THE ELIOT ANGLO-AMERICAN MEDAL OF 1762.

By the kindness of Mr. Edmund J. Cleveland, of Hartford, Conn., we have received the description of a Medal which escaped the notice of Mr. Betts in his "Historical Medals of America." As will be seen by Mr. Cleveland's comments below, it was struck in England for presentation to an American, by the Society for Promoting Arts and Commerce, established at London in 1754; several of the medals given by this Society are mentioned by Betts - see his 417, 421 and 429. — EDS.

Obverse, A group of three figures, viz. to the right Britannia seated, with shield, etc., facing left. Approaching her and facing right are two standing figures; Mercury in the centre typifying Commerce, holds in his right hand a caduceus and in his left what appears to be a well-filled purse which he offers to Britannia; the other figure is Minerva holding in her right hand a spear; with her left hand uplifted she holds a laurel wreath; the group is partly encircled by the legend: ARTS. AND. COMMERCE. PROMOTED. In the exergue in two lines: SOCIETY INST. LONDON | MDCCLIIII. All within a circle of dots. Reverse, The legend: TO. THE. REV. IARED ELIOT. M. A. OF N. ENGLAND. MDCCLXII. the legend completely encircling a wreath of two laurel branches joined at bottom; within the wreath is the inscription in six horizontal lines: FOR | PRODUCING | MALLEABLE | IRON FROM THE | AMERICAN | BLACK SAND. In a line parallel to last named inscription, and just below the junction of the branches, the letters: N. XVIII, presumably the date of award: N[ovember] 18, 1762. All within a circle of dots. Gold, probably unique. Size 28 American scale, or 44 millimetres.

An illustration of both the obverse and the reverse of this medal appears on page 149 of the "Genealogy of the Eliot Family, originally compiled by William H. Eliot, Jr., revised and enlarged by William S. Porter, 1854." If we may judge from the illustration, it would seem that no part of the Medal is engraved in sunken letters, etc.; but that it is struck from regularly prepared dies.

[Dr. Storer mentions in a letter to the Editors that this medal is also figured in Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, II, 1887, p. 324, which says the Society which gave it was the "London Institute." An engraving is also given in "The Century" for January, 1884, Vol. xxvii, p. 448.]

The Rev. Jared Eliot, D. D., M. D., to whom this Medal was awarded, was born at Guilford, Conn., November 7, 1685, and graduated from Yale College 1706; he was the well-remembered minister and physician at Killingworth (Clinton), Conn., and an intimate friend of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, whom he frequently visited at Philadelphia. He was a member of the Royal Society of London. Some considerations had led him to believe that the black sand, which appears on the beach of the Sound, might be wrought into iron. He made an experiment upon it in 1761, and succeeded. For this

discovery he was honored with a medal by the Society instituted in London for the Promotion of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

On page 67 of the work cited, Horace William Eliot adds: "I have, as a sort of heir-loom, a gold Medal of about the weight of thirty or five-andthirty dollars, granted to him by the Royal Society of London' for the discovery of Making Malleable Iron from American Black Sand,' dated 1762." Rev. Jared Eliot died April 22, 1763. He was the son of Rev. Joseph Eliot, and a grandson of the celebrated Rev. John Eliot, Apostle to the Indians, publisher of Eliot's Indian Bible, etc.

·

E. J. C.

Dr. Storer also writes to the Editors that he thinks the medal was, not very long ago, in the possession of Mr. Charles G. Eliot, of Goshen, N. Y., and that he has received a description which differs very slightly from that above. Appleton's Cyclopedia (ut supra) has a notice of Dr. Eliot, who besides being eminently skillful as a physician, so that he was regarded as the leading man of his day in that profession, was also noted as a botanist and scientific agriculturist. He was the author of several essays on agriculture, and of various published sermons, etc. We judge from his letter that Dr. Storer believes the inscription on the reverse was engraved, not struck.

BRITISH INDIAN MEDALS.

MR. BETTS, in his "Historical Medals of America," and Mr. McLachlan, in "Canadian Numismatics," describe several medals struck by the British Government for presentation to their Canadian Indian Allies, in the Revolutionary War. The employment of Indians, whose barbaric warfare on the border elicited the famous protest of Pitt, in the House of Commons, doubtless did more to embitter that contest than any other act of the British Crown; but the French had long before been guilty of the same cruelty, and had bestowed medals on prominent chiefs and warriors, to attach them to their cause. We have lately received a rubbing of the largest of the British Indian medals, and with it a copy of an interesting document, somewhat in the nature of a commission or appointment confirming the authority of the "Grand Chief" on whom it was bestowed.

The medal itself is of silver, three inches in diameter (size 48, American scale), having a loop at the top for suspension. The obverse has an armored bust of the King to right, in profile, very similar to Betts 600, but a younger face; Legend, GEORGIUS III DEI GRATIA; the reverse is also similar to that, having the royal arms as described by Betts, viz.: Quarterly, 1, England impaling Scotland; 2, France; 3, Ireland, and 4, Hanover; they are surrounded by a garter with the motto of the Order, HONI SOIT, etc., with a large crown above and the customary supporters standing on small platforms, which are sustained by the ends of the ribbon which falls below and is in

I This reference to the Royal Society is an error of the writer. The two Societies were distinct - the Royal Society dating from 1660, while that for Promot

ing Arts and Commerce was established in 1754, — as appears on the Medal. — EDS.

scribed DIEU ET MON DROIT; intertwined with the ribbon are the rose, thistle and shamrock. The device, it will be observed, is nearly identical with the smaller medals used for the same purpose, the difference in size being doubtless intended to show the relative rank of the wearer.

Betts describes (Nos. 435-438) several varieties of these, but the differences are chiefly minute details rivets in the armor- and the variations in sizes are trifling, at most two-sixteenths; hence we cannot certainly assign this piece from the rubbing, but it resembles most closely 438; possibly it may be his 512, of which the size is not given, but which, as appears from Tancred (cited in the note on that number) is found as large as 48; we suspect, however, that 512 is size 39 or 40, since it is known that medals with this device were struck of that size, with youthful bust, but which are not mentioned by Betts though he gives similar medals of size 38, 39, struck considerably later for the same purpose (see his 601, 602). No date appears on these pieces; some of them are said to have been struck probably as early as 1762 (see Betts, p. 195), and others in 1764, but there is some doubt on this point. Possibly there may be English records extant which would fix the date.

The piece under notice has a greater interest than others, because of the document which accompanied the gift. This was printed on parchment, with blanks for the insertion of the name and rank of the recipient, which were evidently written in as occasion required, and these written insertions are noted below by italics. The substance of the commission is printed in parallel columns, in English at the left and French at the right; we give only the English portion, which is as follows:

Seal

FREDERICK HALDIMAND Captain-General and Governor in Chief of the Province of Quebec &c. &c. &c. General Commander in Chief of his Majestys Forces in said Province & Frontier &c. &c. &c.

To Quiwoiscouchecamme Grand Chief of Lherbe Croche

In consideration of Fidelity, zeal, & attachment, testified by Quiwoisebuchecamme Grand Chief of Lherbe Croche to the Kings Government, and by virtue of the power and authority in me vested I do hereby confirm the said Quiwoisebuchamme Grand Chief of Lherbe Croche aforesaid, having bestowed upon him the Great Medal, willing all and singular the Indians Inhabitants thereof, to obey him as Grand Chief, and all officers & others in his Majestys Service to treat him accordingly. Given under my hand & Seal at Arms, at Montreal this seventeenth day of August One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Eight in the Eighteenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France & Ireland King, Defender of the Faith and so forth.

It will be noticed that the name of the "Grand Chief" is spelled differently in the heading and in the body of the document; whether this is an accident in copying or a pardonable error of a clerk whose knowledge of Indian names was probably less extensive than his familiarity with the art of war, we cannot determine. The warrant is enclosed by a border. So far as we have been able to discover, this is the only known instance where the document which accompanied the gift has been preserved.'

General Haldimand was the author of the voluminous Reports on Canadian affairs, preserved in the British Museum, and was the hero of the famous interview between the Boston school-boys and officers of the British forces in Boston, just before the outbreak of the Revolution, which by the way is usually but erroneously said to have been with General Gage-when the Latin School pupils complained because their coast had been spoiled by one of the General's servants who had thrown ashes upon it.

66

In this connection we may mention that Mr. Henry Stuebing, of Berlin, Ontario, Dominion of Canada, has kindly sent us a photograph of one of the 'Happy while united" pieces belonging to the group of British Indian Medals described by Betts (509, etc.), with laureated and armored bust in profile to right of George III, on which the King is shown wearing a broad ribbon across the breast. Like that in Mr. Appleton's collection, which is size 46 and a cast (Betts 510), it has DCF counterstamped on the reverse; but from the fineness of detail, the sharpness of the lines, and other indications, this piece appears by the photograph to have been struck, not cast. It has the wing and pipe at the top, pierced for suspension, and the object at the left of the tree on reverse is clearly a hill-top, not the gable of a house; there are two ships on the sea, not three, and it is of silver, size 36; hence it conforms most nearly to Betts 513, of the several varieties which he describes. The date in exergue is 1764 in italic figures; it would seem therefore that this was one of the first of the Indian Medals struck with the portrait of King George III.

1 Beside the various references to Betts given in the text, we may add that McLachlan, in his "Canadian Numismatics," describes two of these large medals, differing slightly in the dies and by two millimetres in size (see his CCXCII and CCXCIII, printed also in the Journal, XVII, p. 11); two were sold in the Hart Collection (Scott S. & C. Co.'s 132d Sale, lots 112 and 113, and the Catalogue has an engraving of the obverse of one), where they brought $69 and $56, the prices varying on account of the condition of the medals; there were also two in an earlier sale of the Hart Cabinet (Frossard's 89th Sale, Dec. 26-28, 1888, lots 969 and 970). See also Leroux, 832. Incidentally the document would seem to show that a considerable number of these medals were struck, to cause so formal a paper to be printed. We should naturally suppose that the largest of the series would be the rarest, but Mr. McLachlan informs us that such is not the case; of this largest size, 48 and 50, (American Scale,) he writes

us, he has two varieties in his own cabinet and has seen ten or twelve others; a few are known to be in England, one in the British Museum; while of the smaller sizes - those of 38 and 60 mm., he only knows of two or at most three examples of each. In reference to the accompanying document he thinks it shows that the medals were struck before the Revolution, as they were given out during the war, and not after its close, as was the case with those of 1814. They were bestowed in recognition of services by the Indians as guides and canoe-men, as well as for aid in war. What particular service was rendered in this case does not appear. Mr. McLachlan makes the happy suggestion that the terminal checamme of the Chief's name, is the Huron-Iroquis word secham or sachem, meaning Great Chief, and he also thinks, from the name of the tribeL'herbe croche― that the owner "probably belonged to the Wyandots, cousins to the Hurons, who inhabited the western peninsula of Canada."

The piece is curious, inasmuch as it has the singular counterstamp which appears on the larger cast medals, and for which no explanation has yet been proposed, to our knowledge, except that it has been suggested that the letters D C are probably the initials of the person who cast the larger medals, like that in Mr. Appleton's cabinet. If this be admitted, it may be that in Mr. Stuebing's piece we have the original which served as the type-model for the moulds of the large medal, since, if we are correctly informed, this is the only one of the "Happy while united" medals of size 36 which has this counterstamp, that has yet been described. Betts 513, which is the same as that mentioned in the Journal, X, p. 54, makes no mention of a counterstamp.

These same letters are found on a Montreal Indian medal, issued in 1760 (Betts 431), and described at length by McLachlan in the Journal, XVIII, p. 85. Mr. McLachlan, probably because N. YORK appears on Betts 510 near the other counterstamp, as it does in the piece under notice, thinks they may be the initials of some New York workman, who seems to have cast a number of such pieces for use among the Indians, soon after the capture of Montreal. The word MONTREAL on the older medals-of which Betts describes three, differing only in their reverses which are all engraved, and of which it is probable that quite a number were issued, may throw some doubt on the name of the settlement shown on the "Happy while united" piece, which is called New York, with a query, by Betts: whether that locality is New York or Montreal, however, does not necessarily affect the question of the place where it was cast, and the two counterstamps give strong probability to Mr. McLachlan's theory. In either case the scene is no doubt a fanciful one.

The particular occasion of striking the "Happy while united" medal does not seem to have been discovered. Great Britain adopted the custom of decorating her Indian allies certainly as early as 1714, in the reign of George I, or if we reckon the "Pamunkee" medals, which were engraved, and though bestowed under the guise of a gift, were required to be worn by the Indians who received them, when visiting the white settlements in Virginia, the practice may be carried back at least forty years earlier, to the time of Charles II. It is well established that France adorned her loyal Indians with the portraits of her princes as early as 1690, and she gave them with a liberal hand, judging from the number that have come down to us. When, by the Treaty of Paris, in 1764, the possessions of France in America were ceded to England, the policy of bestowing medals on the native chiefs was continued by the English officials with like generosity; this was done with the double object of winning the friendship of their former foes, and of preserving peace between hostile tribes; and the motto which the medal bears enforced the idea of safety to both, which would be derived from the new alliances.