Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/609

Rh   GILBART, (1794–1863), the author of a number of works on banking, was descended from a Cornish family, and was born in London, March 21, 1794. From 1813 to 1825 he was clerk in a London bank, after which he Went to Birmingham. Shortly after his return to London in 1827 he was appointed manager of the Kilkenny branch of the Provincial Bank of Ireland, and in 1829 he was promoted to the “'aterford branch. In 1831 he became manager of the London and Westminster Bank; and to his skill in developing the system of joint- stock banking it owed much of its success. On more than one occasion be rendered valuable services to the joint-stock banks by his evidence before committees of the House of Commons ; and, on the renewal of the bank charter in 1844, he procured the insertion of a clause granting t0_joint—stoek banks the power of suing by their public ofﬁcer, and also the right of accepting bills at less than six months’ date. In testimony of their obligations to him, the directors and shareholders of joint—stock banks presented him in 1846 with a handsome service of plate. In the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He retired on a pension from the management of the London and West- minster Bank, 1st January 1860, and died in London August 8, 1863. From an early period Gilbart took an active part in the Athenian Debating Society of London, and he was also connected with the Union Society, which numbered among its other eminent members J. S. Mill and Lord Macaulay. He also devoted much of his attention to the promotion of literary and scientiﬁc institutions among the middle and working classes.

1em  GILBERT, (–), a celebrated English navigator, was born in in the county of DeVon, second of the three sons of Otho Gilbert of Greenway. By his mother’s side he was half-brother to Sir Walter Raleigh, who resembled him in many points of character, and whose early life was largely inﬂuenced and guided by his example. Educated ﬁrst at Eton and then at Oxford, he was destined by his father for the law; but- being introduced at court by Raleigh’s aunt, Catherine Ashley, he obtained the special favour of the queen, and was thus enabled to follow his natural inclination for active enterprise. Recommended by royal letter to Sir Philip Sidney, he received from him an appointment in the army in Ireland; and his services contributed so powerfully to put down the rebellion raging there that in he was made a knight and rewarded with the government of Munster. He next served for about ﬁve in the Netherlands, being the ﬁrst English colonel entrusted with command of English forces in that country. On his return to his native land he wrote a remarkable treatise on a subject at that time before the minds of men, the possibility of a north-west passage to India ; and in it was published without his knowledge by George Gascoigne as Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Passage to ('ataia (London, Henry MiddletOn for Richarde Ihones). The theory in question was supported with no small force of argument, and the discourse was probably not without its Influence in leading Frobisher to set out on his ﬁrst voyage to the frozen north. In June Gilbeit received letters patent authorizing himself, his heirs and assigns, to discover, occupy, and possess such remote “heathen lands not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people, as should seem good to him or them.” Disposing not only of his patrimony but also of the estates in Kent which he had through his wife, daughter of J ohu Aucher of Ollerden, he strenuously prepared to put his permission to use, and his brother Raleigh joined him in the enterprise. By the end of the summer of  a ﬂeet of 11 sail, with 400 mariners and men-at-arms, was collected off the coast of Devon; but the gallant projectors were singularly unfortunate in the character of some of their associates. Dissensions broke out among the captains and disorder among the crews. Knollys, for example, boasted that, as kinsman to royalty, he was of more value than twenty knights, and insolently rejected Gilbert’s invitation to dinner ; and his men, encouraged by their captain’s conduct, ﬁlled the town of Plymouth with uproar and riot, which ﬁnally culminated in murder. It was not till the 19th of November that Gilbert set sail, with his forces reduced to '7 ships and 150 men. The history of the Voyage is involved in obscurity; but about the beginning of summer or a little earlier in, the ﬂeet returned to England, with little, it would appear, to report except that it had lost one of its chief ships and one of its bravest captains, Miles Morgan, in an encounter with the Spaniards. Gilbert lent his three ships to the Government for service against the Spaniards on the Irish coast ; but in July 11, , we still ﬁnd him complaining to “'alsiugham that he had not received the moneys that were due to him, and that thus he was prevented from doing more for his queen and Country. He was already planning a new expedition 5 and at length in his ﬂeet was got together. The queen, though she had at ﬁrst dissuaded Gilbert from his purpose, and would not permit Raleigh to accompany him, wrote to him by his brother’s hand that she wished him “ as great good hap and safety to his ship as if herself were there in person,” and sent him as a token a golden ﬁgure of an anchor guarded by a lady. On 11th of June he departed from Plymouth with 5 sail ; but on the 13th the “ Ark Raleigh,” which had been built and manned at his brother’s expense, “ran from him in fair and clear weather having a large wind.” This desertion was a cause of no small displeasure to the admiral, and he wrote to Sir George I’eckham to solicit his brother to make the crew an example to all knaves; but it appears not improbable (according to Hayes in Hakluyt’s collection) that the reason of their conduct was the breaking out of a contagious sickness in the ship. On the 5th of August Gilbert landed in Newfoundland, and took formal possession of it in the queen’s name ; but proceeding southwards with three vessels, he lost the largest near Cape Breton, and was at last constrained to return homewards with the “ Golden Hind" and the “ Squirrel” as the only remnant of his ﬂeet. “On Monday the 9th September,” reports Hayes, the captain of the “Hind,” “the frigate was near cast away, yet at that time recovered ; and giving forth signs of joy, the general, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out unto us in the ‘ Hind,’ ‘ We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.’ The same Monday night the frigate’s lights were suddenly out, and it was devoured and swallowed up by the sea.” So perished Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

1em  GILBERT, (1751–1780), a French poet, was born at Fontenay-le-Chateau in Lorraine, in 1751. Having completed his education at the college of Dole, he devoted himself for a time to a half scholastic half literary life at Nancy, but at length in 1774 he found his way to the capital. As he had already assumed a hostile and satirical position towards the Encyclopedists, he natur- ally received a warmer welcome from the conservative party;