navy, and once more turn his thoughts towards the church. Accordingly, while the Arundel lay at St. Christopher's, he opened his views to some of the principal inhabitants of the island, by whom he was so strongly recommended to the bishop of London, that on his coming home with sir Charles Middleton, who warmly joined in the recommendation, he was admitted into orders; after which he immediately returned to St. Christopher's, where he was presented by the governor to two rectories, valued at 7007. a year.

As soon as he had taken possession of his livings, in 1763, he married Miss Rebecca Akers, the daughter of a planter of the best family-connexions in the island, and began to regulate his household on the pious plan inculcated in his " Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of the African slaves in the British sugar colonies." He summoned all his own slaves daily to the prayers of the family, when he took an opportunity of pointing out to them their duty in the plainest terms, reproving those that had done amiss, and commending such as had shewn any thing like virtue: but he confessed that his occasions for reproof were more frequent than for commendation. As became his office and character, he inculcated upon others what he practised himself, and knew to be equally the duty of all. On his first settlement as a minister in the West Indies, he made some public attempts to instruct slaves. He began to draw up some easy plain discourses for their instruction. He invited them to attend on Sundays, at particular hours. He appointed hours at home to instruct such sensible slaves as would of themselves attend. He repeatedly exhorted their masters to encourage such in their attendance, and recommended the French custom, of beginning and ending work by prayer. But inconceivable is the listlessness with which he was heard, and bitter was the censure heap-.. ed on h him in return. It was quickly suggested, and generally believed, that he wanted to interrupt the work of slaves, to give them time, forsooth, to say their prayers; and that he aimed at the making of them Christians, to render them incapable of being good slaves, &c. That he was hurt by this display of gross ignorance, bigotry, and avarice, cannot be questioned, for he had a mind benevolent, warm, and irritable; but he still retained many friends among the most worthy members of the community.

Although his serious studies were now theological, he

considered himself as answerable for a proper use of every branch of knowledge which he possessed. He therefore took the charge of several plantations around him in the capacity of a medical practitioner; and attended them with unremitting diligence, and with great success. Thus he lived till 1777, when, relinquishing the practice of physic entirely, he paid a.visit to the place of his nativity, which he had not seen since 1755. After remaining three weeks in Scotland, and near a year in England, during which' time he was admitted into the confidence of lord George Germaine, secretary of state for the American department, he was appointed chaplain to admiral Barrington, then going out to take a command in the West Indies. Under this gallant officer, and afterwards under lord Rodney, he was present at several engagements, where he displayed a fortitude and zeal for the honour of his country which would not have disgraced the oldest admiral. To the navy, indeed, he seems to have been strongly attached; and he wrote, at an early period of his life, an "Essay on the Duty and Qualifications of a Sea-officer," with such a knowledge of the service as would not have discredited the pen of the most experienced commander: Of the first edition of this essay the profits were by its benevolent author appropriated to the Magdalen and British Lying-in hospitals, as those of the second and third were to the Maritime-school, or, in the event of its failure, to the Marine society.

Although caressed by both the admirals under whom he served, and having such influence with lord Rodney as to be able to render essential services to the Jews and other persons whom he thought harshly treated at the capture of St. Eustatius, Mr. Ramsay once more quitted the sea-service, and retired to his pastoral charge in the island of St. Christopher's. There, however, though the former animosities against him had entirely subsided, and his friendship was now solicited by every person of conse quence in the island, he remained but a little while. Sick of the life of a planter, and of the prospect of the slavery around him, he resigned his livings, bade adieu to the island, and returned to England with his wife and family! in the end of 1781. Immediately on his arrival, he was, through the interest of his steady friend sir Charles Middleton, presented to the livings of Teston and Nettlestead; in the county of Kent.

Here he was soon determined, by the advice of those whom he most respected, to publish what had been written many years before, an "Essay on the Treatment and Con→ version of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies." The controversy in which this publication involved him, is probably recent in the memory of many of our readers. He defended himself with great ability; but they who could not answer his arguments, could at least invent calumnies: and sorry we are to add, that they were not unsuccessful in removing one powerful advocate for the abolition of that abominable traffic, of which all Europe seems now ashamed. The agitation given to his mind by these calumnies, and the fatigues he underwent in his endeavours to rescue from misery the most helpless portion of the human race, contributed to shorten a life in no common degree useful. He had been for some time afflicted with a pain in his stomach, for which he was prevailed upon, though with great reluctance, to try the effects of air and exercise, by attempting a journey of 100 miles. But in London, being seized with a violent vomiting of blood, he was unable either to proceed or to be removed home; and in the house of sir Charles Middleton he ended his days, July 20, 1789. He may be justly accounted one of the first and most active of those benevolent men who roused the attention of the nation to the degradation of its character in continuing the slave-trade, although he did not live to witness the completion of his wishes. His works, besides those to which we have alluded, consist of a volume of "Sea-Sermons," preached on board his ma jesty's ship the Prince of Wales; a "Treatise on Signals,' and various pamphlets in answer to his opponents on the subject of the slave-trade.

RAMSDEN (JESSE), an excellent optician and mechanist, was born at Halifax, in Yorkshire, in 1735, and after some school-education, served an apprenticeship in his native place to the trade of a hot-presser, after which he came to London, and applied himself to engraving. In the course of this employment, mathematical instruments were often brought to him to be engraved, which induced him to try his genius in that way; and such was his success, that by 1763 he made instruments for several of the best artists. Soon after his coming up to London he_marEncyclopædia Britannica.

ried the daughter of Mr. Dollond, the celebrated optician of St. Paul's church-yard; by which means he was introduced to the knowledge of a profession in which his genius enabled him to excell, and attract the approbation of the public, in the same manner as his private worth endeared him to society. In 1763 or 1764 he opened a shop in the Haymarket; but in 1775 he removed to Piccadilly, where he carried on business till his death.

Mr. Ramsden greatly improved Hadley's, quadrant, or sextant; and he invented a curious machine for dividing mathematical instruments; for which discovery he received a premium from the board of longitude. He also improved the construction of the theodolite, as well as the barometer for measuring the heights of mountains. The pyrometer for measuring the dilatation of bodies by heat, also employed his talents; and he made many important discoveries and improvements in optics. But his astronomical instruments appear to have been the principal of his works. He improved the refracting micrometer, as also the transit instruinent and quadrant. He procured a patent for an improved equatorial. His mural quadrants were excellent, and much sought for.

Mr. Ramsden was chosen a fellow of the royal society in 1786. Being always of a slender frame of body, as well as of delicate constitution, in his latter years his health gradually declined; to recruit which he bad retired to Brighthelmstone, where he died, Nov. 5, 1800.1

RAMUS (PETER), or LA RAMMEE, a celebrated French mathematician and philosopher, was born in 1515, in a village of Vermandois, in Picardy, of a family so greatly reduced by the ravages of war, that his grandfather, having lost all his possessions, was obliged to turn collier for a livelihood. His father followed husbandry, but appears to have been unable to give any education to this son, whose early years were spent in mean occupations. At length he obtained the place of servant in the college of Navarre, at Paris, where he picked up the rudiments of learning,, and became acquainted with the logic of Aristotle. All his leisure time he devoted to study, so that what is related in the first Scaligerana of his living to nineteen without learning to read, and of his being very dull and stupid, is totally inconsistent with the truth. On the contrary, his

1 Hutton's Dict. new edit. 1815.

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talents and perseverance at last procured him to be regularly educated in the college, and having finished classical learning and rhetoric, he went through a course of philosophy, which took him up three years and a half, The thesis which he made for his master's degree denied the authority of Aristotle, and this he maintained with great ability, and very ingeniously replied to the objections of the professors. This success inclined him to examine the doctrine of Aristotle more closely, and to combat it vigorously but he confined himself principally to his logic. All this, however, was little less than heresy; and the two first books he published, the one entitled "Institutiones Dialectica," the other "Aristotelicæ Animadversiones," so irritated the professors of the university of Paris, that, besides many effusions of spleen and calumny, they prosecuted this anti-peripatetic before the civil magistrate, as a man who was at war with religion and learning. The cause was then carried before the parliament of Paris, but his enemies dreading either the delay or the fairness of a trial there, brought it before the king, Francis I. who ordered that Ramus, and Antony Govea, who was his principal adversary, should chuse two judges each, to pronounce on the controversy after they should have ended their disputation; while he himself appointed an umpire. Ramus, in obedience to the king's orders, appeared before the five judges, though three of them were his declared enemies. The dispute lasted two days; and Govea had all the advantage he could desire, Ramus's books being probibited in all parts of the kingdom, and their author sentenced not to write or teach philosophy any longer. This sentence, which elated his enemies beyond all bounds of moderation, was published in Latin and French in all the streets of Paris, and in all parts of Europe, whither it could be sent. Plays were acted with great pomp, in which Ramus was ridiculed in various ways amidst the applauses and acclamations of the Aristotelians. This happened in 1543. The year after, the plague made great havoc in Paris, and forced most of the students to quit the university, and cut off several of the professors. On their return, Ramus, being prevailed upon to teach in it, soon drew together a great number of auditors, and through the patronage and protection of the cardinal of Lorrain he obtained in 1547 from Henry II. the liberty of speaking and writing, and the royal professorship of philosophy and eloquence in 1551.