Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/500

 NOTES ANE) QUERIES, no s. VIL MAY 25, 1907.

" Topass " is a word of doubtful origin. Some derive it from topi, a hat ; and some from a Persian word naturalized in Hindu- stani, top, a gun, whence topchl, a gunner. In Tamil also the word for gun is topaki. It was in use among the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English, by whom it indicated the same kind of person ; that is, the Portuguese of mixed descent. In early times these were extensively enlisted and employed as soldiers. Hence the term came to be applied to native soldiery in the south generally. The top was not only a gun such as one associates with artillery, but a musket as well. "Topass" is still in use in the merchant marine in Indian waters ; in its modern use it has no refer- ence to a gun or a soldier ; it is the term applied to a very useful man- of -all- work on board ship, a sort of marine " sweeper." This leads one to suspect that the derivation is just as likely to be topi, a hat, as top, a gun. The descendants of the Portuguese by Indian mothers clung to European cos- tume, including the European head-covering, as an outward sign of their partial European descent and of their pride in the fact. The topass on board ship is usually of this class, a topi-wallah. Consult ' Hobson- Jobson ' and .Wilson's ' Glossary.'

FRANK PENNY.

Charles James in his 'Military Diction- ary,' 1816, says that " topass " was a name originally given by the natives of India to a native Portuguese soldier on account of his wearing a hat. It was in James's time generally used to distinguish all Europeans. The same authority on p. 485 describes " matrosses."

J. HOLD EN MACMICHAEL.

[MB. DONALD FERGUSON also refers to ' Hobson- Jobson.' We have forwarded to H. P. L. the extracts sent by MR. A. S. LEWIS and ST. SWITHIN.]

AUTHORS or QUOTATIONS WANTED (10 S. vii. 2,2 8,: 274). Surely Charidas should have suggested that he was an Irish bull in Hades, instead of merely a large ox. The whole epigram is a naive example of the logic gone wrong which we usually associate with the unexpected paradoxes that fall so easily from an Irish tongue. Charidas by his very answering belies his answer, " We perish utterly." C. R. HAINES.

VIRGINIA AND THE EASTERN COUNTIES S. vii. 329). In reply to MR. HIBGAME'S query, I may say that it is a matter of history that John Rolfe, who married the Princess Pocahontas, and Henry Spelman, third son of the antiquary of that name, both of

Norfolk origin and near neighbours, were among the earlier colonists of Virginia. The dates supplied by the ' D.N.B.' concerning Henry Spelman suggest a suspicion of in- correctness. The first son, Sir John Spel- man, is stated to have been born in 1594,. and the third son, the subject of this note,, in 1595. It is further stated that, " in dis- pleasure of his friends and desirous to see other country," he went out to Virginia in 1609, and from 1611 onwards acted as inter- preter to the colony a truly remarkable instance of precocity.

It is not unlikely that these two pioneers

attracted other men from Norfolk to join

the colony, the more so as they both paid

visits to England and returned to the colony.

HOLCOMBE INGLEBY.

It is stated in ' The History of the British Empire in America ' (2nd ed., 1741) that the Pilgrim Fathers who landed in New England in 1611 by the Mayflower divided themselves into nineteen families, and each person was allotted a certain portion of land. The places so occupied were then named after various towns in the old country, the map accompanying the above-named history bearing the names of many places in East Anglia as well as other parts of England.

Civis.

Many East Anglians are known to have been among the early settlers in Virginia, and at least some of the place-names introduced from Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex may reasonably be attributed to Richard Kempe (first secretary of Virginia, and sometime Deputy Governor) and to his bi other Col. Matthew Kempe. They were brothers of Sir Robert Kempe, of Gissing, first Baronet, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles I.,, to whose influence probably these men owed their positions. Their kinsman Nathaniel Bacon, who signed " The Declaration of the People " (of Virginia), was of Norfolk origin,, being related to Sir Francis Bacon. Another Kempe migration was from Essex. Sir Robert Kempe, of Spains Hall, Essex, of an entirely different family from the above, held land in Virginia before 1658 ; while a Robert Kempe from Hampstead, Middlesex,, went to Virginia about 1680.

A great deal of genealogical information linking the settlers with English counties will be found in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, issued by the Vir- ginia Historical Society, of Richmond, Va. See also ' Abstracts of the Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London ' (covering 1619-24), the Colonial State Papers (printed