Volume 3 > Half-Volume 5

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his Darien project, instead of repining, revived the
scheme in a form to induce England, whose hostility
had hitherto thwarted all his measures, to share in
the undertaking, and he succeeded; when the sudden
death of King William stopped the design, and
Queen Anne's ministers, who approved of it, had no
vigour to carry it out.
Mr. Paterson died at an advanced age, in poor
circumstances. After the union, he claimed upon
the Equivalent Money for the losses he had sus-
tained at Darien, and in 1715 obtained his indemnity.
Had Paterson's scheme succeeded�and it was no
fault of his that it did not�his name had unques-
tionably been enrolled among the most illustrious
benefactors of his species; and if we examine his
character in the light of true philosophy, we shall
find it greatly heightened by his failure. We never
hear from him a single murmur. When disap-
pointed or defeated, he did not give way to despair,
but set himself coolly and calmy to another and still
greater undertaking. When this failed, through the
injustice of those who ought to have been his pro-
tectors and the imbecility of those whom he ought to
have commanded, he only sought to improve his plan.
There is one part of his character which, in a man of
so much genius, ought not to pass unnoticed: "he
was void of passion; and he was one of the very few
of his countrymen who never drank wine."
PATRICK, SAINT, the celebrated apostle of Ire-
land, was born near the town of Dumbarton, in the
west of Scotland, about the year 372 of the Chris-
tian era. His father, whose name was Calpurnius,
was in a respectable station in life, being municipal
magistrate in the town in which he lived. What
town this was, however, is not certainly known,
whether Kilpatrick, a small village on the Clyde five
miles east of Dumbarton; Duntocher, another small
village about a mile north of Kilpatrick; or Dum-
barton itself. One of the three, however, it is pre-
sumed it must have been, as it is described as being
situated in the north-west part of the Roman pro-
vince; but though various biographers of the saint
have assigned each of these towns by turns as his
birthplace, conjecture has decided in favour of Kil-
patrick. His father is supposed (for nearly all that
is recorded of the holy man is conjectural, or at
best but inferential) to have come to Scotland in a
civil capacity with the Roman troops under Theo-
dosius. His mother, whose name was Cenevessa,
was sister or niece of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours;
and from this circumstance it is presumed that his
family were Christians.
The original name of St. Patrick was Succat or
Succach, supposed to have some relation to Succoth,
the name at this day of an estate not far distant from
his birthplace, the property of the late Sir Hay Camp-
bell. The name of Patricius, or Patrick, was not
assumed by the saint until he became invested with
the clerical character.
In his sixteenth year, up to which time he had re-
mained with his father, he was taken prisoner, along
with his two sisters, on the occasion of an incursion
of the Irish, and carried over a captive to Ireland.
Here he was reduced to a state of slavery,- in which he
remained for six or seven years with Milcho, a petty
king in the northern part of that country. The par-
ticular locality is said to be Skerry, in the county of
Antrim. At the end of this period he effected his
escape; on which occasion, it is recorded, he had
warning that a ship was ready for him, although she
lay at a distance of 200 miles, and in a part of the
country where he never had been, and where he was
unacquainted with any one. On making his escape
he proceeded with the vessel to France, and repaired
to his uncle at Tours, who made him a canon reg-
ular of his church. St. Patrick had already enter-
tained the idea of converting the Irish, a design which
first occurred to him during his slavery, and he now
seriously and assiduously prepared himself for this
important duty. But so impressed was he with the
difficulty and importance of the undertaking, and the
extent of the qualifications necessary to fit him for its
accomplishment, that he did not adventure on it until
he had attained his sixtieth year, employing the
whole of this long interval in travelling from place
to place, in quest of religious instruction and infor-
mation. During this period he studied also for
some time under St. Germanus, Bishop of Gaul.
By this ecclesiastic he was sent to Rome with recom-
mendations to Pope Celestine, who conferred upon
him ordination as a bishop, and furnished him with
instructions and authority to proceed to Ireland to
convert its natives. On this mission he set out in
the year 432, about the time that a similar attempt
by Palladius had been made, and abandoned as
hopeless. St. Patrick was, on this occasion, accom-
panied by a train of upwards of twenty persons,
among whom was Germanus. He sailed for Ireland
from Wales, having come first to Britain from
France, and attempted to land at Wicklow, but being
here opposed by the natives, he proceeded along the
coast till he came to Ulster, where, meeting with a
more favourable reception, he and his followers
disembarked. He soon afterwards obtained a gift of
some land, and founded a monastery and a church at
Downe or Downpatrick. From this establishment
he gradually extended his ministry to other parts of
Ireland, devoting an equal portion of time to its
three provinces, Ulster, Munster, and Connaught,
in each of which he is said to have resided seven
years, making altogether a period of one and twenty.
During this time he paid frequent visits to the West-
ern Isles, with the view of disseminating there the
doctrines which he taught. Being now far advanced
in years, he resigned his ecclesiastical duties in Ire-
land, and returned to his native country, where he
died. The place, however, at which this event
occurred, the year in which it occurred, the age which
he attained, and the original place of his interment,
have all been disputed, and differently stated by
different authors. The most probable account is,
that he died and was buried at Kilpatrick�this, in-
deed, appears all but certain from many circum-
stances, not the least remarkably corroborative of
which is, the name of the place itself, which sig-
nifies, the word being a Gaelic compound, the burial-
place of Patrick�that he died about the year 458;
and that he was about eighty-six years of age when
this event took place.
PENNECUIK, ALEXANDER, M.D., author of a
Description of the County of  Tweeddale, and of various
poems, was born in 1652, being the eldest son of
Alexander Pennecuik, of Newhall, county of Edin-
burgh, who had served as a surgeon, first to General
Bannier in the Thirty Years' war, and afterwards in
the army sent by the Scots into England in 1644,
in terms of the Solemn League and Covenant. The
latter individual sold, in 1647, the original property
of his family to the ancestor of the Clerks, baronets,
who have since possessed it, and purchased, instead,
the smaller adjacent estate of Newhall, to which he
afterwards added by marriage that of Romanno in
Peeblesshire. The subject of the present memoir,
after being educated to the medical profession, and
travelling, as would appear, on the Continent, set-
tled at no advanced period of life on these patri-