Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/686

650 met with an extensive sale. He subsequently issued a " Series of Readers " (1847), but these were not as popular. When the American temperance society was formed he became its first secretary, and was one of its travelling agents, in many places deliver- ing the first temperance lecture the people had heard. In 1828 he removed to New York city as secretary of the American seamen's friend society and editor of the " Sailor's Magazine." He estab- lished chapels in Canton, the Sandwich islands, Havre, New Orleans, and other domestic and for- eign ports. He also aided in founding the first city temperance society, and became its secretary. He became in 1831 editor and proprietor of the new- ly established " Evangelist," which under his man- agement soon grew to be the organ of the more liberal religious movements, and was outspoken on the subjects of temperance and slavery. Mr. Leavitt bore a conspicuous part in the early anti- slavery conflict. His denunciation of slavery cost his paper its circulation in the south and a large proportion of it in the north, well-nigh compelling its suspension. To offset this loss he undertook the difficult feat of reporting in full the revival lectures of Charles Gr. Finney (q. v.), which, though not a short-hand reporter, he accomplished success- fully. The financial crisis of 1837 compelled him, while erecting a new building, to sell out the " Evangelist." In 1833 he aided in organizing the New York anti-slavery society, and was a member of its executive committee, as well as of that of the National anti-slavery society in which it was merged. He was one of the abolitionists who were obliged to fly for a time from the city to escape mob violence. In 1837 he became editor of the " Emancipator," which he afterward moved to Boston, and he also published in that city " The Chronicle," the earliest daily anti-slavery paper. In the convention that met at Albany in 1840 and organized the Liberal party, Mr. Leavitt took an active part, and he was also chairman of the national committee from 1844 till 1847. In 1848 Mr. Leavitt became office-editor of the New York " Independent," and was con- nected editorially with it until his death. Mr. Leavitt was an earnest and powerful speaker. In 1855 Wabash college conferred on him the degree of D. D. Dr. Leavitt's correspondence with Rich- ard Cobden, and his " Memoir on Wheat," setting forth the unlimited capacity of our western terri- tory for the growth and exportation of that cereal, were instrumental in procuring the repeal of the English corn laws. During a visit to Europe he also became much interested in Sir Rowland Hill's system of cheap postage. In 1847 he founded the Cheap postage society of Boston, and in 1848-'9 he labored in Washington in its behalf, for the estab- lishment of a two-cent rate. In 1869 he received a gold medal from the Cobden club of England for an essay on our commercial relations with Great Britain, in which he took an advanced position in favor of free-trade. Besides the works already mentioned, he published a hymn-book for revivals, entitled the "Christian Lyre" (1831).

LEBAY, Theodore Constant (leh-bay'). French colonial officer, b. in Lous-le-Saulnier in 1795 ; d. in Saint Pierre, Martinique, 17 Oct., 1849. He entered the colonial service in 1817 as secretary of the treasurer of Guadeloupe, served in Terre Neuve, La Desirade, and Guadeloupe, as treasurer in 1831-'4, and in St. Pierre as commissary from 1835 till his death. He interested himself in the study of the countries where he resided, and tried to Sromote emigration from France to the West In- ies. His works include " Statistique de la Guade- loupe" (2 vols., Paris, 1831); "Des productions, de la consommation, et du commerce des Antilles Francaises comparees entre elles" (2 vols., 1835); '•Les Antilles sont- elles propres a l'emigration Francaise ? " (1836); " Du climat des Antilles" (1839); "Statistique de longevite dans les Antilles Francaises, comparee avec les tables de mortalitee dressees pour la France" (1840); "Des pays pro- pres a l'emigration pour la race Francaise "(1842); and "Necessite de l'emigration et des avantages qu'elle procure a, la mere patrie" (1843).

LEBLOND, Jean Baptiste, French naturalist, b. in Toulongeon, near Autun, France, 2 Dec, 1747; d. in Masille, France, 14 Aug., 1815. He devoted himself from boyhood to the study of the natural sciences, and was named in 1767 royal commissioner to Guiana to make researches as to Peruvian bark and other objects of natural his- tory. He spent many years in this colony, and was there at the time of the French revolution. After his return to France he resided for some years in Paris, where he read several papers on the natural history of Guiana before the Agricul- tural society of the Seine and the Academy of medicine. He wrote " Essai sur l'art de l'indigo- tier" (Paris, 1791); "Moyen de faire disparaitre les abus et les effets de la mendicite par l'emigra- tion volontaire a la Guiane francoise " ; " Obser- vations sur le cannellier.de la Guiane " (Cayenne, 1795 : enlarged ed., Paris, 1796) ; " Memoire sur la culture du cotonnier a la Guiane" (1801); "Voy- age aux Antilles et a l'Amerique meridionale" (Paris, 1813); and "Description abregee de la Guiane francoise " (1814 ; 2d ed., with a notice on the author, 1825). — His son, a native of Guiana, published " Trente annees d'existence de F.-F. Leblond, creole de Cayenne, fils du celebre medecin- naturaliste de ce nom, ancien medecin du roi a la Guiane francoise, nar un ami" (Paris, 1834).

LEBORGNE DE BOIGNE, Claude Pierre Joseph (leh-born'), French colonial administrator, b. in Chambery, 8 March, 1764; d. in Paris, 7 Jan., 1822. He entered the French service, was given in 1786 an appointment in the colonial department, and in 1791 sent as one of a special commission to Santo Domingo to pacify the island. After a few weeks' stay his colleagues gave up the task and returned to France ; but he remained and succeeded in winning the confidence of the negroes. During the following year he promulgated the decree of the National assembly that liberated all slaves within the French dominions ; but the whites opposed the decree, and, uniting their forces, besieged the commissary in Jeremie and compelled him to return to France. The home government sustained Leborgne, and sent him again, in January, 1793, to the West Indies. He landed in La Desirade, where he organized a new government, and, going to Guadeloupe, restored order in that island. He had nearly succeeded in accomplishing the same result in Martinique when that colony was attacked by the British under Admiral Jervis. Leborgne at first defeated the enemy, but afterward was taken prisoner, and the colony surrendered on 11 May, 1793. Leborgne was transported to England, but liberated in the course of a few months. In 1796 he was sent again to Santo Domingo as quartermaster of the armies of Gen. Sothonac and Gen. Rigaud, and took possession of the Spanish part of the island, which the treaty of Basel had given to France. In April, 1797, he was elected deputy from the island to the French directory, and returned in 1798 to the council of five hundred. He protested in the latter assembly against the policy of Toussaint i'Ouverture, and was instrumental in the government's