From 1861 to 1864 he was a member of Lincoln's Cabinet as Attorney-General, and worked indefatigably to secure the success of the Union cause during the Civil War. Afterwards, until his death, he devoted himself wholly to the practice of his profession.
BATES, Henry Walter (1825-92). An English naturalist and traveler, born at Leicester. He was apprenticed to a hosier of his native town, and afterwards was a clerk at Burton-upon-Trent. His holidays were spent collecting insects with his brothers. He became acquainted with A. R. Wallace, and in 1848 he and Wallace went to the Amazon, paying their expenses by the sale of duplicate specimens. Bates spent three years at Pará and seven years on the Upper Amazon. At Ega, on the Upper Amazon, he found 550 new species of butterflies. He returned to England in 1859, having found 8000 species new to science. Like Darwin, he suffered much from dyspepsia after his return, but published The Naturalist on the River Amazon (London, 1863), a work which has become a classic. In his "Contribution to Insect Life of the Amazon Valley: Lepidoptera; Heliconidæ" (Linn. Soc. Trans., Vol. XXIII., London, 1862), he considers the phenomenon of mimicry, and gives a philosophical explanation of it. After reading it, Darwin wrote: "I rejoice that I passed over the whole subject in the Origin, for I should have made a precious mess of it." In 1864 he was made assistant secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, a position entailing much executive work, which he administered with great credit. He edited several of the Transactions, as well as many books, including Belt's Naturalist in Nicaragua. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1881. He married Sarah Ann Mason in 1861. A large part of his collections are in the British Museum. Consult The Field, London, February 20, 1892.
BATES, John Coalter (1842—). An American soldier, born in Saint Charles County, Mo. He was educated at Washington University in Saint Louis, and joined the Federal Army in 1861 as a lieutenant in the Eleventh Infantry. He was on General Meade's staff from Gettysburg to the close of the war, was made a captain in 1863, and was advanced to the rank of colonel of the Second United States Infantry in 1892. He served for thirty years chiefly in the Indian country, was president of the board which formulated the new drill and firing regulations, and a member of the board that adopted the Krag-Jorgensen rifle for army use. At the outbreak of the war with Spain he was a brigadier-general of volunteers, and he was promoted to the rank of major-general of volunteers during the Santiago campaign. He was military governor of Cienfuegos in 1899, and was ordered in that year to the Philippines, where he conducted the negotiations with the Sultan of Sulu. In April, 1900, he was placed in command of the Department of Southern Luzon.
BATES, Joshua (1788-1804). An American financier, born at Weymouth, Mass. In 1828 he became associated with the great house of Baring Brothers & Co., of London, of which he eventually became the senior partner. He was umpire of the commission convened in 1854 to arbitrate the claims of American citizens arising from the War of 1812. In 1852 he founded the Boston Library by giving $50,000 for that purpose, with the provision that the interest of the money should be expended for books of permanent value, and that the city should make adequate provision for at least one hundred readers. He afterwards gave 30,000 volumes to the institution, the main hall of which has been named 'Bates Hall' in his honor.
BATES, Katherine Lee (1850—). An American author. She was graduated at Wellesley College (1880), taught at Natick, and, after 1885, at Wellesley, where she became professor of English literature in 1891. Among her works may be mentioned: Rose and Thorn (1889), juvenile stories; Hermit Island (1891), a story for girls; The College Beautiful and Other Poems (1887); The English Religious Drama (1893); A History of American Literature (1898); and Spanish Highways and Byways (1900). She has also edited many texts for schools.
BATES, Samuel Penniman (1827-1902). An American educator and writer, born in Mendon, Mass. He graduated at Brown University in 1851. In 1860 he was made deputy State superintendent of schools, and in 1860 State historian. His numerous lectures and reports did much to further the cause of education. He published Lectures on Moral and Mental Culture (1859); Lives of the Governors of Pennsylvania (1873); Life of Gen. O. B. Knowles (1878); History of the Battle of Gettysburg (1878); and History of the Battle of Chancellorsville (1882).
BATE'S CASE. At the beginning of his reign, James I. of England, following the bad example set by Mary and Elizabeth, laid duties or 'impositions' on certain goods, including currants and tobacco, without securing a Parliamentary grant. In 1606 John Bate, a London merchant and member of the Levant Company, refused to pay these charges on a cartful of currants, and was promptly committed to the Marshalsea for contempt of the King's officers. The Commons sided with Bate; but the King's 'sole prerogative' to levy impositions on exports and imports was declared by a unanimous decision of the barons of the Court of Exchequer. An unconstitutional practice was thus sustained by a decision which is generally regarded as wrong. The Bate Case is, therefore, an incident of great historical significance, marking the beginning of the long and bitter struggle with the Stuarts to maintain the constitutional right of Parliament to grant all supplies. Consult: Green, History of England, Vol. II. (New York, 1879); and especially Gardiner, History of England, Vol. II. (London and New York, 1889).
BATES COL'LEGE, situated at Lewiston, Maine. It was organized in 1863, as an outgrowth of the Maine State Seminary, founded 1855. In 1901 the faculty numbered 21, and the students 330, of whom 2S0 were studying for the A.B. degree. The college has an endowment of $370,000, and buildings and grounds valued at about $300,000. The library numbers some 24,000 volumes. Bates was the first college on the Atlantic seaboard to provide for the higher education for women. The tone of the institution is moral and religious, and a large number of its graduates have become educators and ministers.
