DEATH OF MR, JAMES STEPHEN. —Another who has acted DO un-
distinguished part in the great drama of life, has just quitted its stage, and gone to Ins eternal rest. Mr. Stephen died at Bath, on the 10th instant, of a diseased liver. He was in his seventy-fourth year. It is some years since Mr. Stephen retired from the field of polities ; but those among us who recollect the busy, eventful period of Percevars Administration, cannot soon forget the prominent part which Mr. Stephen took in all time Parliamentary warfare of time day. We have it in our power to furnish our readers with a short and authentic, though imperfect, memoir of this gentleman ; and we know that they will thank us for it. He was descended from a respectable family in the cou»ty of Aberdeen, but he himself was born at Poole, in Dorsetshire, and educated at Winchester : we have often heard him say that he owed all that was good in his character to time precepts and example of his mother' a lady of the name of Milner, an old family in time West of England. Mr. Stephen lost his father, who was also at the bar, in early life : being thus left to his own resources, he went to the West Indies, shortly after the acknowledgment of American independence, and practised in St. Kitts for many years with great success. Ile here acquired that intimate knowledge of Colonial law for which he was justly celebrated; and, with it, he imbibed that horror of the Colonial system, which led him to become one of its most distinguished oppo- nents. When he returned from St. Kitts, he obtained a very large and lucrative practice in the Cockpit ; sharing with the late Chief Justice Dallas nearly all the prize appeals that came before time Privy Council. Our commercial readers will recollect bow frequently the violation of neutrality led to the capture and condemnation of .Amerivan vessels. Mr. Stephen was the first to direct public attention to this important subject, in a small pamphlet, entitled War in Disguise, or the Frauds of the Neutral Flails. It was published anonymously' but it evinced a knowledge of time subject, and an ability of pen, which could not fail to render its author a valuable auxiliary to the Government of the day; and Mr. Stephen was soon seated in Parliament for a Government .borough. He suggested, and virtually, we believe, arranged the whole system of Continental blockade, which, for many years, occasioned greater embarrassment to Bonaparte than all the other operations of the war put together. Of this system, Mr. Stephen was the great Parliamentary supporter, as the present Chancellor was its most stre- nuous opponent in the same arena. Whether it rested upon correct or mistaken commercial principle, it matters little now to inquire ; but it most undoubtedly succeeded in checking the tiostilities of what we may call the neutral belligerents, and in augmenting the difficulties of France. It had, too, another effect, which its author had indeed fore- seen, but to which he was too high-minded to attach the least im- portance—it annihilated the whole of that prize appeal business from which his professional income was derived. It was in consideration of this generous and patriotic sacrifice that Mr. Perceval obtained for him the appointment of one of the Masters in Ordinary of the Court of Chancery ; having previously offered to make him Attorney-General or a puisne Judge, which Mr. Stephen declined.—Christian Advocate.
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