Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/70

60  1em 1em  GAMBIER,, or. See.  GAMBIER,, (1756–1833), English admiral, was born on the 13th October 1756, at the Bahamas, of which his father, John Gambier, was at that time lieutenant-governor. He entered the navy in 1767 as a midshipman on board the “ Yarmouth,” under the connnand of his uncle; and, his family interest obtaining for him rapid promotion, he was raised in 1778 to the rank of post— captain, and appointed to the “ taleigh,” a fine 322-ng frigate. At the peace of 1783 he was placed on half-pay; but, on the outbreak of the war of the French Revolution, he was appointed to the command of the Tl-gun ship "Defence," under Lord Howe; and in her he had an honourable share in the action off 1: shant, on the 1st J une 1794. In recognition of his services on this occa- sion, Captain Gambler received the gold medal, and was made a colonel of marines; the following year he was advanced to the rank of rear—admiral, and appointed one of the lords of the Admiralty. In this office he continued for six years, till, in February 1801, he, a vice-admiral of 1799, hoisted his ﬂag on board the “ Neptune,” of 98 guns, as third in command of the Channel Fleet under Admiral Cornwallis, where, however, he remained for but a year, when he was appointed governor of Newfoundland and caminander-in-chief of the ships on that station. In May 1804 he returned to the Admiralty, and, with a short inter- mission in 1806, continued there during the naval adminis- tration of Lord Melville, of his uncle, Lord Barham, and of Lord Mulgrave. In November 1805 he was raised to the rank of admiral; and in the summer of 1807, whilst still :1 lord of the Admiralty, he was appointed to the com- mand of the ﬂeet ordered to the Baltic, which, in concert With the army under Lord Cathcart, reduced Copenhagen, and enforced the surrender of the Danish navy, consisting of nineteen ships of the line, besides frigates, sloops, gunboats, and naval stores. This service was considered by the Government as worthy of special acknowledgment; the naval and military commanders, ofﬁcers, seamen, and soldiers received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, and Admiral Gambier was rewarded with a peerage. In the spring of the following year he gave up his seat at the Admiralty on being appointed to the command of the Channel Fleet; and in that capacity he witnessed the partial, and prevented the total, destruction of the French ﬂeet in Basque Roads, on the 12th April 1809. It is in connexion with this event, which might have been as memorable in the history of the British navy as it is in the life of Lord lmndonald (see l)t'.\'no.\'_-\Ln), that Lord (lambier's name is now best known. A court-martial, assembled by order of a friendly Admiralty, and presided over by a warm partisan, “ most honourany acquitted ” him on the charge “that, on the 12th April, the enemy's ships being then on ﬁre, aml the signal having been made that they could be destroyed, he did, for a considerable time, neglect or delay taking effectual measures for destroying them;” but this decision was in reality nothing more than a party statement of the fact that a commander—in-chief, a supporter of the Government, is not to be condemned or broken for not being a person of brilliant genius or daunt less resolution. No one now doubts that the French fleet should have been reduced to ashes, and might have been. had Lord Gambier had the talents, the energy, or the experience of many of his juniors. He continued to hold the command of the Channel Fleet for the full period of three years, at the end of which time—in 18ll—he was superseded. In 1811 he acted in a civil capacity as chief commissioner for negotiating a treaty of peace with the United States; for his exertions in which business, he was honoured with the Grand Cross of the Bath. In 1830 he was raised to the high rank of admiral of the ﬂeet, and he died 19th April 1833. Although he had the good fortune to attain the very highest service rank, Lord Gambicr is assuredly not one of those admirals whose memory the British navytreasures or idolizes. His predilection was for a life on shore; aml during the great war he so utilized his family interest that. he remained for nearly half the time a member of the Admiralty. And whether aﬂoat or ashore, he had neither the genius nor the strength of mind ﬁtted for high command or high ofﬁce. Personally he was a man of earnest, almo.~t- morbid, religious principle, and of undoubted courage ; but the administration of the Admiralty has seldom given rise to such ﬂagrant scandals as during the time when Lord Gambler was a member of it ; and through the whole war, the self-esteem of the navy suﬂ'ered no such wound as during Lord Gambler’s command in the Bay of Biscay.

{{ti|1em|{{11fine|The so-called illcmorials, Personal and insloriral, of Admiral Lord Gambier, by Lady Chatterton (1861), has no historical value. The life of Lord Gambier is to be read in Marshall’s Royal Naval Biography, in {alfe’s Aural Biography, in Lord Dundonald's Autobiography of a Seaman, in the Minutes of the Courts-Martial, and in the general history of the period.}}}}  GAMBOGE, the drug Cambogia, a gum-resin procured from Garcim'a .llorella, 1)esrous., var. palieelluta, a dioecious tree with leathery, laurel-like leaves, small yellow flowers, and usually square-shaped and four-seeded fruit (see It. Jamie, I’harm. Jom'n., 3d sen, vol. iv. p. 802), a member of the natural order Guttiﬂ'rre, and indigenous to Camboja (see, ), and parts of Siam and of the south of Cochin China, formerly comprised in Cambojan territory. The juice, which when hardened constitutes gamboge, is contained in the bark of the tree, chieﬂy in numerous ducts in its middle layer, and from this it is procured by making incisions, bamboo joints being placed to receive it as it exudes. Gamboge occurs in commerce in cylindrical pieces, known as pipe or roll gamboge, and also, usually of inferior quality, in cakes or amorphous masses. It is of a dirty orange exter nally; is hard and brittle, breaks with a conchoidal and reddish-yellow, glistening fracture, and affords a brilliant yellow powder; is odourless, and has a taste at ﬁrst slight, but subsequently acrid; forms with water an emulsion; and consists of from 20 to ‘35 per cent. of gum soluble in water, and from 70 to 75 per cent. of a resin, {/umbogic acid, soluble in alcohol and ether, and, according to Johnston,