Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/193

Barham he ‘read many books, especially physical.’ His letters and manuscripts indicate that in early life his education had been much neglected; but although apt also to be led astray by fantastic and utopian ideas, he possessed undoubtedly great ingenuity and a very minute knowledge of the fauna and flora of Jamaica. Logwood, now so common there, was introduced by him in 1715. Sir Hans Sloane, who refers to him in terms of high commendation, received from him many valuable communications, of which he made large use in his ‘Natural History of Jamaica.’ Among these was a treatise, ‘Hortus Americanus,’ sent in 1711. This treatise was published in 1794 with a preface in which it is stated to be the work of Henry Barham, M.D., who, it is added, practised as a physician in Jamaica from the beginning of the century, and after acquiring large property by marriage returned to England in 1740 and settled at Staines near Egham. The Henry Barham thus referred to was the son of Henry Barham, F.R.S., but that the father was the author of the book is proved beyond all doubt by letters in the Sloane MSS. (4036). Henry Barham, F.R.S., wrote also a ‘History of Jamaica,’ which his son, after his death, sent to Sir Hans Sloane, ‘to see the best method of printing it,’ but it was never published. The original copy, in the handwriting of the father, and inscribed ‘wrote by Henry Barham, Senr. F.R.S.,’ is in the British Museum (Sloane MS. 3918). In another copy, in a different hand (Add. MS. 12422), there is a note by E. Long erroneously attributing the work to Henry Barham, M.D. Barham also wrote two papers for the Royal Society: ‘An Account of a Fiery Meteor seen in Jamaica to strike the Earth,’ Phil. Trans. 1718, Abrev. vi. p. 368; and ‘Observations on the Produce of the Silkworm and of Silk in England,’ 1719, Abrev. vi. p. 426.

[Sloane MSS. 4036, f. 84, 3918; Add. MSS. 22639, ff. 18–20, 12422; Sloane's Natural History of Jamaica, Introduction ii. vii–x.]  BARHAM, NICHOLAS (d. 1577), lawyer, was a native of Wadhurst, Sussex. His family had been settled there for some generations, being a branch of the Barhams of Teston House, Teston, Kent, descended from Robert de Berham, upon whom the estates of his kinsman, Reginald Fitzurse, notorious as one of the murderers of Thomas Becket, devolved upon his flight into Ireland after the murder. Nicholas Barham was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1542, became an ‘ancient’ of that society 24 May 1552, Lent reader in 1558, and was made serjeant-at-law in 1567, having previously (1562–3) been returned to parliament as member for Maidstone, of which town he also appears to have been recorder. Dugdale does not place him in the list of queen's serjeants until 1573. He is, however, so designated in certain papers relating to the trial of the Duke of Norfolk for high treason in conspiring with the Queen of Scots to depose Elizabeth, under date 1571–2. He was entrusted with the conduct of that famous prosecution, and seems to have displayed therein considerable ability and energy and some unscrupulousness. Thus it is perfectly clear, from a letter from Sir Thomas Smith to Lord Burghley, that the rack was employed in eliciting evidence from a witness, Banister by name, one of the duke's agents. Yet, on the duke, after the confession of the witness had been read, remarking ‘Banister was shrewdly cramped when he told that tale,’ Barham, who had been present at the examination, replied without hesitation, ‘No more than you were.’ The trial of the duke took place in Westminster Hall 16 Jan. 1571–2. In the following February Barham was engaged in prosecuting a less illustrious offender, the duke's secretary, Robert Higford, at the Queen's Bench, on the charge of adhering to and comforting the queen's enemies. Higford was found guilty and, like his master, condemned to death. After this we see no more of Barham until 1577, when we find him present at the Oxford assizes during the prosecution of a malcontent bookbinder, Rowland Jencks by name, a Roman catholic, and vehemently opposed to the existing order of things. Apparently he had been guilty of little more than speaking evil of dignities and keeping away from church; but the university authorities, judging it necessary to make an example, had him arrested and sent to London to undergo examination, whence he was returned to Oxford to stand his trial. This took place 4 July, when he was sentenced to lose his ears, as in due course he did. Jencks, however, was amply avenged. ‘Judgment being passed,’ says Wood, ‘and the prisoner taken away, there rose such an infectious damp or breath among the people that many there present were then smothered, and others so deeply infected that they lived not many days after.’ There was a sudden outbreak of gaol-fever of a more than usually virulent kind, which destroyed within a few hours, if Wood is to be credited, besides Barham and Sir Robert Bell, baron of the exchequer, the high sheriff and his deputy, Sir William Babington, four justices of the peace, three gentlemen, and most of the jury, and in the course of the next five weeks more than five hundred other persons. Wood