Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/172

 town, after which they retired to their ships and elected one Christian as Brown's successor. This Christian, Davis tells us, ‘was an old experienced soldier and privateer, very brave and just in all his actions.’ He was also well acquainted with the manners of the Indians, having ‘lived among them some years when he was out a “roving on the account,” as the Jamaica men call it, but it is downright pirating, they making their own commissions on the capstan.’ They went then to Samballoes (Islands of San Blas), where they struck upon an alliance with the Indians, who proposed to supply three hundred men and lead them through the woods to the Spanish gold mines, vaguely and incorrectly said to be about sixteen leagues south-west of Caledonia. The story of the journey is equally vague and extremely curious. Going in canoes from their ships at the Samballoes, the party ascended a broad, deep river—possibly the Atrato—for three days, and landed on 19 Aug. The road over which they then marched was remarkable. They forded a swollen torrent waist deep thirty-three times in ten miles; they found their ‘path so narrow that but one man could march, and almost perpendicular, so that we were forced’ (it is Davis who tells this) ‘to haul ourselves up by twigs of trees; it was above a mile and a half high.’ Another mountain was ‘not less than six miles high,’ and yet another ‘not less than seven or eight miles high.’ After a few more difficulties of a similar kind, they arrived on the 31st at the Spanish settlement, drove the Spaniards out without much trouble, and took possession of the diggings; but though they tortured some of the prisoners, even to death, they could not learn of any store of gold. Probably there was none, the treasure being sent to Panama at frequent short intervals. And so, with little booty, and after hardships aptly described as ‘incredible,’ they arrived back at their ships on 21 Sept. They then went to cruise off Porto Bello, where they had but poor fortune; and with this the extract of the journal abruptly terminates.

Nothing more is known of Davis after the expedition of 1702. It may, however, be noted to his credit that he commanded his gang of ruffians in the Pacific for nearly four years, without exciting mutiny or occasioning any serious discontent, and apparently without exercising any unusual cruelty or severity.

[Dampier's New Voyage round the World; Lionel Wafer's New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America (1699), the 2nd edit. of which (1704) has as a supplement ‘Davis, his Expedition to the Gold Mines.’]  DAVIS, EDWARD (1833–1867), subject painter, was born at Worcester in 1833, and there acquired the rudiments of drawing, but afterwards entered the Birmingham School of Design, then under the management of J. Kyd. On the removal of this artist to the Worcester school Davis accompanied him and studied there during three years, and carried off several prizes. He died in Rome on 12 June 1867. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1854, his address being 22 Foregate Street, Worcester. The subjects were ‘Meditation,’ representing an old villager sitting by a fireside, and ‘Parting Words,’ being a deathbed scene. In the following year Davis sent to the Academy ‘A Cottage Scene,’ and in 1856 he resided at 16 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square. Among some of his best works may be mentioned: ‘On the Way to School’ (engraved by William Ridgway), ‘Granny's Spectacles,’ ‘Doing Crochet Work’ (1861), ‘Words of Peace’ (1867), and ‘The Little Peg-top.’

[Redgrave's Dict. of English Artists; Royal Academy Catalogues.]  DAVIS, HENRY EDWARDS (1756–1784), opponent of Gibbon, was the son of John Davis of Windsor. He was born 11 July 1756, and educated at Ealing. On 17 May 1774 he entered Balliol, and graduated as B.A. in 1778. In the same spring he had the courage to attack the first volume of Gibbon's ‘Decline and Fall’ (published in 1776), in an ‘examination’ of the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters. Davis, it is said, ‘evinced more knowledge than is usually found at the age of twenty-one.’ David, however, was in this case no match for Goliath; and Gibbon's famous ‘Vindication,’ chiefly directed against Davis, justified his statement that ‘victory over such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation.’ Davis, in fact, had merely followed Gibbon's references without even the knowledge required for verification. Gibbon states that Davis was rewarded for the attack by a ‘royal pension.’ He took priest's orders in 1780, and became fellow and tutor of Balliol. His health broke down, and he died, after a lingering illness, 10 Feb. 1784. He is said to have been very amiable, poetical, and patient under sufferings.

[Chalmers's Dict. (evidently from friends); Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, i. 230, ii. 156, iv. 515–95.]  DAVIS, HENRY GEORGE (1830–1857), topographer, born on 14 Aug. 1830 at 4 Mills Buildings, Knightsbridge, was the son of J. Davis, master of St. Paul's parochial schools, Knightsbridge. He was educated at