History of the British West Indies (3 vols., 1807); T. Southey's History of the West Indies (3 vols., 1827); and the works of Humboldt.-The West India islands are, with the exception of Hayti, still in the possession of European powers. (See Colony.)-1. Spanish West Indies. Spain has not retained a foot of ground on the American continent. The sole remnants of her splendid colonial empire in the new world, are the island of Cuba, the largest and finest of the West India islands, Porto Rico, with several dependencies, and Passage, Serpent, and Bieque or Crab islands, among the Virgin islands. The Spanish part of St. Domingo now forms part of the Haytian republic, and the islands of Margaritta, with Blanquilla, Tortuga, &c., belong to the republic of Venezuela.-2. French West Indies. Previously to the insurrection of 1792, St. Domingo was the most valuable French colony in the West Indies; but that event resulted in the establishment of the independence of that island, under the name of Hayti. Having sold Louisiana to the U. States, and ceded other colonies to the Eng

lish, France now possesses only Guadaloupe and Martinique, with the sinall islands of Mariegalante and Deseada, in the West Indies.-See Les Antilles Francaises, particulièrement Guadeloupe, by Boyer-Peyseleau (3 vols., Paris, 1823).— 3. Danish West Indies. The Danes possess only the small islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, or Santa Cruz, and St. John, belonging to the Virgin islands.—4. Swedish West Indies. The Swedes possess only one colony, the small but fertile island of St. Bartholomew.-5. Dutch West Indies. To the kingdom of the Netherlands belong the islands of Curacoa, St. Eustatius, Saba, and part of St. Martin, with the smaller islands of Aruba, Aves and Banaire. Curaçoa, formerly important as an entrepot, has lost much of its trade since the South American revolution, as the goods intended for the continent are forwarded direct to their place of destination.-6. British West Indies. The following table shows the British West India islands, with the exports and imports, and population for 1829:

WEST POINT; a village of New York, and military post, on the west bank of the Hudson, where it passes through the Highlands, in the township of Cornwall, in Orange county, fifty-three miles, by water, above New York, and one hundred below Albany. During the revolutionary war, this point was strongly fortified, and deemed one of the most important fortresses in America. The plain that forms the bank of the river is elevated 188 feet; and fort Putnam, a short distance in its

rear, is 598 feet. Most of the former works are now in ruins. (For the treacherous attempt of Arnold to surrender this place to the British, see Arnold.)-The military academy consists of the corps of engineers; of one professor and an assistant professor of natural and experimental philosophy; one professor and one assistant professor of mathematics; one professor and an assistant professor of the art of engineering, in all its branches; a chaplain and professor of ethics; a teacher

of drawing; a surgeon; and a swordmaster. The number of cadets is limited to 250. They may be attached, at the discretion of the president of the U. States, as students to the military academy, and become subject to its regulations. They are arranged in companies of non-commisioned officers and privates, for the purposes of military instruction. There are four musicians to each company; and the corps is trained and taught in all the duties of a private, a non-commissioned officer, and an officer; is encamped at least three months in each year, and instructed in all the duties incident to a regular camp. Candidates for cadets must not be under fourteen, nor over twenty years of age, and must be previously versed in reading, writing and arithmetic, and must sign, articles, with the consent of their parents or guardians, engaging to serve five years, unless sooner discharged. The pay of a cadet is sixteen dollars a month, and two rations a day. When any cadet has received a regular degree from the academic staff, after going through all the classes, he is considered as among the candidates for a commission in any corps, according to the duties he may be judged competent to perform; and if there is not, at the time, a vacancy in such corps, he may be attached to it at the discretion of the president, by brevet of the lowest rank, until a vacancy shall happen. The chief engineer is, ex officio, inspector of the military academy.

WEST PRUSSIA; previous to 1772, called Polish Prussia, because it belonged to that part of Prussia which the crown of Poland had reserved, when it invested Albert of Brandenburg with the duchy of Prussia, in 1525. (See Prussia.) Dantzic, Thorn and Elbing were the principal towns of Polish Prussia. In 1772, Frederic II took possession of it (see Poland), with the exception of Dantzic and Thorn, which fell into his hands in 1793. By the peace of Tilsit, a part of it was ceded to France, and one portion of the ceded territory was annexed to the duchy of Warsaw, Dantzic being erected into a free city; but, in 1815, it was restored to Prussia by the congress of Vienna. It now constitutes a Prussian province, with a 'population of 792,207 souls, and is divided into the two governments of Dantzic and Marienwerder, with chief towns of the same name.

WESTALL, Richard, R. A., a native of Reepham, in Norfolk, was originally designed for the profession of the law, from which he was, however, drawn away by

the seductions of the fine arts. Nature intended him for an artist, and he obeyed her dictates. He has for many years been a royal academician; and he holds an elevated rank among British painters. In the graceful and the beautiful he has few rivals. Besides his large pictures, Mr. Westall has produced almost innumerable smaller drawings. There are few modern popular works which have not been illustrated by his pencil. But his talent is not confined to the easel. He has also published a volume entitled A Day in Spring and other Poems (8vo., 1808), which affords proof of an elegant and cultivated mind. His brother William has acquired eminence as a landscape painter. In his capacity of artist, he accompanied captain Flinders on his Australasian voyage of discovery, and made many masterly views, some of which were engraved, at the expense of the government, to illustrate the narrative of the expedition. With the view of obtaining still further improvement in this branch of art, Mr. Westall has also been engaged in other voyages. He has published, with descriptions, Views of Scenery in Madeira, the Cape of Good Hope, the East Indies, St. Helena and Jamaica (folio, 1811-1814); Views of the Lakes of Cumberland; Great Britain illustrated; and other works of equal merit.

WESTERN EMPIRE. Theodosius the Great, the last sole sovereign of the whole Roman empire, shortly before his death, divided, by his will, that immense extent of territory between his sons, Arcadius and Honorius, neither of whom was then of age, the former being eighteen years old, and the latter only eleven. Arcadius was to possess the East (see Byzantine Empire); his brother, the West; which comprehended Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, Britain, and half of Illyria. The empire, thus divided, was to be ruled in common, according to the direction of Theodosius, by the two brothers; but the reunion of both crowns upon one head was to remain lawful, for it had not escaped the penetrating mind of the emperor, that such a union could alone preserve the empire from ruin. At the death of Theodosius, January 11, 395, the guardians appointed for his sons entered upon their duties; the minister Rufinus, a Gaul, ruling for Arcadius, and the commander-in-chief, Stilicho, a Vandal (by marriage, a nephew of the late emperor), for Honorius. Rufinus was soon overthrown by the superior power of the general, and the plans of the latter were afterwards frustrated by

the artifices of the court of Constantinople. Stilicho did, indeed, at the wish of Rufinus, divide the territories, the army, and the immense treasures left by the emperor; but he had no intention of yielding to him one half of the power of regent, as guardian to the young emperor of the East. The general had taken the command of the portion of the troops belonging to Arcadius, ostensibly to lead them to their proper commander, but in fact to secure to himself the command of all the forces of both portions of the empire. He had already reached Thessalonica, on the way to Constantinople, when Rufinus, dreading above all things his appearance in person, sent orders to him to halt, with the declaration that every step he took nearer the capital would be deemed an act of hostility. Stilicho was too prudent to disobey openly; but he was determined to remove out of his way a rival bold enough to oppose him, the general and deliverer of the imperial house. Gainas, a Goth, appointed by him general of the army of the East, received his orders; and Rufinus, in the presence of the army, already prepared for such an event, was assassinated on the field of Mars, before Constantinople, by an audacious soldier, under the eyes of the emperor Arcadius. But Stilicho was still farther than before from the object of his wishes. The sagacious courtier Eutropius, first chamberlain and principal favorite of Arcadius, and the empress Eudoxia, as remarkable for her talents as for her charms, were too well pleased with the power which they exercised over the weak prince, to allow the general an influence which might become dangerous to the favorite. Arcadius himself might also prefer the mild sway of the courtier, and of his beautiful wife, to that of the stern and able soldier. The dependence of the troops, and of their general Gainas, was secured; and after every means had been tried to injure Stilicho in the public opinion, a decree of the senate of Constantinople was procured, declaring him an enemy of the state, and all his possessions within the limits of the East forfeited. Attempts were made upon his life, but without success. This hostility against the regent of the Roman dominions in the West, gave the first signal for a division of the empire; and the wise views of the prudent Theodosius failed through the passions of a few men, and the weakness of his two young sons, who were unable to restrain them. Stilicho might perhaps have opened the way to the palace of Ar

cadius with the sword; but the terrible image of a civil war restrained the ambition of a man who certainly could not be charged with want of boldness. He now devoted himself entirely to the interests of his pupil Honorius, and to the government of his dominions. After the rebellious governor of Africa, Gildo, had been conquered by his own brother, the Moorish prince Mascezel, who revenged upon the tyrant the murder of his two children, and when he had himself ended his campaign in Greece against the Goths, Stilicho married his daughter Maria to her cousin, the emperor Honorius, then in his fourteenth year, in the year 398 of the Christian era. Ten years after, she died, as the historians say, still a virgin. Two years after this marriage, Alaric, king of the Visigoths, who had been prevented by Stilicho, in the year 397, from subduing Greece, resolved to avenge himself, and in the year 400 attacked Italy. Honorius fled from Milan to the castle of Asta (now Asti), upon the Tanarus. Being besieged there, he was on the point of a shameful surrender, when Stilicho, who had collected the scattered troops of the West, passed the Adda, and saved Italy. Alaric's camp at Pollentia, with the treasures collected in Greece, and Alaric's wife, became the prey of the conqueror. Nevertheless, the king of the Goths marched to Rome. In vain did Stilicho offer to restore his treasures and his wife, to induce him to retreat. Another battle was fought at Verona, in the year 403, and Alaric, after an entire defeat, in which he came near losing his life, saw himself obliged to leave Italy. In 404, Honorius, with the victorious Stilicho at his side, entered ancient Rome in triumph. The city received its emperor with rejoicings; and he perpetuated the memory of his presence by an edict suppressing the fights of gladiators at the public games. After a visit of some months, Honorius left Rome to live more securely in the fortified city of Ravenna. Two years later, Radagaisus, at the head of 200,000 Germans, Sarmatians, and other warriors, broke through the Alps, and advanced to Florence. Stilicho, who had been busily forming an army, without being able to prevent the ravages of the barbarians, hastened, with 40,000 men, to support the failing strength of the empire. He enclosed Radagaisus by a chain of forts, supplied the suffering Florence with means of subsistence, while the barbarians were exposed to hunger, and at last, in a general attack, completed by the sword what

famine had begun. Radagaisus was taken and executed; the other prisoners were sold as slaves. Thus was Italy a second time delivered; but these repeated blows shook the tottering pillars of the empire. The remainder of the barbarian army invaded Gaul in 407, and the Germans, Vandals, Alans, and Suevi, soon became masters of seven Gallic provinces and of the Rhine, at that time without troops, as Stilicho had collected them to conquer in the fields of Florence. At the same time, the Roman army in Britain revolted, and determined to give themselves an emperor; but the third one chosen, Constantine, a common soldier, whose name was the cause of his elevation, alone maintained himself. His two predecessors, Marcus and Gratian, perished by the dagger, after a few months of power Constantine landed at Boulogne, and the Gallic provinces, forsaken by Henorius and conquered by the Germans, willingly submitted to him. The Gon Sarus, who was charged to bring the rebel's head to Ravenna, thought himself fortunate, after an attack of seven days upon the lines of the sovereign of Gaul and Britain at Vienne, to lead back his exhausted army across the Alps, which now formed the barrier between Honorius and Constantine. The latter, shortly after, in 408, added to his new kingdom that of Spain (where he had experienced a slight resistance from four relations of the deceased emperor Theodosius, who lived there in opulence), and found the people well disposed to obey him. While these events were taking place between the Alps and the pillars of Hercules, others occurred at the court of Ravenna, which, after a series of misfortunes, of weaknesses, and of crimes, caused the final overthrow of the Western empire. Alaric, king of the Goths, had obtained the friendship of his former opponent, Stilicho, and, in consequence of a league of peace and amity with Honorius, was appointed commander-in-chief of the Roman army in Illyria. Stilicho had long contemplated the reunion of the eastern part of this territory with the western, and wished also to employ Alaric at a distance from Italy, by directing him to the gates of Constantinople. Alaric did, indeed, make a few movements in Thessaly and Epirus; but from Emona he sent to Ravenna a demand for the repayment of large sunis, expended in the service of Honorius, and proposed that some western province should be given to him "s a permanent settlement for his people,

promising to reduce Constantine to sub. mission. After violent scenes in the Roman senate, Stilicho carried his motion that a sum of 4000 pounds of gold should be given as a subsidy to the impatient creditor. But the secret anger of the senate at this act of condescension, which was caused by Stilicho's better knowledge of the power of the Goth, was shared, and perhaps excited, by the army. Honorius began to fear his old minister. It was now insinuated to him that Stilicho intended to place his son Eucherius upon the throne: he therefore gave his consent to the execution of a man who had been thus far the sole support of the tottering empire of the West. Stilicho lost his head in the year 408. His son, and several of his friends, underwent a similar fate; and Honorius even divorced his second wife, Thermantia, second daughter of Stilicho. From this time the weak monarch found himself in the hands of favorites, who could not estimate how great a service they had rendered Alaric, by causing the death of Stilicho. The foreign mercenaries, who had been faithfully devoted to the old general, revenged his death by passing over, to the number of 30,000, to the service of Alaric. The court at Ravenna was still deliberating how it should answer the demands of Alaric, when the latter crossed the Alps, the Po, pressed forward to Rimini, seized the passes of the Apennines, and, in 408, pitched his camp before Rome, which he surrounded so completely as to reduce the city to the most deplorable extremity for want of food. When an ambassador from Rome, sent to Alaric's camp, dared to declare to him that, if he rejected an honorable capitulation, the whole population would rush out against him, the ferocious warrior answered abruptly, "The thicker the grass, the easier to mow." After having demanded an enormous ransom for the city, he was asked, "And what will you leave us, if you demand this of us ?" "Your lives," was the reply. He yielded, however, in some of his demands (see Alaric), and left the neighborhood of Rome, to take up his winter-quarters in Tuscany. Soon after, his army was increased to more than 100,000 men, his brother-in-law, Adolphus (Ataulf), having fought his way to him from the Danube, with a body of Goths and Huns. After fruitless negotiations for peace with Honorius, Alaric, who had taken possession of the port and town of Ostia, marched back to Rome, where, with the consent of the people and the senate, he

named a new emperor, the prefect Attalus, and took him with him to Ravenna in 409. Honorius was on the point of throwing himself into the arms of his cousin, the young emperor Theodosius, at Constantinople, when he saw his throne saved by the fidelity and wisdom of his general Heraclian in Africa, by the fidelity of his body-guard, secured by largesses, and by the imprudent measures of Attalus. Alaric himself deposed Attalus, and sent the ensigns of his dignity to Ravenna. But Sarus, the general of Honorius, attacked Alaric, killed many of his followers, and declared him an enemy of the empire, and unworthy of the alliance of his emperor. He therefore returned to Rome, which he took in the night of the 24th of August, 410, one of the gates having been opened to him by the treachery of slaves in the town. The old capital of the world was pillaged, and in part burned. The treasures of the inhabitants, including many valuable works of Roman or Grecian art, became the prey of the barbarians. The churches and their treasures remained inviolate, by the special order of Alaric. This took place 1163 years after the building of the city by Romulus. Alaric now left Rome, and pillaged the south of Italy, where he died in 410. Adolphus, his successor, left Italy in two years, laden with the booty of Rome and of the southern provinces, after having received in marriage Placidia, the sister of Honorius. He went, in 412, to Gaul and to Spain, where he founded the kingdom of the Visigoths. Italy now breathed more freely. Rome arose proudly from its ashes; and the empire might perhaps have acquired new vigor, but for the weakness of its ruler, who lived eleven years after the departure of Adolphus. Gaul, indeed, was brought again under his power by the valor of the Roman general Constantius, who conquered Constantine, and obtained in recompense the hand of the widow of Adolphus, who had shortly before been murdered, and a share in the imperial power with Honorius. But Gaul, as well as Spain, was incessantly torn by domestic strife. Britain and Africa were lost, and the most unhappy discord reigned at Ravenna, where Placidia, a second time a widow, after the death of Augustus Constantius, was seeking to retain her power, when Honorius died, on the 24th August, 423, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign. Placidia carried the news to Constantinople, whither she had fled with her children, on account of the troubles at Ravenna. 12

VOL. XIII.

Under the protection of her nephew, Theodosius II, the young emperor of the East, the son of Placidia and Constantius, a child of but six years, was proclaimed emperor of the West, with the title of Valentinian III. Placidia was declared regent, and maintained her power as such during twenty-five years, in which the Western empire was continually brought nearer to its fall. Under Valentinian, the Vandal kingdom was founded in Roman Africa, by Genseric, king of the Vandals, in 428. The Western empire experienced a further loss in the cession of the western part of Illyria to the emperor of the East, by which Placidia obtained in marriage for her son, Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius and Athenais, in 437, and likewise indemnified the court of Byzantium for the expenses of a war against John, who had been private secretary of Honorius, and, after his death, had sought to obtain possession of the throne. Attila, king of the Huns, an ally of Genseric, now demanded the hand of Honoria, sister of Valentinian, with her inheritance. From Constantinople,whither she had been banished on account of her too great intimacy with her chamberlain Eugenius, she had offered to the king of the Huns her person and her claims upon Italy. A refusal immediately caused a war, which Attila began with an attack upon Gaul, and which ended with a great battle in the Catalaunian plains (near Chalons), in 450, when the Roman general Aëtius, together with Theodoric, king of the Goths, defeated the army of Attila, and might, perhaps, have entirely destroyed his power, if the political consideration of preserving in the Huns a counterpoise against the powerful Goths, had not induced Aëtius to retreat, and to separate from his ally. Thereupon Attila, to make good his claims upon the princess Honoria and her inheritance, broke into Italy, in 451, where he destroyed Aquileia, Padua, Vicenza, Verona and Bergamo. He had plundered Milan and Pavia, when Valentinian made proposals of peace by an em bassy sent from Rome. The eloquence of the bishop of Rome, Leo I, who was at the head of the deputation, and the impression which his representations produced on Attila, induced him to refrain from the pillage of Rome, for a sum equal in value to the inheritance of Honoria. The beautiful Ildico made Attila forget Honoria, who, by imprisonment for life, atoned for her desire to become queen of the Huns. After the death of Attila, in 453, Valentinian might have ruled happi