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Rh took orders in the Church of England, but could not conscientiously conform to its usages, and came to New England with his brother Theophilus in 1637, becoming assistant pastor with John Daven- port at New Haven. He ditt'ered from his colleague in respect to the principles of civil government, and returned to England in 1640, with the design of gathering a company to settle Toboket (afterward Branford), of which a grant had been made to him. After leaving New Haven he preached for some time in Boston, where an unsuccessful attempt was made to secure his services permanently. On reach- ing England he found such an improvement in the civil and ecclesiastical condition of the country that he remained there till his death, holding vari- ous pastorates. In 1662 he was silenced by the act of uniformity. His publications included " Defence of Sundry Positions and Scriptures alleged to jus- tify the Congregational Way" (1645; second part, 1646); "The Mistery of God Incarnate" (1650); " Treatise of the Oath of Allegiance and Covenant " (1650); and " Htiman Life " in seventeen sermons (London, 1764). — Another brother, Nathaniel, educator, b. in England about 1609; d. in London after 1660, was educated at Franeker, in the Neth- erlands, and it is said that he entered the order of Jesuits. He came to New England with his brothers, and in 1637 was appointed first profes- sor of the school (afterward Harvard college) that had been established by the legislature in the pre- ceding year. Mather speaks of him as "a Blade who marvellously deceived the Expectation of Good Men concerning him, for he was One fitter to be Master of a Bridewell than a Colledge; and though his Avarice was notorious, yet his Cruelty was more Scandalous than his Avarice. He was a Kare Scholar himself, and he made many more such; but their Education truly was in the School of Tyrannus." His pupils complained of bad food and ill treatment, and in September, 1639, Eaton was fined 100 marks for beating his usher, Nathan- iel Briscoe, " with a cudgel," and was removed from his post. He fled to Virginia, leaving debts amounting to £1,000, and was afterward excom- municated by the Cambridge churches. Winthrop says that " in Virginia he took upon him to be a minister, but was given up of God to extreme pride and sensuality, being usually drunken, as the cus- tom is there." He returned to England in 1645, and after the restoration became a parish minister in Biddeford, Devonshire. He was afterward put into the King's bench prison for debt, " where," says Mather, " he did at length pay One Debt, namely, that unto Nature, by Death."

EATON, William, soldier, b. in Woodstock, Conn., 23 Feb., 1764; d. in Brimfield, Mass., 1 June, 1811. His father, a school-master and farmer, removed to Mansfield about 1774. At the age of sixteen the son entered the Revolutionary army, which he left in 1783, having attained to the rank of sergeant. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1790, and in 1791 was chosen clerk of the house of delegates, where he remained until 1797. In that year he was appointed consul to Tunis, and arrived there in March, 1799. For several years he was engaged in a series of negotiations and altercations with the bey in reference to the annual payment of tribute money, and acted with a boldness and tact that secured to the commerce of his country an immunity from the attacks of Tunisan cruisers. He returned to the United States in 1803, and, after receiving the appointment of U. S. naval agent to the Barbary states, accompanied the American fleet to the Mediterranean in the summer of 1804. The reigning pacha of Tripoli, Jussuf Caramalli, had gained the throne by deposing his brother Hamet. On learning that the latter had taken refuge in Egypt, Eaton sought him out, and with the sanction of the government proposed to rein- state him. In the early part of 1805 he assembled a force of about 500 men, four fifths of whom were Arabs, the re- mainder beingGreeks and a few Americans. After securing the co- operation of the Uni- ted States squadron, this small army, un- der the command of Gen. Eaton, marched 600 miles across the Libyan desert to Derne, the capital of the richest province of Tripoli. On sev- eral occasions the mu- tinous disposition of the Arab sheiks and the irresolution of Hamet imperilled the safety of the few Christians belonging to the expedition, but

the forces were finally brought to Bomba, where the "Argus " and " Hornet," under command of Isaac Hull, were in waiting. On 27 April, 1805, fire was opened upon the town and batteries. After a bombardment of an hour, which drove the enemy from their guns, the land force, num- bering about 1,200, carried the works by storm, and Commander Hull raised the United States flag, which floated for the first time over a forti- fication on that side of the Atlantic. The guns were turned upon the town, which capitulated after a furious assault from the other side, in which Eaton was severely wounded. A few days later an army of several thousand Tripolitans, de- spatched by the bey, approached the town, and for several weeks sharp skirmishes took place be- tween the opposing forces. At the moment when Eaton was preparing to fall upon Tripoli by a rapid march, intelligence arrived that Tobias Lear, the U. S. consul-general at Algiers, had negotiated with the reigning bey a treaty, among whose pro- visions was that $60,000 should be paid for the ransom of the American captives. Plamet retired to Syracuse, and the pacha retained custody of his wife and children. Eaton accused Col. Lear of treachery, and of betraying the interests of the government. On his return to the United States, Gen. Eaton was well received, and honorably men- tioned in the president's message, but failed to obtain compensation from the government for his pecuniary losses, or such recognition as he expected. Massachusetts, " desirous to perpetuate a remem- brance of heroic enterprise," granted him 10,000 acres of land, and in acknowledgment of his release of the Danish captives he was presented with a gold box by the king of Denmark. In 1806 Aaron Burr endeavored ineffectually to enlist Eaton in his conspiracy, and on his trial in Rich- mond the latter was one of the most important witnesses against him. Eaton's last years were spent in Brimfield, Mass., which town he repre- sented in the legislature. See " Life of Gen. Eaton " by Festus Foster (Brookfield, 1813), and a memoir by President Cornelius C. Felton in Sparks's "American Biographies." — His son, Nathaniel Johnson, d. in Alton, 111., 29 March, 1883, was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1827,