96 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



Dutch commissioners, it might hap- 

 pen, in the hurry of business, to 

 any government- 

 Mr. Whitbread began an ani- 

 mated and severe invective against 

 the negh'gence of government, and 

 the criminality of the commission- 

 ers, with the following striking 

 proemium. " A great smoke has 

 long issued from the office of the 

 Dutch commissioners. Persons 

 have often said that the Dutch 

 commission was a great job, and 

 that if inquired into, it it would be 

 found so. But no mortal alive 

 ever expected to find such a blaz- 

 ing fire as that which is now known 

 to have been so long burning in 

 Broad Street.'' Mr. Whitbread 

 painted in lively colours the rapa- 

 city of the Dutch commissioners, 

 their gross extortion, their preva- 

 rications, and their matchless im- 

 pudence in attempting to set up a 

 kind of defence of their miscon- 

 duct, and even in canvassing the 

 members of that house for their 

 votes and interest. He was rot 

 acquainted with any of those com- 

 missioners personally. One of them 

 however, Mr. John Bowles was 

 sufficiently known to the public, ase- 

 ries of years, as a writer by profes- 

 sion, in high repute, of great esti- 

 mation ; a man receiving the re- 

 ward of his literary labours; an un- 

 blemished servant of the public; a 



person who was writing to accuse 

 others of not having made just and 

 proper returns of their incomes 

 upon which the tax might be le- 

 vied, holding his head high in so- 

 ciety; the censor of morals, and 

 unsuspected of such a flagitious 

 course of conduct against the pub- 

 lic as had now come to light. Those 

 were piping times with the anti- 

 jacobins. One was fighting his 

 way up to be an ambassador; an- 

 other was preparing to govern the 

 country in the shape of a secretary 

 of state; and Mr. John Bowles*, 

 their associate, who prepared the 

 heavier parts of the composition, 

 while the budding diplomatist and 

 secretary were relaxing from their 

 severer studies, in these humour- 

 ous political effusions, which adorn 

 the page of the Anti-jacobin, was 

 reclining in the dignity, of his of- 

 fice in Broad-street, and launching 

 forth his anathemas against ail 

 those who opposed that adminis- 

 tration, which had so amply re- 

 warded his past, and secured his 

 future labours. Mr. Whitbread, 

 with a feeling in which all honest 

 men must fully sympathize with him, 

 exulted not only in the detection 

 of Mr. Bowles, but over the disap- 

 pointment and chagrin that must 

 be felt by that man. He would 

 not, like the Athenian mentioned 

 by Horace, have the satisfaction of 

 contemplating 



• Mr. Bowles, before he was appointed a Dutch commissioner, was, as we believe 

 he now is, a commissioner of Bankrupts ; a place conferred on him bj Mr. Pitt, on 

 account of a pamphlet he had written against TomPaine's Age of Reason. Hewrote 

 a great number of pimiphlets on the " Political and JNIoral State of Society'," and 

 others, pretty much in the same strain, but under other titles. He was commonly 

 called, by way of irony, by those who knew him, the Kev. Mr. Bowles. He had 

 the most efhcient handinthe establishment of the Weekly A.nti-jacobin News- 

 pajer. The principal conductors and contributors, however, were Mr. Canning, 

 Mr. George Ellis, and 3Ir. John Hookham Frere. Mr. Bowles was the most 

 zealous member of the society for the suppression of vice, and a justice of the 

 peace for Kent, Surrey, and Middlesex. 



