BOUTWELL, GEORGE SEWALL (1818–1905), American statesman, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on the 28th of January 1818. He was reared on a farm, and at an early age began a mercantile career at Groton, Mass. There he studied law and in 1836 was admitted to the bar, but did not begin practice for many years. In 1842–1844 and again in 1847–1850 he served in the state house of representatives, and became the recognized leader on the Democratic side; he was thrice defeated for Congress, and was twice an unsuccessful candidate for governor. In 1851, however, by means of “Free-Soil” votes, he was chosen governor, and was re-elected by the same coalition in 1852. In the following year he took an active part in the state constitutional convention. He became a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1853, and as its secretary in 1855–1861 prepared valuable reports and rendered much service to the state’s school system. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854 had finally alienated him from the Democratic party, and he became one of the founders of the new Republican party in the state. He played an influential part in the Republican national convention in 1860, and in 1862 after the passage of the war tax measures he was appointed by President Lincoln the first commissioner of internal revenue, which department he organized. From 1863 to 1869 he was a representative in Congress, taking an influential part in debate, and acting as one of the managers of President Johnson’s impeachment. From 1869 to 1873 he was secretary of the treasury in President Grant’s cabinet, and from 1873 until 1877 was a United States senator from Massachusetts. Under an appointment by President Hayes, he prepared the second edition of the United States Revised Statutes (1878). In 1880 he represented the United States before the commission appointed in accordance with the treaty of that year, between France and the United States, to decide the claims brought by French citizens against the United States for acts of the American authorities during the Civil War, and the claims of American citizens against France for acts of French authorities during the war between France and Mexico, the Franco-German War and the Commune. He opposed the acquisition by the United States of the Philippine Islands, became president of the Anti-Imperialistic League, and was a presidential elector on the Bryan (Democratic) ticket in 1900. He died at Groton, Massachusetts, on the 28th of February 1905. He published various volumes, including The Constitution of the United States at the End of the First Century (1895), and Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (2 vols., New York, 1902).
BOUVARDIA, a genus of handsome evergreen greenhouse
shrubs, belonging to the natural order Rubiaceae, and a native of
tropical America. The flowers are in terminal generally many-flowered
clusters; the corolla has a large tube and a spreading
four-rayed limb. The cultivated forms include a number of
hybrids. The plants are best increased by cuttings taken off in
April, and placed in a brisk heat in a propagating frame with a
close atmosphere. When rooted they should be potted singly
into 3-in. pots in fibrous peat and loam, mixed with one-fourth
leaf-mould and a good sprinkling of sand, and kept in a temperature
of 70° by night and 80° during the day; shade when required;
syringe overhead in the afternoon and close the house
with sun-heat. The plants should be topped to ensure a bushy
habit, and as they grow must be shifted into 6-in. or 7-in. pots.
After midsummer move to a cool pit, where they may remain till
the middle of September, receiving plenty of air and space.
They should then be removed to a house, and some of the plants
put at once in a temperature of about 70° at night, with a few
degrees higher in the daytime, to bring them into flower. Others
are moved into heat to supply flowers in succession through the
winter and spring.
BOUVET, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH (1753–1832), French admiral,
son of a captain in the service of the French East India Company,
was born on the 23rd of April 1753. He went to sea at the age of
twelve with his father. Bouvet served in the East Indies in the
famous campaign of 1781–83 under the command of Suffren,
but only in a subordinate rank. On the outbreak of the French
Revolution he very naturally took the anti-royalist side. Murder
and exile had removed the great majority of the officers of the
monarchy, and the services of a man of Bouvet’s experience were
valuable. He was promoted captain and received the command
of the “Audacieux” (80) in the first great fleet collected by the republic.
In the same year (1793) he was advanced to rear-admiral,
and he commanded a division in the fleet which fought the battle
of the 1st of June 1794 against Lord Howe. Until the close of
1796 he continued in command of a squadron in the French
Channel fleet. In the December of that year he was entrusted
with the van division of the fleet which was sent from Brest to
attempt to land General Hoche with an expeditionary force in
the south of Ireland. The stormy weather which scattered the
French as soon as they left Brest gave Bouvet a prominence
which he had not been designed to enjoy. Bouvet, who found
himself at daybreak on the 17th of December separated with
nine sail of the line from the rest of the fleet, opened his secret
orders, and found that he was to make his way to Mizen Head.
He took a wide course to avoid meeting British cruisers, and on
the 19th had the good luck to fall in with a considerable part of
the rest of the fleet and some of the transports. On the 21st of
December he arrived off Dursey Island at the entry to Bantry
Bay. On the 24th he anchored near Bear Island with part of his
fleet. The continued storms which blew down Bantry Bay, and
the awkwardness of the French crews, made it impossible to land
the troops he had with him. On the evening of the 25th the storm
increased to such a pitch of violence that the frigate in which
Bouvet had hoisted his flag was blown out to sea. The wind
moderated by the 29th, but Bouvet, being convinced that none of
the ships of his squadron could have remained at the anchorage,
steered for Brest, where he arrived on the 1st of January 1797.
His fortune had been very much that of his colleagues in this
storm-tossed expedition, and on the whole he had shown more
energy than most of them. He was wrong, however, in thinking
that all his squadron had failed to keep their anchorage in Bantry
Bay. The government, displeased by his precipitate return to
Brest, dismissed him from command soon afterwards. He was
compelled to open a school to support himself. Napoleon
restored him to the service, and he commanded the squadron
sent to occupy Guadaloupe during the peace of Amiens, but he
had no further service, and lived in obscurity till his death on
the 21st of July 1832.
Tronde, Batailles navales de la France, vols. ii. and iii., and James, Naval History, vols. i. and ii., give accounts of the 1st of June and the expedition to Ireland. There is a vigorous account of the expedition in Tronde’s English in Ireland, and it is dealt with in Admiral Colomb’s Naval Warfare. (D. H.)
BOUVIER, JOHN (1787–1851), American jurist, was born in Codogno, France, in 1787. In 1802 his family, who were Quakers (his mother was a member of the well-known Benezet family), emigrated to America and settled in Philadelphia, and after varied experiences as proprietor of a book shop and as a country editor he was admitted to the bar in 1818, having become a citizen of the United States in 1812. He attained high standing in his profession, was recorder of Philadelphia in 1836, and from
1838 until his death was an associate justice of the court of
criminal sessions in that city. He is best known for his able
legal writings. His Law Dictionary Adapted to the Constitution
and Laws of the United States of America and of the Several States of
the American Union (1839, revised and brought up to date by Francis
Rawle, under the title of Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, 2 vols., 1897)
has always been a standard. He published also an edition of Bacon’s
Abridgement of the Law (10 vols., 1842–1846), and a compendium of
American law entitled The Institutes of American Law (4 vols., 1851;
new ed. 2 vols., 1876).
BOUVINES, a village on the French-Belgian frontier between Lille and Tournay, the scene of one of the greatest battles of the middle ages, fought on the 27th of July 1214, between the forces of Philip Augustus, king of France, and those of the coalition formed against him, of which the principal members were the emperor and King John of England. The plan of campaign seems to have been designed by King John, who was the soul of the alliance; his general idea was to draw the French king to
