Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/455

 Brothers argued so forcibly against the word 'voluntarily' occurring in a compulsory oath, that Pitt had it removed from the form. But the entire exemption from the oath, sought by Brothers, was not granted. In January 1791 he lived in the open country for eight days. On Thursday, 25 Aug. 1791, his landlady, Mrs. S. Green of Dartmouth Street, Westminster, came before the governors of the poor for the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist, and said her lodger would not take the oath and draw his pay, and hence owed her about 33l. Brothers was examined before the board on 1 Sept., and stated that two years before he had resigned his majesty's service on the ground that a military life is totally repugnant to christianity. He was taken into the workhouse, and an arrangement made by which, without his making oath, his pay was received by the governors as his agents. The idea that he was charged with a commission from the Almighty grew upon him. About the end of February 1792 he left the house and took a lodging in Soho. On 12 May 1792 he wrote to the king, the ministry, and the speaker, saying that God commanded him to go to the House of Commons on the 17th and inform the members that the time was come for the fulfilment of Dan. vii. He followed this up in July by letters to the king, queen, and ministry, containing prophecies with some hits and some misses ; his best guesses at this time being his predictions of the violent deaths of the king of Sweden and Louis XVI. He got into fresh difficulties through not drawing his pay. He was eight days in a sponging-house, and eight weeks in Newgate, from failure to meet his note of hand for 70l. to his Soho landlady. At length he signed a power of attorney for his pay, striking out the words 'our sovereign lord' the king, as blasphemous. Getting free at the latter end of November 1792, he made up his mind to resist his call. He tells how he started at eight o'clock from Hyde Park Corner, carrying a rod cut from a wild-rose bush by divine command some months before, and meaning to walk to Bristol, 'and from thence leave England for ever ; with a firm resolution also never to have anything to do with prophesying.' He walked some sixteen miles on the Bristol Road, and then flung away his rod, wishing never to behold it again. When he had got about ten miles further, he felt himself suddenly turned round and bidden to return and wait the Almighty's time. On his way back he was forcibly led to the rejected rod, 'and made take it up.' In 1793 he described himself as 'nephew of the Almighty,' a relationship which seems obscure ; but Halhed subsequently explained it as meaning a descent from one of the brethren or sisters of our Lord. Towards the end of 1794 he began to print his interpretations of prophecy, his first production being 'A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times,' in two successive books. His mind was exercised upon the problem of the fate of the Jews of the dispersion, whom he believed to be largely hidden among the various nations of Europe. Brothers believed himself to be a descendant of David ; on 19 Nov. 1795 he was to be 'revealed' as prince of the Hebrews and ruler of the world ; in 1798 the rebuilding of Jerusalem was to begin. On Wednesday, 4 March 1795, Brothers was arrested at 57 Paddington Street, by two king's messengers, with a warrant, dated 2 March, from the Duke of Portland, for treasonable practices. He was examined next day before the privy council. He testifies to the courtesy of his examiners, but bitterly complains that after three weeks' confinement he was 'surreptitiously condemned' on 27 March, without hearing evidence in his favour, as a criminal lunatic. Gillray brought out a remarkable caricature on the very day of his examination (5 March), identifying Brothers with the whig party ; and another on 4 June, not so well known. The press teemed with the 'testimonies' of disciples. In the House of Commons Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, M.P. for Lymington, an oriental traveller and scholar, moved on Tuesday, 31 March, that Brothers' 'Revealed Knowledge' be laid before the house. Brothers had claimed that immediately on his being 'revealed in London to the Hebrews as their prince,' King George must deliver up his crown to him. No one seconded the motion. Halhed, on Tuesday, 21 April, moved that a copy of the warrant for apprehending Brothers be laid before the house. This likewise was not seconded; but on 4 May Brothers was removed from confinement as a criminal lunatic, and placed, by order from Lord-chancellor Loughborough, in a private asylum under Dr. Simmons at Fisher House, Islington. Here he employed himself in writing prophetic pamphlets. Among his disciples, Brothers set most store by the testimonies of John Wright and William Bryan, a Bristol druggist, at one time a quaker; but he had gained over Halhed (whom he offered to make 'governor of India or president of the board of controul') as early as the beginning of January 1795. William Sharp, the engraver, was so fully persuaded of the claims of Brothers that in 1795 he engraved two plates of his portrait; each plate bears an inscription : 'Fully believing