STA
where he completed his education and took out his medical degree. In 1 760 he repaired to London. His literary abili- ties soon secured him an introduction to Johnson and other eminent men. In 1762 he removed to the West Indies. There he practised medicine, and held several official situations. Having ac- quired a competency, he returned to Eng- land in 1770. He married, went back to the West Indies, and having studied law was appointed Attorney-General of Grenada. In 1779 the island was taken by the French, and with the Governor, Lord Macartney, he was sent as prisoner of war to France. After being ex- changed, he went to India as private secretary to Lord Macartney, who had been appointed Governor of Madras. His talents had now full play, and he was engaged in a series of missions of great importance. " On a very critical oc- casion, when the civil and military authori- ties of Madras were at issue, he undertook the delicate and possibly hazardous office of executing an order of the Government, placing under arrest the commander-in- chief of the army, Major-General Stuart ; and he thus preserved, by his vigour and promptitude, both the tranquillity of the settlement and the supremacy of the civil governor. But the transaction in which his diplomatic abilities were chiefly displayed, was the negotiation of a treaty of peace with Tippoo Sultan in 1784, by which the safety of our Indian possessions was secured at a crisis of great difficulty and peril. For this service he was imme- diately raised to a baronetcy, and the East India Company conferred on him a pension of J500 a year for life. On his return to England he also received the honorary degree of Doctor-of-Laws from the Uni- versity of Oxford." ^ In 1792 he accom- panied I'-rd Macartney as joint minister plenipotentiary on a mission to Pekin. His health was sacrificed to his exertions on this occasion, and a few months after his return to England he was prostrated by an attack of paralysis. Retainiug the full Arigour of his intellect, he undertook the publication of a narrative of the proceed- ings of the Chinese embassy, a work of great interest, which was read with avidity at the time, and is referred to as one of the iirst authorities on all matters con- nected with China. Sir George died in London, 14th January 1801, aged 63, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument by Chantrey has been erected to his memory. He was, in the early part of his career at least, a decided Liberal in politics. [His son, Sir George T. Staunton, 488
STE
Bart., born in England, an eminent Oriental and Chinese scholar, died in 1859.] '* *' '■•*
Stearne, John, Dr., founder of the College of Physicians, Dublin, was born at Ardbraccan, Meath, in the house of his grand-uncle. Archbishop Ussher, 26th No- vember 1 624. He entered Trinity College when but fifteen ; in 1641 obtained a scholarship ; in 1643 was elected a fellow ; afterwards became lecturer on Hebrew ; and in 1660 a senior fellow. The War of 1 64 1 interrupted his studies, and he retired to Cambridge. After spending there seven years of " peculiar felicity and quiet," he removed to Oxford. On the return of peace his private practice as a physician in Dublin occupied most of his attention. In 1660, Trinity Hall (standing on the ground now occupied by Trinity-place), belonging to Trinity College, was set apart as a medical school, and Stearne was constituted president for life. In 1667 he obtained a charter, and the present Col- lege of Physicians was formally organized. Dr. Stearne, and thirteen other doctors of medicine, of whom Sir William Petty was one, were constituted Fellows. " Dr. Stearne had now seen the favourite project of his life accomplished, and was the ac- knowledged head of the medical profession in Ireland. Nothing further can be learned of his public life after this."^'^ He died i8th November 1669, aged 45, and was buried in Trinity College, beneath the College chapel of that day, near the present belfry, most of the Library Square being then a cemetery surrounding the old chapel. " He was an Admirable Crichton in his way, and it may be said of him, in well- worn phrase, he touched nothing that he did not adorn. He excelled as a philoso- pher and physician, and equally so as a theologian, in an intensely theological age. Presuming his epitaph to have been written by Henry Dodwell, who knew him long and intimately, it may be maintained that with truth the pupil styled the master, ' Philosophus medicus summusque the- ologus idem.' Most of his writings were on theological subjects." ^js
Stearne, John, Bishop of Clogher, son of the preceding, was born in Dublin in 1660. He was the predecessor of Swift in the deanery of St. Patrick's ; was cre- ated Bishop of Dromore in 17 13, and was translated to Clogher in 171 7. He ex- pended large sums on the cathedrals and palaces of the dioceses he presided over, built the College Printing-office, Dublin, at a personal cost of £1,200, and bequeathed £30,000 for various charitable uses. Swift corresponded with him for many years on the most intimate and friendly terms ; but
