Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/553

Rh P O R P O R 533 at low water of 10 to 13 feet, and at high water 11J to 14J. Ponce (38,000 inhabitants in town and district) lies about 3 miles inland from the south coast. Its public buildings are frequently of brick or stone, but the private houses are of wood. It contains a town- hall (situated, like the principal church, in the main square), a public hospital (1875), and an English Episcopal church, and it is lighted with gas by an English company. Mayaguez (27,000 inhabit ants in town and district), on the west coast, is also situated several miles inland, and is separated from its port by a river. An iron bridge, however, was constructed about 1875-76. The town has military barracks, clubs, and gasworks. The harbour, accessible only to vessels drawing less than 16 feet, is silting up, as indeed is the case with almost all the harbours of Porto Rico. Other towns are Guayama on the south coast, with its harbour at Arroya, and San Carlos de Aguadilla on the west coast. The seaports are St John s, Ponce, Mayaguez, Naguabo, Fajardo, Aguadilla, and Viequez. History. Porto Rico, the Borinquen of the aborigines, was dis covered by Columbus in November 1493. In 1510 Ponce de Leon founded the town of Caparra, soon after abandoned, and now known as Puerto Viejo, and in 1511, with more success, the city of San Juan Bautista. The native inhabitants probably not very numer ous, though, with their usual exaggeration, old chroniclers rate them at 600,000 were soon subdued and swept away. 1 In 1595 the capital was sacked by Drake, and in 1598 by the duke of Cumber land. In 1615 Baldwin Heinrich, a Dutchman, lost his life in an attack on the Castello del Mono. The attempt of the English in 1678 was equally unsuccessful, and Abercromby in 1797 had to retire after a three days siege. In 1820 a movement was made towards a declaration of independence on the part of the Porto Ricans, but Spanish supremacy was completely re-established by 1823. The last traces of slavery were abolished in 1873 by the abrogation of the system of forced labour. See Antonio de Herrera, &quot; Descripcion de la isla de Puerto Rico, 1582,&quot; in Boletinde laSoc. Geogr. de Madrid, 1876; Bello y Espinosa, &quot;Geschiclitl.,geogr., und stat. Bemerk. iiber Puerto Rico,&quot; in Zeitschr. fiir Ethnologie, 1872 ; Inigo Abbad, Historia. . . de la Isla de S. J. B. de Puerto Rico, Madrid, 1788, re- publislied by Jose Julian Acosta of Porto Rico. PORT ROYAL, a town and naval station of Jamaica, occupies the outer end of a narrow strip of land called the &quot;Palisades,&quot; which, projecting westward for about 9 miles, forms the natural breakwater of the noble bay on which Kingston, the present capital of the island, is built. As a town Port Royal (though in the 17th century it was re puted the finest in the West Indies) is now a wretched place of 1205 inhabitants (1881), with narrow and ex tremely dirty streets, and contains no buildings of note except a hospital (200 patients) and the spacious admiralty house, which is surrounded by beautiful gardens ; but as a naval station it is still of very considerable importance, has well-equipped machine-shops, and is defended by a number of forts and batteries partly of quite modern erection. The first great blow struck at the prosperity of Port Royal was the earthquake of 1692, which swallowed up whole streets and forts and sunk a considerable part of the site into the sea, where remains of buildings are still visible under water in clear weather. In 1703 the whole town, except the royal forts and magazines, was reduced to ashes ; on 22d August 1722 most of the houses were swept into the sea by a hurricane ; in 1815 another conflagration proved nearly as destructive as the first ; and in 1880 another hurricane did grievous damage. PORT ROYAL, a celebrated Cistercian abbey, occupied a low and marshy site in the thickly-Avooded valley of the Yvette, at what is now known as Les Hameaux near Marly, about 8 miles to the south-west of Versailles. It was founded in 1 204 by Mathilde de Garlande, wife of Matthieu de Montmorenci-Marli, during his absence on the fourth crusade, and in its early years it received a variety of papal privileges, including (1223) that of affording a retreat to lay persons who desired to withdraw from the world for a season without binding themselves by permanent vows. Apart from the famous reforms begun here in 1608 by Jacqueline Marie ARNAULD (q.v.), the Mere Angelique, the history of Port Royal presents little of general interest until about ten years after the establishment (1626) of the sister house in Paris, when the community fully came under the influence of Duvergier de Hauranne (see vol. vii. p. 06 7), abbe of St Cyran, the friend of Jansen, and leader 1 A detailed account of their manners, translated from Abbad by Mr Bid well, will be found in the Consular Reports, 1880. of the anti-Jesuit movement in France. The religious views of St Cyran spread rapidly in Port Royal de Paris, and among the members and connexions of the Arnaukl family; and it was under his influence that in 1637 Antoine Le Maitre (1608-1658), a nephew of the Mere Angelique, resolved to abandon his brilliant prospects as an advocate and seek a life of ascetic retirement. He found a lodging for himself at Port Royal des Champs (as the mother house came to be called for distinction s sake), which since the departure of the nuns in 1626 had been untenanted. In the following year he was joined in his religious retreat by his younger brothers Simon de Seri- court (1611-1658), who had served in the army, and Louis Isaac (1613-1684), better known in the world of letters by his assumed name of De Sacy. They were at various times joined by others until in 1646 the &quot;solitaries of Port Royal,&quot; apart from merely occasional visitors, had risen to the number of twelve. From almost the beginning of his sojourn Le Maitre, carrying out the ideas of his imprisoned master St Cyran, devoted a considerable part of his time to teaching ; the number of pupils and also of teachers gradually increased until in 1646 and following years the &quot; Petites ^coles,&quot; as they were modestly called, around Port Royal les Champs and in Paris, although de stined to be short-lived, attained a great and widespread success (compare vol. vii. p. 675). Of the regular teaching staff probably the most distinguished were Claude Lance lot (1615-1695) 2 and Pierre NICOLE (q.v.); of the pupils it is enough to mention TILLEMONT (q.v.) and RACINE (q.v.). In 1648 the Mere Angelique with some of the nuns re turned from Paris to Port Royal des Champs, which in the interval had been considerably enlarged, while the neigh bourhood had been rendered more salubrious by the labours of the solitaries, who now removed to the farmhouse of Les Granges on the height above. In the same year Antoine ARNAULD (q.v.}, the apologist of the Augustinus, came into residence, and thenceforward the &quot; gentlemen of Port Royal &quot; became closely identified in the public mind with the Jansenist cause. The open struggle, which began with the publication in 1653 of the bull of Pope Innocent X. condemning the five propositions (see JANSENISM), came to a disastrous crisis in 1656, when Arnauld was expelled the Sorbonne, and he, as well as Sacy, Fontaine, and Nicole, had to go into hiding. The publication of the Provincial Letters in the course of the same year did not tend to soothe the Jesuits,, but the timely &quot; miracle of the Holy Thorn&quot; (24th May 1656; see vol. xviii. p. 335) helped to postpone somewhat the evil days that were coming on the Port Royalists. But only for a time ; for in 1661 the young and ardently orthodox Louis XIV. caused the Petites F^coles to be broken up and the postulants and novices of the two religious houses to be dispersed. For continued contumacy both houses were in 1664 laid under interdict, which was only removed when the &quot; peace of the church &quot; was established by Clement IX. in 1669. In the same year, however, Port Royal de Paris was separated from the parent house with a grant of one-third of the revenues, and placed under Jesuit management. The nuns of the abbey of Port Royal des Champs were allowed to take in children as pupils, but not to receive any accessions to their own number, and the Petites F^coles were not resumed. The &quot;peace,&quot; such as it was, was again destroyed by the bull of Clement XI. in 1705, and in 1708, the nuns proving inflexible, a papal bull was granted for the final suppression of Port Royal des Champs and the transference of the whole property to Port Royal de Paris. The dispersion of the aged sisters took place in the following year ; the 2 Author of Nouvelle Methode pour apprendre la Lanyue Grecque (1655), Nouvelle Methode pour apprendre la Langue Latine (1656), Grammaire yenerale et raisonne e (1660), and other educational works.