Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/365

* MERCENARIES. 331 MERCERIZED COTTON. Greece whose proffession was war, and who fou-ilit regardless ol llie cause. In Home merce- nary triiups were lung used merely as auxiliaries, but about llie fourlli ceiilury after Christ the aruiy began'to assume the characteristics of a mercenary force, being composed largely of Ger- mans, who finally dvertlirew the Western Em- pire. In the Byzantine Kmpire nearly all the troops were mercenaries. But the golden age of mercenaries was in Western Kurope during the Middle Ages and the beginningof the modern era. In the early Middle Ages armies were recruited by a feudal levy, but when wars came to be waged on a larger scale in the eleventh century, the forty days per year which the vassal had to serve proved in- sullicient, and instead the King or feudal lord preferred to connuute the service of the vassal for a money payment and hire soldiers instead. In England, it is true, mercenaries were rare, though they did form one of the grievances against John and Henry 111. The reason for their scarcity in England was that there war- fare consisted to a great extent in border raids, for which the feudal levy or local militia was ample. On the Continent circumstances w'erc dif- ferent, and kings with a wide and scattered em- pire, like Henry 11. of England, who pos- sessed a large part of Friince, were compelled to cni|)loy mercenaries of all kinds. At first it was common to buy their services by a gift of land, but by the twelfth century money became more conuuon, and Xorman knights, fjenocse bowmen, and Flemish pikemen were frequently hired for pay. A fuller development was reached in the thirteenth century Ijy Die appearance of the condothere system, in which some noted chief collected an army of free companions, and .sold his force as a whole. The first of these was Roger de Flor, who waged war successfully against the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II. (See Cat.m.ax Gb. d Comp. y.) It was to this type th.at the various noted Italian adven- turers belonged. The character of Italian civi- lization was of a kind to give impetus to the rise of a mercenary force, for the inhabitants of the many commercial city States were unwarlike and at the same time engaged in numerous petty quarrels. Frequently, however, the mercenaries turned their arms against the city which had hired them, or aided in imposing a tyrant upon the city, who then rewanled the company from the spoils. Thus arose in Milan the rule of the Vis- conti. in Verona that of the Scala. in Ferrara that of the Este, in Rimini that of the ^Malntesta. At the end of the fourteenth century the Italian mercenary met a dangerous rival in the Swiss pikeman. Switzerland was too small and poor to support all of its hardy sons, and they were sold in large numbers, usually by the canton itself, to some warlike prince, .fter the battle of Melegnano in l.5Iii. they formed a valualile con- tingent in the French armies until the French Revolution. All parties in the Thirty Years' ar used mercenaries to the exclusion of nearly all other troops, and to this fact is partly due the terrible devastation which was caused. In the American Revolution Great Britain used Hessian mercenaries to fight against the colonists, it being common for some of the smaller princes to sell their subjects in this fashion. The tise of mercenaries on the Continent ended with the French Revolution, their place being taken by Vol. XUI.— 22. national stan<ling armies. ^ee BR.iBA.NCO.NS; Co.NixyrTiEKi ; Fbee Lance; Swiss Gl'abd. MERCER, FoBT. See Fort Mercer. MER'CER, Hknry Chapma.n (1850—). An American anthropologist and archaeologist, born at Doylestown, Pa., and eilucated at Harvard, where he graduated in 187!). He made special studies of the relations of extinct animals to primeval man in North America, especially in connection with the niylodon, peccary, and sloth; made valuable discoveries of fossil carnivora in the Port Kennedy ( Pa. ) bone cave ; and explored the caverns of Yucatan. After research on the Pennsylvania Dutch pottery- manufactures he perfected a preparation for mural tiles. Mercer wrote: Leiiape tilone ( 1885) ; Uill Caves of Yuca- tan (1890) ; The Antiquity of Man in the Dela- jcure Yollri/ (1897) ; and Tools of the yalion Maker (1897). MERCER, Hugh (1720-77). An American soldier. He was born at Alx'rdeen, Scotland ; was educated at the university there; entered the medical profession, and served as assistant sur- geon under Prince Charles Edward in 1745. The rebellion having failed, he emigrated to America in 1747, and settled as a physician near the site of the present JIercersl)urg, Pa. He served as captain under Braddock in 1755, and was so se- verely wounded in the battle near Fort Duquesne that he could not keep pace with the other fugi- tives, and spent several weeks in solitary wander- ing, before he finally reached Fort Cumlierland, 100 miles away. In 1758 he was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel, accompanied General Forbes to Fort Duquesne. now Pittsburg, and commanded that post for some time. Afterwards he settled at Fredericksburg. Va., and on the approach of the Revolution took sides with the patriot party. He organized and drilled the militia of Virginia in 1775, and the mintite men in 1770, and at Washington's reqiu-st on .lune 5, 1770. was made a brigadier-general by Congress. He commanded a column in the attack on Tren- ton, and led the aihance in the night march on Princeton, which he had himself advised. While rallying his temporarily disorganized troops early in the engagement at Princeton he was mortally wounded, after a stubborn hand-to-hand conllict in which he refused all quarter, and on .January 12 he died in a neighboring farm-house. . monu- ment to his memorv was erected at Laurel Hill Cemetery. Philadelphia, in 1S40. MERCERIZED COTTON. Cotton that has been treated by a chemical process which imparts a permanent silky lustre to the fabric, yarn, or thread. About the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury .John Jlercer. an English chemist, discov- ered that caustic soda or caustic potash had a remarkable efTect upon the cellulose stniclure of the cotton fibre, changing its physical and chemi- cal nature, causing it to shrink and become thicker and softer, and increasing its aflinity for dyes. Xo practical u.se was made of the dis- covery because the process shrunk the material so badly. Toward the close of the last century, it was discovered that by treating the cloth under tension the shrinkage is obviated and the material assumes a glossy appearance, like silk. This effect is due to the elongation of the fibres, which under the action of the chemicals have been softened and made glutinous, so that the fabric acquires the same striated texture and lustre that