Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/133

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advocate and a Jacobite, but was compelled to fly the country after Culloden, together with two of his brothers. He found refuge at Philadelphia, where he was ultimately appointed a judge of the supreme court. On the declaration of independence he withdrew to England and died at Swansea in 1794 (cf. Appleton, American Biogr.) He married Elizabeth Chancellor, the daughter of an immigrant to America from Somerset, who had been captured during the Spanish war and brought up in a convent.

Charles, their second son, was born at Philadelphia in 1753, and educated for the law at William and Mary College in Virginia. Like his father, he remained loyal to the British crown, and, on the outbreak of hostilities, he was appointed commissary to the troops under the command of Sir William Howe. His knowledge of the German language, presumably acquired from early intercourse with the numerous German settlers in Pennsylvania, stood him in good stead, both as interpreter with the Hessian auxiliaries, and afterwards as commander of a rifle corps of colonists from the Palatinate. He was twice taken prisoner, and sentenced to be hanged as a rebel; but on each occasion he managed to escape, once from the same prison that held the ill-fated Major André. He was also twice severely wounded. On the conclusion of peace in 1783 he retired to England on the half-pay of a colonel. He was one of those appointed to examine and settle the claims of the American loyalists. In 1794 appeared his ‘History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War’ (2 vols. London, 4to, with folding maps and plans; and in the same year 2 vols., Dublin, 8vo), which still remains the standard work on the subject. It is dedicated to Lord Rawdon, earl of Moira, his former commander-in-chief. Shortly after it appeared Sir Henry Clinton printed ‘Some Observations upon Mr. Stedman's History’ (4to, 1794), which impugn the author's accuracy on minor points; but these strictures appear to have been prompted mainly by personal feeling. Through the influence of the Marquis of Cornwallis, Lord Rawdon's predecessor in the command, Stedman was in 1797 appointed to the office of deputy controller and accountant-general of the revenue of stamps, with reversion to the chief controllership, which, however, never fell in. He died on 26 June 1812, and was buried at Paddington. He married Mary Bowen, by whom he had one son, John, who became judge of the court of admiralty at Gibraltar, and compiled a genealogical memoir of the family (1857).

[John Stedman's Memoir of the Family of Barton, continued through that of Stedman, privately printed, 1857; Gent. Mag. 1812, ii. 91.]

J. S. C.


STEDMAN, JOHN ANDREW (1778–1833), general in the Dutch army, was the son of William George Stedman. Both his father and grandfather, who belonged to the same family as Charles Stedman [q. v.] and John Gabriel Stedman [q. v.], were officers in the Scots brigade in the service of the States-General of Holland—a corps whose history extends from 1570 to 1783. Both of them married Dutch wives of noble blood. In 1783, when the Scots brigade was formed into Dutch regiments, and most of the officers resigned their commissions, Captain William George Stedman elected to be naturalised in the country of his adoption. John Andrew, his only son, was born at Zutphen in 1778, and received a commission in the Dutch army when only a child. At the early age of sixteen he first saw service with the allied forces, under the Duke of York and the Prince of Orange, which were employed in 1794 on the northern frontier of France. His next service was in 1799, when the Batavian republic was in alliance with France, and the Duke of York commanded the opposing army at Bergen. At a later date he again served against the English at Walcheren. Meanwhile he had held important staff appointments, and, on the incorporation of Holland with France, he became general of brigade in the French army. In this capacity he served for two years in Italy, and was present at the battles of Bautzen and Dresden. In 1814 he attached himself to the Prince of Orange, afterwards King William of Holland, and commanded the Dutch troops in reserve at Waterloo, with the rank of lieutenant-general. He died at Nimeguen in 1833. He married Nicola Gertrude van de Poll, granddaughter of the last reigning burgomaster of Amsterdam. Their only son, Charles John William Stedman, became a Prussian subject, settling at Besselich Abbey, near Coblentz. He was a member of the national assemblies of Frankfort and Erfurt, and received the title of freiherr or baron. He had a large family, of which nearly all the sons entered the Queen Augusta regiment of guards; they have reverted to the original family name of Barton.

[John Stedman's Memoir of the Family of Barton, 1857.]

J. S. C.


STEDMAN, JOHN GABRIEL (1744–1797), lieutenant-colonel and author, was grandson of John Stedman (1678–1713),