An Act passed in 1893, providing for free grants of 160 acres each to all males above eighteen, subject to certain conditions as to residence and improvements. Honest Broker. A nickname of Prince Bismarck, with reference to his attitude, as President of the Berlin Congress in 1878, on the points in dispute between Russia and Austria. Honour of the Flag. The claim made by Cromwell that England had the right to exact from all foreign ships, a salute to her flag in the narrow seas. The Dutch Admiral Van Tromp refusing the salute in 1652, he was fired upon by the English Admiral, and the action which followed led to the declaration of war in July of the same year. The Dutch afterwards conceded the claim by the Treaty of 1654. Honved. The Hungarian Landwehr or reserve is so called. The word means “Land Defenders,” and was given to the national champions in the early days of Hungarian history. Hooks. The party of the nobles in the Netherlands in the fourteenth century. (_See_ Kabbeljaws.) Hoosier State. The popular name of the State of Indiana, U.S.A. It is probably a corruption of Husher, a Western term for a bully. Hospitallers, Knights. _See_ Malta, Knights of. Hospodars. The Princes of Moldavia and Wallachia were so called from 1789, when these countries came under the sway of Russia. Hot Gospellers. The Puritans were so styled after the Restoration in 1660. The name was originally given to Edward Underhill, a Protestant who was imprisoned in 1553 for an attack made by him on the Roman Catholics on the accession of Mary. Hotspur. The sobriquet of Henry Percy (1364-1403). Houghers. An Irish agrarian society which appeared in Connemara in 1711. They took their name from their practice of houghing the cattle of obnoxious persons. The society was suppressed in 1713. House-carls. A body of standing troops raised by Knut, circ. 1030. The first standing army in England. Hovering Act. An Act passed in 1784, extending the authority of the revenue officers to a distance of four leagues from the coast. Hubertsberg, Treaty of. A treaty between Prussia and Austria, signed in 1763, at the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War. It was a pendent to the Peace of Paris, and confirmatory of that instrument, as between the two signatory Powers. Hudson’s Bay Company. A Company formed in 1670, under a charter granted by Charles II giving it absolute control of the watershed of Hudson’s Bay (then known as Rupertsland), in return for a small annual tribute. The Company’s territories were absorbed by the Dominion of Canada in 1869. Hué, Treaty of. A treaty between France and Annam, signed in 1874, by which Annam accepted the French protectorate over her territories. Huguenots.