Chapter 11 of 46 · 3760 words · ~19 min read

Part 11

CLINTON, GEORGE (1739-1812), American soldier and political leader, was born at Little Britain, Ulster (now Orange) county, New York, on the 26th of July 1739. His father, Charles Clinton (1690-1773), who was born of English parents in Co. Longford, Ireland, emigrated to America in 1729, and commanded a regiment of provincial troops in the French and Indian War. The son went to sea at the age of sixteen, but, finding the sailor's life distasteful, joined his father's regiment and accompanied him as lieutenant in the expedition against Fort Frontenac in 1758. After the war he practised law in his native town and held a number of minor civil offices in Ulster county. From 1768 to 1775 he sat in the New York provincial assembly, and in the controversies with Great Britain zealously championed the colonial cause. In 1774 he was a member of the New York committee of correspondence, and in 1775 was chosen a member of the second Continental Congress. In December of this year he was appointed a brigadier-general of militia by the New York provincial congress, and in the following summer, being ordered by Washington to assist in the defence of New York, he left Philadelphia shortly after voting for the Declaration of Independence, but too soon to attach his signature to that document. He had also been chosen a deputy to the provincial congress (later the state convention) for 1776-1777, but his various other duties prevented his attendance.

General Clinton took part in the battle of White Plains (October 28th, 1776), and later was charged with the defence of the Highlands of the Hudson, where, with De Witt Clinton, in October 1777, he offered a firm but unsuccessful resistance to the advance of Sir Henry Clinton. In March of this year he had been appointed by Congress a brigadier general in the Continental army, and he thus held two commissions, as the state convention refused to accept his resignation as brigadier-general of militia. So great was Clinton's popularity at this time that at the first election under the new state constitution he was chosen both governor and lieutenant-governor; he declined the latter office, and on the 30th of July 1777 entered upon his duties as governor, which were at first largely of a military nature. In 1780 he took the field and checked the advance of Sir John Johnson and the Indians in the Mohawk Valley. In his administration Clinton was energetic and patriotic, and though not possessing the intellectual attainments of some of his New York contemporaries, he was more popular than any of them, as is attested by his service as governor for eighteen successive years (1777-1795), and for another triennial term from 1801 to 1804. In the elections of 1780, 1783 and 1786 he had no opponent. In 1800-1801 he was a member of the assembly. In the struggle in New York over the adoption of the Federal Constitution he was one of the leaders of the opposition, but in the state convention of 1788, over which he presided, his party was defeated, and the constitution was ratified. In national politics he was a follower of Thomas Jefferson, and in state politics he led the faction known as "Clintonians," which was for a long time dominant. In 1789, 1792 and 1796 Clinton received a number of votes in the electoral college, but not a sufficient number to secure him the vice-presidency, which was then awarded to the recipient of the second highest number of votes. In 1804, however, after the method of voting had been changed, he was nominated for the vice-presidency by a Congressional caucaus, and was duly elected. In 1808 he sought nomination for the presidency, and was greatly disappointed when this went to Madison. He was again chosen as vice-president, however, and died at Washington before the expiration of his term, on the 20th of April 1812. He was buried in the Congressional Cemetery, from which in May 1908 his remains were transferred to Kingston, N.Y. His casting vote in the Senate in 1811 defeated the bill for the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States.

The _Public Papers of George Clinton_ (6 vols., New York, 1899-1902) have been published by the state of New York.

CLINTON, SIR HENRY (c. 1738-1795), British general, was the son of admiral George Clinton (governor of Newfoundland and subsequently of New York), and grandson of the 6th earl of Lincoln. After serving in the New York militia, he came to England and joined the Coldstream Guards. In 1758 he became captain and lieutenant-colonel in the Grenadier Guards, and in 1760-62 distinguished himself very greatly as an aide-de-camp to Ferdinand of Brunswick in the Seven Years' War. He was promoted colonel in 1762, and after the peace received the colonelcy of a regiment of foot, becoming major-general in 1772. From 1772 to 1784, thanks to the influence of his cousin, the 2nd duke of Newcastle, he had a seat in parliament, first for Boroughbridge and subsequently for Newark, but for the greater part of this time he was on active service in America in the War of Independence. He took part in the battles of Bunker Hill and Long Island, subsequently taking possession of New York. For his share in the battle of Long Island he was made a lieutenant-general and K.B. After Saratoga he succeeded Sir William Howe as commander-in-chief in North America. He had already been made a local general. He at once concentrated the British forces at New York, pursuing a policy of foraying expeditions in place of regular campaigns. In 1779 he invaded South Carolina, and in 1780 in conjunction with Admiral M. Arbuthnot won an important success in the capture of Charleston. Friction, however, was constant between him and Lord Cornwallis, his second in command, and in 1782, after the capitulation of Cornwallis at York town, he was superseded by Sir Guy Carleton. Returning to England, he published in 1783 his _Narrative of the Campaign of 1781 in North America_, which provoked an acrimonious reply from Lord Cornwallis. He was elected M.P. for Launceston in 1790, and in 1794 was made governor of Gibraltar, where he died on the 23rd of December 1795.

His elder son, Sir WILLIAM HENRY CLINTON (1769-1846), entered the British army in 1784, and served in the campaigns of 1793-94 in the Low Countries. In 1796 he became aide-de-camp to the duke of York, and in 1799 he was entrusted with a mission to the Russian army in Italy, returning to the duke in time for the Dutch expedition of 1799. He was promoted colonel in 1801, and took part in the expedition which took possession of Madeira, which he governed up to 1802. His next important service was in 1807, when he went to Sweden on a military mission. Promoted major-general in 1808, he served from 1812 to 1814 in the Mediterranean and in Catalonia, and in the latter year he commanded against Marshal Suchet. He had become a lieutenant-general in 1813, and in 1815 he was made a G.C.B. He commanded the British troops in Portugal, 1826-28, and was promoted full general in 1830. He died at Cockenhatch, near Royston, Herts, on the 15th of February 1846.

The younger son, Sir HENRY CLINTON (1771-1829), entered the army in 1787 and saw some service with the Prussians in Holland in 1789. He served on the staff of the duke of York in 1793-94, becoming brevet-major in 1794, and lieutenant-colonel of a line regiment in 1796. In 1797-98 he was aide-de-camp to Lord Cornwallis in the Irish rebellion, and in 1799 he was sent with Lord William Bentinck to the Russian headquarters in Italy, being present at the Trebbia, at Novi, and in the fighting about the St Gotthard. During a short period of service in India Clinton distinguished himself at Laswari. He accompanied the Russian headquarters in the Austerlitz campaign, and was adjutant-general to his intimate friend, Sir John Moore, in the Corunna campaign of 1808-9. Promoted major-general in 1810, he returned to the Peninsula to fill a divisional command under Wellington in 1811. His division played a notable part in the capture of the forts at Salamanca and in the battle of Salamanca (1812), and he was given the local rank of lieutenant-general early in 1813. For his conduct at Vitoria he was made a K.B., and he took his part in the subsequent victories of the Nive, Orthes and Toulouse. At the end of the war he was made a lieutenant-general and inspector-general of infantry. Clinton commanded a division with distinction at Waterloo. He died on the 11th of December 1829.

CLINTON, HENRY FYNES (1781-1852), British classical scholar and chronologist, was born at Gamston in Nottinghamshire on the 14th of January 1781. He was descended from Henry, second earl of Lincoln; for some generations his family bore the name of Fynes, but his father resumed the older family name of Clinton in 1821. He was educated at Westminster school and Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied classical literature and history. From 1806 to 1826 he was M.P. for Aldborough. He died at Welwyn, Herts, where he had purchased the residence and estate of the poet Young, on the 24th of October 1852. His reading was extraordinarily methodical (see his _Literary Remains_). The value of his _Fasti_, which set classical chronology on a scientific basis, can scarcely be overestimated, even though subsequent research has corrected some of his conclusions.

His chief works are: _Fasti Hellenici, the Civil and Literary Chronology of Greece from the 55th to the 124th Olympiad_ (1824-1851), including dissertations on points of Greek history and Scriptural chronology; and _Fasti Romani, the Civil and Literary Chronology of Rome and Constantinople from the Death of Augustus to the Death of Heraclius_ (1845-1850). In 1851 and 1853 respectively he published epitomes of the above. _The Literary Remains of H. F. Clinton_ (the first part of which contains an autobiography written in 1818) were edited by C. J. F. Clinton in 1854.

CLINTON, a city and the county-seat of Clinton county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Mississippi river, in the extreme eastern part of the state. Pop. (1890) 13,619; (1900) 22,698 (5434 being foreign-born); (1905) 22,756; (1910) 25,577. The great increase during the decade 1890-1900 was partly due to the absorption by Clinton in 1895 of the city of Lyons (pop. in 1890, 5700). Clinton is served by the Chicago & North-Western (which has machine-shops here), the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railways, and is connected with Davenport by an electric line. The river is spanned here by a railway bridge. A large portion of the city stands between the river and a series of bluffs. Clinton is the seat of Wartburg College (1869), a German Evangelical Lutheran institution, and of the Clinton Business College. Among the public buildings are the city hall, the court-house, the Federal building and the Carnegie library. As a manufacturing centre Clinton has considerable importance; among its manufactures are furniture, blinds, wire-cloth, papier-mâché goods, gas-engines, farm wagons, harness and saddlery, door locks, pressed brick, flour, and glucose products. There is also a large sugar refinery. The value of the factory product in 1900 was $6,203,316; in 1905, $4,906,355. The American Protective Association (A.P.A.), a secret order opposed to Roman Catholicism, was formed here in 1887. The city was founded in 1855 by the Iowa Land Company, and was incorporated first in 1857, and again in 1867, this time under a general law of the state for the incorporation of cities. The county, from which the city took its name, was named in honour of De Witt Clinton.

CLINTON, a township of Worcester county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, on the Nashua river, about 15 m. N.N.E. of Worcester. Pop. (1890) 10,424; (1900) 13,667, of whom 5504 were foreign-born; (1910, U.S. census) 13,075. The township is traversed by the Boston & Maine, and New York, New Haven & Hartford railways. It contains 7 sq. m. of varied and picturesque hilly country on the E. slope of the highland water-parting between the Connecticut river and the Atlantic. There is charming scenery along the Nashua river, the chief stream. The S.W. corner of the township is now part of an immense water reservoir, the Wachusett dam and reservoir (excavated 1896-1905; circumference, 35.2 m.), on the S. branch of the Nashua, which will hold 63,000 million gallons of water for the supply of the metropolitan region around Boston. On this is situated the village of Clinton, which has large manufactories, among whose products are cotton and woollen fabrics, carpets, wire-cloth, iron and steel, and combs. The textile and carpet mills are among the most famous in the United States. In 1905 the total factory product of the township was valued at $5,457,865, the value of cotton goods, carpets and wire-work constituting about nine-tenths of the total. The prominence of the township as a manufacturing centre is due to Erastus Brigham Bigelow (1814-1879), one of the incorporators of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who devised power-looms for the weaving of a variety of figured fabrics,--coach-lace, counterpanes, ginghams, silk brocatel, tapestry carpeting, ingrain and Brussels carpets,--and revolutionized their manufacture. In 1843 he and his brother Horatio N. Bigelow established in Clinton the Lancaster Mills for the manufacture of ginghams. From 1845 to 1851 he perfected his loom for the weaving of Brussels and Wilton carpets, the greatest of his inventions; and he established the Bigelow Carpet Mills here. He also invented the loom for the weaving of wire-cloth. It is claimed that the first production in the United States of finished cotton cloths under one roof and under the factory system was not at Waltham in 1816, but at Clinton in 1813; neither place was the first to spin by power, nor the first to produce finished cloths without the factory system. The comb industry dates from the eighteenth century. The first of the modern textile mills were established in 1838 for the manufacture of coach-lace. Clinton was a part of Lancaster, now a small farming township (pop. in 1910, 2464), until 1850, when it was set off as an independent township. The earliest settlement goes back to 1645.

See A. E. Ford, _History of the Origin of the Town of Clinton, Massachusetts, 1653-1865_ (Clinton, 1896).

CLINTON, a city and the county-seat of Henry county, Missouri, U.S.A., on the Grand river, 87 m. S.E. of Kansas City. Pop. (1890) 4737; (1900) 5061 (470 being negroes); (1910) 4992. It is served by the St Louis & San Francisco, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the Kansas City, Clinton & Springfield railways. The city is situated on the border of a rolling prairie about 770 ft. above the sea. The vicinity abounds in coal, but is principally agricultural, and Clinton's chief interest is in trade with it. The principal manufactures are flour and pottery. Clinton was laid out in 1836 and was incorporated in 1865.

CLINTON, a village of Oneida county, New York, U.S.A., on the Oriskany Creek, about 9 m. S.W. of Utica. Pop. (1890) 1269; (1900) 1340; (1905) 1315; (1910) 1236. It is served by the New York, Ontario & Western railway, and is connected with Utica by an electric line. Several fine mineral springs in the vicinity have given Clinton some reputation as a health resort. There are iron mines, blast furnaces, and iron smelters. Clinton is the seat of Hamilton College (non-sectarian), which was opened as the Hamilton Oneida Academy in 1798, and was chartered under its present name in 1812. It was founded by the Rev. Samuel Kirkland (1741-1808), a missionary among the Oneida Indians; its corner-stone was laid by Baron Steuben; its shade trees were furnished by Thomas Jefferson; and its name was received from Alexander Hamilton, one of its early trustees. It had in 1907-1908 20 instructors, 178 students, and a library of 47,000 volumes and 30,000 pamphlets. At Clinton are also excellent minor schools. Litchfield Observatory is connected with the college, and was long in charge of the well-known astronomer, Christian H. F. Peters (1813-1890), who discovered here more than 40 asteroids and made extensive investigations concerning comets. The village was settled about 1786 by pioneers from New England, was named in honour of George Clinton, and was incorporated in 1842.

CLINTONITE, a group of micaceous minerals known as the "brittle micas." Like the micas and chlorites, they are monoclinic in crystallization and have a perfect cleavage parallel to the flat surface of the plates or scales, but differ markedly from these in the brittleness of the laminae; they are also considerably harder, the hardness of chloritoid being as high as 6½ on Mohs' scale. They differ chemically from the micas in containing less silica and no alkalis, and from the chlorites in containing much less water; in many respects they are intermediate between the micas and chlorites.

The following species are distinguished:--

_Margarite_ is a basic calcium aluminium silicate, H2CaAl4Si2O12, and is classed by some authors as a lime-mica. It forms white pearly scales, and was at first known as pearl-mica and afterwards as margarite, from [Greek: margaritês], a pearl. It is a characteristic associate of corundum, of which it is frequently an alteration product (facts which suggested the synonymous names corundellite and emerylite), and is found in the emery deposits of Asia Minor and the Grecian Archipelago, and with corundum at several localities in the United States.

_Seybertite_, _Brandisite_ and _Xanthophyllite_ are closely allied species consisting of basic magnesium, calcium and aluminium silicate, and have been regarded as isomorphous mixtures of a silicate (H2CaMg4Si3O12) and an aluminate (H2CaMgAl6O12). Seybertite (the original clintonite) occurs as reddish-brown to copper-red, brittle, foliated masses in metamorphic limestone at Amity, New York; brandisite as yellowish-green hexagonal prisms in metamorphic limestone in the Fassathal, Tirol; xanthophyllite as yellow folia and as distinct crystals (waluewite) in chloritic schists in the Urals.

_Chloritoid_ has the formula H2(Fe,Mg)Al2SiO7. It forms tabular crystals and scales, with indistinct hexagonal outlines, which are often curved or bent and aggregated in rosettes. The colour is dark grey or green; a characteristic feature is the pleochroism, the pleochroic colours varying from yellowish-green to indigo-blue. Hardness, 6½; specific gravity, 3.4-3.6. It occurs as isolated scales scattered through schistose rocks and phyllites of dynamo-metamorphic origin. The ottrelites of the phyllites and ottrelite-schists of Ottrez and other localities in the Belgian Ardennes is a manganiferous variety of chloritoid, but owing to enclosed impurities the analyses differ widely from those of typical chloritoid. (L. J. S.)

CLISSON, OLIVIER DE (1336-1407), French soldier, was the son of the Olivier de Clisson who was put to death in 1343 on the suspicion of having wished to give up Nantes to the English. He was brought up in England, where his mother, Jeanne de Belleville, had married her second husband. On his return to Brittany he took arms on the side of de Montfort, distinguishing himself at the battle of Auray (1364), but in consequence of differences with Duke John IV. went over to the side of Blois. In 1370 he joined Bertrand du Guesclin, who had lately become constable of France, and followed him in all his campaigns against the English. On the death of du Guesclin Clisson received the constable's sword (1380). He fought with the citizens of Ghent, defeating them at Roosebek (1382), later on commanded the army in Poitou and Flanders (1389), and made an unsuccessful attempt to invade England. On his return to Paris, in 1392, an attempt was made to assassinate him by Pierre de Craon, at the instigation of John IV. of Brittany. In order to punish the latter, Charles VI., accompanied by the constable, marched on Brittany, but it was on this expedition that the king was seized with madness. The uncles of Charles VI. took proceedings against Clisson, so that he had to take refuge in Brittany. He was reconciled with John IV., and after the duke's death, in 1399, he became protector of the duchy, and guardian of the young princes. He had gathered vast wealth before his death on the 23rd of April 1407.

CLISSON, a town of western France, in the department of Loire-Inférieure, prettily situated at the confluence of the Sèvre Nantaise and the Moine 17 m. S.E. of Nantes by rail. Pop. (1906) 2244. The town gave its name to the celebrated family of Clisson, of which the most famous member was Olivier de Clisson. It has the imposing ruins of their stronghold, parts of which date from the 13th century. The town and castle were destroyed in 1792 and 1793 during the Vendean wars. The sculptor F. F. Lemont afterwards bought the castle, and the town was rebuilt in the early part of the 19th century according to his plans. There are picturesque parks on the banks of the rivers. The Moine is crossed by an old Gothic bridge and by a fine modern viaduct.

CLITHEROE, a market town and municipal borough in the Clitheroe parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 220 m. N.N.W. from London and 35 m. N. by W. from Manchester, on the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 11,414. It is finely situated in the valley of the Ribble, at the foot of Pendle Hill, a steep plateau-like mass rising to 1831 ft. The church of St Mary Magdalene, though occupying an ancient site, is wholly modernized. There are a grammar school, founded in 1554, and a technical school. On a rocky elevation commanding the valley stands the keep and other fragments of a Norman castle, but part of the site is occupied by a modern mansion. The industrial establishments comprise cotton-mills, print-works, paper-mills, foundries, and brick and lime works. The corporation consists of a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 2385 acres.

Stonyhurst College, 5 m. S.W. of Clitheroe, is the principal establishment in England for Roman Catholic students. The Jesuits of St Omer, after emigrating to Bruges and Liége, were disorganized by the revolutionary troubles at the close of the 18th century, and a large body came to England, when Thomas Weld, in 1795, conferred his property of Stonyhurst upon them. The fine and extensive buildings, of which the nucleus is a mansion of the 17th century, contain a public school for boys and a house of studies for Jesuit ecclesiastics, while there is a preparatory school at a short distance. Every branch of study is prosecuted, the college including such institutions as an observatory, laboratories and farm buildings.