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Facʹtor

.

An agent; a substitute in mercantile affairs; a commission merchant. (Latin, facio, to do, whence the French facteur, one who does something for an employer.)

“A sleep and naked as an Indian lay,

An honest factor stole a gem away.”


Pope: Moral Essays, Ep. iii. 361.

Thomas Pitt, ancestor of the Earl of Chatham, was appointed by Queen Anne Governor of Fort St. George, in the East Indies, and in 1702 purchased there, for £20,400, a diamond weigning 127 carats, which he sold to the King of France. This gem is still called the Pitt diamond. Pope insinuates that Pitt stole the diamond. This is not exactly true. He obtained it for a price much below its value, and threatened the thief with exposure if he made a fuss about the matter.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Face to Face
Faces
Face
Faced
Faced
Face-card or Faced-card
Facilë Princeps
Facings
Façon de Parler
Faction
Factor
Factotum
Fad (A)
Fada
Fadda
Fadge
Fadge
Fadha (Al)
Fadladeen
Faërie or Feerie
Faërie Queene