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 1772. He was educated at the grammar school there under Joseph Romney. In 1787 he entered the academy at Daventry as a student for the ministry, and in 1789 the academy was removed to Northampton, where he completed his course of study. After a short sojourn at Bruges as tutor to an English family, the outbreak of the war in 1792 compelled him to return to England, where he obtained the post of classical tutor at Manchester academy. While at Manchester he became an Arian under the influence of, D.D. (1747–1810) [q. v.] For a short time he preached at Doblane, near that town, but, becoming convinced of the impropriety of a paid ministry, he resigned his posts and went as a pupil to a farmer in East Lothian. In 1797 he took a farm at Laughton, near Edinburgh; but after four or five years he relinquished farming, and set up a boarding-house for students in Drummond Street, Edinburgh. Shortly after he became editor of the ‘Scots Magazine,’ to which he contributed numerous essays. In 1806 James Maitland, eighth earl of Lauderdale, who had been offered by Fox the post of governor-general of India, invited Stevenson to accompany him as private secretary. Owing to the strenuous opposition of the East India Company, Lord Lauderdale withdrew his claims to the governor-generalship, but he compensated his secretary by obtaining for him the office of keeper of the records to the treasury. Soon after Stevenson declined the czar's offer of the professorship of technology at the university of Kharkov. He continued to reside in the neighbourhood of London till his death, at his house at Chelsea, on 20 March 1829. He was twice married. By his first wife, Eliza Holland of Sandlebridge in Cheshire, he had two children, a son John and a daughter Elizabeth Cleghorn, who married [q. v.], and became well known as a novelist [see ].

Stevenson's first wife died in 1810, and in 1814 he married Catherine, daughter of Alexander Thomson of Savannah in Georgia. By her he had a son and daughter. Stevenson was the author of: He also contributed the article on chivalry to Dr. Brewster's ‘Edinburgh Encyclopædia,’ wrote the life of Carton and other treatises for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, besides writing numerous articles for the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ the ‘Retrospective Review,’ and other magazines, and compiling the greater part of the ‘Annual Register’ for several years.
 * 1) ‘Remarks on the very inferior Utility of Classical Learning,’ London, 1796, 4to.
 * 2) ‘A System of Land-Surveying,’ 1805, 4to; London, 1810, 4to.
 * 3) ‘General View of the Agriculture of the County of Surrey,’ London, 1809, 8vo.
 * 4) ‘General View of the Agriculture of the County of Dorset,’ London, 1812, 8vo.
 * 5) ‘Historical Sketch of Discovery, Navigation, and Commerce,’ Edinburgh and London, 1824, 8vo.

 STEVENSON, W. B. (fl. 1803–1825), writer on South America, landed on the coast of Chili in the Indian district of Araucania about 1803, with the intention of travelling through the country. On proceeding to Arauco he found himself detained a prisoner on the pretext that war had broken out between Spain and England. Thence he was conveyed successively to Concepcion, Callao, and Lima, where he was confined in the gaol for eight months with the most abandoned criminals. His liberty was gradually extended, and he was permitted to reside in the town and to make excursions into the adjoining provinces. In 1808 he became private secretary to Count Ruis de Castilla, president and captain-general of Quito. On the outbreak of the revolution at Quito, where he was stationed, he joined the insurgents. In December 1810 he was appointed governor of the Esmeraldas with the title of lieutenant-colonel, and after the arrival of Lord Cochrane in 1818 he became his secretary and had a share in many of his naval operations [see, tenth ]. After twenty years' residence in South America he revisited England about 1824, returning to Peru about the end of 1825. The date of his death is not known.

While in England he published the results of his American experiences in a work entitled ‘A Historical and Descriptive Narrative of twenty years' residence in South America,’ London, 1825, 8vo. His book is of great value for the period immediately preceding the South American revolution. He used his unique opportunities for observation to advantage. Prescott, in his ‘History of the Conquest of Peru,’ praised his description of Lima, and made considerable use of his accounts of native manners and customs. Translations into French and German were published at Paris and Weimar respectively in 1826.

