Brothers,

Brothers, RICHARD, the originator of the Anglo-Israelite craze, was born in Newfoundland in 1757, and in 1772 entered the British navy, which he quitted with a lieutenant's half-pay in 1789. Refusing, from conscientious scruples, to take the oath requisite to enable him to draw his half-pay, he was reduced to great distress, and ultimately placed in the workhouse. In 1793 he announced himself as the apostle of a new religion, 'the Nephew of the Almighty, and Prince of the Hebrews, appointed to lead them to the land of Canaan;' and in 1794 he published a book, A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times. For prophesying the death of the king, and the destruction of the monarchy, he was committed in 1795 to Newgate, and thence soon transferred to a lunatic asylum. His disciples included Nathaniel Halhed the M.P. and orientalist, Sharp the engraver, and Finlayson, a lawyer from Fife, with whom, after his release in 1806, he chiefly resided till his death on 25th January 1824.