( The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration...)
The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. Delve into what it was like to live during the eighteenth century by reading the first-hand accounts of everyday people, including city dwellers and farmers, businessmen and bankers, artisans and merchants, artists and their patrons, politicians and their constituents. Original texts make the American, French, and Industrial revolutions vividly contemporary. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ British Library T090488 With a half-title. In two parts. The titlepage to part 2 reads: 'An essay on the trade of Ireland', and bears the date 1731. Dublin : printed by A. Rhames, for J. Smith and W. Bruce, 1729-31. 4,99,1; 8,147,1p. ; 8°
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Arthur Dobbs was born on April 2, 1689 at Castle Dobbs, County Antrim, Ireland. His parents were Richard Dobbs of Castletown and Mary, the daughter of Archibald Stewart of Ballintoy. A younger brother was Francis Dobbs, the well-known writer and statesman.
Dobbs was well educated, for he was a man not only of wealth but of broad attainment.
In 1711 Dobbs succeeded to his father’s estate and in 1720 became high sheriff of Antrim.
In 1727 he was returned from Carrickfergus to the House of Commons of the Irish Parliament, and while there he gained considerable reputation by his investigations into the trade, agriculture, and political arithmetic of Ireland. He advocated an improved system of land tenure and he later pressed the reform in Parliament, declaring that Ireland was suffering “from the Commonalty’s having no fixed property in their land. ”
In 1730 Dr. Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, introduced him to Robert Walpole as “one of the members of our House of Commons, where he on all occasions endeavors to promote his majesty’s service. He has for some time applied his thoughts to the trade of Great Britain and Ireland, and to the making of our colonies in America of more advantage than they have hitherto been”.
About 1730 he became deeply interested in the discovery of a northwest passage to India and was active in promoting the search for it. In 1731 he made abstracts of all the voyages on this quest and after an effort to interest the South Sea Company, laid the matter before the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Admiralty. An expedition was sent out under Christopher Middleton who had been recommended by Dobbs, but after his return Dobbs accused him of falsifying his records, and a controversy, lasting some years. In the same year he wrote An Account of the Countries Adjoining to Hudson’s Bay, full of valuable information and advocating the dissolution of the Hudson’s Bay Company. A later expedition justified Middleton, and Dobbs, in his On Bees and the Mode of Gathering Wax and Honey (see discussion in Philosophical Transactions, 1750), made an allusion taking leave of the question.
In 1745 Dobbs with John Selvvyn purchased from the McCulloh estate 400, 000 acres of land in North Carolina, lying in the present counties of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus, and was thereafter much interested in the affairs of the colony and increasingly dissatisfied with the administration of Gov. Gabriel Johnston. In 1754 he was selected as Johnston’s successor and, sailing at once, was sworn in at New Bern on October 31. He was received with great cordiality, and for a time his administration was peaceful.
Bent on carrying out his instructions without reference to the will of the people, he was soon in difficulties from which he was never extricated. He urged support of the French and Indian War far beyond the resources of the colony where, indeed, there was small interest in the struggle. At the heart of his North Carolina problems, however, was the question of how far the prerogatives of the Crown, and the governor as its agent, extended, and this question appears in every dispute between the governor and the assembly. Among these disputes were those concerning the appointment of the agent of the colony in London, the appointment of treasurers, the fixing of fees, control of the purse, regulation of the courts, the apportionment of representation, and the support and maintenance of the Church of England. Yet there is abundant evidence to show that Dobbs was eager for the welfare of the people of the colony.
( The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration...)
Dobbs was a fanatical Protestant.
Dobbs was obsessed by hatred of the French, a zealous servant of the Crown and an opponent of popular government, and very ignorant of conditions in the colony, and quiet could not last.
Dobbs had a quick and vigorous mind, he was impulsive in speech and action, and positive to the point of obstinacy in his own opinions, and his advancing years served only to emphasize these qualities.
Dobbs was twice married. His first wife was Anne Norbury of Drogheda, a widow and the daughter and heir of Captain Osborne of Timahoe, County Kildare. When he was seventy-three years old he married Justina Davis of North Carolina, a girl still in her teens.
