John Bowles

Who was John Bowles?

John Bowles was an English barrister and author.

He gained his bachelor of laws degree on 25 March 1779 from the University of Douai and the university licensed him on 11 May 1781. He wrote more than 33 pamphlets—16 on the British war against revolutionary France—between 1791 and 1817. He was a leading committee member and pamphleteer of John Reeves's Association for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers. He attacked Thomas Paine: "...he has not only been long actuated by, but...he formerly gloried in avowing, an implacable animosity and rooted hatred to this country; and that not merely to its Government but to its interests, its welfare, its national character, its national honour, its commercial and naval greatness".

When Bowles sent Edmund Burke a collection of his pamphlets against peace with France, Burke wrote to Bowles in March 1796:

You have gone to the bottom of the Subject, with intelligence, perspicuity, force and Eloquence. I really do not know, that I have done any thing more than to follow in your Track. The whole substance of the Cause is to be found from the 14th to the 23rd page of your Further Reflexions. I cannot think my publication necessary. If what you have written will not prevent this Nation from bringing on itself the sure punishment of its faults, nothing I can publish, will be of the least use.