Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/130

 to the southward; but indeed he made no pretence at finality. The first object of the voyage was trade, and as the Queen Charlotte Islands seemed to more than answer all immediate wants, he was perhaps careless of other discoveries, and, ‘while claiming to have made considerable additions to the geography of this coast,’ contented himself with the remark that ‘so imperfectly do we still know it that it is in some measure to be doubted whether we have yet seen the mainland. Certain it is that the coast abounds with islands, but whether any land we have been near is really the continent remains to be determined by future navigators.’ An examination of Dixon's chart shows in fact that most of his work lay among the islands. On leaving King George's Sound the Queen Charlotte returned to the Sandwich Islands, whence she sailed on 18 Sept. for China, where it had been agreed she was to meet her consort. On 9 Nov. she anchored at Macao, and at Whampoa on the 25th was joined by the King George. Here they sold their furs, of which the Queen Charlotte more especially had a good cargo, and having taken on board a cargo of tea they dropped down to Macao and sailed on 9 Feb. 1788 for England. In bad weather off the Cape of Good Hope the ships parted company, and though they met again at St. Helena, they sailed thence independently. The Queen Charlotte arrived off Dover on 17 Sept., having been preceded by the King George by about a fortnight.

Of Dixon's further life little is known, but he has been identified, on evidence that is not completely satisfactory, with a George Dixon who during the last years of the century was a teacher of navigation at Gosport, and author of ‘The Navigator's Assistant’ (1791). Whether he was the same man or not, we may judge him, both from the work actually performed and from such passages of the narrative of his voyage as appear to have been written by himself (e.g. the greater part of letter xxxviii.), to have been a man of ability and attainments, a keen observer, and a good navigator. He is supposed to have died about 1800.

[A Voyage round the World, but more particularly to the North-West Coast of America, performed in 1785–88 … by Captain George Dixon (4to, 1789). This, though bearing Dixon's name on the title-page, was really written by the supercargo of the Queen Charlotte, Mr. William Beresford. Another 4to volume with exactly the same general title was put forth in the same year by Captain Nathaniel Portlock, but the voyages, though beginning and ending together, were essentially different in what was, geographically, their most important part; Meares's Voyages, 1788–9, from China to the North-West Coast of North America (4to, 1790).] 

DIXON, JAMES, D.D. (1788–1871), Wesleyan minister, born in 1788 at King's Mills, a hamlet near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, became a Wesleyan minister in 1812. For some years he attracted no particular notice as a preacher, and after taking several circuits he was sent to Gibraltar, where his work was unsuccessful. It was after his return that his remarkable gifts began to be observed. Thenceforth he rose to celebrity among the leading preachers of the Wesleyan body. In 1841 he was elected president of the conference, and on that occasion he preached a sermon on ‘Methodism in its Origin, Economy, and Present Position,’ which was printed as a treatise, and is still regarded as a work of authority. In 1847 he was elected representative of the English conference to the conference of the United States, and also president of the conference of Canada. In this capacity he visited America, preaching and addressing meetings in many of the chief cities. His well-known work, ‘Methodism in America,’ was the fruit of this expedition. Dixon remained in the itinerant Wesleyan ministry without intermission for the almost unexampled space of fifty years, travelling in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and other great towns. His preaching was entirely original, and was marked by grandeur, thought, and impassioned feeling. His reputation as a platform speaker was equally high. His speeches at the great Wesleyan missionary anniversaries, and on the slave trade, popery, and other such questions as then stirred the evangelical party in England, were celebrated; and he was selected several times to represent the methodist community at mass meetings that were held upon them. In consequence of the failure of his sight he retired from the full work of the ministry in 1862, and passed the closing years of his life in Bradford, Yorkshire. He died 28 Dec. 1871. With him might perhaps be said to expire the middle period of methodism, the period to which belong the names of Bunting, Watson (whose son-in-law he was), Lessy, and Jackson. Besides the works above mentioned, Dixon was author of a ‘Memoir of the Rev. W. E. Miller,’ and of several published sermons, charges, and lectures. He also wrote occasionally in the ‘London Quarterly Review,’ in the establishing of which he took part. But the great work of his life was preaching, and his sermons were among the most ennobling and beautiful examples of the modern evangelical pulpit.

[Personal knowledge.] 