Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/487

VAN Delaval, Northumberland; King's-Weston, near Bristol; Oulton hall, Cheshire; two houses at Greenwich, &c. He also built, and conducted as a joint-speculation, a theatre in the Haymarket, on the site of the present Italian Opera house. It was opened in 1706; but though Congreve was his partner and Betterton the manager, the speculation did not succeed, and Vanbrugh withdrew from it. Besides the appointments mentioned above, Vanbrugh was surveyor of Greenwich hospital and of the royal gardens and waters, and comptroller-general of works. In this last capacity he, about 1722, put forth a plan for a complete system of sewerage, and the new paving of London. He was knighted at the accession of George I. in 1714, and died at the house he had built for himself in Scotland Yard, Whitehall, March 26, 1726.—J. T—e.  VAN BUREN,, President of the United States of America from 1837 to 1841, was born at Kinderhook, Columbia county, in the state of New York, on the 5th of December, 1782. He was trained early to the profession of the law, and in the twenty-first year of his age was admitted as an attorney to the bar of the state of New York. He advanced steadily in his career as a lawyer and as a politician, and after settling permanently in New York in 1809, he was elected a member of the state senate (1812), and in the following year member of the court for revision of errors. He was attorney-general of the state from 1815 till 1819, and became governor in 1820. In 1821 he was elected to represent the state of New York in the federal senate at Washington, where he sat with the democrats. A stanch supporter of General Jackson, he became his secretary of state in March, 1828. In September, 1831, he arrived in London in the character of American ambassador. Washington Irving, then acting as chargé d'affaires, who received him in London, thus wrote of him:—"He is one of the gentlest and most amiable men I have ever met with;" and when, a few months later, news reached London that the nomination of Van Buren as ambassador had been rejected by the senate, Irving stigmatized the act as "a very short-sighted and mean-spirited act of hostility." "I should not be surprised," he adds, "if this vote of the senate goes far towards ultimately elevating him to the presidential chair." This prediction was fulfilled, and Van Buren was made vice-president of the republic in 1832, during Jackson's second presidency; and in 1837 he succeeded his leader in the chair of chief magistrate, after a close contest with Clay, Webster, and Harrison. His administration was troubled by difficulties in finance, and in the international relations with England, which he succeeded in overcoming. He alienated his slave-holding supporters in the South by adopting the free-soil doctrines, and was baffled in all his subsequent attempts to obtain high office. In 1856 he retired from public life, and died on the 24th of July, 1862, in his eightieth year.—R. H.  VANCLEVE,, a French sculptor, was born at Paris, though his parents belonged to Flanders. He was chancellor and senior director of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and one of the most prolific sculptors of his day. His works were once to be found in many of the churches of the capital and in the royal mansions. He died at Paris on the 31st December, 1733, in the eighty-ninth year of his age.—R. M, A.  VANCOUVER,, a British naval officer, was born about 1756. He entered the navy at an early age, and sailed as midshipman with Captain Cook, on that navigator's second and third voyages. Shortly after the return of that last expedition (1780), Vancouver was raised to the rank of lieutenant. He served subsequently in the West Indies, where he remained until 1789. When Vancouver again reached England, an expedition was in course of fitting out for exploring the southern regions, and it was arranged that he should accompany it. But intelligence of depredations committed by the Spaniards upon the British commerce on the north-west coast of America caused the English government to lay aside this design, in the prospect of hostilities with Spain, for which preparations were promptly made. The threatened rupture was averted by timely concession on the part of the Spanish government. It was determined to send out an expedition for the joint purpose of receiving the formal surrender of the various establishments which had been erected by the Spaniards at Nootka Sound, and of ascertaining the existence of any channel of communication between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans within the temperate latitudes of the North American continent. Vancouver was appointed to the command of the expedition: it consisted of the Discovery, in which he sailed as captain, accompanied by the Chatham, an armed tender under Captain Bronghton. The expedition sailed in 1791, and was absent from England above four years. Few undertakings of the kind have been attended with more complete success, and none more thoroughly attest the talents, industry, and high nautical skill of those engaged in its conduct. On his way out Vancouver surveyed a portion of the south coast of Australia, discovering and naming the inlet of King George's Sound. He afterwards examined portions of the New Zealand coasts, and made some discoveries in the great ocean which stretches to the eastward of that region. The north-west coast of America was, however, the chief theatre of his labours. With untiring industry he devoted the greater part of three years (1792-94) to an elaborate survey of the numerous islands, intervening channels, and intricate coast-line, which belong to the western side of North America between the parallels of 48° and 60°, passing the two intervening winters at the Sandwich Islands. In the course of this undertaking, which extended over nine thousand miles of coast, Vancouver found that the supposed strait of Juan de Fuca, instead of forming a communication across the American continent, conducted into an extensive and winding channel, the Gulf of Georgia, which divides from the American mainland the island upon which Nootka is situated. A Spanish officer. Quadra, co-operated with the English navigator in examining the coasts of this island, now, under the name of Vancouver Island, the seat of a flourishing British colony. The laborious exertions of Vancouver had undermined his constitution, and it was obvious, on his return to England in the autumn of 1795, that his days were numbered. He had been promoted the year before to the rank of post-captain. His brief remaining term of life was devoted to preparing for publication an account of his labours, accompanied by the charts which constitute their most valuable fruit. He died in May, 1798, when his work, a "Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean," &c., 3 vols. 4to, London, 1798, nearly approached completion, the final additions to it being made by the pen of his brother John.—W. H.  VANDAMME,, Count of Unebourg, one of Napoleon's generals, was born in 1771. Having entered the army at an early age, he served for some time in a colonial regiment, but returned to France in 1792, when he organized a company of chasseurs, and performed such brilliant exploits that in the following year he was made general of brigade in the army of the north. He distinguished himself in the campaigns of 1794-95, serving in the latter under Jourdan in the army of the Sambre and Meuse, and in the following year in the army of the Rhine. After taking part in the retreat of the army of the Rhine and Moselle, he carried by assault the entrenchments erected in front of the fortress of Kehl, and the bridge of Huninguen. At the opening of the campaign of 1797 he commanded the vanguard at the passage of the Rhine, and protected the landing of the troops. In 1799 he obtained the rank of general of division, and assumed the command of the left wing of the army of the Danube. In the following year he forced the passage of the Rhine, between Stein and Schaffhausen, at the head of his division, and shared in all the victories of that campaign. Having captured the bridge of Donawerth and the town of Augsburg, he was rewarded on the field of Austerlitz with the grand eagle of the legion of honour. He distinguished himself on various occasions in the war with Prussia in 1806-7, and in 1809 against the Austrians. In the following year he was appointed inspector of cavalry. At the commencement of the war with Russia he was disgraced in consequence of a violent quarrel with Jerome Bonaparte; but at the beginning of 1813 he was placed at the head of the army of observation stationed on the frontiers of Bohemia. At the period of the battle of Dresden he was appointed to the command of a force, intended to assist in driving the allied army into the defiles of Bohemia; but having advanced into the deep valley of Kulm against the Austrians, he was unexpectedly surrounded and attacked by an overwhelming force of Prussians and Russians, and after a desperate resistance was severely wounded, and compelled to surrender with ten thousand men (30th August, 1813). He was dragged in triumph to Prague, and subjected to every species of insult in retaliation of certain acts alleged to have been committed by him in Prussia and Austria. He was then sent prisoner to Russia, and did not recover his liberty till after the abdication of Napoleon. During the Hundred Days he was created a peer of France, and was appointed to a command under Grouchy at Ligny and Wavre, and he offered to defend Paris with 