COIRE (Chur); the capital of the Swiss canton of the Grisons, on the rivers Plessur and Rhine, with 3350 inhabitants. The trade between Germany and Italy is the cause of the wealth of this city. Not far from Coire the Rhine begins to be navigable for small vessels. This town contains several scientific establishments, and a bishop's see, whose income amounts to 10,000 guilders, chiefly derived from the Tyrol. The secular possessions of the bishops were given, in 1802, to the Helvetic republic, as an indemnification for losses which it had suffered in other quarters. Until 1498, Coire was a free imperial city, but at that time came under the government of the bishop, who was under the archbishop of Mentz. There is a very good school here.

COKE. (See Coal.)

COKE, Sir Edward, one of the most eminent English lawyers, the son of Robert Coke, esquire, of Norfolk, was born in 1550. He received his early education at the free-school of Norwich, whence he was removed to Trinity college, Cambridge. From the university he went to London, and entered the Inner Temple. He pleaded his first cause in 1578, and was appointed reader of Lyon's Inn, where his lectures were much frequented. His reputation and practice rapidly increased, and he was placed in a situation of great respectability and affluence, by a marriage with a coheiress of the Paston family. He was chosen recorder of the cities of Norwich and of Coventry; was engaged in all the great causes at Westminster hall, and, in the 35th year of Elizabeth, chosen knight of the shire for his county, and speaker of the house of commons. In 1592, he became solicitor-general, and, soon after,

attorney-general; and the death of his wife, who brought him 10 children, gave him another opportunity of increasing his influence, by a marriage with the widow lady Hatton, sister to the minister Burleigh. He acted the usual part of a crown lawyer in all state prosecutions; and one of the most important that fell under his management as attorney-general, was that of the unfortunate earl of Essex, which he conducted with great asperity. Soon after the accession of James I, he was knighted. The celebrated trial of sir Walter Raleigh followed, in which Coke displayed a degree of arrogance to the court, and of rancor and insult towards the prisoner, which was universally condemned at the time, and has been deemed one of the greatest stains upon his character, by all posterity. On the discovery of the gunpowder plot, he obtained great credit by the clearness and sagacity with which he stated the evidence; and, in 1606, he became chief justice of the common pleas. In 1613, he succeeded to the important office of chief justice of the court of king's bench, but was in much less favor with James than his rival, lord Bacon. He was, in fact, too wary and stanch a lawyer to commit himself on the subject of prerogative; and as his temper was rough, and his attachment to law truly professional, he could scarcely forbear involving himself with a court so notorious for arbitrary principles as was the English during the reign of James. The honorable zeal which he displayed in the execrable affair of sir Thomas Overbury, and in the prosecution of the king's wretched minions, Somerset and his countess, for that atrocious murder, made him enemies; and advantage was taken

of a dispute, in which he erroneously engaged with the court of chancery, to remove him, in 1616, both from the council and his post of chief justice. His real offence, however, was a refusal to favor the new favorite Villiers in some pecuniary matter. Coke meanly made up this breach by marrying his youngest daughter, with a large fortune, to the elder brother of Villiers, and was, in consequence, reinstated in the council in 1617, and actively engaged in prosecutions for corruption in office, and other crimes, of a nature to recruit an exhausted treasury by the infliction of exorbitant fines. He, however, supported the privileges of the commons with great tenacity; for which, after the prorogation of parliament, in 1621, he was committed to the Tower. He was, however, quickly liberated; but was again expelled the privy council, with peculiar marks of displeasure on the part of James. On the accession of Charles I, he was nominated sheriff of Buckinghamshire, in order to prevent his being chosen member for the county, which, however, he represented in the parliament which met in 1628. The remainder of his career was highly popular; he greatly distinguished himself by his speeches for redress of grievances; vindicated the right of the commons to proceed against any individual, however exalted; openly named Buckingham as the cause of the misfortunes of the kingdom; and, finally, sealed his services to the popular part of the constitution, by proposing and framing the famous "petition of rights," the most explicit declaration of English liberty which had then appeared. This was the last of his public acts. The dissolution of parliament, which soon followed, sent him into retirement, at Stoke Pogis, in Buckinghamshire, where he spent the remainder of his life in tranquillity. He died in Sept., 1634, in the 85th year of his age, leaving behind him a numerous posterity and a large fortune. Sir Edward Coke was a great lawyer, but a great lawyer only. In mere legal learning he has, perhaps, never been excelled; but he was essentially defective in the merits of systematic arrangement and regard to general principles, without which law is a mere collection of arbitrary rules, undeserving the name of science. It must be admitted, however, that his writings, and especially his Commentary on Littleton's Treatise on Tenures, form a vast repository of legal erudition. In short, he was a man of immense professional research, and great sagacity and perseverance in a cho

sen pursuit; and, as usual, more philosophical and general powers were sacrificed to its exclusiveness. His principal works are, Reports, from 1600 to 1615: A Book of Entries (folio, 1614): Institutes of the Laws of England, in four parts; the first of which contains the Commentary on Littleton's Tenures; the second, a Commentary on Magna Charta and other statutes; the third, the criminal laws or pleas of the crown; and the fourth, an account of the jurisdiction of all the courts in the kingdom: A Treatise of Bail and Mainprise (1637, 4to.): Reading on the Statute of Fines, 27 Edw. I (4to.): Complete Copyholder (1640, 4to.).

COKE, Thomas, a missionary, was born in 1747, at Brecon, in South Wales. In 1775, he took his degree of LL. D. at Oxford, and, soon after, became acquainted with the celebrated John Wesley, who soon brought him over to his own opinions, and, in 1780, appointed him to superintend the London district: he also made him one of the trustees, on his execution of the deed of declaration as to all his chapels. In 1784, Wesley is said to have consecrated him as a bishop, for the purpose of superintending the Methodistical societies in America. The doctor now, therefore, made several voyages to the U States and the West Indies, establishing meeting-houses, organizing congregations, and ordaining ministers. He subsequently returned to England, where he had some misunderstanding with Mr. Wesley, who, as the founder of a sect, expected more submission than doctor Coke was inclined to bestow. He accordingly determined on visiting Nova Scotia; but, in consequence of a storm, the ship in which he embarked took refuge in the harbor of Antigua, which led him to preach there, and to visit several other islands; and he examined the state of religion generally, both in the West Indies and America, before he again returned to England. He made, altogether, nine voyages to this quarter of the globe, on the same business, and met with great success as a missionary. He was the author of a Commentary on the Bible, undertaken at the request of the Methodists; A History of the West Indies, and several other works, among which was a Life of Wesley, written in conjunction with Henry More. In 1814, he sailed for the East Indies, but died on the voyage. He was of a zealous, but also of an amiable character.

COLBERG; a Prussian fortress and seaport in Pomerania, in the district of

Köslin, on the river Persante, one mile from the sea, with about 7000 inhabitants. Here is an important salt manufactory, This small fortress was often attacked and besieged by the Russians, in the war against Frederic the Great; and, in 1807, it was admirably defended by general Gneisenau (q. v.), Schill (q. v.), and the citizen Nettelbeck (q. v.), against the French generals Feulié, Loison and Mortier (q. v), who commanded in succession the besieging corps, consisting of 18,000 men, which fired into the town 6775 balls, besides those thrown against the works. The garrison, which was only 6000 men strong, lost 429 men killed, 1093 wounded, 209 prisoners, and 159 missing. The fortress was not taken. The remnant of the garrison was formed into one regiment, called the Colberg regiment, which was considered one of the bravest in the Prussian army. Blücher returned thanks to them, in particular, for their conduct in the battle of Ligny, June 16, 1815, on which occasion they had been engaged from one o'clock till about dark, and had suffered great loss. The editor will always consider it an honor to have fought in their ranks.

COLBERT, Jean Baptiste, French minister of finances, born 1619, at Rheims, son of a draper and wine-merchant, entered, in 1648, the service of Le Tellier, secretary of state, by whom he was made known to cardinal Mazarin, who discovered his talents, and made him his intendant, and availed himself of his assistance, in the financial administration of the kingdom. Mazarin rewarded him, in 1654, with the office of secretary to the queen, and recommended him, at his death, to the king (1660). Louis XIV made Colbert intendant of the finances. Colbert and Le Tellier now joined to effect the fall of Fouquet, for which purpose they had united, the former from ambition, the latter from envy. After effecting this object, Colbert, with the title of a controleur-général, assumed the direction of the finances. He had a task to remedy the evils which the feeble and stormy reign of Louis XIII, the splendid but arbitrary measures of Richelieu, the troubles of the Fronde, and the confused state of the finances under Mazarin, had occasioned. He found fraud, disorder and corruption prevailing every where. The domains were alienated. Burdens, privileges and exemptions were multiplied without measure; the state was the prey of the farmersgeneral, and, at the same time, maintained only by their aid. The people were obliged to pay 90,000,000 of taxes, of which the king received scarcely 35,000,000; the

revenues were anticipated for two years, and the treasury empty. Colbert had to proceed from the same point as Sully; but the jealous and impetuous Louvois, the wars, the luxury and the prodigality of Louis XIV, increased his difficulties, and he was forced, in the latter half of his career, to retrace the steps which he had taken in the former. He began with establishing a council of finances and a chamber of justice, the first that he might have an oversight of the whole; the other, that he might watch the embezzlements of the farmers-general, and liquidate the debts of the state. For the purpose of alleviating the public burdens, he endeavored to lower the interest of the public debt; and, in order to mitigate the odium of this measure, he consented to a considerable diminution of the taxes, and to the remission of all arrears up to 1656. He abolished many useless offices, retracted burdensome privileges, diminished salaries, put a stop to the infamous trade in offices, and the no less injurious custom of making the courtiers interested, as farmers-general, in the produce of the public revenue; he exposed the arts and abuses, and limited the immense gain, of the collectors; established a loan-bank; diminished the interest of money; reëstablished the king in the possession of his domains, and appropriated suitable funds for each expenditure. A better distribution and collection of the taxes enabled him to reduce them almost one half. The happiest success crowned his wise and courageouslyexecuted measures. Notwithstanding the expenses of nearly ten years' war; notwithstanding the prodigality of a luxurious king, Colbert succeeded, in 22 years, in adding to the revenues more than 28,000,000, and making an equal diminution in the public burdens; and, at his death, in 1683, the revenue actually received amounted to 116,000,000. In 1664, Colbert was superintendent of buildings, of arts and manufactures, and, in 1669, minister of the marine. To his talents, activity and enlarged views, France owes the universal developement and the rapid progress of her industry and commerce. France was not only freed from the taxes which its luxury had hitherto paid to foreign countries, but it partook also of the advantages of that industry which had previously distinguished England, Holland, Venice, Genoa, the Levant, and some cities of Flanders and Germany. Manufactures were established, and flourished; the public roads were improved, and new roads laid out. bert built the canal of Languedoc; formed

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