of war, sent a confidential letter to Gen. Taylor, instructing him to hold the troops under his command in readiness to defend Texas in case of an invasion from Mexico. He demanded more explicit instructions, and in reply was directed generally to be governed by circumstances, to avoid all aggressive measures, and to hold his army ready to protect the Texan territory "to the extent that it had been occupied by the people of Texas." The Rio Grande was indicated by the secretary as the boundary of Texas, though the Mexicans maintained that Texas never extended west of the Nueces. Corpus Christi, on Aransas bay, near the mouth of the Nueces, was pointed out as the best point for concentrating the U. S. forces; and accordingly in July, 1845, Taylor embarked at New Orleans with 1,500 troops, and in the beginning of August encamped with them at Corpus Christi, where he was followed by reenforcements, so that in November his forces amounted to about 4,000 men. He remained for several months, during which his conduet under the most embarrassing circumstances was marked by great prudence and discretion. The administration desired to bring the Mexican question to a crisis, without, if possible, incurring the responsibility of beginning a war. Indirectly, therefore, it endeavored to induce Gen. Taylor to advance his forces into the disputed territory; but the wary old soldier disregarded all hints to that effect, and would not move till explicitly ordered to do so by the president. Positive instructions were at length sent, and on March 8, 1846, the army began its march toward the Rio Grande, and on the 28th reached the banks of that river opposite Matamoras. Here it encamped and erected Fort Brown, which commanded Matamoras, where the Mexicans were also throwing up batteries and redoubts. On April 12 Gen. Ampudia, the Mexican commander, addressed a note to Gen. Taylor requiring him within 24 hours to break up his camp and retire beyond the Nueces, "while our governments are regulating the pending question in relation to Texas," and informing him that his non-compliance would be regarded by the Mexicans as equivalent to a declaration of war. Gen. Taylor replied that he was acting under instructions which did not permit him to return to the Nueces, and that if the Mexicans saw fit to commence hostilities he should not avoid the conflict. Ampudia was soon after superseded as Mexican commander-in-chief by Arista, who early in May crossed the Rio Grande with a force of 6,000 men, and on the 8th of that month attacked and was defeated by Gen. Taylor with 2,300 men at Palo Alto, a few miles from Matamoras. (See PALO ALTO.) The Mexicans retreated to Resaca de la Palma, where they took up a strong position, and on the following day again gave battle to the Americans, who after a severe contest routed them with great loss and drove them across the Rio Grande. The total loss of the Mexi cans in these battles amounted to about 1,000 men. In his report to the government Gen. Taylor said: "Our victory has been decisive. A small force has overcome immense odds of the best troops that Mexico can furnish-veteran regiments, perfectly equipped and appointed. Eight pieces of artillery, several colors and standards, a great number of prisoners, including 14 officers, and a large amount of baggage and public property, have fallen into our hands." The first intelligence of the outbreak of hostilities on the Rio Grande called forth a special message from the president (May 11), in which he declared that the Mexican government had "at last invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our fellow citizens on our own soil." Two days later congress declared that "by the act of the republic of Mexico war exists between that government and the United States," and at the same time authorized the president to accept the services of 50,000.volunteers. Meanwhile Taylor, who had been promoted to the rank of major-general as a reward for his victories, took possession of Matamoras on May 18 without opposition, and remained there awaiting reënforcements and organizing his forces till September, when he marched against Monterey, which he reached Sept. 9 with a force of 6,625 men, mostly volunteers. The place was defended by Gen. Ampudia with about 10,000 regular troops. On the 19th Gen. Taylor ordered an assault, and after 3 days' desperate fighting Gen. Ampudia capitulated on the 24th. (See MONTEREY.) Taylor made Monterey his headquarters, but occupied with a strong detachment the city of Saltillo, the capital of the state of Coahuila. He was diligently making preparations for an advance with an adequate army upon San Luis Potosi, an important city 300 miles south of Saltillo, when he received in December a letter from Gen. Scott, the commander-in-chief, who was then at New York, informing him that, as he was about to lead an expedition against Vera Cruz, “I shall be obliged to take from you most of the gallant officers and men, regulars and volunteers, whom you have so long and so nobly commanded." His troops were accordingly taken from him, as some of his friends alleged, from motives of jealousy on the part of the democratic leaders who controlled the administration, it being well understood that he was a whig in politics; and he was left to stand on the defensive with only 5,000 men, of whom but 500 were regulars, the rest being volunteers who had never seen a battle. He received intelligence that Santa Anna, the ablest of the Mexican generals, had concentrated at San Luis Potosi the flower of the Mexican army to the number of 21,000 veteran troops, and was moving rapidly to attack him in the valley of the Rio Grande. After carefully examining the ground, Taylor on Feb. 21, 1847, took a position at Buena Vista, a mountain pass 9 miles from Saltillo, and awaited the approach of the Mexicans, who made their appearance on the following day, and notwithstanding their immense superiority of numbers were signally defeated. (See BUENA VISTA.) Santa Anna retreated with his disheartened followers to San Luis Potosi, and during the rest of the war the frontier of the Rio Grande and the valley of that river remained in quiet possession of the Americans. For a period of several days before and after the battle all communication between the United States and Gen. Taylor's army had been cut off by detachments of Mexican cavalry, and great anxiety prevailed throughout the country as to the result of the encounter between forces so unequal. Rumors came from the Rio Grande that Taylor had been overpowered by the Mexicans and all his troops killed or captured. In consequence of this painful suspense the true tidings of the achievement of a splendid and decisive victory over very superior numbers were received with enthusiastic satisfaction, and the reputation and popularity of Gen. Taylor, already very great, attained the highest pitch. The modest and dignified tone of the despatches in which he announced to the government his victories largely contributed to heighten the public esteem for his character, and on his return home in Nov. 1847, "Old Rough and Ready," as his soldiers familiarly called him, was greeted everywhere by the warmest demonstrations of popular applause. This popularity naturally led to propositions to nominate him as a candidate for the presidency at the approaching election of 1848; and indeed, immediately after the reception of the news of the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, he had been so nominated by popular assemblages at Trenton, N. J., and in the city of New York. These hasty nominations, however, were made by persons of little consideration, and attracted but a small share of the public regard. In March, 1847, overtures were made to Gen. Taylor by some of the leaders of the native American party, to which he replied, April 28, that while the country was involved in war and he was engaged in operations against the enemy he could not acknowledge any ambition beyond that of bestowing all his best exertions toward obtaining an adjustment of our difficulties with Mexico. After his return home, however, he wrote and authorized the publication of several brief letters in which he defined his political position, and from which it appeared that he was, as he himself expressed it, a whig, but not an ultra whig." In a let ter to Peter Sken Smith, Jan. 30, 1848, he said: "I have neither the power nor the desire to dictate to the American people the exact manner in which they should proceed to nominate for the presidency of the United States. If they desire such a result, they must adopt the means best suited, in their opinion, to the consummation of the purpose; and if they think fit to bring me before them for this office, through their legislatures, mass meetings, or 66 conventions, I cannot object to their designating these bodies as whig, democrat, or native. But in being thus nominated, I must insist on the condition-and my position on this point is immutable-that I shall not be brought forward by them as the candidate of their party, or considered as the exponent of their party doctrines." In a letter to Capt. J. S. Allison, April 22, 1848, he said: "I have consented to the use of my name as a candidate for the presidency. I have frankly avowed my own distrust of my fitness for this high station; but having, at the solicitation of many of my countrymen, taken my position as a candidate, I do not feel at liberty to surrender that position until my friends manifest a wish that I should retire from it. I will then most gladly do so. I have no private purposes to accomplish, no party projects to build up, no enemies to punish-nothing to serve but my country. . . I am a whig. If elected, I would not be the mere president of a party. I would endeaver to act independently of party domination. I should feel bound to administer the government untrammelled by party schemes. I shall engage in no schemes, no combinations, no intrigues. If the American people have not confidence in me, they ought not to give me their suffrages. If they do not, you know me well enough to believe me when I declare I shall be content. I am too old a soldier to murmur against such high authority." These declarations were satisfactory to a great portion of the people, especially of the whig party; and when the whig national convention met at Philadelphia, June 1, 1848, a considerable number of the delegates were pledged to the support of Gen. Taylor. Strong opposition, however, existed to him on various grounds. The friends of Daniel Webster and of Henry Clay insisted upon the claims of those eminent statesmen upon the whig party, and portrayed the injustice of setting them aside in deference to the mushroom popularity of a mere military chieftain, "an ignorant frontier colonel," as Mr. Webster called him, who had neither experience nor knowledge of civil affairs, and as he himself admitted had paid so little attention to politics as not to have voted for 40 years. It was also alleged that Gen. Taylor could hardly be considered a whig, and was of doubtful orthodoxy on many essential points of the whig political creed. The freesoil whigs further objected that Gen. Taylor was a slaveholder, and was not pledged against the extension of slavery, a question then predominant in American politics. Amid these conflicting views the convention began to ballot for a candidate. The whole number of votes was 280, and 141 were necessary to a choice. On the first ballot Taylor received 111 votes, Clay 97, Scott 43, Webster 22, all others 6; second ballot, Taylor 118, Clay 86, Scott 49, Webster 22; third ballot, Taylor 133, Clay 74, Scott 54, Webster 17; fourth ballot, Taylor 171, Clay 35, Scott 60, Webster 14, and Taylor was declared the candidate. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts and a few other delegates, on this result being announced, withdrew from the convention, and subsequently formed the freesoil party on the basis of opposition to the extension of slavery. They justified their secession from the convention and from the whig party, not only by the fact that Gen. Taylor was a slaveholder and not opposed to the extension of slavery, but also by maintaining that he was not really a whig, and especially that he was so unqualified by natural talent or acquired experience for the office of president, that his nomination was one "not fit to be made," as was subsequently said in a public speech by Mr. Webster, who for a time refused to acquiesce in the action of the convention. After the nomination of Gen. Taylor the whig convention proceeded to ballot for a candidate for the vice-presidency, and on the second ballot Millard Fillmore of New York was nominated. The democratic national convention had already nominated at Baltimore, May 22, 1848, Lewis Cass for the presidency; but a powerful section of the New York democracy, familiarly known as barnburners, refused their support to Mr. Cass, partly because of his pro-slavery position, and partly to punish him and his southern partisans for preventing the nomination of Martin Van Buren by the democratic national convention of 1844, when Mr. Van Buren was set aside for a comparatively obscure politician, Mr. Polk. On Aug. 9, 1848, these freesoil democrats assembled in a great mass and delegate convention at Buffalo, N. Y., together with the freesoil whigs who had rejected the nomination of Gen. Taylor, and the liberty party men who had previously supported James G. Birney as the distinctive anti-slavery candidate for the presidency. A fusion of these parties was effected on the basis of a platform of which opposition to the extension of slavery was the leading principle, and Martin Van Buren was nominated for president and Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts for vice-president. The election took place in November, and for Taylor and Fillmore 163 electors were chosen to 127 for Cass and Butler, the democratic candidates. The Van Buren and Adams party did not succeed in carrying a single elector, their popular vote being 291,678, while that for Gen. Taylor was 1,362,031, and that for Cass 1,222,455. festations of popular enthusiasm. Notwithstanding, however, his great personal popularity, the numerical preponderance of the democratic party in the country enabled it to elect a sufficient number of members of congress to give the opposition a decided majority not only in the senate but in the house of representatives. In the latter body a few freesoil members elected by the anti-slavery party held the balance of power between the whigs and democrats. On the opening of the 31st congress, Dec. 3, 1849, the house proved to be divided as follows: democrats, 112; whigs, 105; freesoilers, 13. Under these circumstances it was found impracticable to elect a speaker till Dec. 22, when the plurality rule was adopted, and on the 63d ballot Howell Cobb of Georgia, a democrat, was elected. Immediately afterward a vehement struggle commenced with regard to the organization of the new territories, the admission of California as a state, and the question of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico, all of these subjects being connected with the great and absorbing question of the extension of slavery. California had applied for admission into the Union with a constitution excluding slavery, which had been framed by a convention of the people without the usual preliminary authorization from congress. There being at this time an equal number of free and slave states in the Union, the proposition to admit California and thus give the free states a preponderance in the senate excited throughout the South the most violent opposition. At the same time New Mexico and Utah, or Deseret, as it was called by the Mormons who occupied it, were without governments, while the boundary question between New Mexico and Texas was creating great agitation in the southwest, the people of Texas threatening to take possession of the disputed territory by force. President Taylor in his messages to congress recommended, as the easiest way of settling the dispute, that California should be admitted, and that the other territories should form state constitutions to suit themselves, and should be admitted into the Union with or without slavery as their constitutions might prescribe. These recommendations were not acceptable to the slaveholding leaders, many of whom made open threats of secession in case of the admission of California. Scenes of violence occurred in the Gen. Taylor was inaugurated president senate, and great excitement and agitation exon Monday, March 5, 1849, and on the follow- isted at Washington and throughout the couning day appointed as his cabinet John M. Clay- try. Henry Clay in the senate, to settle the ton of Delaware, secretary of state; William controversy, introduced propositions for "an M. Meredith of Pennsylvania, secretary of the amicable arrangement of all questions in contreasury; George W. Crawford of Georgia, troversy between the free and the slave states secretary of war; William B. Preston of Vir- growing out of the subject of slavery." These ginia, secretary of the navy; Thomas Ewing propositions provided for the admission of Caliof Ohio, secretary of the interior; Jacob Col-fornia as a state; the formation of territorial lamer of Vermont, postmaster-general; and Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, attorney-general. During the summer the president made a tour through the middle states as far as Lake Erie, and was everywhere received with maniVOL. XV.-21 governments in all the rest of the territory recently acquired from Mexico, without any restriction as to slavery; the determination of the boundary of Texas; the payment of the debt of Texas; declaring against the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia; declaring that the slave trade in the district ought to be abolished, but that congress has no right to prohibit or obstruct the slave trade between the states; and lastly that a more stringent fugitive slave law should be passed. (See CLAY, HENRY, vol. v. p. 322.) Mr. Clay's propositions were still the subject in one form or another of exciting debates in congress and of earnest discussion among the people, when on the 4th of July, 1850, Gen. Taylor was seized with bilious fever, of which he died on the 9th at the presidential mansion.-In person Gen. Taylor was of middle stature and stout form, with dark complexion, high forehead, and keen penetrating eyes, with a face more remarkable for intelligence than for elegance, and an expression of much kindness and good nature. His manners and appearance were very plain and simple. As president he fully maintained the popularity which had led to his election, and was personally one of the most esteemed of those who have filled the chief executive office of the country. His administration will be ever memorable as the period in which the antagonism between the free states and the slave states reached a crisis that seriously threatened the Union-a crisis then avoided, however, by a compromise. It was during this administration that the secession party in the South first manifested itself in considerable force outside of the state of South Carolina. To the schemes of this party Gen. Taylor was sternly opposed, and in reply to a delegation of its congressional leaders, who waited upon him with threats of disunion and civil war, he said that if the standard of revolt were raised, he would himself take the field to suppress it at the head of an army of volunteers, and should not for that purpose deem it necessary to call upon a single soldier from the North. TAZEWELL. I. A S. W. co. of Va., bordering on Ky., drained by the head streams of Clinch and Sandy rivers; area, 1,300 sq. m.; pop. in 1860, 9,920, of whom 1,202 were slaves. Clinch mountain and other ranges traverse the county. The soil of the valleys is very fertile, The productions in 1850 were 235,126 bushels of Indian corn, 125,214 of oats, 21,327 of wheat, and 135,910 lbs. of butter. There were 6 tanneries, 15 churches, a bank, and 654 pupils attending public schools. Capital, Jeffersonville. II. A central co. of Illinois, bounded N. W. by the Illinois river and intersected by the Mackinaw; area, 550 sq. m.; pop. in 1860, 21,471. The surface is level, consisting mostly of prairies, and the soil highly fertile. The productions in 1850 were 1,114,640 bushels of Indian corn, 144,241 of wheat, 146,992 of oats, 9,986 tons of hay, and 186,350 lbs. of butter. There were 8 grist mills, 11 saw mills, 17 churches, 2 newspaper offices, and 2,941 pupils attending public schools. Capital, Tremont. TCHAD, or TSAD, a lake of Soodan, in central Africa, lying between lat. 12° 30' and 14° 80' N. and long. 13° and 15° E. It is about 150 m. long from N. to S. and 125 wide from E. to W., and has a probable area of 15,000 sq. m., varying greatly however in the dry and the rainy season. Its depth rarely exceeds 15 feet, and many portions of it during the dry season are rather a reedy swamp than a lake; the inkibul or open water in the dry season occupies only the central and S. W. part; its elevation above the sea level is 850 feet. The water is fresh and sweet, though that in the marshy pits along the shores is brackish in the dry season from the presence of natron. It has two considerable tributaries, the Komadugu and the Shary, the former flowing from the W., and the latter from the S., but no outlet. The shores abound with rushes and reeds, and the lagoons and shallower portions of the lake are covered with aquatic plants, among which the most conspicuous are the lotus (nymphæa lotus) and a floating plant called by the natives fanna bellabago or homeless fanna. A species of antelope, which Barth supposes to be the antilope Arabica, feed in large herds on the shores of the lake, and the native cattle thrive on its rich pasturage. The hippopotamus and crocodile wallow in great numbers in the shallow lagoons, and turtles and fish are abundant. The southern banks of the Tchad are flat and low, and are extensively inundated; but the northern are high and woody, and here elephants are found in vast herds. Water fowl are also numerous, principally of the duck tribe. There are extensive islands in the lake, which are densely inhabited by a pagan race called Biddoomahs, distinct from the surrounding Mohammedan tribes. (See BIDDOOMAHS.) The existence of this lake was known to Leo Africanus in the 16th century, but the first Europeans who visited it in more modern times were Denham and Clapperton in 1823, and Barth, Overweg, and Vogel in 1851-5. Dr. Overweg died on its banks, Sept. 27, 1852. TCHERNIGOV, a S. W. government of European Russia, province of Ukraine, bounded by Smolensk, Orel, Koorsk, Pultowa, Kiev, Minsk, and Mohilev; area, 21,250 sq. m.; pop. in 1856, 1,401,879. The surface, with the exception of the western portion, is flat, and the soil is particularly fertile. It is well watered by numerous streams, the most important of which are the Dnieper, which flows on the W. boundary, and its affluent the Desna, which intersects the government. Horses, horned cattle, and sheep are abundant, and the breeds of the two first are particularly good. Much honey and wax are obtained from bees; and locusts are often very destructive. The manufactures are confined chiefly to articles for domestic use. A large quantity of brandy is distilled. The largest place in the government is Nieshin, a manufacturing town.TOHERNIGOV, the capital, on the Desna, 80 m. N. N. E. from Kiev, is one of the oldest towns in the Ukraine, and has a large trade; pop. 12,000. It was formerly held by the Tartars and Poles. TCHIHATCHEF, PETER, a Russian geologist and naturalist, born at Gatchina, near St. Petersburg, in 1812. Early in life he was employed in the Russian bureau of foreign affairs, and between 1841 and 1844 was attached to the embassy at Constantinople. In the latter year he quitted the public service in order to devote himself exclusively to scientific pursuits, and soon after was commissioned by the government to explore the Altai mountains, of which he published an account under the title of Voyage scientifique dans l'Altar et dans les contrées adjacentes (4to., Paris, 1846). His next undertaking was the scientific exploration of Asia Minor, which was accomplished, amid great perils and difficulties, in the space of 6 years. His time has since been mainly devoted to the preparation of his elaborate work, L'Asie Mineure; description physique, statistique et archéologique de cette contrée, of which only the first two parts, relating to the physical geography, climatology, and botany of the subject, have as yet appeared (2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1853'6, with atlas and plates). The remaining portion, treating of geology, statistics, and archæology, are in preparation. The author has also published in the transactions of scientific bodies many minor papers on subjects connected with his studies. He resides in Paris. TEA (Chinese, tcha, cha, or tha), the dried leaves of several plants of the genus thea, belonging to the natural order Ternströmiacea. The plants are evergreen shrubs belonging to the same family as the camellias, and the two principal species of Linnæus, also recognized by Lindley, T. bohea and T. viridis, have also been called camellia bohea and C. viridis. They are now however only regarded as varieties of the T. Sinensis. The plants are bushy, with numerous leafy branches, and grow to the height of from 3 to 5 feet, and sometimes much higher. The leaves are 2 or 3 inches long and half an inch to an inch broad, of elliptical oblong shape, serrated except at the base, marked with transverse veins, of shining green color, and are supported alternately on short channelled foot-stalks. The flowers are white, of considerable size, and resemble those of the myrtle; they are either solitary, or 2 or 3 together on separate pedicels, at the axils of the leaves; calyx short, green, divided into 5 segments; corolla with 5 to 9 petals cohering at the base; stamens numerous, with yellow anthers; pistil with a 3-parted style; capsules 3celled and 3-seeded. The two species are distinguished by botanists chiefly by the shape of the leaves. De Candolle admits but one species, with two varieties, viz.: the viridis, with "lanceolate flat leaves, 3 times as long as they are broad," and the bohea, with "elliptical, oblong, subrugose leaves, twice as long as broad." These specific names have no relation to the kinds of tea known as green and bohea, as both are produced from either one of the plants, as will be explained below. The plants are indigenous in China and Japan, and are said by the Chinese writers to have been first discovered in the hills of the central provinces, where they are still abundant. No certain allusion to tea is traced back further than the 9th century. Two Arabian travellers, as translated in the work of Renaudot, Anciennes relations des Indes et de la Chine, describe it as being in use as a beverage by the Chinese in the latter half of the 9th century. The Japanese, to whom the tea plant is almost as valuable as it is to the Chinese, affirm that the latter obtained it about the year 828 from Corea; but this is not credited. Tea was first made known in Europe by the Portuguese, who imported it early in the 16th century; and in 1589 a notice of it was published in the Historia Indica of Giovanni Pietro Maffei, and also by Giovanni Botero. Travellers in China and other eastern countries, in the early part of the 17th century, gave most extravagant accounts of the virtues of tea, which appears to have been in very general use at that time throughout a large portion of Asia. The Persians are described by Adam Olearius (1637) as boiling the leaves till the water acquires a bitterish taste and a blackish color, when they add to it fennel, anise seed, cloves, and sugar; the Hindoos, he adds, put it into seething water. About the same time the peculiar method of preparing it by the Japanese, which is still in practice, was described by Mandelslo of the Danish embassy; this consists in reducing the leaf to powder, and putting this into porcelain cups full of boiling water. The Dutch East India company introduced tea into Europe in the first half of the 17th century, and it was known several years previous to 1657 in England as a choice and very rare article in occasional great entertainments. It had long been the custom in European countries to make use of hot infusions of leaves as beverages, and in England those of the sage were much employed, and are even said to have been carried to China by the Dutch to be there exchanged for the Chinese tea leaf. Tea at that early period was valued at £6 to £10 a pound weight. It was offered for sale in 1657 by Thomas Garway, the founder of the London coffee house, still known as "Garraway's," at prices varying from 15 to 50 shillings a pound. He also sold it, in the infusion, "made according to the directions of the most knowing merchants and travellers into those eastern countries." This appeared in a printed sheet by Garway, entitled "An exact Description of the Growth, Quality, and Virtues of the Tea Leaf." In 1660, by act of parliament, tea, with chocolate and sherbet, was made subject to a tax of 8d. on every gallon made and sold. The article still continued very rare, as in 1664 a present of 2 lbs. 2 oz., costing 408. a pound, was made to the king by the East India company; and two years afterward another present, also obtained from the continent, was made of 224 lbs., for which the directors paid 508. a pound. In 1677 the East India company took the first step toward im |