Megasthenes – A Bridge Between the Classical Mediterranean World and Early Imperial India

Megasthenes, (Μεγασθένης), remains one of the most fascinating bridges between the classical Mediterranean world and early Imperial India: a Greek diplomat, ethnographer and writer who, as ambassador of Seleucus I Nicator, lived at the Mauryan court of Chandragupta and composed what became the first sustained Western account of the subcontinent. Exact details of his birth and upbringing are slim; later sources and modern scholars conventionally place his life in the fourth–third centuries BCE (often cited as born c. 350 BCE and dying c. 290 BCE), and describe him as an Ionian Greek who had served in the eastern satrapies before being dispatched to Pataliputra (modern Patna) in the decades after Alexander's campaigns.

Terry Bailey explains.

A Bust of Seleukos I Nikator, Bronze, Roman, 100BCE-100CE at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Naples AN 5590. Source: Allan Gluck, available here.

Megasthenes' embassy must be read against the turbulent political map that emerged after Alexander: in the 320s–300s BCE the Macedonian successor states and the rising Mauryan power negotiated borders, alliances and exchanges. Seleucus I, having consolidated power in the west and east, sent envoys to the new Mauryan ruler; Megasthenes is usually identified as the Greek who represented Seleucus at Chandragupta's court, sometime around the opening years of the third century BCE (classical accounts often place the mission in or near 302–300 BCE). While Greek authors disagree about details and chronology, there is broad agreement that Megasthenes lived for a period in Pataliputra and had access to court circles and local informants.

What secured Megasthenes' long-term reputation was his written work, the Indica (Greek: Ἰνδικά) — a multi-book description of India that combined geography, ethnography, political organization, natural history and curious anecdotes. The original Indica is lost, but substantial fragments and paraphrases survive embedded in later authors such as Arrian, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus and Pliny; from those citations, scholars have been able to reconstruct large portions of his themes and claims. His account ranged from pragmatic observations, fortified layout and wooden palisades of the Mauryan capital, the scale of rivers such as the Ganges, commercial products, and administrative practices, to more exotic reports (stories of ancient invaders rendered as Dionysus or Heracles, fabulous creatures, and social arrangements unfamiliar to Greeks). The composite picture is of a careful observer who also relied on local informants and existing oral traditions, which accounts for a mix of reliable detail and mythic accretion.

Scholars and ancient critics have long debated how much of Megasthenes to trust. Arrian, the second-century CE historian who quotes Megasthenes sympathetically, treats him as an important firsthand source; by contrast, Strabo and Pliny accuse him of exaggeration and fantastical reporting. Modern historians tend to take a middle way: many of Megasthenes' topographical and administrative notes, the scale of Pataliputra, references to markets and ports, the prominence of philosophers in court life, and certain demographic or economic observations, find independent support or at least plausibility, even when his mythic or secondhand claims require skepticism. In short, Indica is invaluable as the earliest sustained ethnographic encounter between Greece and India, but it must be handled critically and compared with other evidence.

One important way Megasthenes' descriptions have been tested is by archaeological work at the site he called Palibothra (Pataliputra). Excavations in the Patna region, notably at Kumhrar, Bulandi Bagh and other spots have revealed extensive Mauryan-age remains: large wooden palisade foundations, signs of monumental timber architecture, and evidence for an unusually large and administratively complex urban center in the third century BCE. Those discoveries do not prove every specific claim in Indica, but they corroborate the broad outline of a heavily fortified, sprawling Mauryan capital whose scale and administrative character impressed foreign visitors. When combined with indigenous literary references (Buddhist and Jain texts that mention Pataliputra) the archaeological record strengthens the view that Megasthenes recorded real, observable features of Mauryan urban life.

Beyond topography and economy, Megasthenes' notes on society, his listing of social groups (sometimes translated later as "seven castes" or "classes"), his statements about the role of philosophers and the presence or absence of slavery, and his remarks about trade routes and commodities have been influential (and controversial) in modern reconstructions of early Indian institutions. Some of these formulations reflect Greek categories forcing themselves onto Indian realities; others appear to preserve local administrative distinctions that match evidence from inscriptions and later Indian sources. Thus Indica functions simultaneously as an ethnographic snapshot shaped by cross-cultural translation and as a repository of useful data that historians weigh against Indian textual traditions and material finds.

The Indica's afterlife in the classical tradition is also part of Megasthenes' achievement: later geographers and historians in the Greco-Roman world even when skeptical used his material as the baseline for European knowledge of India well into late antiquity. That transmission made Megasthenes an intellectual conduit: Mediterranean readers learned about Indian rivers, cities, products, and philosophical schools primarily through his fragments and their later epitomes. At the same time, the fragmentary preservation of Indica has posed chronic editorial problems: nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars produced reconstructions and critical editions, but disagreements persist about which quoted passages genuinely derive from Megasthenes and which were later interpolations.

What we know of Megasthenes' later life is sparse. Classical compilations usually report that he died around 290 BCE and they place his productive period, the embassy and the composition of Indica in the early third century BCE, after which his text circulated among Greek writers. There are no surviving personal letters or an archaeological "archive" that preserves Megasthenes' own voice beyond the Indica fragments; his passport into history is therefore the composite testimony of those later authors and the material traces of the Mauryan world that those fragments describe. Modern scholarship treats him as an essential, if imperfect, eyewitness: a man whose curiosity and court access opened up India to the Mediterranean imagination and whose mixed reliability reminds us how every cross-cultural encounter is a dialogue between observation, report, and interpretation.

In the end Megasthenes matters less as a flawless chronicler than as the first sustained Greek interlocutor to try to comprehend and describe a large part of the Indian subcontinent for a foreign audience. His Indica remains a foundational text for reconstructing Mauryan urbanism, trade networks and aspects of social organization; the archaeology of Pataliputra and the mirrors of indigenous literary traditions have validated many of his broad claims while also exposing the limits of any single ancient eyewitness. For historians of cross-cultural contact, Megasthenes is therefore indispensable: not because every line is true, but because his mixture of careful description, secondhand story and interpretive framing is exactly the kind of source that, when read critically, can illuminate how two great ancient worlds first began to see one another.

Megasthenes' legacy endures because his work represents one of the earliest and most ambitious attempts to translate an unfamiliar civilization into terms accessible to his own. Although filtered through the perceptions of a Greek diplomat shaped by the political tensions and intellectual categories of the Hellenistic world, the Indica remains the earliest extended window onto Mauryan India as viewed by an outsider who sought, however imperfectly, to observe rather than simply imagine. The survival of his account only in fragments and paraphrases has inevitably obscured parts of his original vision, yet what remains is striking in its breadth: geography, economy, administration, philosophy and the daily rhythms of a thriving imperial capital all find a place in Megasthenes' narrative.

Taken together with archaeological discoveries at Pataliputra and the testimony of Buddhist and Jain traditions, his observations gain depth and credibility, allowing modern historians to reconstruct with greater confidence the scale, sophistication and cosmopolitan nature of early Mauryan society. At the same time, the tensions within his work, the blend of sober description with mythic elements, and the temptation to map Greek concepts onto Indian realities serve as a reminder of the challenges inherent in any cross-cultural encounter. Megasthenes was neither a naïve recorder of wonders nor a wholly reliable scientific observer; instead, he was a pioneer navigating the uncertain ground between cultures, translating what he saw and heard into the intellectual language of his own world.

For that reason, Megasthenes stands as a crucial figure in the history of ancient knowledge. His Indica-shaped Greco-Roman conceptions of India for centuries, influenced later geographers and historians, and continues to serve today as an indispensable, if occasionally problematic—foundation for understanding the Mauryan Empire at its height. His work invites individuals to read critically, compare sources, and recognize the interpretive layers that accompany any ancient report. Yet it also invites admiration: for his curiosity, his willingness to engage deeply with a foreign court, and his attempt to make sense of a vibrant society undergoing rapid political and cultural transformation. Ultimately, Megasthenes' significance lies not only in the information he preserves, but in the very act of cultural translation he undertook, a reminder that the earliest bridges between civilizations were built as much by storytellers and observers as by diplomats and kings.

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The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debates

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates were a series of 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party and Stephen Douglas of the Democratic Party. Laureen Vernon explains.

An 1958 postage stamp commemorating the debates. 

Now, as in then there can be but one supreme issue, that between right and wrong. In our country there are no ruling classes. The right to direct public affairs, according to his might and influence and conscious belongs to the humblest as well as the greatest… But it is times of danger, crucial moments, which bring into action the high moral quality of the citizenship of America. The people are always true. They are always right, and I have the abiding faith that they will remain so Robert Todd, Lincoln, speaking at the Galesburg, celebration 1896. (A, 314)

The weather was so extremely dusty due to the preceding drought that the streets resemble the vast smoke houses because of the dust picked up by the thousands of spectators, economic recession, deflated land values brought railroad construction to a halt as Illinois Central and Michigan Central Railroad; and reduced the money supply of the banknotes from $215 million to $115 million. Money grew suddenly so scarce with us that a man possessing $10 in coins or in notes of a solvent bank might call himself a capitalist, Carl Scharz, a German, immigrant (a,XI) When considering the series of 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party and Stephen Douglas of the Democratic Party I think of civility and decorum. In reality the discussions were quite the opposite. They both used a lot of sarcasm did a lot of name calling to the degree that it most likely would be unable to be aired on network television. Until 1913, senators were elected not by popular vote, but by the General Assembly made up of their Representatives. Lincoln and Douglas were trying to win the votes of the State Legislator of the two chambers of the Illinois General Assembly. This was the first time debates were held between Senate candidates (B).

Debates

Originally, Lincoln proposed a series of 50 debates. Douglas agreed to 7 “joint discussions” because there were nine congressional districts in Illinois (B).    He was frustrated that in the two districts he already spoke in, Lincoln would arrive two days after he left and defend his views. This left Douglas unable to rebuke. With crowds ranging from 1,000 to 20,000 spectators, it was a huge media story. Two rival newspapers in the Chicago area hired shorthand stenographers to capture every word of the candidate’s debates. From the articles published, Lincoln prepared scrapbooks that he had published by an Ohio printer to assist in his later bid for the Presidency of the United States.

While their primary focus was on slavery, they also debated popular sovereignty, the implication of the Dred Scott decision, the morality of enslavement, and the potential of a fractured union. Douglas chose to speak first in four of the seven debates. He was allowed sixty minutes to present his point with the challenger being (Lincoln) given a ninety-minute response followed by thirty-minute rejoinder by the first candidate. Douglas argued his belief that residents should decide if the state is free or not (Popular Sovereignty), and that the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott case the slaves aren't people and could be brought into a free state and remain slaves. He was worried about the possibility of a fractured union.  However, he believed that Popular Sovereignty would solve that.

Slavery

Lincoln argued against slavery on moral grounds. He avoided stating that the races are equal, he just argued that slavery shouldn't be expanded into new territories. If the territory already had slaves, they would be able to keep them. He felt that the Dred Scott decision had critical implications on the expansion of slavery, and he too was concerned about the division of the union, but felt only keeping slavery where it existed while not expanding into new territories would solve it. He spoke of the “eternal struggle’ between right and wrong when speaking of slavery, he mentioned “two principles that stood face to face since the beginning of time. The one of the common rights of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.” Lincoln used the house divided metaphor as early as 1843. He shared the biblical phrase “a house divided cannot stand” as a warning to unify the members of his political party.  The names of parties are the same, but their principals and positions have flipped in the last one hundred fifty years.

As the debates drew to a close, an observer noted that Douglas had lost his voice when Lincoln's voice and spirit were intact.  Lincoln won the popular vote, but lost the vote in in the General Assembly, Lincoln was confident even though he had lost because he had won the popular vote. Lincoln had gained notoriety and used the debates to help propel him into the White House. Lincoln and Douglas had disagreed for many years. However, Douglas supported Lincoln during the war.

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References

A.  Lincoln and Douglas, the debates, define America, Allen C.  Guelza, Simon and Schuster, New York, New York, 2008

B. The Lincoln Douglas debate of 1858, nps.gov, February 16, 2017, https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debates.htm

C.  Lincoln Douglas Debates, britannica.com, October 27, 2025, https://www.britannica.com/event/Lincoln-Douglas-debates

The Significance of the 1777 Battle of Fort Mercer in the American Revolutionary War

Called upon to surrender the Delaware River fortification of Fort Mercer, Patriot Colonel Christopher Greene responded, “We ask no quarter and will give none.”  Pointing to the American ramparts, Hessian Colonel Carl von Donop of the besieging force made a bold proclamation of his own declaring, “Either that will be Fort Donop or I will be dead.”  Before nightfall on October 21, 1777, both commanders would make good on their stirring words.

Here, James F. Byrne Jr look at the 1777 Battle of Fort Mercer in the American Revolutionary War.

Patriot Colonel Christopher Green. Painting by James Sullivan Lincoln.

Following the defeat of the Continental Army at Brandywine, the British occupied Philadelphia.  British General Sir William Howe controlled the American capital, but not the supply route needed to support his large force.  Howe needed the Delaware River to move supplies.  Unfortunately for his plans, the Patriots controlled a section of the river four miles south of the capital with two forts and a small fleet.  Howe’s operations to clear the river resulted in a strategic victory, but not before his forces suffered a humiliating tactical disaster in one of the most lopsided American victories of the Revolutionary War.

Patriot defenses at Red Bank (a strategic bend in the river) consisted of Fort Mercer on the New Jersey shore and Fort Mifflin located on a nearby island.  Fort Mifflin boasted 28 guns mounted in a log palisade.  Fort Mercer consisted of earthen ramparts supporting 14 guns and manned by 400 Continentals under the command of Colonel Greene. 

An eclectic but formidable naval squadron of sloops, schooners and row galleys protected the forts.  The squadron also overwatched significant obstacles consisting of iron tipped timbers anchored to the river bottom.

Howe elected to launch a joint naval and land assault to clear his riverine supply line.

Two thousand Hessians under the command of Colonel von Donop would seize Fort Mercer.  Von Donop had the misfortune to be in charge of the Hessian garrisons in New Jersey when Washington crossed the Delaware and captured the outpost at Trenton.  He eagerly viewed the coming assault as an opportunity to reburnish his tarnished reputation.

Offense

On October 22nd the British offense commenced.  A fleet which included six ocean going vessels made its way up the Delaware and ran into shallow waters, underwater obstacles, and a hornet’s nest of small, maneuverable, Patriot warships.  Two of the British behemoths ran aground and were destroyed the next day. 

Simultaneously with the Royal Navy’s fiasco, the Hessians entered the fray.  Approaching Fort Mercer from the Jersey shore von Donop launched an assault after only a cursory reconnaissance.  Colonel Greene, a veteran of both Bunker Hill and Quebec, was well served by his scouts and knew of the Hessian advance.  He withdrew his men from the outer walls into an internal redoubt protected by a ditch and extensive abatis (sharpened, felled trees).  Observing the abandoned outer positions, von Donop assumed the Americans were withdrawing and launched an immediate attack.

The Hessian scaled the abandoned outer parapets and found themselves blocked by extensive abatis, a wide ditch, and American artillery and infantry positioned along the main walls of the fort.  The Hessians lacked the tools to cut through the abatis or cross the ditch and milled around helplessly while the Americans poured fire into their ranks.  Perhaps the final straw, ships of the American squadron moved into position to join in the bloodletting.  In less than 30 minutes the Hessians retreated, having suffering 700 casualties.  American losses were less than 40.

Context

Three weeks later, the British deployed additional artillery, infantry, and warships around Red Bank, leading the Americans to scuttle their fleet, destroy their fortifications, and withdraw.  Their logistic waterway secured British supply vessels reached Philadelphia on November 26th.  The British (now well supplied) spent the winter of 1777-78 in the relative comfort of Philadelphia.  However, it had taken seven weeks to clear the American defenses from the Delaware and required the commitment of much of the British force.  While Howe orchestrated this operation, Washington was able to rest and resupply his bedraggled army in relative peace, and move into austere but safe winter quarters at Valley Forge. 

As for the commanders who fought at Fort Mercer, they were remarkably prescient.  Colonel Greene’s brilliant defense ensured he had no need to seek quarter.  As for Colonel von Donop, he was not able to grace Fort Mercer with his name, but he did indeed fall while leading the assault, and subsequently died of his wounds.

Lessons Learned

Combined Arms do not Guarantee Victory – The British assault included overwhelming artillery, infantry, and naval forces, and failed overwhelmingly.

Don’t Forget Nothing – The Hessians lacked the tools needed to breech Patriot obstacles and suffered accordingly.

Weapons Deployed Must Meet Tactical Requirements  - Large British warships were unable to adapt to river conditions or the highly maneuverable Patriot squadron.

Obstacles Covered by Fire may be Insurmountable -  Patriot fires converted their obstacle belt into a death trap.

Deception is a Combat Multiplier – Patriot withdrawal from the outer defenses led to the Hessian ill-planned, disastrous assault.

Know What You are up Against – Inadequate reconnaissance resulted in the overwhelming defeat of the Hessian attack. 

Courage is Necessary but not Sufficient -  von Donop led his troops from the front, but his leadership skills did not match his bravery.

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A Review of The Paradox of Freedom: A History of Black Slaveholders in America

Jeb Smith recently read Larry Allen McCluney, Jr.’s book, The Paradox of Freedom: A History of Black Slaveholders in America. Here, he discusses his views of the book.

City of New Orleans, 5 March 1818. Order from the Mayor's office to the City Treasury to reimburse Rosette Montreuil, a free woman of color, for the work of her slave, Michel, "mulatto". Signed by mayor Augustin Macarty.

An Instructor of American History at Mississippi Delta Community College and an American Civil War Living Historian since 1995, Larry Allen McCluney received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history at Mississippi State University, and his research into original data for this book is extensive (he even utilized a History Is Now article). He cites and quotes many historians, as well as original sources, to bring to life a fact of American history: African Americans were slave owners too.

A mix of various “free peoples of color”—various mixed race and African Americans —owned people of their own race from colonial times up until after the Civil War. In some extreme cases slaves owned slaves. Some free African Americans even engaged in slave trading. This should not surprise us, as Africa has always been the center of slavery, where just as every other race in the world has been enslaved, and continues to enslave their own people. In fact, it was outside pressure from European nations that forced abolitionism on Africa.

African American slaveowners in America at times became some of the wealthiest planters and businessmen in the entire South. McCluney writes they became one with “the upper crust of the economic level in the pre-war South.” They entered into and at times mingled, intermarried, and associated with the white southern aristocratic class. These wealthy included many African American women.

For example, he quotes Steven J. Niven, who wrote of “Marie-Thérèse Coincoin, who lived for eight decades in Natchitoches Parish, La. She would help to found a family dynasty of Free, Colored planters, the Metoyers, who by 1830 owned over 200 slaves—8 percent of all enslaved people in the parish.” In Charleston City, South Carolina, 123 African American women owned slaves and were the “heads” of households, including Maria Weston, who by 1860 owned 14 slaves and owned property amounting to $40,000; the average white earned around $100. Marie Thérèse Metoyer of New Orleans owned around 11,000 acres of land, manufactured medicine, trapped animals, and grew tobacco.

Wealthy slave owners

Many African American slave owners owned hundreds or thousands of acres of land and were wealthier than the vast majority of whites. McCluney writes:

 “In 1860, there were at least six free Blacks who owned 65 or more slaves. The largest number, 152 slaves, was owned by sugar cane planters, the widow C. Richards and her son P.C. Richards. Another slave magnate from Louisiana was Antoine Dubuclet, who owned over 100 slaves. He had an estate worth $264,000 in 1860 dollar value. This was in comparison with the wealth of White men of that time, averaging $3,978."

William Ellison Jr. of South Carolina, a free man of color, was one of the wealthiest plantation owners in the state. He was the largest slave owner in his area, with 171 slaves, and over 900 acres of land producing massive amounts of tobacco. He donated large sums of money and foodstuffs to the Confederate Army, offered the military 53 of his slaves, and his mixed race grandson fought in the Confederate Army.

Many of the slave owners were born in bondage but were later freed and, through either inheritance, gifts, or work ethic, improved their situation, eventually moving into the profitable business of slavery. It was not uncommon for free African Americans to own slaves. Thousands did so. According to the 1860 census, only 1.4% white people owned slaves in 4.8% of southern slave states, but 28% of free African Americans in New Orleans owned slaves. McCluney wrote, “In South Carolina, where forty-three percent of the free African American families owned slaves, the average number of slaves held per owner was about six. Similarly, in Louisiana, forty percent of free African American families owned slaves, twenty-six percent of those in Mississippi held slaves, twenty-five percent of those in Alabama, and this was also true for twenty percent of those in Georgia.”

Status

Their wealth elevated the status of these slaveowners of color, gaining them status among the highest in the white community, intermingling with, socializing, even marrying (even when it was illegal), and becoming some of the most well-respected people in their community. McCluney wrote of Justus Angel, born a slave in South Carolina but who became “a wealthy Black master who lived in Colleton District, South Carolina, in 1830. Angel was a plantation owner who owned 84 slaves, a staggering number even for a Black master. He was a man of great wealth and influence, which allowed him to amass such a large number of enslaved individuals under his control.” Of this wealthy planter class, he wrote, “These individuals often took steps to associate with the White elite, viewing themselves as an extension of this class. In doing so, the Black slaveowners were able to carve out a place for themselves within the ruling class.” Then there is William Johnson in Mississippi, who:

“Became a successful entrepreneur with a barbershop, bath house, bookstore, and land holdings. Though a former slave, in 1834 he would own three slaves and about 3,000 acres of property and would eventually own sixteen slaves before his death. He even hired out his slaves to haul coal and sand. Throughout his life, the white community in Natchez and Adams County held Johnson in high regard. He associated with and was close to many of Adams County’s most prominent white families. Following Johnson’s untimely death at the hands of a “free black, Baylor Winn, the Natchez Courier was moved to comment that Johnson held a “respected position [in the community] on account of his character, intelligence and deportment.”

Further, McCluney argues that it was the common opinion of slaves that African American masters made harsher masters, and they generally preferred white masters to their own color, for example, William Ellison had a reputation for harsh treatment of his slaves. One interviewed slave said, “You might think, master, dat dey would be good to dar own nation; but dey is not. I will tell you the truth, massa; I know I ‘se got to answer; and it’s a fact, they are very bad masters, sar. I’d rather be a servant to any man in de world, dan to a brack man. If I was sold to a brack man, I’d drown myself. I would dat—I’d drown myself! Dough I shouldn’t like to do dat; but I wouldn’t be sold to a coloured master for anything.”

Conclusion

Frederick Law Olmsted traveled south and told of the many wealthy African American planters he saw and interviewed a slave who said the African American masters “bought black folks, he said, and had servants of their own. They were very bad masters, very hard and cruel . . . If he had got to be sold, he would like best to have an American master buy him. The French [black Creole] masters were very severe, and ‘dey whip dar n****** most to deff—dey whipe de flesh off of ‘em.”

Far from abolitionists, these rich masters were reluctant to let their slave labor go as many whites had done. McCluney Quotes B. F. Jonas, of New Orleans who said “I have never heard of a case where a free African American owner of slaves voluntarily manumitted his slaves. On the contrary, they were as a rule considered hard task masters, who got out of their slave property all that they could.” And as has been recorded in Defending Dixie's Land, many of these southern masters supported the preservation of slavery and the continuation and protection of the Confederacy, to maintain bondage of their own brothers.

Jeb Smith is an author and speaker whose books include Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War written under the pen name Isaac C. Bishop,  Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty and he also authored Defending the Middle Ages: Little Known Truths About the Crusades, Inquisitions, Medieval Women, and More. Smith has written over 120 articles found in several publications.

Vitus Jonassen Bering – Explorer of Siberia and Alaska

Vitus Jonassen Bering remains one of the most compelling figures of the great age of exploration, a navigator whose journeys helped redraw the world's map and whose legacy continues to shape the understanding of the northern Pacific. Born in 1681 in the small Danish town of Horsens, Bering grew up in a modest family but showed early ambition and aptitude for a life at sea. Denmark in the late seventeenth century was deeply connected to maritime trade and naval service, and like many young men of his region, Bering was drawn to the ocean. He entered naval service in his teens and soon began to sail widely, developing both technical skill and intellectual curiosity.

Terry Bailey explains.

A depiction of Vitus Bering's expedition being wrecked on the Commander Islands in 1741.

Vitus Bering’s decision in 1703 to join the Russian Navy, then being rapidly modernized by Peter the Great, proved the turning point of his life, opening the door to one of history's most consequential careers in exploration. Bering first gained the confidence of the Russian court through disciplined service and steady competence in naval operations, particularly during the Great Northern War. By the 1720s, Russia's ambitions had shifted toward the vast, unmapped territories of Siberia and the Pacific. The question of whether Asia and North America were connected by land remained one of the great geographic uncertainties of the era. In 1724, Peter the Great authorized what became known as the First Kamchatka Expedition, placing Bering in command. His mission was deceptively simple: travel across Siberia, build ships on the remote Kamchatka Peninsula, and set sail eastward to determine the relationship between the continents. The sheer logistical scale of this undertaking, thousands of kilometers of wilderness, extreme climates, and complex local interactions made it one of the most ambitious scientific programs of the eighteenth century.

The First Kamchatka Expedition lasted from 1725 to 1730 and tested every skill Bering possessed. After an arduous overland journey from St. Petersburg to Okhotsk, he supervised the construction of the small vessel Saint Gabriel and, in 1728, sailed north along the coast. Bering's most significant achievement during this voyage was his passage through what is now the Bering Strait, the narrow channel separating Asia from North America. Although he did not sight the coast of the American continent itself, fog and distance prevented the definitive moment, his careful observations confirmed that no land connection existed and that a navigable waterway separated the two continents.

This conclusion, though at the time somewhat understated, had enormous global implications, refuting long-held cartographic myths and opening new horizons for exploration, trade, and scientific inquiry. His success led to an even more ambitious undertaking: the Second Kamchatka Expedition, or Great Northern Expedition, launched in 1733. This was one of the largest scientific expeditions ever mounted, involving thousands of personnel, multiple ships, naturalists, cartographers, and scholars. Its purpose was nothing less than the comprehensive mapping of Russia's vast northern and eastern frontiers and the full exploration of the Pacific coasts of Siberia and the North American continent. Under Bering's command, the expedition produced some of the most detailed charts of the Arctic coastline to date and enriched science with vast collections of biological, geological, and ethnographic data. It also laid the foundations for Russia's later commercial presence in Alaska, expanding European knowledge of the region's peoples, fauna, and natural resources.

The pinnacle of Bering's exploratory achievements occurred in 1741, when he and Aleksei Chirikov each commanded vessels on a voyage east from Kamchatka. During this journey, Bering sighted the southern coast of Alaska, while Chirikov made landfall separately on the Alexander Archipelago. These discoveries confirmed the existence of a large North American landmass far to the northwest, ending centuries of speculation. Along the Alaskan coast, Bering's crew collected valuable geographical information and encountered wildlife unknown in Europe, including the now-extinct Steller's sea cow, first documented by the expedition's naturalist, Georg Wilhelm Steller. The scientific material gathered during this voyage—flora, fauna, coastal descriptions—became an enduring contribution to European knowledge of the Pacific world.

Yet Bering's later life was marked by hardship. On the return voyage from Alaska, his ship, the Saint Peter, was wrecked on what would later be named Bering Island. There, in the treacherous winter of 1741–1742, the stranded expedition struggled to survive. Ill, exhausted, and suffering from what was likely scurvy, Bering died on the island in December 1741. His companions buried him in the sands above the beach, and only in the twentieth century did archaeological excavations uncover what are believed to be his remains. Studies on Bering Island revealed traces of the expedition's encampment, artefacts from the shipwreck, and the physical toll the harsh conditions had taken on the men, adding a poignant material dimension to the historical record.

Although Bering himself wrote relatively little in the form of personal memoir, his official journals, reports, and navigational charts form a crucial part of the documentary legacy of his expeditions. These were carefully preserved in Russian archives and later studied by historians of exploration, providing insight into his methods and the organizational challenges he faced. Much of what is known about day-to-day events, wildlife observations, and interactions with Indigenous peoples comes from the writings of his companions, particularly Steller. Nonetheless, Bering's own meticulous documentation, his coastal measurements, bearings, and hydrographic notes remain indispensable for understanding the achievements of the Great Northern Expedition.

In the centuries since his death, Vitus Bering's influence has only grown. The naming of the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Bering Island stands as a testament to his significance, but his deeper contribution lies in transforming Europe's conception of the North Pacific. His voyages shifted the boundaries of known geography, inspired further scientific inquiry, and facilitated cultural and economic links across the northern ocean. Moreover, his expeditions demonstrated the potential of coordinated, state-sponsored scientific exploration on a grand scale, prefiguring the later exploratory enterprises of the Enlightenment and beyond. Bering's life, shaped by quiet determination and monumental purpose, continues to resonate as a story of human endurance at the edge of the known world, a record of the power of curiosity and the relentless pursuit of knowledge.

In reflecting upon the life and legacy of Vitus Bering, it becomes clear that his achievements extend far beyond the geographical features that bear his name. His voyages represent a decisive moment in humanity's ongoing effort to understand the planet, bridging the gap between myth and measurable reality. Bering operated in an age when large expanses of the globe remained uncharted, yet his approach to exploration was grounded in discipline, scientific observation, and a commitment to accuracy. He brought a quiet, methodical determination to endeavors that were anything but quiet or simple, and in doing so helped to usher in a new era of empirical discovery. His journeys across Siberia and the Pacific elevated Russia's geographical knowledge, enriched European science, and altered the world's cartographic worldview, ensuring that future generations would navigate with greater certainty and insight.

Bering's story also encapsulates the human cost of exploration, a reminder that progress often comes at great personal sacrifice. The challenges he faced, from perilous seas to the unforgiving winters of Kamchatka and Bering Island, underscore the resilience demanded of explorers who dared venture into the unknown with limited technology and fragile resources. His death, far from home on a desolate shore, stands as a solemn statement to the risks he willingly shouldered in the pursuit of knowledge. Yet even in death, his contribution did not fade. The archaeological discoveries on Bering Island and the careful preservation of his charts and journals give his work a lasting presence, allowing modern scholars to trace the contours of his expeditions and appreciate the precision of his observations.

Ultimately, Vitus Bering's legacy lies not only in the lands he charted but also in the intellectual landscape he reshaped. His expeditions expanded the boundaries of the known world and helped lay the foundation for future exploration, scientific inquiry, and international exchange across the northern Pacific. Through perseverance and skill, he transformed uncertainty into understanding and mystery into mapped reality. More than two centuries later, his life continues to inspire, proving a reminder that progress is built by those willing to push beyond familiar horizons. In charting the edges of continents, Bering charted the edges of human possibility, leaving behind a legacy as vast and enduring as the waters that now bear his name.

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A Brief History of the Polish Winged Hussars

The Winged Hussars of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth dominated the battlefields of Eastern Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Sporting massive artificial wings on their armor, these aristocratic warriors were among the most feared and cohesive cavalry forces in European history.

Here, Brian Hughes tells us about the Polish Winged Hussars.

A Hussar formation at the 1610 Battle of Klushino. By Szymon Boguszowicz.

Origins

Eastern Europe has a deep equestrian and cavalry tradition, due in part to its topography. Active from the 16th to the 18thcentury. The Winged Hussars showed a consistently remarkable ability to seemingly defy the odds snatching victory from otherwise imminent defeat.

Eastern Europe has a rich history and tradition of elite horsemanship. Much of the region is comprised of plains and flat grassland advantageous to horse rearing. Successive waves of elite horse warriors such as the Huns, Magyars, and Tartars had raided and settled the area at various times. Likewise, much of the warfare that defined this region throughout the Middle Ages and early modern era involved larger cavalry forces than the more heavily populated and more urbanized parts of Western Europe.

Hussars derive their name from the Hungarian “Huserones” and originated in the Kingdom of Hungary sometime in the late 15th century as a light cavalry force. The name later became incorporated by a whole host of Central and Eastern European countries such as Serbia, The Holy Roman Empire and Poland becoming renowned as some of the best light horse units in all of Europe.

The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the premier states in Early Modern Europe. Engaging with a host of enemies mainly the Ottoman Turks, Swedes and Russians, a series of drastic military reforms were undergone to bolster and safeguard its territory and people as the state grew and became more vulnerable. These included but were not limited to modernizing land and naval forces and modifying its already prolific cavalry.

Drawing on the litany of pre-established equine traditions, the Winged Hussars as they became known drew their ranks from the upper classes and nobility and adapting their role into a heavy shock cavalry instead of the more traditional nimble light horse tactics of their predecessors.

Riding in tight formation these heavily armored horsemen could smash into enemy formations with lethal efficiency thus enabling infantry and lighter cavalry units to exploit the gaps and gain tactical advantages ensuring victory. The Winged Hussars displayed impressive capability in the diverse geographical and climatic conditions from which they operated.

Arms and Armor

The Winged Hussars were well armored, well equipped and rode expertly bred war horses. One reason in which their ranks were filled almost exclusively by nobles was the sheer cost of such expenditures.

Wings: The signature and iconic wings worn by the Hussars were fashioned out of feathers from a variety of raptor birds, mainly Eagle and Falcon. Originally the wings were placed on their saddles before being fastened onto the backs of their armor. The purpose was twofold. In an era of extravagant military arms and uniforms the Wings were visually impressive on parade grounds and intimidating foes. The Wings also may have produced an odd and terrifying din when the Hussars charged, frightening enemy soldiers and horses in the process.

Armor: Hussars were clad in heavy steel armor typical of the era and often sported exotic animal furs such as leopards and saddles decked out with fine silk and lace. Beneath their armor and hides Hussars typically donned red or crimson short coats called zupans with helmets encrusted with gems or plumed with exotic feathers. The Winged Hussars took great pride in their appearance on and off the battlefield.

Horses: Expensive warhorses typically Polish-Arabian breeds were the predominant mount used by the Winged Hussars. These horses were both incredibly strong as they could carry a heavily armored rider in addition to their great endurance with long marches ranging across a variety of terrain in and around Central and Eastern Europe.

Weapons: They were well trained, well-armed and capable of wielding a lance, (kopia) saber, (szabla) and various firearms with expert lethality. The Hussars could combat a variety of foes. From conventual infantry and cavalry units which defined 16th and 17th century European armies to the expert light cavalry of the Tatars.

Notable Battles

Khlushino: One of the finest victories performed by the Winged Hussars was the Battle of Klushino fought on July 4th, 1610. The heavily outnumbered Polish-Lithuanian force of about 6,000 with the bulk of the army of 5,000 Winged Hussars crushed a Muscovite army of over 30,000. Over the course of a five-hour battle the Winged Hussars superior training, tactics, and troop cohesion made it possible to smash their adversaries’ lines, disintegrating their forces and routing them in the process.  

Vienna: The Winged Hussars most renowned moment came in September 1683 at the Siege of Vienna. For weeks the Ottomans under Mustapha Pasha had been battering the “Golden Apple of Europe” coming closer to victory with each passing day. Finally, a coalition of predominantly Catholic Holy League Forces arrived to lift the Siege. John Sobieski King of Poland an experienced soldier led a contingent of roughly 4,000 Winged Hussars. Devising a plan Sobieski outflanked the Ottoman Camp and along with his Winged Hussars led what was possibly the largest cavalry charge in the history of Europe at the head of some twenty thousand horsemen devasting the Ottoman expeditionary force and relieving the city in the process.

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The 166 Roman Envoy Mission to China

In 166 CE, an ambassador described in Chinese sources as having come from "Andun, King of Da Qin", almost certainly referring to a Roman ruler, traditionally identified as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, arrived at the court of Emperor Huan of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Although modern historians debate whether these envoys were official Roman diplomats or merchants presenting themselves as such, their appearance in Chinese court records represents one of the most intriguing episodes of long-distance contact between the Mediterranean world and imperial China. The mission is described primarily in the Hou Hanshu (Book of the Later Han), which notes that the newcomers travelled by way of Rinan (in modern Vietnam), bringing ivory, rhinoceros horn, and tortoiseshell, luxury items more typical of Southeast Asian trade networks than of Roman industry. This mixture of goods has led scholars to argue that the delegation may have originated from Roman trading communities in the Indian Ocean rather than from Rome itself, yet the Chinese understood it as Rome's first formal attempt to open relations with the Han state.

Terry Bailey explains.

A Renaissance view of Ptolemy's 11th Asian regional map.

The commercial motive behind the ambassador’s extraordinary journey was unmistakable. By the 2nd century CE, Rome had an enormous appetite for silk, a commodity so prized that Seneca and other Roman writers complained that the elite spent too freely on it. Roman merchants already operated in Indian Ocean ports such as Barygaza, Muziris, and Arikamedu, where intermediaries brought silk from Central Asia and China. Direct access to China promised greater profit and prestige. From the Chinese perspective, Roman glassware, metalwork, Mediterranean wines, and high-quality woolen textiles were especially valued. Although the Hou Hanshu does not record a specific trade treaty resulting from the encounter, it emphasizes that the presence of the envoys was understood to signal Rome's wish to establish direct commercial relations, bypassing the Parthian Empire, whose control over the Silk Road had long restricted contact between the two great civilizations.

Chinese records further suggest that relations were warm, with the emperor receiving the envoys, accepting their tribute, and permitting them to trade. The Han state typically treated foreign embassies as part of a tribute-exchange system rather than as partners in bilateral treaties of the Roman type. Thus, while no formal treaty is mentioned, participation in the tribute system effectively functioned as a state-sanctioned trade agreement, allowing the envoys to exchange their offerings for Chinese goods at highly favorable rates. The mission therefore symbolized an official acknowledgment—at least from the Chinese perspective—of the desirability of regular exchange between the two imperial powers.

Documentary evidence for the expedition is strongest on the Chinese side. The Hou Hanshu entry is concise but unambiguous, describing Da Qin (Rome) as a powerful, wealthy empire and emphasizing the significance of the envoys' arrival. Roman sources, by contrast, are silent. This absence has various explanations: the original embassy may not have been dispatched by the imperial government at all; Roman historians may not have considered a distant eastern diplomatic venture noteworthy; or the mission may have been too commercially oriented to appear in official state records. Nevertheless, Roman coins have been found across India and Southeast Asia, including 2nd-century gold aurei of Marcus Aurelius, confirming extensive Roman presence and trade in the regions through which the so-called embassy would have travelled. At the opposite end of the route, excavations in China have uncovered small quantities of Mediterranean glass, Roman-style metal vessels, and even a few Roman coins, demonstrating that Roman luxury items did reach Han territory through long-distance exchange, even if not in large volume.

Archaeological evidence from Central Asia enriches this picture of indirect but persistent contact. Finds of Roman glassware and silver in sites along the Tarim Basin and in Gansu province echo the Hou Hanshu's descriptions of Da Qin goods. Meanwhile, discoveries in Roman Egypt—including papyri from the Red Sea ports of Berenike and Myos Hormos—record thriving trade with India, where Chinese goods were already appearing by the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. This network of merchants, brokers, and maritime middlemen produced the logistical conditions that allowed the 166 CE envoys to reach the Han court, whether as imperial ambassadors or ambitious traders seeking official recognition.

The benefits of this encounter were largely symbolic, yet they had real economic implications. For China, the visit confirmed Da Qin as a prosperous and orderly counterpart at the other end of the world, one worthy of direct ties. For Rome—or at least the Roman merchants operating in the Indian Ocean—the embassy provided access to China's tribute-exchange market, which offered silk, lacquerware, and fine ceramics unattainable elsewhere. The long-term impact was limited, partly because both empires soon faced internal crises—the Marcomannic Wars and plague in Rome, and the weakening of Han authority in China—but the 166 CE contact remains a remarkable moment in ancient global history. It represents the closest documented diplomatic interaction between the westernmost and easternmost great empires of antiquity, an episode that highlights the sophistication, ambition, and connectivity of the ancient world.

The encounter of 166 CE stands as a moment when two vast imperial spheres—Rome and Han China—briefly became aware of one another not merely as distant rumors but as tangible participants in a shared, if fragile, network of exchange. Whether the envoys were official diplomats or merchants cloaking commercial aims in the language of statecraft, their presence at the Han court demonstrates the remarkable reach of long-distance travel and trade in the ancient world. The episode underscores how economic desire, particularly the Roman pursuit of silk and the Chinese appreciation for Mediterranean luxury goods, drove interactions across thousands of kilometers of land and sea. It also reveals how differently the two empires conceptualized diplomacy: Rome through formal treaties, China through the fluid but highly structured tribute system that simultaneously affirmed hierarchy and facilitated commerce.

Although the immediate outcomes of the mission were modest, the event's significance lies in its symbolic power and the archaeological traces that corroborate its plausibility. Roman coins in India, Mediterranean artefacts in China, and evidence of thriving Indo-Roman trade networks together paint a vivid picture of the interconnectedness that made such a journey possible. In this light, the 166 CE embassy becomes less an isolated curiosity and more a visible crest in a broader tide of Afro-Eurasian exchange.

Ultimately, the mission's legacy is one of potential rather than transformation. Political upheaval soon curtailed any sustained effort at direct engagement, yet the recorded meeting between Da Qin and the Han remains a testament to the ambitions of traders, the curiosity of distant courts, and the permeability of ancient borders. It highlights a world far more cosmopolitan and commercially intertwined than earlier scholarship often assumed, reminding us that even at the farthest edges of their domains, Romans and Chinese were participants—however intermittently—in a shared antiquity shaped by movement, commerce, and the enduring human impulse to bridge the unknown.

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Notes:

The Han dynasty's tribute-exchange system

The Han dynasty's tribute-exchange system was a central mechanism through which China managed foreign relations, trade, and diplomacy. Rather than treating other states as equal partners in bilateral agreements, the Han court conceptualized the world as a hierarchical order with the emperor—"the Son of Heaven"—at its apex. Foreign envoys who arrived at the imperial court were therefore understood not as negotiators from sovereign states, but as representatives of peripheral regions seeking recognition and favor. Their offerings were formally described as tribute, gestures symbolizing respect for Han authority. Yet this ritual submission was only part of the process. Once tribute was presented, the Han court customarily returned gifts of far greater value. This exchange produced an officially sanctioned economic interaction embedded within a diplomatic framework that reinforced imperial prestige.

In practice, the tribute-exchange system functioned as a highly regulated form of international commerce. For many foreign groups, especially those from Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and beyond, participation in the system was motivated as much by economic opportunity as by diplomacy. The Han state maintained strict controls over who could trade, what goods could be exchanged, and the scale of the transactions, often limiting commercial contact to the moments when an embassy formally arrived. Because the gifts issued by the court in return for tribute were exceptionally valuable—silk, lacquerware, metalwork, and other refined goods—foreign envoys frequently profited from their participation. The Han state, meanwhile, benefited from controlling the flow of luxury goods, securing access to rare products from distant regions, and projecting an image of universal kingship.

The system also served strategic purposes. By incorporating nomadic tribes, oasis kingdoms, and distant polities into a structured network of ritual exchanges, the Han dynasty established a buffer of cooperative or dependent states along its borders. This helped stabilize frontier regions and reduce the likelihood of conflict. The economic incentives embedded in the system encouraged peaceful interaction and often tied the interests of foreign elites to the continued strength of the Han court. Even powerful states like the Kushan Empire—and, as Chinese records suggest, the Roman Empire (Da Qin)—were described within this conceptual framework, not as rivals on equal footing, but as distant participants acknowledging the splendor of the Han.

In essence, the tribute-exchange system blended diplomacy, trade, ideology, and economic policy into a single structure. It allowed the Han dynasty to engage in far-reaching commercial networks while upholding a worldview in which China was the cultural and political center of civilization. Although the system did not resemble Western notions of international treaties, it effectively enabled vibrant long-distance exchange, demonstrating the flexibility, confidence, and sophistication of Han statecraft.

Boshin and Satsuma: The Fall of Feudal Japan

Gabriele Esposito’s book, Japanese Armies 1868-1877: The Boshin War and Satsuma Rebellion (Osprey Publishing 2020), is an excellent summary of two significant conflicts that forever transformed Japan. A short but informative read, it covers historical events adapted for the famous movie The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe.

Jeb Smith explains.

Japanese troops at Yokohama, prior to fighting the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877.

For hundreds of years Japan had been ruled by a mere figurehead —an emperor with a religious function but little genuine authority—with all real power in the hands of the shogun, the hereditary military leader of Japanese society. The shogunate, as the central authority was known, implemented an extreme isolationist policy, keeping Japan religiously and culturally pure from Western barbarian influences.

Maintaining a decentralized feudal society, “Japan” as an institution could barely be said to exist. It was separated into 250 domains ruled almost autonomously by local lords as independent feudal states. Families of daimyo warlords parceled out lands to samurai warriors who could be called upon in times of war or for policing. Feudal Japan was a highly hierarchical society, with peasants as always at the bottom of the pile.

However, Japan was forced to open to Western nations in the 1850s due to American intimidation, bringing in new ideas and new goods. Disagreement and dissent arose within Japan over whether to modernize to protect itself and maintain its independence, or to isolate itself further. Beginning in 1860, isolationists began making moves within Japan to bring down the shogun and place the emperor in full authority. In 1863, the emperor called for the expulsion of all foreigners from Japan, and many Westerners were murdered. The shogunal forces received aid from the West, seeking to modernize their navy and army. Various feudal clans supported either the shogun or the emperor, leading to the Boshin War.

Jules Brunet (played by Tom Cruise in the movie as the American officer Nathan Algren), a western military advisor and trainer, was ordered to return to France but disobeyed, instead fighting with a small contingent for the shogunal forces even after their eventual defeat. The imperial forces led by Saigō Takamori (who later became famous for defending the samurai against the centralized, modernized Japanese government during the Satsuma Rebellion) were victorious, pushing their opponents into northern Japan. Now with modernized weapons, the shogunal forces continued the fight as it raged back and forth, but the feudal clans and Brunet were forced out of Japan’s main and largest island Honshu, fleeing to the northern tribal island of Hokkaido, where all those still loyal to the shogun gathered.

In 1868, Brunet helped form a new government and trained the army on Hokkaido. But the imperial forces' naval supremacy and technological advantages helped capture the island, and Japan became united under the emperor in 1869. Brunet escaped.

Japan became a centralized, unified country and opened to the west (initially, the emperor had been opposed to western intervention) and began dismantling the decentralized local lordships, as well as any remaining elements of hierarchy or inheritance. The military was modernized, and the samurai were left behind. Public education, national tax, industrialization and more transformed Japanese life, while outlawing the samurai weapon of swords.  Class distinction vanished, at least in theory, hierarchy replaced with equality.

Traditionalists were once more outraged, especially the Samurai clans, leading to the secession of the traditionalist Satsuma territory, led by "The Last Samurai," Saigō Takamori, and other dissident samurai. They openly rebelled in 1877. Samurai wore traditional outfits and armor, and used swords as a protest against their being illegal and outlawed. Most fought and died this way.

The imperial, modernized Japanese army greatly outnumbered the rebels and maintained significant technological advantages. Despite this, massive battles raged with heavy losses on both sides, before the samurai and their allies were forced to retreat and engage in guerrilla tactics while hunted down by imperial forces. Eventually, they lost all their gunpowder units and their numbers dwindled, yet they kept fighting for months on end. Then, the final 3,000 or so chose Mount Enodake as a last defensible position. Surrounded and vastly outnumbered, their defeat was inevitable; many committed seppuku (ritual honorable suicide) rather than surrender to their foes.

However, as he had done multiple times before, Saigō escaped, and with the last 500 samurai armed with swords and traditional weapons chose a literal last hill to die on; opposing him was an imperial army of 30,000.

Saigō was among the last 40 or so samurai in the battle who made a final headlong charge at the enemy, was wounded multiple times, and committed seppuku with the help of an aide. All of them died in battle, preferring death to dishonor.

Jeb Smith is an author and speaker whose books include Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War written under the pen name Isaac C. Bishop,  Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty and he also authored Defending the Middle Ages: Little Known Truths About the Crusades, Inquisitions, Medieval Women, and More. Smith has written over 120 articles found in several publications.

The Founding of the Bank of England: Accidents, Storytelling and Deceits

The opening lines of Sir John Clapham’s authoritative history of the Bank of England (1944) articulate a general and particular truth: ‘The establishment of the Bank of England (1694) can be treated like so many other historical events both great and small, either as curiously accidental or as all but inevitable’.[1] It is a wonderfully paradoxical sentence balancing accident and inevitability, chance and intention. ‘Curiously accidental’  conjures an intriguing sense of the uncanny, suggesting that the accidental may not be quite so accidental - was it really accidental or was there an invisible hand at play? There is no doubt that a central bank of some kind would have emerged eventually. But this particular bank was helped into being by a sequence of accidents, chance events and encounters. These are part of its story. So too are deceit, political conniving and sophisticated skills in telling a good story.

Val Hamilton explains. Val is the author of a recently published book on the subject (Amazon US | Amazon UK).

The Age of Projecting

The Governor and Company of the Bank of England was founded in 1694 by William Paterson. He was a remarkable man and his story is representative of this remarkable period, dubbed ‘The Age of Projecting’ by Daniel Defoe. This was a period of extreme instability set in motion by the political strife of the century. Traditional sources of authority, i.e. the monarchy and the Church, had been challenged. The brute facts tell the story. The execution of Charles I in 1649 somewhat conclusively challenged the divine right of kings, and ushered in the republicanism of Cromwell resulting in the growth of Parliament’s power.  In 1660, the English, rather apologetically, restored the monarchy, crowning Charles II King. But the genie was out of the bottle. Authority could no longer be seen as ‘invested’ in a person by God but was understood to have been created, or at least given, by some form of ‘the people’. Thus, when Catholic James II succeeded Charles and began to modernize the state, centralizing power, the English organized a rebellion. The protestant William III from Holland and his English wife Mary II, took the throne. England became part of Dutch history, constantly at war with France over control of Europe and the Americas.  By the 1690s William was desperate for money to fund this war. This can be seen as the primary driver for the founding of a bank at this time. But this particular bank came about because of a Spanish shipwreck, and the vision of William Paterson.

La Señora de la Concepcion

The Bank of England could not have emerged without a storm off the Bahamas in 1641. The Señora de la Concepcion, a Spanish galleon, had set sail from Havana, weighted to the gunnels with gold and silver looted from the Americas along with a myriad of treasures from the Orient. It was returning to Spain. However,  the galleon was not in great condition; it had already been forced to turn back once for repairs. This had delayed its departure and brought its journey into the risky hurricane season. The Señora was caught in a terrible storm which split the ship asunder; the wreckage and its treasures sank to the bottom of Silver Banks, north of what is today the Dominican Republic. Over the next 45 years many treasure hunters tried to find it, including a Captain Phips from Maine, New England. But with no success. Then Phips came into some new information and decided he was going to give it another go. He needed financial backing - an expedition would be expensive. He sailed to England to raise funds for this venture. It was a hugely risky project, with very little hope of success. Daniel Defoe singles this project out as one of the riskiest ventures: ‘it was a mere project; a lottery of a hundred thousand to one odds; a hazard which had it failed Everybody would have been ashamed to own themselves concerned in; a voyage that would have been as much ridiculed as Don Quixote’s adventure upon the windmill.’[2]

Phips struggles to find backers for such a long shot until he comes across Christopher Monck, a dissolute aristocrat who had gambled away the fortune left to him by his father, the Duke of Albermarle. Monck was on his uppers and in one last throw of the di, backed Phips’s venture to find shipwrecked treasure. Without this money, the voyage could not have taken place. Phips organized the venture as a joint-stock company, a relatively new model of business. Everyone who put money in would, hopefully, receive a percentage of the profit to match.

Phips and his crew set sail in 1686. At first they had no luck, searching in vain. Apparently they were using the latest technology, a diving bell, which was little more than an upturned barrel which trapped air allowing the explorers to stay underwater a little longer. By the beginning of 1687 they had exhausted their resources. Phips had to admit defeat. They would head for home. It would be another ignominious return. Andrew Forrester shares a lovely account of their final day:

‘On that last day, some of the divers went looking for mementoes of the trip. As they explored a relatively shallow reef close to the shore they chanced upon a spectacular plume of coral reef…they decided to take pieces of it home…But when they dived to look more closely they saw beneath it the unmistakable shape of a large cannonball…The Señora de la Concepcion had been found’.[3]

The treasure

It was sheer chance that the treasure was found, as always. An enormous amount of gold and silver was brought to the surface. We will never really know how much. There are wildly differing claims. Clapham reports that ‘the company paid 10,000 percent and divided a sum equal to a fifth of the national revenue’.[4]  It flooded London with gold and silver and ‘pieces of eight’ minted in Mexico. The success of this project set in motion a chain of events which led to the formation of the Bank of England. Firstly, it emphasized the need for a Bank. The goldsmiths in London who had traditionally stored gold and silver could not cope with such large amounts. Secondly, the success of such a risky project fired up the imagination and the frenzy of projecting, symptomatic of this age, increased even further. A bank was needed to fund these projects which were too large for individuals or even wealthy families to fund. A bank was needed to provide credit. Thirdly Phips was knighted for his success and propelled onto the public stage. He seems to have been a charismatic and ‘colorful’ character. It is at this point that a friendship between Phips and William Paterson becomes significant in the history of the Bank.

William Paterson

Paterson was born in Skipmyre, Dumfriesshire in 1658, the son of a small scale farmer. Little is known of his early life; he attended a local parish school and then as a young man was sent to live with an aunt in Bristol.  Paterson’s father was a covenanter, a type of religious dissenter in Scotland. After the Restoration Charles II tried to restore the Bishops to the Church of Scotland. Those who resisted were known as Covenanters. They refused to cross the door of any Church run by a government appointed Bishop and instead held services in secret in the hills.  Such action put William’s father and his family at risk. It also meant that his son would have to find his own way in life. Paterson would have been blocked from attending University, for example. Like so many other dissenting young men, Paterson made his own way in trade.

He turns up in Jamaica in 1673 although in what capacity is not clear - speculation ranges through merchant, pirate, buccaneer and missionary. There is a degree of prejudice exhibited in these early accounts of Paterson. He is referred to as an ‘upstart’ and, the historian Macaulay comments, that  some may have disliked him simply for being a Scot. By the 1670s he appears to have a home in the Bahamas and be married to Elisabeth Turner, the widow of Thomas Bridge, a minister of the Gospel in New England. Elisabeth died in the Bahamas. Andrew Forrester suggests that Paterson would have acquired a reasonable dowry and ‘nest-egg’ from the marriage.

During this time Paterson was sailing or trading between the Bahamas and New England and came into contact with William Phips. There are similarities between the two men. Phips was one of 12 children and began his career as a ship’s carpenter. He sailed between the Bahamas, New England and London. He married a widow and also came into a reasonable dowry. Paterson and Phips were later to be co-projectors, trying to find investment for various enterprises in both England and America. At this time, these men would have been known as projectors, the modern equivalent being entrepreneurs. Their friendship was to facilitate  the founding of the Bank.

By the late 1680s Paterson was based in London; there is a record of him having been admitted to the livery of The Merchant Taylor’s Company on 21st October, 1689. By the early 1690s he is a prosperous and recognized merchant in the City. His ardent biographer Saxe Bannister reports that he lived in a well-appointed house in Queen Square, Westminster and had a handsome horse and carriage with his own emblem.[5] During these years Paterson was trying to find investment to establish a trading route through the area we now call Panama in order to fulfil his life’s ambition of facilitating trade between the East and the West. This ambition was later to prove his downfall in the Darien Enterprise (Hamilton, 2025). In the early 1690s he recognized the need for a Bank as a reliable source of credit:

‘The want of a Bank, or public Fund, for the convenience and security of great payments, and the better to facilitate the circulation of Money, in and about this great and opulent City, hath in our time, among other Inconveniences, occasion’d much unnecessary Credit, to the loss of several Millions, by which Trade hath been exceedingly discourag’d and obstructed’.[6]

Paterson had invested in Phips’ venture to find the Señora de la Concepcion. He made a great deal of money which further enhanced his status in London as a projector; he had been clever or lucky, either would do. Paterson’s confidence and influence must have grown. He managed to pull together a group of people who met in the Sun Tavern close to The Exchange to try to get a bank off the ground. Paterson called it ‘the Society’. Some high-profile people were needed to give the Society clout. Paterson co-opted his old friend Phips. He was the first titled person to join the Society.

With Paterson’s increased wealth and status, and with Sir William Phips on board, The Society  was gaining a foothold.  On 21 October 1691 Paterson made a real breakthrough and recruited six new members into the Society, among them another knight of the realm, Sir John Houblon. He was a highly respected merchant and was to become the first Governor of the Bank of England. The Society was being taken seriously.

Luck and accident had set the scene and the conditions for a possible bank, now Paterson and the Society needed to employ pure deceit, political conniving and persuasive storytelling to get the actual Bank up and running.

Deceit

All innovative projects require at the very least a certain fictionality and necessary deceit. They are, initially, fictions that will only work once we believe in them. The entrepreneurs or projectors are, after all, making them up as they go along. Paterson and the Society were making the Bank up as they went along. Paterson’s first plan had failed - it had been too daring.  In 1694 the Society put forward a second plan for the Bank of England.  Some sleight of hand, some devious doings, were required to get this plan across the line. Paterson himself later confesses that the situation ‘produced certain narrow and sinister designs no way becoming so noble and universal a work as this’. [7] One of the most sinister strategies was to remove all mention of a bank from the Bill that was put before parliament to approve the creation of the Bank. The proposal was tagged on to the end of an ordinary finance bill and bears the following title:

‘An Act for granting to their Majesties several Rates and Duties upon Tunnage Of ships and vessels, and upon Beer, Ale  and other Liquors: for securing certain Recompenses and Advantages, in the said Act mentioned, to such persons as shall voluntarily advance the sum of £1,500,000 towards carrying on the War against France’.[8]

This is a deceit; the Bank is slipped in under the disguise of taxes on beer and wine to fight the French. The subscriptions were to be lent to the King to fight the war and the interest on the loan would be paid out of beer and wine taxes. They failed to mention that a bank would be established to manage the subscriptions and much more. There is no mention at all in the Act of any Bank. As Paterson later explains:

‘the very names of a bank or corporation was avoided, though the nature of both was intended, the proposers thinking it prudent that a design of this nature should have as easy and insensible a beginning as possible, to prevent…and remove the prejudices and bad impressions commonly conceived in the minds of men against things of this kind before they are understood’.[9]

The bill was put forward at the end of the parliamentary session when many MPs had retired to the country and had to be summoned back. Parliament was appeased by the insertion of a clause in the bill to say that the Bank could not provide funds for the King without the assent of Parliament.

When it comes to the actual opening of the Bank it is sheer theatre and storytelling.  The stage is set at Mercer’s Hall, where the Book of Subscriptions is opened. Commissioners have been appointed by a Bank, which does not yet exist, to monitor the subscriptions and provide detailed accounts. The first subscribers are the King and Queen who subscribe £10,000. This is something of a boomerang subscription as the new Bank is going to lend the money to the King to fight France. They are followed by 1,267 individuals. Their subscriptions are written down on vellum paper and signed by the Commissioners. The seal uses a newly invigorated image of Britannia to stamp these dealings with truth and authority.

It is hard looking back now to comprehend what a huge risk this project was. The Bank could have failed at any time. It could have been challenged by other banks, and indeed was. The King could have reneged on the promise to support the Bank. England could have lost the war with  France. But it did succeed, against very high odds, and continues to be, as Adam Smith noted, a great engine of state. The Bank of England is the oldest most continuously operating central bank in the world and is one of the UK’s most prestigious institutions.

This brief glimpse into its beginnings suggests that accident and chance played their part in its creation and should not be left out of the story. Deceit, political conniving and the skills of the storyteller were required to get the Bank up and running, and are still required to keep it running. William Paterson appears to have ridden the waves of a chance storm and of the Projecting Age in which he lived, combining ability and eloquence with a determined will to achieve his vision. He did, and this institution sits at the heart of our financial, economic and political systems.

This article is drawn from Pirates, Punters and Politicians, How the Bank of England was Founded, Val Hamilton. London: Chronos Publishing, 2025. (Amazon US | Amazon UK)

And from

Daniel Defoe and the Bank of England, The Dark Arts of Projectors,  Valerie Hamilton and Martin Parker. Winchester UK: John Hunt Publishing, 2016.

[1] Clapham, John. The Bank of England, A History, Volume 1 1694-1797. Cambridge: University Press, 1944, p1.

[2] Defoe, Daniel. An Essay Upon Projects. London: Bibliobazaar, 2008 (1697), p26.

[3] Forrester, Andrew. The Man who saw the Future. US:Thomson, 2004, p53.

[4]

[5] Bannister, Sax. ( ed.) The Writings of William Paterson, Founder of the Bank of England, 3 vols. British Library. 1858. Preface.)

[6] Paterson, William.’A Brief Account of the Intended bank of England’,1694, E.Huntingdon Library and Art Gallery, EEBO, 2012.

[7] Paterson, William, ‘A Brief Account of the Intended Bank of England’, London, 1694, Accessed EEBO Warwick University 2012, p5.

[8] Giuseppi, John. The Bank of England, London: Evans Brothers Ltd., 1966, p11.

[9] Bannister, Saxe. ‘A Brief Account of the Intended Bank of England’, London: Randall Taylor, near Stationers Hall. 1694 accessed EEBO, Warwick University, p5.

How the U.S. Civil War Made Christmas a National Holiday

We take for granted that the Christmas Season entails children are home from school, festive meals are being prepared, airports are crowded as people rush home to their families and parties are in full swing, all in anticipation of the jolly old elf Santa Claus’s arrival. Not many people realize though that all of those traditions have their origins in the Civil War.

Lloyd W Klein explains.

The religious nature of the holiday season upon us aside, this time of year has been a time of celebration and gift giving for centuries. The Twelve Days of Christmas and many other traditional songs, as well as Dickens’s Christmas Carol, show that this is a celebration time that goes way back in the European culture. This week we are going to trace how the Civil War led to the making of Christmas as a secular, national holiday.

Unsurprisingly, the story is at base a political one. On Christmas Day 1861, President Lincoln chose to host a party at the White House. It was a crucial political moment because Mr Lincoln had a brewing international crisis that he had to stop before it got out of hand.

On Christmas Day 1862, the country was in a national panic. Setbacks in the war had made it anything but a happy season. On this day, Mr and Mrs Lincoln did something that seems so much a part of the responsibility of the POTUS on this holiday that its astounding that it hasn’t always been traditional. And on Christmas in 1863, the Lincoln’s made yet another gesture of good will to the soldiers in the field.

In 1861 President Lincoln sought to limit an international crisis by throwing a Christmas Party at the White House. The Trent Affair had led to the capture of the appointed Confederate representatives to Britain and France, John Slidell and James Murray Mason. War clouds had started to collect as the British Prime Minister insisted that the US had no right to capture these men on open seas. The capture occurred on November 8 and had become an international scandal after November 18. By Christmastime, there were rumors of British preparations for war and also significant diplomatic efforts were in progress. There were rumors of an invasion from Canada .So, there was a lot for Lincoln to “soft shoe” that day.

In 1862, the Lincoln Family began a tradition to counter the public effects of The Battle of Fredericksburg, which had been a military disaster that spawned a political and public relations catastrophe. “What will the country say?” Lincoln asked. But the POTUS was a political mastermind, and he turned crisis into opportunity, The Lincolns pointedly went the various hospitals around Washington and visited and spoke with the wounded. No president had ever done this before. It showed that Lincoln the commander in chief was a sensitive leader who felt the people’s pain.

The hospital visits were so popular, and so necessary, that Lincoln continued them. He brought his son Tad with him on many such days. Tad was deeply moved by the soldiers. So on Xmas 1863, wounded soldiers received gifts of books and clothing from the White House, with a covering note that said, “From Tad Lincoln”.

And in 1864, General Sherman telegrammed Lincoln on December 22, 1864 announcing the capture of Savanah. By 1865, as the image above shows, Christmas was a celebration of victory in. the war.

The soldiers on the battlefield were far away from home, many had never been outside their county in their lives let alone their state. Union soldiers used salt pork and hardtack to decorate Christmas trees. Others were treated to special meals; a captain from Massachusetts treated his soldiers to foods such as turkey, oysters, pies, and apples; Singing carols was popular, ones that remain popular today, but Christmas cards would not become popular until the 1870s.

When we fly or drive home to Grandmothers House for Christmas, the origin of that tradition is the Civil War Fathers on both sides of the war were often given furloughs to return home for the holiday.

Christmas originates with a significant religious meaning and yet it has become secular in its celebration. Almost no one knows that this trend began in the Civil War. And even more surprising to many, without Thomas Nast, Christmas as we know it probably wouldn’t exist. But Nast wasn’t interested so much in Christmas. He was interested in a much bigger issue.

Nast was a cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly during the Civil War. If Nast wasn’t so interested in Christmas, why the recurrent theme? The 2 Nast cartoons depict Christmas experiences during the war. Identify the subjects of each and what was groundbreaking about them.

The fact is that Nast was a first class political cartoonist who was a Union sympathizing propagandist using Christmas to draw on the emotions of the season to bring the country together.

In the top cartoon, "Christmas Eve" (1862), a wreath frames a scene of a soldier's praying wife and sleeping children at home; a second wreath frames the soldier seated by a campfire, gazing longingly at small pictures of his loved ones.

Another illustration features Santa in his sleigh, then going down a chimney, in the top left of the cartoon. Somber scenes below remind of a grimmer reality--an army marching through snow and a row of frozen graves that refers to the Union's recent failure to take Fredericksburg. But there is hope: Santa is coming!

the January 3, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly, Nast has an early caricature of Santa dressed in an American flag, with a puppet with the name "Jeff" written on it, Nast was inspired by the Belsnickel, part of the folklore in southwestern Germany, You’ll notice his sleigh is drawn by 2 scrawny reindeer.

Nast’s 1864 Christmas cartoon in Harper’s. You can clearly see Lincoln beckoning men outside the door into the Christmas feast. But once again, he is making a political point. . Lincoln is seen ushering in the Confederates to re-join the US in a celebratory setting. of a holiday held in common. It is, of course, pure propaganda, but consistent with the war goal of reunification.

Nast’s Christmas cartoons were so successful that he essentially created much of the holiday we know. Nast was not the only one to use Christmas as a propaganda tool. On the Union side, The New York Herald also engaged in propaganda. One illustration published in the paper included Santa Claus fuming that he could not reach southern children, due to the northern blockade. On the Confederate side, The Richmond Examiner described Santa to its young readers as "a Dutch toy monger" who was a New York/New England "scrub" and Hottentot that had nothing to do with traditional Virginian celebrations of Christmas. Nast had successfully made Christmas a Union holiday, and that is propaganda at a very high level.

“In these two drawings, Christmas became a Union holiday and Santa a Union local deity,” writes Adam Gopnik in a 1997 issue of the New Yorker. “It gave Christmas to the North—gave to the Union cause an aura of domestic sentiment, and even sentimentality.” Nast’s 1863 Christmas cartoon showed the couple shown in 1862 reunited.

Use of a Santa-like figure for propaganda purposes would eventually lead after the war to the elf myth of the jolly old Saint Nick. Between 1862 and 1886, Nast created thirty-three Santa Claus drawings. The iconic version of Santa Claus as a jolly man in red with a white beard and a sack of toys was immortalized in 1881, depicted by Nast in the cartoon attached, But he also gave the definitive appearance to Uncle Sam, America personified. Notice how they both have white beards, but one is tall and thin and the other short and plump. Nast didn’t invent Uncle Sam, as many people believe, but he did standardize his appearance and affect. Santa Claus derives from Sinterklaas, the Dutch rendering of St Nicholas, which was popularized in the 1823 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas”.

DGCC: Notice that the Santa in the 1881 cartoon is smoking an old-style Dutch clay pipe and has a Civil War saber (?toy) hanging from his waistband. He is carrying a knapsack on his back, not filled with clothes and war supplies anymore, but with toys. These details are deliberate; Nast is immortalizing a new personification: the former Union soldier is now older, happily smoking an old pipe, and raising a family 16 years after the war’s end. But the old soldier is still in him. Nast knew his business.

It was also Thomas Nast who decided that Santa and his reindeer lived at the North Pole. After the war Nast purposely made the North Pole the home of Saint Nick so that no one else could use him for nationalistic propaganda like Nast himself did.

It’s hard to imagine today, but Christmas was not always considered a “national” holiday.

Because of the recognition that soldiers on both sides of the war, and of all religious backgrounds, found end of the year celebrations as fostering community and country, that view began to change. Politicians started to recognize in the post war period that if they wanted to bring the country together and heal wounds, Xmas was a natural solution.

Puritans and Lutherans viewed non-sectarian celebrations of Christmas during the war as sacrilegious. They believed the day should be dedicated to fasting and prayer, and looked askance at such practices.  In Massachusetts, such parties were considered a waste of money and could be fined.

The legal recognition of Christmas as a national holiday occurred when Representative Burton Chauncey Cook of Illinois introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress after the war. It passed in both houses of Congress, and President Ulysses S. Grant signed it on June 28, 1870. On June 26, 1870, Congress — led by Northern legislators — passed a law that made Christmas (along with New Year’s Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving) a federal holiday for federal employees in Washington, D.C. This was later extended nationwide. Ulysses S. Grant signed the law, partly as a gesture of reconciliation between North and South during Reconstruction.

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