Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 one member only has been returned. Liquorice was largely grown as early as 1700–1701, when the corporation prohibited the sale of buds or sets of the plant. Richard III. by his incorporation charter granted the market rights in the borough to the burgesses, who still hold them under his charter.
See Victoria County History: Yorkshire; Eighth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (1870–1897); Book of Entries of the Pontefract Corporation, 1653–1726 (ed. by Richard Holmes, 1882); Benjamin Boothroyd, The History of the Ancient Borough of Pontefract (1807); George Fox, The History of Pontefract (1827).
PONTEVEDRA, a maritime province of north-western Spain,
formed in 1833 of districts taken from Galicia, and bounded
on the N. by Corunna, E. by Lugo and Orense, S. by Portugal
and W. by the Atlantic. Pop. (1900), 457,262; area, 1695 sq. m.
Pontevedra is the smallest of the provinces of Spain except
the three Basque Provinces; its density of population, 269.8
inhabitants per square mile, is only excelled in the provinces of
Barcelona and Biscay (Vizcaya). Both of these are mining
and manufacturing districts, while Pontevedra is dependent
on agriculture and fisheries. The surface is everywhere mountainous,
and consists almost entirely of arable land, pasture or
forest. The coast-line is deeply indented; navigation is rendered
difficult by the prevalence of fogs in summer and storms in
winter. The river Miño (Portuguese Minho) forms the southern
frontier, and is navigable by small ships as far as Salvatierra;
and the province is watered by many smaller streams, all flowing,
like the Miño, into the Atlantic. The largest of these are the
Ulla, which separates Pontevedra from Corunna, the Umia and
the Lerez. Pontevedra has a mild climate, a fertile soil and a
very heavy rainfall. Large agricultural fairs are held in the
chief towns, and there is a considerable export trade in cattle
to Great Britain and Portugal, hams, salt meat and fish, eggs,
breadstuffs, leather and wine. Vigo is the headquarters of
shipping, and one of the chief ports of northern Spain. There
are also good harbours at Bayona, Carril, Marin, Villagarcia and
elsewhere among the deep estuaries of the coast. At Tuy the
Spanish and Portuguese railways meet, and from this town one
line goes up the Miño valley to Orense, and another northward
along the coast to Santiago de Compostela.
PONTEVEDRA, the capital of the Spanish province of Pontevedra;
on the Tuy-Corunna railway, and on the river Lerez,
which here enters the Ria de Pontevedra, an inlet of the Atlantic.
Pop. (1900), 22,330. The name of the townis derived from
the ancient Roman bridge (pons vetus) of twelve arches, which spans
the Lerez near its mouth. Pontevedra is a picturesque town,
mainly built of granite, and still partly enclosed by medieval
fortifications. It contains handsome provincial and municipal
halls erected in the 19th century, and many convents, some of
which have been converted into hospitals or schools. Marin and
Sangenjo are ports on the Ria de Pontevedra, which is the seat
of a thriving sardine fishery. There is an active trade in grain,
wine and fruit; cloth, hats, leather and pottery are manufactured.
PONTIAC (c. 1720-1769), Indian chief of the Ottawa and
leader in the “Conspiracy of Pontiac” in 1763-64, was born
between 1712 and 1720 probably on the Maumee river, near the
mouth of the Auglaize. His father was an Ottawa, and his
mother an Ojibwa. By 1755 he had become a chief of the
Ottawa and a leader of the loose confederacy of the Ottawa,
Potawatomi and Ojibwa. He was an ally of France and
possibly commanded the Ottawa in the defeat (July 9, 1755) of
General Edward Braddock. In November 1760 he met Major
Robert Rogers, then on his way to occupy Michilimackinac and
other forts surrendered by the French, and agreed to let the
English troops pass unmolested on condition that he should be
treated with respect by the British. Like other Indians he soon
realized the difference between French and English rule—that
the Indians were no longer welcomed at the forts and that they
would ultimately be deprived of their hunting grounds by encroaching
English settlements. French hunters and traders
encouraged Indian disaffection with vague promises of help from
France; in 1762 an Indian “prophet” among the Delawares
on the Muskingum preached a union of the Indians to expel the
English, and in that year (as in 1761) there were abortive conspiracies
to massacre the English garrisons of Detroit, Fort
Niagara and Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg). Pontiac seems to have
been chief of a magic association (the Metai), and he took advantage
of the religious fervour and the general unrest among the
Indians to organize in the winter of 1762-63 a simultaneous
attack on the English forts to be made in May 1763 at a certain
phase of the moon. On the 27th of April 1763 before a meeting
near Detroit of delegates from most of the Algonquian tribes, he
outlined his plans. On the 7th of May, with 60 warriors, he
attempted unsuccessfully to gain admission to Detroit, which
then had a garrison of about 160 under Major Henry Gladwin
(1730-1791); and then besieged the fort from the 9th of May to
the end of October. On the 28th of May reinforcements from
Fort Niagara were ambuscaded near the mouth of the Detroit.
In June the Wyandot and Potawatomi withdrew from the siege,
but on the 29th of July they attacked reinforcements (280 men,
including 20 of Rogers's rangers) from Fort Niagara under
Captain James Dalyell (or Dalzell), who, however, gained the
fort, and in spite of Gladwin's, opposition on the 31st of July
attacked Pontiac's camp, but was ambuscaded on Bloody Run
and was killed, nearly 60 others being killed or wounded. On
the 12th of October the Potawatomi, Ojibwa and Wyandot made
peace with the English; with the Ottawa Pontiac continued the
siege until the 30th of October, when he learned from Neyon
de la Vallière, commandant of Fort Chartres (among the Illinois)
that he would not be aided by the French. Pontiac then
withdrew to the Maumee.
Fort Pitt with a garrison of 330 men under, Captain Simeon Ecuyer was attacked on the 22nd of June and was besieged from the 27th of July to the 1st of August, when the Indians withdrew to meet a relief expedition of 500 men, mostly Highlanders, under Colonel Henry Bouquet (1719-1766), who had set out from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the 18th of July, and relieved Fort Ligonier (on the site of the borough of Ligonier, Westmoreland county, Penn.) on the 2nd of August, but was surprised on the 5th, and fought (5th and 6th) the battle of Bushy Run (25 m. S.E. of Fort Pitt), finally flanking and routing the Indians after tricking them by a feinted retreat of a part of his force. Bouquet reached Fort Pitt on the 10th of August. At Michilimackinac (Mackinac), Michigan, on the 4th of June, the Indians gained admission to the fort by a trick, killed nearly a score of the garrison and captured the remainder, including Captain George Etherington, the commander, besides several English traders, including Alexander Henry (1739-1824).[1] Some of the captives were seized by the Ottawa, who had taken no part in the attack; a part of these were released, and reached Montreal on the 13th of August. Seven of the prisoners kept by the Ojibwa were killed in cold blood by one of their chiefs. Fort Sandusky (on the site of Sandusky, Ohio) was taken on the 16th of May by Wyandot; and Fort St Joseph (on the site of the present Niles, Mich.) was captured on the 25th of May and 11 men (out of its garrison of 14) were massacred, the others with the commandant, Ensign Schlosser, being taken to Detroit and exchanged for Indian prisoners. On the 27th of May Fort Miami (on the site of Fort Wayne, Indiana) surrendered to the Indians after its commander, Ensign Holmes, had been treacherously killed. Fort Ouiatanon (about 5 rn. south-west of the present Lafayette, Indiana) and Fort Presque Isle (on the site of Erie, Penn.) were taken by the Indians on the 1st and 16th of June respectively; and Fort Le Boeuf (on the site of Waterford,
- ↑ Henry, a native of New Brunswick, N.J., had become a fur trader at Fort Michilimackinac in 1761. He was rescued by Wawatam, an Ottawa, who had adopted him as a brother; in 1764 he took part in Colonel John Bradstreet's expedition; in 177O, with Sir William Johnson, the duke of Gloucester and others, formed a Company to mine copper in the Lake Superior region; was a fur trader again until 1796; and then became a merchant in Montreal. His Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the Years 1760 and 1776 (1809; reprinted 1901) is a valuable account of the fur trade and of his adventures at Michilimackinac. He is not to be confused with his nephew of the same name, also a fur-trader, whose journal was published in 1897 in 3 vols., as New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest.
