Page:EB1911 - Volume 13.djvu/822

Rh Close by is the remount depôt, established in 1828, where Australian horses are acclimatized and trained for artillery and cavalry use in southern India.

 HOTCH-POT, or (from Fr. hocher, to shake; used as early as 1292 as a law term, and from the 15th century in cookery for a sort of broth with many ingredients, and so used figuratively for any heterogeneous mixture), in English law, the name given to a rule of equity whereby a person, interested along with others in a common fund, and having already received something in the same interest, is required to surrender what has been so acquired into the common fund, on pain of being excluded from the distribution. “It seemeth,” says Littleton, “that this word hotch-pot is in English a pudding; for in a pudding is not commonly put one thing alone, but one thing with other things together.” The following is an old example given in Coke on Littleton: “If a man seized of 30 acres of land in fee hath issue only two daughters, and he gives with one of them 10 acres in marriage to the man that marries her, and dies seized of the other 20; now she that is thus married, to gain her share of the rest of the land, must put her part given in marriage into hotch-pot; i.e. she must refuse to take the profits thereof, and cause her land to be so mingled with the other that an equal division of the whole may be made between her and her sister, as if none had been given to her; and thus for her 10 acres she shall have 15, or otherwise the sister will have the 20.” In the common law this seems to have been the only instance in which the rule was applied, and the reason assigned for it is that, inasmuch as daughters succeeding to lands take together as coparceners and not by primogeniture, the policy of the law is that the land in such cases should be equally divided. The law of hotch-pot applies only to lands descending in fee-simple. The same principle is noticed by Blackstone as applying in the customs of York and London to personal property. It is also expressly enacted in the Statute of Distributions (§ 5) that no child of the intestate, except his heir-at-law, who shall have any estate in land by the settlement of the intestate, or who shall be advanced by the intestate in his lifetime by pecuniary portion equal to the distributive shares of the other children, shall participate with them in the surplus; but if the estate so given to such child by way of advancement be not equivalent to their shares, then such part of the surplus as will make it equal shall be allotted to him. It has been decided that this provision applies only to advancements by fathers, on the ground that the rule was founded on the custom of London, which never affected a widow’s personal estate. The heir-at-law is not required to bring any land which he has by descent or otherwise from the deceased into hotch-pot, but advancements made to him out of the personal property must be brought in. The same principle is to be found in the collatio bonorum of the Roman law: emancipated children, in order to share the inheritance of their father with the children unemancipated, were required to bring their property into the common fund. It is also found in the law of Scotland.

 HÔTEL-DE-VILLE, the town hall of every French municipality. The most ancient example still in perfect preservation is that at St-Antonin (Tarn-et-Garonne) dating from the middle of the 12th century. Other fine town halls are those of Compiègne, Orléans, Saumur, Beaugency and St Quentin. The Hôtel de Ville in Paris built in the 16th century was burnt by the Commune in 1871 and has since been rebuilt on an extended site, the central portion of the main front being a reproduction of the old design. There is only one town hall in a French town, those erected for the mayors of the different arrondissements in Paris being called mairies.

 HÔTEL-DIEU, the name given to the principal hospital in any French town. The Hôtel-Dieu in Paris was founded in the year 660, has been extended at various times, and was entirely rebuilt between 1868–1878. One of the most ancient in France is at Angers, dating from 1153. The Hôtel-Dieu of Beaune (Côte-d’Or), founded 1443, is one of the most interesting, as it retains the picturesque disposition of its courtyard, with covered galleries on two storeys and large dormer windows; and the great hall of the Hôtel-Dieu at Tonnerre, Yonne (1338), nearly 60 ft. wide and over 300 ft. long, is still preserved as part of the chief hospital of the town.

 HOTHAM, SIR JOHN (d. 1645), English parliamentarian, belonged to a Yorkshire family, and fought on the continent of Europe during the early part of the Thirty Years’ War. In 1622 he was made a baronet, and he was member of parliament for Beverley in the five parliaments between 1625 and 1640, being sheriff of Yorkshire in 1635. In 1639 he was deprived by the king of his office of governor of Hull, and joining the parliamentary party refused to pay ship-money. In January 1642 Hotham was ordered by the parliament to seize Hull, where there was a large store of munitions of war; this was at once carried out by his son John. Hotham took command of Hull and in April 1642 refused to admit Charles I. to the town. Later he promised his prisoner, Lord Digby, that he would surrender it to the king, but when Charles appeared again he refused a second time and drove away the besiegers. Meanwhile the younger Hotham was taking an active part in the Civil War in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, but was soon at variance with other parliamentary leaders, especially with the Fairfaxes, and complaints about his conduct and that of his troops were made by Cromwell and by Colonel Hutchinson. Soon both the Hothams were corresponding with the earl of Newcastle, and the younger one was probably ready to betray Hull; these proceedings became known to the parliament, and in June 1643 father and son were captured and taken to London. After a long delay they were tried by court-martial, were found guilty and were sentenced to death. The younger Hotham was beheaded on the 2nd of January 1645, and in spite of efforts made by the House of Lords and the Presbyterians to save him, the elder suffered the same fate on the following day. Sir John Hotham had two other sons who were persons of some note: Charles Hotham (1615–c. 1672), rector of Wigan, a Cambridge scholar and author of Ad philosophiam Teutonicam Manuductio (1648); and Durant Hotham (1617–1691), who wrote a Life of Jacob Boehme (1654).

HOTHAM, WILLIAM HOTHAM, 1st Baron (1736–1813), British Admiral, son of Sir Beaumont Hotham (d. 1771), a lineal descendant of the above Sir John Hotham, was educated at Westminster School and at the Royal Naval Academy, Portsmouth. He entered the navy in 1751, and spent most of his midshipman’s time in American waters. In 1755 he became lieutenant in Sir Edward Hawke’s flagship the “St George,” and he soon received a small command, which led gradually to higher posts. In the “Syren” (20) he fought a sharp action with the French “Télémaque” of superior force, and in the “Fortune” sloop he carried, by boarding, a 26-gun privateer. For this service he was rewarded with a more powerful ship, and from 1757 onwards commanded various frigates. In 1759 his ship the “Melampe,” with H.M.S. “Southampton,” fought a spirited action with two hostile frigates of similar force, one of which became their prize. The “Melampe” was attached to Keppel’s squadron in 1761, but was in the main employed in detached duty and made many captures. In 1776, as a commodore, Hotham served in North American waters, and he had a great share in the brilliant action in the Cul de Sac of St Lucia (Dec. 15th, 1778). Here he continued till the spring of 1781, when he was sent home in charge of a large convoy of merchantmen. Off Scilly Hotham fell in with a powerful French squadron, against which he could effect nothing, and many of the merchantmen went to France as prizes. In 1782 Commodore Hotham was with Howe at the relief of Gibraltar, and at the time of the Spanish armament of 1790 he flew his flag as rear-admiral of the red. Some time later he was made vice-admiral. As Hood’s second-in-command in the Mediterranean he was engaged against the French Revolutionary navy, and when his chief retired to England the command devolved upon him. On March 12th, 1794 he fought an indecisive fleet action, in which the brunt of the fighting was borne by Captain Horatio Nelson, and some months later, now a full admiral, he again engaged, this time under conditions which might have permitted a decisive victory;