Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Ibercourt, Henry Louis

IBERCOURT, Henry Louis d' (e-bair-koor), Flemish traveller, b. in Mons in 1771 ; d. in Char- leroi in 1818. He entered the Spanish service at the age of sixteen, and was in garrison for several years in Jamaica, where he took part in the repres- sion of the troubles of 1791, but resigned soon afterward on inheriting a large estate, and indulged his taste for travel. He visited Cuba, Porto Rico, and Santo Domingo, where he was elected colonel by the negro insurgents in 1797, but declined, and then sailed for South America. He explored Brazil for six years, and afterward visited Para- guay, the Argentine provinces, Chili, and Pata- gonia, where he was detained two years a prisoner by the natives, and, as he says, refused their offer to make him their king. He went to the United States in 1807, afterward to Japan, and returned to Europe by way of India in 1811. He published " L'Amerique devoilee," in which he predicted that the United States would very soon exceed Europe in civilization and science (Charleroi, 1811); " Du nord a Test et du sud a l'ouest du Bresil" (1812); " Voyage en Chili " (1812) ; " Un voyageur captif en Patagonie," a novel (1814); "Nouveau traite sur les legumineuses de PAmerique du Sud " (1815) : " La constitution des Etats-Unis, est-elle applicable a l'Europe ? " a pamphlet which brought the author before the Dutch courts, and caused him a condemnation to two months' imprisonment (1818) ; and several other works.