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159 
and an authority on shipping law. He was called to the bar 
in 1779, and practiced in the Ecclesiastical Courts until 1821. 
In 1788 he was a judge of a Consistory Court. He entered 
the House of Commons in 1790, where he was a persistent 
opponent of all reform. He was judge of the High Court 
of Admiralty from 1798 to 1827 and was made a peer by 
George IV. In the High Court of Admiralty he was more 
of a lawgiver than a judge and established the principles of 
admiralty law for England. Some of the doctrines of interna- 
tional law with which his name is identified are: that all 
states are equal and independent; that semi-barbarous states 
are bound by the rules of international law; that a block- 
ade must be effectual to be binding; that contraband of war 
is determined by its destination; and that a prize court is a 
court of the law of nations. 
Lord Eldon (1751-1838). John Scott (Lord Eldon) was a 
brother of Lord Stowell, and the son of a coal dealer who 
transported coal. Lord Stowell, while a tutor at Oxford, pur- 
suaded his father to send John to Oxford and he took his 
B.A. there in 1770. Two years later he ran away with the 
daughter of a banker of Newcastle. This marriage, tho 
quickly forgiven by the parents, lost John Scott a fellowship 
and provision in the church. He adopted law as the alterna- 
tive, entered the Middle Temple and took his M.A. in 1773; 
but working both at Oxford and the Inn endangered his health. 
However, he moved to London in 1775, studied in an office, 
and was called to the bar the next year; but his receipts 
during the first year amounted to half a guinea. Thinking 
Lord Mansfield favored lawyers educated at Westminster and 
Christ Church, he joined the chancery bar; but his business 
continued so small that he was about to give up, when he won 
a celebrated case, and obtained an important election case, 
and thereafter his success was assured. Lord Thurlow fa- 
vored him and got him into Parliament where he supported 
Pitt against Fox. Afterwards he became successively chan- 
cellor of Durham; solicitor-general; attorney-general (when 
he conducted the prosecutions of Tooke et al. for constructive 
treason) ; chief justice of the Common Pleas — given him on 
condition that he accept a peerage and that he accept the 
chancellorship as soon as it should become vacant; and lord 
chancellor. He took this office in 1801, resigned when Fox 
