John Bowles : a political commentator in the age of the French Wars

Abstract

This study examines the writings of John Bowles, an English political writer, active as a pamphleteer during the era of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. After a general histoncal introduction (Chapter I), there is a chronological account of Bowles• writings, placing themin their histoncal context (Chapters II-IV). The first two of these chapters makes it clear that Bowles should be considered as a representative of an intransigent strand of English political thought, which wholly rejected the French Revolution and the thought which it reflected - and consequently rejected any settlement on terms other than a retum to the pre-Revolutionary status quo. Chapter IV seeks to explain the extent to which this position was grounded in religious belief The later part ofthe study attempts an analysis ofBowles asa political thinker.