while later he assisted the campaign by superintending from England the despatch to Cromwell of supplies and reinforcements, and was himself destined by Cromwell for a regiment of foot. In 1650 he was in South Wales, endeavouring to bring over the people to the cause, and subsequently was present at the battle of Worcester. At the conclusion of the war Peters was appointed one of the preachers at Whitehall and became a person of influence. Parliament had already voted him an annuity of £200, and Laud's library or a portion of it had been handed over to him in 1644. He was one of the committee of twenty-one appointed to suggest legal reforms, and he published his ideas on this subject, which included a register of wills and land titles and the destruction afterwards of the ancient records, in his tract, “Good Work for a Good Magistrate” (in 1651), answered by R. Vaughan and Prynne. He strongly disapproved of the war with Holland, and his interference brought upon him some sharp reprimands. In July 1658 he was sent to Dunkirk to provide apparently for the spiritual wants of the garrison. He preached the funeral sermon on Cromwell, and after the latter's death took little part in political events, though strongly disapproving of the removal of Richard. He met Monck at St Albans on the latter's march to London, but met with no favour from the new powers, being expelled from his lodgings at Whitehall in January 1660. On the 11th of May his arrest was ordered. On the 18th of June he was excepted from the Act of Indemnity and apprehended on the 2nd of September at Southwark. He sent in a defence of himself to the Lords, denying any share in the king's death. He was, however, tried on the 13th of October and found guilty of high treason. His execution took place at Charing Cross on the 16th of October, when he behaved with great fortitude, and was undismayed by the mangling of the body of John Cook, his fellow sufferer, upon which he was forced to look. Before his death he wrote “A Dying Father's Last Legacy” to his only child, Elizabeth, in which he gave a narrative of his career.
His death was viewed with greater rejoicings than perhaps attended that of any of the regicides, which is the more surprising as Peters possessed many amiable qualities, and several acts of kindness performed by him on behalf of individual Royalists are recorded. But he had incurred great unpopularity by his unrestrained speech and extreme activity in the cause. He was a man, however, of a rough, coarse nature, without tact or refinement, of strong animal spirits, undeterred by difficulties which beset men of higher mental capacity, whose energies often outran his discretion, intent upon the realities of life and the practical side of religion. His conception of religious controversy, that all differences could be avoided if ministers could only pray together and live together, is highly characteristic, and shows the largeness of his personal sympathies and at the same time the limits of his intellectual imagination. Peters married (1) Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Cooke of Pebmarsh in Essex and widow of Edmund Read, and (2) Deliverance Sheffield, by whom he had one daughter, Elizabeth.
PETERS, KARL (1856–), German traveller in Africa,
one of the founders of German East Africa, was born at Neuhaus
on the Elbe on the 27th of September 1856, the son of a Lutheran
clergyman. He studied at Göttingen, Tübingen and Berlin,
and in 1879 was awarded a gold medal by the Berlin University
for his Frieden zu Venedig. After visiting London to study
English principles of colonization, he returned to Berlin and
promoted the German Colonization Society (Deutsche Kolonialverein).
In the autumn of 1884 he proceeded with two
companions to East Africa, and concluded in the name of his society
treaties with the chiefs of Useguha, Nguru, Usagara and Ukami.
Returning to Europe early in 1885, he formed the German East
Africa Company, which speedily obtained an imperial charter.
The story of this enterprise, the first step in the formation of a
German colony in East Africa, is told under Africa, § 5. In
1888 Peters undertook an expedition from the east coast of
Africa, avowedly for the relief of Emin Pasha. This expedition
was not sanctioned by the German government and was regarded
by the British authorities as a filibustering exploit. One of its
objects was to extend the sphere of German influence, and, reaching
Uganda early in 1890, Peters concluded a treaty with the king
of that country in favour of Germany. He left Uganda hastily
on the approach of a representative of the British East Africa
Company, and on reaching Zanzibar learned that his treaty was
useless, as an agreement had been come to between Germany
and Great Britain whereby Uganda was left in the British sphere.
On his return to Germany Peters was received with great honours,
and in 1891 published an account of his expedition entitled
Die deutsche Emin Pasha Expedition, which was translated
into English. In 1891 he went out again to East Africa as
imperial high commissioner for the Kilimanjaro district, and
in 1892 was one of the commissioners for delimiting the
Anglo-German boundary in that region. In June 1892 accusations
were brought against him of excesses in his treatment of the
natives, and after three investigations had been held he was,
in 1897, deprived of his commission for “misuse of official
power.” (He was regranted his title of imperial commissioner
in 1906.) During 1893–1895 Peters was employed in the colonial
office at Berlin. In 1896 he removed to London, where he
occupied himself in schemes for exploiting parts of Rhodesia
and Portuguese East Africa. In the interests of a company he
formed, Peters explored the Fura district and Macombe's
country on the Zambezi, where in 1899 he discovered ruins of
ancient cities and deserted gold mines. He returned in 1901
and gave an account of his explorations in The Eldorado of the Ancients (1902). In 1905 he again visited the region between the Zambezi and Sabi rivers.
Besides the books already mentioned and some smaller treatises Peters published a philosophic work entitled Willenswelt und Weltwille (1883), and a disquisition on early gold production entitled Das goldene Ophir Salomos (1895), translated into English in 1898.
PETERSBURG, a city and port of entry of Virginia, U.S.A., on the Appomattox river, at the head of navigation, about
11 m. from its mouth, and 22 m. S. of Richmond. Pop. (1890), 22,680; (1900), 21,810, (10,751 negroes); (1910), 24,127. It is served by the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line and the Norfolk & Western railways. The river, which is here spanned by two steel bridges and one frame bridge. is navigable to this point for vessels of 8 ft. draught at mean high water, and has been greatly improved by the Federal government, which in 1909 was engaged in deepening the whole channel to 12 ft. at mean high water and in excavating at Petersburg a new channel into which to deflect the river. In and about the city there is much of historic and scenic interest. At Blandford, a suburban hamlet, is the picturesque old Blandford church, erected about 1734. Petersburg has two public parks, and among its institutions are a home for the sick (1886), an orphanage for girls and another for negroes, the state central hospital for the insane (negroes), the southern female college (non-sectarian, 1863), the university school for boys, the Bishop Payne divinity school (Protestant Episcopal) for negroes, and the Virginia normal and industrial institute (opened in 1883), also for negroes. There are two national cemeteries near Petersburg—Poplar Grove (about 4 m. south), containing about 6200 graves, and City Point (about 9 m. east), containing about 5100 graves; and in Blandford cemetery there are about 30,000 graves of Confederate dead. In this cemetery General William Phillips is buried, and there is a monument to Captain McRae, commander of the “Petersburg Volunteers,” whose bravery in 1812–1813 prompted President Madison to call Petersburg the “Cockade City.” The falls above the city furnish abundant water-power, and the city has various manufactures. The factory product was valued at $5,890,574 in 1905, 11.3% more than in 1900; in both 1900 and 1905 Petersburg ranked fourth among the cities of the state in the value of factory products. From Petersburg are shipped quantities of trunks and bags, peanuts, tobacco and cotton. In 1909 the foreign trade, wholly imports, was valued at $360,774. The city was formerly in Chesterfield, Dinwiddie and Prince George counties, but is now independent of county government.
