Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/56

 pursuits removed to London in 1834, in the hope of improving his prospects, and died there on 5 May 1840. A wife and daughter survived him. He was an accomplished sportsman. His earliest published work, which appeared in 1814, was ‘An Impartial History of Europe from the Death of Louis XVI to the Present Time,’ 8vo; but he chiefly devoted himself to sporting subjects. In his ‘Shooter's Preceptor’ (no date) he mentions percussion caps, and praises the wire cartridge. ‘The Shooter's Companion’ appeared in 1819. ‘The Hunting Directory’ (1826) quotes largely from Somerville and Beckford, and treats of fox-hunting, with a chapter on wolf and boar hunting in France. His most valuable work, ‘The Sportsman's Cyclopædia’ (1831), is sensibly written, forms an epitome of sporting knowledge at the date of its publication, and contains excellent engravings by the Landseers, Herring, Cooper, and Reinagle. Johnson's portrait forms the frontispiece. ‘Physiological Observations on Mental Susceptibilities in Man and Brutes,’ a dull work by ‘T. B. Johnson,’ 1837, is also assigned to him, together with a novel entitled ‘The Mystery of the Abbey.’

[Johnson's works as above; Ann. Reg. 1840, p. 163; Gent. Mag. 1841, pt. i. pp. 102–3.]  JOHNSON, WILLIAM (1715–1774), superintendent of Indian affairs in North America, was born in Ireland in 1715. He was eldest son of Christopher Johnson of Warrentown, co. Down (, i. 60), by his wife Anne, sister of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, K.B. Young Johnson was educated for a mercantile life, but the refusal of his parents to allow him to marry changed his plans, and in 1738 he went to America, where his uncle, Sir Peter Warren, had an estate in the valley of the Mohawk, the dowry of his wife, a daughter of Stephen De Lancy of New York. Johnson accepted the management of the estate, and established himself on a tract of land on the south side of the Mohawk river, about twenty-four miles west of Schenectady, which Warren had named ‘Warrenburgh.’ Johnson began to colonise the tract, embarked in trade with the Indian tribes, and by sterling honesty and justice, by his commanding presence and eloquence, his power of adapting himself to their habits and customs, acquired an ascendency over them greater than ever was possessed by any other white man. The Mohawk tribe chose him as their sachem, naming him ‘Wariaghejaghe’ or ‘Warrahiaghy,’ ‘he who has charge of affairs.’ On the resignation of the Albany Indian commissioners in 1744, Governor George Clinton appointed Johnson colonel of the six nations. In 1746 he was commissary of New York for Indian affairs, and in 1748 was put in command of the New York colonial forces for the defence of the frontier, and prepared a plan of campaign against the French. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle put a stop to the operations. In April 1750 Johnson was appointed by the king a member of the governor's council. The revival of the Albany board of Indian commissioners in 1753 having led to a quarrel between the colonists and Indians, the council and assembly of the province urged Johnson to effect a reconciliation. On 5 July 1753 Johnson repaired with a special commission to Onondaga, where the ‘great council-fire’ of the northern Indians had been lit from time immemorial, held a council of the tribes, and settled the difficulty, but declined having anything more to do with Indian affairs. At this time Johnson lived at Fort Johnson, otherwise Johnson Castle, a large stone building which he had erected on the north side of the Mohawk, and had fortified in 1743. It is still standing, about three miles west of the village of Amsterdam. In 1754, as one of the New York delegates, he attended the congress of Albany and the great council of Indians held there, and the Indians urgently begged that Johnson should be appointed superintendent of Indian affairs. At the council held at Alexandria in April 1755 he was sent for by General Edward Braddock [q. v.], and appointed ‘sole superintendent of the affairs of the six united nations, their allies, and dependants.’ By order of the council he received the local rank of major-general, and was appointed to the chief command of the provincial forces in the expedition against Crown Point. At the head of these forces he defeated the French under Baron Dieskau at Lake George, where he was wounded in the hip early in the action, but remained on the field. The victory saved the colony from French invasion, prevented for the time any attack on Oswego, and went far to counteract the ill-effects of Braddock's defeat on the Monongahela. Johnson received the thanks of parliament and a grant of 5,000l., and on 27 Nov. 1755 was created a baronet. His account of the action is among the manuscripts in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 20662, f. 155). On his arrival at the spot, a few days before the fight, Johnson had renamed Lake St. Sacremont ‘Lake George,’ as he states, ‘not only in honour of his majesty, but to assert his undoubted dominion there.’

In March 1756 Johnson was appointed from home ‘colonel, agent, and sole superintendent of the affairs of the six nations and