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 his life as a trader among the Indians of Georgia and the two Carolinas. He was a close and sympathetic observer of Indian life and customs, and in 1775, stimulated by the encouragement of a few intimate friends, such as Sir William Johnson, bart., Colonel George Craghan, George Galphin, and Lachlan M'Gilwray, he determined to throw his notes into the form of a book. He mentions a string of disadvantages under which he laboured, notably the jealousy, secrecy, and closeness of the Indians, but hoped to be able to correct the very superficial notions that prevailed as to their civilisation. His book was called 'The History of the American Indians &hellip; containing an Account of their Origin, Language, Manners, &hellip; and other Particulars, sufficient to render it A Complete Indian System &hellip; with A New Map of the Country ' (London, 4to).

The value of Adair's work as showing the relations between the Indians and the English traders was recognised, and a German translation appeared at Breslau in 1782. It must be admitted that a very disproportionate space is given to the hypothesis that the American Indians are descended from the lost ten tribes of Israel. Thomas Thorowgood, adopting an old idea of the Spanish Las Casas, had first maintained this theory in English in 1650 in his 'Jewes in America.' Both Roger Williams and Jonathan Edwards seemed rather inclined to favour the view, which, as elaborately set forth by Adair, has since found champions in Elias Boudinot ('Star in the West,' 1816) and in, viscount Kingsborough [q. v.] Among the points of similarity between the Jews and Indians, Adair emphasised the division into tribes, worship of a great spirit, Jehovah, notions of a theocracy, of ablutions and uncleanness, cities of refuge, and practices as regards divorce and raising seed to a deceased brother. The bias imparted by this theory to many of Adair's remarks led Volney to condemn the whole book unjustly in his 'Tableau du Climat et du Sol des Etats-Unis' (p. 433). The second half of the book is more strictly 'An Account of the Katahba, Cheerake, Muskohge, Choktah, and Chikkasah Nations.' Lord Kingsborough reprinted the whole of the first part of Adair's work in the eighth volume of his sumptuous ' Mexican Antiquities' (1830 fol.), with an appendix of notes and illustrations from inedited works by French and Spanish authors, 'affording the most satisfactory proofs of Adair's veracity in the minutest particulars.' Adair's map of the American Indian nations is partially reproduced in Winsor's 'History of America' (vii. 448).



ADAMS, FRANCIS WILLIAM LAUDERDALE (1862–1893), author, born at Malta on 27 Sept. 1862, was grandson of [q. v.] and son of [q. v.], who married on 26 Oct. 1859 Bertha Jane, eldest daughter of Frederick Grundy of the Avenue, Hardwick. He was educated at a private school at Shrewsbury—the Glastonbury of his autobiographical writing—and from 1878 to 1880 at Paris. After two years' experience as assistant master at Ventnor College, he married and went to Australia. There, amid some hardships and vicissitudes, though he worked pretty regularly upon the staff of the 'Sydney Bulletin,' he produced in 1884 his strangely precocious autobiographical novel, 'Leicester.' Short stories, poems, and essays followed until, in 1888, he created a limited semi-scandalous sensation in Sydney by the issue of his 'Songs of the Army of the Night.' His verse is chaotic, but the Utopian fervour of the poems is striking, and the originality often intense. The book was thrice republished in London. He now wrote some able Australian sketches for the 'Fortnightly Review,' and some unconventional criticisms, which too often suggest the minor poet come to judgment, for the 'New Review.' After a couple of years in England, he spent the winter of 1892-3 in Alexandria, battling hard against incurable lung disease, in his endeavour to finish a work upon the iniquity of the British occupation of Egypt. During the summer he settled at Gordon Road, Margate, where, on 4 Sept. 1893, in a fit of depression following a heavy loss of blood, he mortally wounded himself with a pistol. He was twice married, but left no issue. Personally he was a man of charming manner and no small literary faculty. His passionate sympathy with the outcast and oppressed drove him into excess both in thought and expression. His achievement, like that of Marie Bashkirtseff, derives much of its interest from his sadly premature end; but what he might have achieved by the exercise of due artistic restraint is at least indicated by his fine drama 'Tiberius,' embodying a powerful original conception of the tyrant as the deliberate though reluctant