royal Engineers he began in 1802 a life-long connexion with the Ordnance Survey department. His most important work was the survey of Ireland. This he planned in 1824, and was engaged upon it until 1846. The last sheets of this survey were almost ready for issue in that year when he reached the rank of major-general, and according to the rules of the service had to vacate his survey appointment. He was the inventor of the compensation bar, an apparatus used in base-measurements. He died at New Brighton on the 9th of October 1852.

COLCHAGUA, a province of central Chile, bounded N. by Santiago and O'Higgins, E. by Argentina, S. by Curicó, and W. by the Pacific. Its area is officially estimated at 3856 sq. m.; pop. (1895) 157,566. Extending across the great central valley of Chile, the province has a considerable area devoted to agriculture, but much attention is given to cattle and mining. Its principal river is the Rapel, sometimes considered as the southern limit of the Inca empire. Its greatest tributary is the Cachapoal, in the valley of which, among the Andean foothills, are the popular thermal mineral baths of Cauquenes, 2306 ft. above sea-level. The state central railway from Santiago to Puerto Montt crosses the province and has two branches within its borders, one from Rengo to Peumo, and one from San Fernando via Palmilla to Pichilemu on the coast. The principal towns are the capital, San Fernando, Rengo and Palmilla. San Fernando is one of the several towns founded in 1742 by the governor-general José de Manso, and had a population of 7447 in 1895. Rengo is an active commercial town and had a population of 6463 in 1895.

COLCHESTER, CHARLES ABBOT, 1ST BARON (1757-1829), born at Abingdon, was the son of Dr John Abbot, rector of All Saints, Colchester, and, by his mother's second marriage, half-brother of the famous Jeremy Bentham. From Westminster school Charles Abbot passed to Christ Church, Oxford, at which he gained the chancellor's medal for Latin verse as well as the Vinerian scholarship. In 1795, after having practised twelve years as a barrister, and published a treatise proposing the incorporation of the judicial system of Wales with that of England, he was appointed to the office previously held by his brother of clerk of the rules in the king's bench; and in June of the same year he was elected member of parliament for Helston, through the influence of the duke of Leeds. In 1796 Abbot commenced his career as a reformer in parliament by obtaining the appointment of two committees--the one to report on the arrangements which then existed as to temporary laws or laws about to expire, the other to devise methods for the better publication of new statutes. To the latter committee, and a second committee which he proposed some years later, it is owing that copies of new statutes were thenceforth sent to all magistrates and municipal bodies. To Abbot's efforts were also due the establishment of the Royal Record Commission, the reform of the system which had allowed the public money to lie for some time at long interest in the hands of the public accountants, by charging them with payment of interest, and, most important of all, the act for taking the first census, that of 1801. On the formation of the Addington ministry in March 1801 Abbot became chief secretary and privy seal for Ireland; and in the February of the following year he was chosen speaker of the House of Commons--a position which he held with universal satisfaction till 1817, when an attack of erysipelas compelled him to retire. In response to an address of the Commons, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Colchester, with a pension of £4000, of which £3000 was to be continued to his heir. He died on the 8th of May 1829. His speeches against the Roman Catholic claims were published in 1828.

He was succeeded by his eldest son CHARLES (d. 1867), postmaster-general in 1858; and the latter by his son REGINALD CHARLES EDWARD (b. 1842), as 3rd baron.

COLCHESTER a market town, river port and municipal and parliamentary borough of Essex, England; 52 m. N. E. by E. from London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 38,373. It lies on the river Colne, 12 m. from the open sea. Among numerous buildings of antiquarian interest the first is the ruined keep of the castle, a majestic specimen of Norman architecture, the largest of its kind in England, covering nearly twice the area of the White Tower in London. It was erected in the reign of William I. or William II., and is quadrangular, turreted at the angles. As in other ancient buildings in Colchester there are evidences of the use of material from the Roman town which occupied the site, but it is clearly of Norman construction. Here is the museum of the Essex Archaeological Society, with a remarkable collection of Roman antiquities, and a library belonging to the Round family, who own the castle. Among ecclesiastical buildings are remains of two monastic foundations--the priory of St Botolph, founded early in the 12th century for Augustinian canons, of which part of the fine Norman west front (in which Roman bricks occur), and of the nave arcades remain; and the restored gateway of the Benedictine monastery of St John, founded by Eudo, steward to William II. This is a beautiful specimen of Perpendicular work, embattled, flanked by spired turrets, and covered with panel work. The churches of Holy Trinity, St Martin and St Leonard at Hythe are of antiquarian interest; the first has an apparently pre-Norman tower and the last preserves some curious frescoes.

The principal modern buildings are the town hall, corn exchange, free library, the Eastern Counties' asylum, Essex county hospital and barracks. The town has long been an important military centre with a large permanent camp. There are a free grammar school (founded 1539), a technical and university extension college, a literary institute and medical and other societies. Castle Park is a public ground surrounding the castle. Colchester is the centre of an agricultural district, and has extensive corn and cattle markets. Industries include founding, engineering, malting, flour-milling, rose-growing and the making of clothing and boots and shoes. The oyster fisheries at the mouth of the Colne, for which the town has been famous for centuries, belong to the corporation, and are held on a ninety-nine years' lease by the Colne Fishery Company, incorporated under an act of 1870. The harbour, with quayage at the suburb of Hythe, is controlled by the corporation. The parliamentary borough, which is co-extensive with the municipal, returns one member. The municipal corporation consists of a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Area 11,333 acres.

The Roman town, _Colonia Victricensis Camalodunum_ (or _Camulodunum_), was of great importance. It was founded by Claudius, early in the period of the Roman conquest, as a municipality with discharged Roman soldiers as citizens, to assist the Roman dominion and spread its civilization. Under Queen Boadicea the natives burned the town and massacred the colonists; but Camalodunum soon rose to fresh prosperity and flourished throughout the Roman period. Its walls and some other remains, including the guardroom at the principal gate, can still be clearly traced, and many such relics as sculptures, inscriptions, pavements and pottery have been discovered. When the borough originated is not known, but Domesday

## Book mentions two hundred and seventy-six burgesses and land _in commune

burgensium_, a phrase that may point to a nascent municipal corporation. The first charter given by Richard I. in 1189 granted the burghers leave to choose their bailiffs and a justice to hold the pleas of the crown within the borough, freedom from the obligation of duel, freedom of passage and pontage through England, free warren, fishery and custom as in the time of Henry I., and other privileges. An _inspeximus_ of this charter by Henry III. in 1252 granted the burgesses the return of certain writs. The charters were confirmed by various kings, and new grants obtained in 1447 and 1535. In 1635 Charles I. granted a fresh charter, which replaced the bailiffs by a mayor, and in 1653 Cromwell altered it to secure a permanent majority for his party on the corporation. But his action was undone in 1659, and in 1663 Charles II. granted a new charter. In 1684 the charters were surrendered, and a new one obtained reserving to the crown power to remove the mayor and alderman, and this one was further modified by James II. But the charter of 1663 was confirmed in 1693 and remained in force till 1741, when the liberties were allowed to lapse. In 1763 George III. made the borough a renewed grant of its liberties. Colchester returned two members to parliament from 1295 until 1885. Fairs were granted by Richard I. in 1189 to the hospital of St Mary Magdalene, and by Edward II. in 1319 to the town for the eve of and feast of St Denis and the six following days--a fair which is still held. In the 13th century Colchester was sufficiently important as a port to pay a fee-farm of £46, its ships plying to Winchelsea and France. Elizabeth and James I. encouraged Flemish settlers in the manufacture of baize ("bays and says"), which attained great importance, so that a charter of Charles I. speaks of burgesses industriously exercising the manufacture of cloth. Both Camden and Fuller mention the trade in barrelled oysters and candied eringo-root. The most notable event in the history of the town was its siege by Fairfax in 1648, when the raw levies of the Royalists in the second civil war held his army at bay for nearly eleven weeks, only surrendering when starved out, and when Cromwell's victory in the north made further resistance useless. Colchester was made the see of a suffragan bishop by King Henry VIII., and two bishops were in succession appointed by him; no further appointments, however, were made until the see was re-established under Queen Victoria.

See _Victoria County History, Essex_; _Charters and Letters Patent granted to the Borough of Colchester_ (Colchester, 1903); Morant, _History of Colchester_ (1748); Harrod's _Report on the Records of Colchester_ (1865); Cutts, _Colchester_ (Historic Towns) 1888; J. H. Round, "Colchester and the Commonwealth" in _Eng. Hist. Rev._ vol. xv.; Benham, _Red Paper Book of Colchester_ (1902), and _Oath Book of Colchester_ (1907).

COLCHESTER, a township of Chittenden county, Vermont, U.S.A., on Lake Champlain, immediately N.E. of Burlington, from which it is separated by the Winooski river. Pop. (1900) 5352; (1910) 6450. It is served by the Central Vermont railway. The surface is generally gently rolling, and in places along the banks of the Winooski or Onion river, the shore of the lake, and in the valleys, it is very picturesque. At Mallett's Bay, an arm of Lake Champlain, 2 m. long and 1½ m. wide, several large private schools hold summer sessions. The soil is varied, much of it being good meadow land or well adapted to the growing of grain and fruit. The township has two villages: Colchester Centre, a small, quiet settlement, and Winooski (pop. in 1900, 3783) on the Winooski river. This stream furnishes good water power, and the village has manufactories of cotton and woollen goods, lumber, woodenware, gold and silver plated ware, carriages, wagons and screens. Within the township there is a United States military reservation, Fort Ethan Allen. The village was founded in 1772 by Ira Allen and for many years it was known as "Allen's Settlement"; but later it was called Winooski Falls, and in 1866 it was incorporated as the Village of Winooski.

COLCHICUM, the Meadow Saffron, or Autumn Crocus (_Colchicum autumnale_), a perennial plant of the natural order, Liliaceae, found wild in rich moist meadow-land in England and Ireland, in middle and southern Europe, and in the Swiss Alps. It has pale-purple flowers, rarely more than three in number; the perianth is funnel-shaped, and produced below into a long slender tube, in the upper part of which the six stamens are inserted. The ovary is three-celled, and lies at the bottom of this tube. The leaves are three or four in number, flat, lanceolate, erect and sheathing; and there is no stem. Propagation is by the formation of new corms from the parent corm, and by seeds. The latter are numerous, round, reddish-brown, and of the size of black mustard-seeds. The corm of the meadow-saffron attains its full size in June or early in July. A smaller corm is then formed from the old one, close to its root; and this in September and October produces the crocus-like flowers. In the succeeding January or February it sends up its leaves, together with the ovary, which perfects its seeds during the summer. The young corm, at first about the diameter of the flower-stalk, grows continuously, till in the following July it attains the size of a small apricot. The parent corm remains attached to the new one, and keeps its form and size till April in the third year of its existence, after which it decays. In some cases a single corm produces several new plants during its second spring by giving rise to immature corms.

_C. autumnale_ and its numerous varieties as well as other species of the genus, are well known in cultivation, forming some of the most beautiful of autumn-flowering plants. They are very easy to cultivate and do not require lifting. The most suitable soil is a light, sandy loam enriched with well decomposed manure, in a rather moist situation. The corms should be planted not less than 3 in. deep. Propagation is effected by seed or increase of corms; the seed should be sown as soon as it is ripe in June or July.

Colchicum was known to the Greeks under the name of [Greek: Kolchikon], from [Greek: Kolchis], or Colchis, a country in which the plant grew; and it is described by Dioscorides as a poison. In the 17th century the corms were worn by some of the German peasantry as a charm against the plague. The drug was little used till 1763, when Baron Störck of Vienna introduced it for the treatment of dropsy. Its use in febrile diseases, at one time extensive, is now obsolete. As a specific for gout colchicum was early employed by the Arabs; and the preparation known as _eau médicinale_, much resorted to in the 18th century for the cure of gout, owes its therapeutic virtues to colchicum; but general attention was first directed by Sir Everard Home to the use of the drug in gout.

For medical purposes the corm should be collected in the early summer and, after the outer coat has been removed, should be sliced and dried at a temperature of 130° to 150° F.

The chief constituents of colchicum are two alkaloids, _colchicine_ and _veratrine_. Colchicine is the active principle and may be given in full form in doses of 1/32 to 1/16 grain. It is a yellow, micro-crystalline powder, soluble in water, alcohol and chloroform, and forming readily decomposed salts with acids. It is the methyl ester of a neutral body _colchicein_, which may be obtained in white acicular crystals.

The official dose of powdered colchicum is 2 to 5 grains, which may be given in a cachet. The British Pharmacopoeia contains (1) an extract of the fresh corm, having doses of ¼ to 1 grain, and (2) the _Vinum Colchici_, made by treating the dried corm with sherry and given in doses of 10 to 30 minims. This latter is the preparation still most generally used, though the presence of veratrine both in the corm and the seeds renders the use of colchicine itself theoretically preferable. The dried ripe seeds of this plant are also used in medicine. They are exceedingly hard and difficult to pulverize, odourless, bitter and readily confused with black mustard seeds. They contain a volatile oil which does not occur in the corm, and their proportion of colchicine is higher, for which reason the _Tinctura Colchici Seminum_--dose 5 to 15 minims--is preferable to the wine prepared from the corm. At present this otherwise excellent preparation is not standardized, but the suggestion has been made that it should be standardized to contain 0.1% of colchicine. The salicylate of colchicine is stable in water and may be given in doses of about one-thirtieth of a grain. It is often known as Colchi-Sal.

_Pharmacology._--Colchicum or colchicine, when applied to the skin, acts as a powerful irritant, causing local pain and congestion. When inhaled, the powder causes violent sneezing, similar to that produced by veratrine itself, which is, as already stated, a constituent of the corm. Taken internally, colchicum or colchicine markedly increases the amount of bile poured into the alimentary canal, being amongst the most powerful of known cholagogues. Though this action doubtless contributes to its remarkable therapeutic power, it is very far from being an adequate explanation of the virtues of the drug in gout. In larger doses colchicum or colchicine acts as a most violent gastrointestinal irritant, causing terrible pain, colic, vomiting, diarrhoea, haemorrhage from the bowel, thirst and ultimately death from collapse. This is accelerated by a marked depressant action upon the heart, similar to that produced by veratrine and aconite. Large doses also depress the nervous system, weakening the anterior horns of grey matter in the spinal cord so as ultimately to cause complete paralysis, and also causing a partial insensibility of the cutaneous nerves of touch and pain. The action of colchicum or colchicine upon the kidneys has been minutely studied, and it is asserted on the one hand that the urinary solids are much diminished and, on the other hand, that they are markedly increased, the specific gravity of the secretion being much raised. These assertions, and the total inadequacy of the pharmacology of colchicum, as above detailed, to explain its specific therapeutic property, show that the secret of colchicum is as yet undiscovered.