the story of “Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly.” The publication in book form (March 20, 1852) was a factor which must be reckoned in summing up the moving causes of the war for the Union. The book sprang into unexampled popularity, and was translated into at least twenty-three tongues. Mrs Stowe used the reputation thus won in promoting a moral and religious enmity to slavery. She reinforced her story with A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in which she accumulated a large number of documents and testimonies against the great evil; and in 1853 she made a journey to Europe, devoting herself especially to creating an entente cordiale between Englishwomen and Americans on the question of the day. In 1856 she published Dred; a Tale of the Dismal Swamp, in which she threw the weight of her argument on the deterioration of a society resting on a slave basis. The establishment of The Atlantic Monthly in 1857 gave her a constant vehicle for her writings, as did also The Independent of New York, and later The Christian Union, of each of which papers successively her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, was one of the editors. From this time forth she led the life of a woman of letters, writing novels, of which The Minister's Wooing (1859) is best known, and many studies of social life in the form both of fiction and essay. She published also a small volume of religious poems, and towards the end of her career gave some public readings from her writings. In 1852 Professor Stowe accepted a professorship in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, and the family made its home there till 1863, when he retired wholly from professional life and removed to Hartford. After the close of the war for the Union Mrs Stowe bought an estate in Florida, chiefly in hope of restoring the health of her son, Captain Frederick Beecher Stowe, who had been wounded in the war, and in this southern home she spent many winters. After the death of her husband in 1886 she passed the rest of her life in the seclusion of her Hartford home, where she died on the 1st of July 1896. She is buried by the side of her husband at Andover.
See Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, compiled from her letters andjournals by her son, Charles Edward Stowe (Boston, 1890). Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, edited by Annie Fields (Boston, 1898).
STOWELL, WILLIAM SCOTT, Baron (1745-1836), English
judge and jurist, was born at Heworth, a village about 4 m. from
Newcastle, on the 17th of October 1745, the son of a “coalfitter”
(or tradesman engaged in the transport of coal). His younger
brother John became the famous Lord Chancellor Eldon.
Scott was educated at the Newcastle grammar school and Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, where he gained a Durham scholarship
in 1761. In 1764 he graduated and became first a probationary
fellow and then — as successor to William (afterwards the well-known
Sir William) Jones — a tutor of University college. As
Camden reader of ancient history (1774) he rivalled the reputation
of Blackstone. Although he had joined the Middle Temple
in 1762, it was not till 1776 that Scott devoted himself to a systematic
study of law. In 1779 he graduated as doctor of civil
law, and, after the customary “year of silence,” commenced
practice in the ecclesiastical courts. His professional success
was rapid. In 1783 he became registrar of the court of faculties,
and in 1788 judge of the consistory court and advocate-general,
in that year too receiving the honour of knighthood; and in 1798
he was made judge of the high court of admiralty. Sir William
Scott twice contested the representation of Oxford University —
in 1780 without success, but successfully in 1801. He also sat
for Downton in 1790. Upon the coronation of George IV. (1821)
he was raised to the peerage as Baron Stowell. After a life of
distinguished judicial service Lord Stowell retired from the
bench from the consistory court in August 1821, and from
the high court of admiralty in December 1827. His mental
faculties became gradually feebler in his old age, and he died on
the 28th of January 1836. Lord Stowell was twice married —
in 1781 to Anna Maria, eldest daughter and heiress of John
Bagnall of Early Court, Berks., by whom he had four children,
one of these, a daughter, survived him; and in 1813 to the
dowager marchioness of Sligo.
Lord Stowell's judgments are models alike of literary execution and of judicial reasoning. His style is chaste yet not inornate, nervous without abruptness, and perfectly adjusted in every instance to the subject with which he deals. His decisions in the cases of Dalyrmple v. Dalyrmple (Dr Dodson's Report) and Evans v. Evans (1 Hagg. 35) — from their combined force and grace, from the steadiness with which every collateral issue is set aside, from their subtle insight into human motives and from the light which they cast on marriage law — deserve and will repay attentive perusal. Lord Stowell composed with great care, and some of the MSS. which he revised for Haggard and Phillimore's Reports were full of interlineations. Stowell's mind was judicial rather than forensic — reasoning, not as for a dialectic victory nor so as to convince the parties on whose suit he was deciding, but only with sufficient clearness, fulness and force to justify the decision at which he had arrived.
The chief doctrines of international law with the assertion and illustration of which the name of Lord Stowell is identified are these: the perfect equality and entire independence of all states (“Le Louis,” 2 Dod. 243) — a logical deduction from the Austinian philosophy and still one of the fundamental principles of English jurisprudence; that the elementary rules of international law bind even semi-barbarous states (the “Hurtige Hane,” 2 Rob. 325); that blockade to be binding must be effectual (the “Betsey,” 1 Rob. 93); and that contraband of war is to be determined by “probable destination” (the “Jonge Margaretha,” 1 Rob. 189). In the famous Swedish convoy case (the “Maria,” 1 Rob. 350; see, too, the “Recovery,” 6 C. Rob. 348-9) Lord Stowell asserted that “a prize court is a court not merely of the country in which it sits but of the law of nations.” “The seat of judicial authority,” he added, in words which have become classic, “is indeed locally here, in the belligerent country, but the law itself has no locality.” His dictum concerning the right of a belligerent to sink a neutral ship, when unable to take her before a prize court, was much quoted in 1904 in reference to the sinking of the “Knight Commander” by the Russians in the Far East.
The judgments of Lord Stowell were, almost without exception, confirmed on appeal, and they are to this day the international law of England, and have become presumptive though not conclusive evidence of the international law of America. “I have taken care,” wrote Justice Story, “that they shall form the basis of the maritime law of the United States, and I have no hesitation in saying that they ought to do so in that of every civilized country in the world.”
See Townsend, Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges, vol. ii.; Quarterly Review, vol. Ixxv.; W. E. Surtees, Sketch of Lords Stowell and Eldon; Creasy, First Platform of International Law; Reports of Prize Cases from 1745 to 1859, ed. E. S. Roscoe (2 vols. 1905; contains all the more important of Lord Stowell's judgments).
STOWMARKET, a market town in the Stowmarket parliamentary division of Suffolk, England; 12 m. N.N.W. of Ipswich by the Great Eastern railway, on the river Gipping. Pop. of urban district (i9oi),4i62. The church of St Peter and St Mary is Decorated and Early English, with a lofty tower and wooden spire. The ancient vicarage has associations with Milton through his tutor, Dr Young. The town has an extensive chemical manufactory, iron foundry, and factories for the manufacture of guncotton, agricultural implements and compressed leather. There is also considerable trade in corn, malt, coal, slate and timber.
STRABANE, a market town and the principal town of Co. Tyrone, Ireland. Pop. (1901), 5033. It stands at the junction of the rivers Mourne and Finn, which thenceforward form the Foyle. It is 161J m. N.W. by N. from Dublin by the Great Northern railway, and has also a station on the Donegal railway, the two companies using separate lines to Londonderry. Lifford, across the river, practically a suburb of Strabane, is the county town of Co. Donegal. A short canal connects the town with the point at which the Foyle becomes navigable. The trade in
corn is considerable. Linen and shirt making, and iron and brass founding, are prosecuted. A castle of the time of James I. has left no remains. The town is governed by an urban district council. It returned two members to the Irish parliament until the Union in 1800.
STRABO (born c. 63 B.C.), Greek geographer and historian, was born at Amasia in Pontus, a city which had been much Hellenized, and was the royal residence of the kings of Pontus. We know nothing of his father's family, but several of his mother's relatives held important posts under Mithradates V. and VI. Some were of Hellenic, others of Asiatic origin, but Strabo himself was by language and education thoroughly Greek. The date of his birth cannot be exactly determined, but from various
