Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/26

Rh 16 U R U U S H Govern- The legislative power of the state rests with the general assembly, ment. consisting of two chambers, one of senators (18) and one of repre sentatives (51). The deputies of the lower house are elected annually and directly by the people, one deputy for every 3000 of the population, or any fraction not less than 2000. One senator is named for each department. The executive power is exercised by the president of the republic, who is elected by the general assembly. The judicial power is vested in a superior court, com posed of two courts of appeal, which temporarily supply the place of a supreme court of justice, not yet created. Army The permanent army on a peace footing consists of 3260 men. and The national guard numbers about 20,000. On an emergency the navy. Government could put into the field 30,000 men. The regular troops are well armed and accoutred after the European fashion. The navy consists of a few small steamers and gunboats. Finance. The estimated revenue for 1886-87 was 2,775,362 (about two- thirds from custom dues, the rest from taxes on property and from stamps, trade licences, &c. ). Of the estimated expenditure about two-fifths are devoted to the payment of the interest on the public debt, which in 1883 amounted to 11,127,000. On 1st July 1886 the debt was officially stated to be 14,718,089. History. The history of Uruguay dates from 1512, when Juan Diaz de Solis entered the Parana-guazu or &quot;sealike&quot; estuary of the Plate and landed about 70 miles east of the present city of Montevideo. strong character. Their habits were simple, and they were disfigured neither by the worst crimes nor by the primitive superstitions of savages. They are said to have revealed no vestiges of religion. The Charruas are generally classified as a yellow-skinned race, of the same family as the Pampa Indians ; but they are also repre sented as tanned almost black by the sun and air, without any admixture of red or yellow in their complexions. Almost beard less, and with thin eyebrows, they had on their heads thick, black, lustrous hair, which neither fell off nor turned grey until the possessors reached the age of eighty. They lived principally upon hsh, venison, and honey. In the Guarani language &quot;Charrua&quot; means turbulent, and by their enemies the Charruas were accounted as such, and even ferocious, although admitted to be generous to their captives. They were a curiously taciturn and reticent race. Their weapons were the bow and arrow and stones. Solis, on his second visit, 1515-16, was slain by the Charruas in Colonia. Eleven years later Ramon, the lieutenant of Sebastian Cabot, was defeated by the same tribe. In 1603 they destroyed in a pitched battle a veteran force of Spaniards under Saavedra. During the next fifty years three unsuccessful attempts were made by the Spaniards to subdue this courageous people. The real conquest of Uruguay was commenced under Philip III. by the Jesuit missions. It was gradually consummated by the military and commercial settlements of the Portuguese, and subsequently by the Spaniards, who established themselves formally in Montevideo under General Zavala in 1729, and finally demolished the rival Portuguese settle ment in Colonia in 1777. From 1750 Montevideo enjoyed a pro vincial government independent of that of Buenos Ayres. The American rebellion, the French Revolution, and the British invasions of Montevideo and Buenos Ayres (1806-7) under Generals Auchmuty and Whitelock all contributed to the final extinction of the Spanish power on the river Plate. During the war of independence Monte video was taken in 1814 by the Buenos- Ayrean general Alvear. A long struggle for dominion in Uruguay between Brazil and the revolutionary Government of Buenos Ayres was concluded in 1828, through the mediation of Great Britain, Uruguay being declared a free and independent state. The republic was formally con stituted in 1830. Subsequently Juan Manuel Rosas, dictator of Buenos Ayres, interfered in the intestine quarrels of Uruguay ; and Montevideo was besieged by his forces, allied with the native par- tizans of General Oribe, for nine years (1842-51). From the era of its independence to about 1870 the history of Uruguay is a long record of foreign invasions and intrigues, financial ruin, and politi cal folly and crime. See Album &amp;lt;le In RepuUim Oriental del Uruguay, by F. A. Berro, A. de Vedia, and M. de Pena (Montevideo, 1882) ; Anuario Estadistlcn for 1885 and preceding s linmnblica _ ^ _ _,._.._.. , Handbook of the River Plate (London, 1885) ; The Republic of Uruguay (London! 1883); an official and statistical pamphlet by Loniba ; Reports by W. Gilford Palgrave (1885 and 1887). (J. GR.) URUMIAH. See URMIA. USBEGS. See BOKHARA, KHIVA, MONGOLS, TURKE STAN, and TURKS. USHAXT (Fr. Ouessant}, the most westerly of the islands off the coast of France, 26 miles west-north-west from Brest, belongs administratively to the department of Finistere. It is about 4| miles in length, and almost entirely granitic, with steep and rugged coasts, accessible only at a few points. The island affords pasturage to a few sheep and horses, and contains some small villages, the chief being St Michel. The inhabitants are princi pally pilots and fishermen. The total population in 1886 was 2307. USHER, JAMES (1580-1656), prelate and scholar, was born in the parish of St Nicholas, Dublin, on 4th January 1580. He was the eldest son of Arnold Usher, one of the six clerks in Chancery, and descended from the house of Nevill, one of whose scions, accompanying John Planta- genet to Ireland in the capacity of usher in 1185, adopted his official title as a surname. James Usher was sent to a school in Dublin opened by two political agents of James VI. of Scotland, who adopted this manner of averting the suspicions of Elizabeth s Government from their real object, which was to secure a party for James in Ireland in the event of the queen s death. In 1593 Usher matriculated as one of the first students at the newly-founded university of Dublin, whose charter had been obtained in 1592 by his uncle Henry Usher, arch bishop of Armagh. He proved a diligent student, devoting much attention to controversial theology, graduated as M.A. in 1600, and became a fellow of Trinity College. On the death of his father in 1598 he resigned the family estate to his younger brother, reserving only a small rent-charge upon it for his own maintenance, and prepared to enter into holy orders. When he was but nineteen he accepted a challenge put forth by Henry Fitz- simons, a learned Jesuit, then a prisoner in Dublin, in viting discussion of Bellarmine s arguments in defence of Roman Catholicism, and acquitted himself with much dis tinction. In 1600 he was appointed proctor of his college and catechetical lecturer in the university, though still a layman, and was ordained deacon and priest on the same day, in 1601, while still under the canonical age, by his uncle the primate. In 1606 he became regius professor of divinity and also chancellor of St Patrick s cathedral, Dublin. He was a frequent visiter to England to purchase books for his college library, and upon similar errands, making on these occasions the acquaintance of the most eminent scholars in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, such as Camden, Selden, Sir Thomas Bodley, and Sir Robert Cotton. He took his degree of D.D. in 1612, and in the following year published his first printed work, though not his first literary composition, Gravissimss Qusestionis de Christianarum Ecclesiarwn, in Occidentis prsesertim partibus, ab Aj)ostolicis temporibus ad nostram usque setatem, continua successione et statu, Historica Explicatio, wherein he took up the history of the Western Church from the point where Jewel had left off in his Apology for the Church of England, and carried it on from the 6th till past the middle of the 13th century, but never completed it. In this same year he married Phoebe, daughter of Dr Luke Chaloner, a wealthy heiress. In 1615 he took part in an attempt of the Irish clergy to impose a Calvinistic confession, em bodying the Lambeth Articles of 1595, upon the Irish Church, and was delated to King James in consequence. But on his next visit to England in 1619 he brought with him an attestation to his orthodoxy and high professional standing, signed by the lord deputy and the members of the privy council, which, together with his own demeanour in a private conference with the king, so influenced the latter that he nominated Usher to the vacant see of Meath, of which he was consecrated bishop in 1620. In 1622 he published a controversial Discourse of the Religion anciently Professed by the Irish and British, designed to show that they were in agreement with the Church of England and opposed to the Church of Rome on the points in debate between those churches. In 1623 he was made a privy