Y. Hayne served. As a judge and lawyer he was much esteemed, and he was regarded as a fine debater. Harvard gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1847. He published “Speeches and Addresses” (Boston, 1858), and his “Decisions in Admiralty and Maritime Cases in the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts, 1841-1861,” were edited by Francis E. Parker (Philadelphia, 1861). In this work “Two Charges to the Grand Jury,” 1851 and 1861, are included.
SPRAGUE, William, governor of Rhode Island, b. in Cranston. R. I., 3 Nov., 1799; d. in Providence, R. I., 19 Oct., 1856. He received a good education at an early age, became a member of the assembly, and in 1832 was chosen speaker of the house. He was then elected to congress as a Democrat, served from 7 Dec., 1835, till 3 March, 1837, and, declining a re-election, became governor of Rhode Island in 1838-'9. He was elected to the U. S. senate in place of Nathan F. Dixon, serving from 18 Feb., 1842, till 17 Jan., 1844, when he resigned, and was subsequently a member of the Rhode Island legislature. In 1848 he was an elector on the Taylor and Fillmore ticket. He was largely engaged in the manufacture of cotton, and was president of the Hartford, Providence, and Fishkill railroad, and of two banks. —
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His nephew, William, governor of Rhode Island, b. in Cranston, R. I., 12 Sept., 1830, received his education in common schools, served in his father's factory, and engaged in making calico-prints. Subsequently he became a manufacturer of linen, woollen goods, and iron, a builder of locomotives,and an owner of railroads and steamships. In 1860-'3 he was governor of Rhode Island. He had served as colonel in the state militia, offered a regiment and a battery of light-horse artillery for service in the civil war, and with this regiment participated in the battle of Bull Run, where his horse was shot under him. He received a commission as brigadier-general of volunteers, which he declined. He also served in other actions during the peninsular campaign, including Williamsburg and the siege of Yorktown. He was chosen to the U. S. senate as a Republican, was a member of the committee on manufactures, and chairman of that on public lands, his term extending from 4 March, 1863, till 3 March, 1875, when he resumed the direction of his manufacturing establishments. He operated the first rotary machine for making horseshoes, perfected a mowing-machine, and also various processes in calico-printing, especially that of direct printing on a large scale with the extract of madder without a chemical bath. Gov. Sprague claims to have discovered what he calls the “principle of the orbit as inherent in social forces.” He asserts that money is endowed with two tendencies, the distributive and the aggregative, and that when the latter predominates, as before the civil war, decadence results; but that when the former is in the ascendancy, as was until recently the case, there is progress. He received the degree of A. M. from Brown in 1861, of which university he has been a trustee since 1866.
SPRAGUE, William Buel, clergyman, b. in Andover, Conn., 16 Oct., 1795; d. in Flushing, L. I.. 7 May, 1876. He was the son of Benjamin Spragne, a farmer. After graduation at Yale in 1815 he was a private tutor, studied two years at Princeton theological seminary, and in 1819 was ordained pastor of the 1st Congregational church in West Springfield, Mass., as a colleague of Rev. Joseph Lathrop, D. D., remaining there until 1829, when he was installed as pastor of the 2d Presbyterian church in Albany, N. Y. He held this charge till 1869, when he resigned and removed to Flushing. In 1828 and 1836 he visited Europe. He received the degrees of A. M. from Yale in 1819; S. T. D. from Columbia in 1828, and Harvard in 1848; and LL. D. from Princeton in 1869. Dr. Sprague made extensive collections of religious pamphlets and autographs, and presented the former to the state library at Albany, to which he also gave a manuscript volume of the “Letters of Gen. Sir Jeffrey Amherst.” Dr. Sprague also presented to the library of Harvard the papers of Gen. Thomas Gage. His autographs, numbering nearly 100,000, probably the largest private collection in the world, are now in the possession of his son. He was the author of more than 100 published sermons, memoirs, addresses, and essays, and wrote many introductions to books. His principal work is “Annals of the American Pulpit” (9 vols., New York, 1857-'69). His other books are “Letters to a Daughter” (1822); “Letters from Europe” (1828); “Letters to Young People” (1830); “Lectures on Revivals” (1832); “Hints designed to regulate the Intercourse of Christians” (1834); “Lectures illustrating the Contrast between True Christianity and various other Systems” (1837); “Life of Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin” (1838); “Letters to Young Men, founded on the Life of Joseph” (2d ed., 1845); “Aids to Early Religion” (1847); “Words to a Young Man's Conscience” (1848); “Women of the Bible” (1850); “Visits to European Celebrities” (1855); the life of Timothy Dwight in Sparks's “American Biography” (1845); and “Memoirs” of Rev. John and William A. McDowell” (1864).
SPRANGER, Daniel Guerin, Hebrew colonist, b. in Holland about 1610; d. in Cayenne, South America, in 1664. He accompanied Maurice de Nassau in the conquest of Brazil, as he had a contract for furnishing supplies to the invading army. During sixteen years he lived in Brazil occupied in colonization schemes, and opened an extensive trade between that country and Amsterdam. When the Portuguese army recovered possession of Brazil in 1654 all Hebrews living in the country were expelled, and Spranger sought refuge in the island of Cayenne, which had been abandoned by its former possessors, the French company of the twelve lords. Although he was opposed at first by the Galibi Indians, he gained their favor with presents and made a treaty with their principal chief, who granted to him the absolute possession of the island. Being joined by several parties of Hebrews from Brazil, he undertook to colonize the island, and succeeded. This is the more remarkable as it is the only instance in which a Hebrew colony has exclusively devoted itself to agriculture. Spranger introduced the culture of the sugar-cane and indigo-plant, which so prospered that, according to Jacques Dutertre in his “Histoire générale des Antilles,” “under Spranger's administration, the island of Cayenne was reputed an El Dorado.” The population of the island at that time was
