honest and uninformed men. But, it was not till Mr. Wardle came out with his exposures, that the whole nation saw clearly to the bottom of this villanous deception, It was not until his charges, which, in the hope of being able to cry him down, were answered with a charge of jacobin conspiracy, that the whole mass of the people began to see the detestable fraud, which had so long been practised upon them, and of which many men of great understanding had become the dupe.
Now they are completely undeceived. Now they see, that a Jacobin means a man, who endeavours to root out corruptions and to prevent public robbery; and that, as the word imports, an Anti-Jacobin means exactly the contrary. Still, however, it will be useful to expose the traffic of Anti-Jacobinism. Hitherto we have considered it as something of a sectarian, or political, nature; but, we are now to abstract our minds from all such associations of ideas, and to consider Anti-Jacobinism merely as a trade; a trade in the plain and common acceptation of the word; a mere money-making concern; a calling upon which men outer with no other views than those of Lloyd’s and the ’Change, and to which apprentices may be bound in the regular course of law, there being gradations in it from the master tradesman downward, through the foreman and journeyman, to the sweeper and sprinkler of the pavement before the shop.
In this case, as in all others, the best way is to proceed with the stating of facts; for, a few facts answer a better purpose, they produce a deeper and juster impression, than can be produced by any general description, from however able a pen it may proceed.
I have, at different times, noticed, and shall hereafter notice, several persons, who have followed, and still do follow, this once flourishing trade. But, if I were called upon to name the tradesman, who has obtained the greatest celebrity in his way, and who most deserves that celebrity; the man who is, in this trade, what Mr. Packwood is in that of razor-streps, truth would compel me to say it was MR. JOHN BOWLES. There are others, who have had great vogue, and have not been without their profits, such as Mr. Green, Mr. Redhead Yorke, and the co-partnership of the Rev. Messrs. Nares and Beloe (the latter of whom was, sometime since, in the British Museum, whereby hangs a tale yet to be told); there are several clergymen, each of whom has traded very thrivingly upon his own bottom, and there are some others who have carried on the trade, with many journeymen under them; there are Mr. Gentz and that pink of knighthood, Sir Francis D’Ivernois, amongst the foreign traders; but, at the head of the whole most assuredly stands Mr. John Bowles.
This gentleman was, as the phrase is, bred to the bar, but, to use the pun of Admiral Paine, the bar being. I suppose, bad bread to him, he changed his calling in or about the year 1792. He appears to have begun, about that time, his manufactory of Anti-Jacobinism, with a pamphlet against Tom Paine, which being quite to the taste of that minister, who lent, without law, 40,000l. of the public money, without interest, to two of his then majority in parliament, he made our hero a Commissioner of Bankrupts, worth, I believe, about 3 or 400l. a year.
As yet, however, the term Anti-Jacobin was not in use. The trade had begun; but there was not a suitable name for it. The traders called themselves friends to their King and Country, and the like; but, John Bull loves short appellations; he is everlastingly prone to abbreviate; it was, therefore, necessary to find out an appropriate term whereby to designate the persons engaged in this new and thriving trade; and, to the honour of the Church, be it known, the term Anti-Jacobin was, at last, discovered by a clergyman.
About the year 1796, the trade seemed to be somewhat at a stand, and therefore, the government, as in the case of other useful trades, such as that of printing bank notes &c., took it, in some sort, under its immediate protection; or rather, it showed an example to be imitated by others. I here allude to the establishment of the “Weekly Anti-Jacobin” newspaper. This was an era in the history of the trade. Messrs. Canning and Frere (John Hookham) and George Ellis were the principal Directors in this establishment. They were, too, the fabricators of the choice articles that went from this shop; but, in setting the thing on foot, they were unable to proceed without the experience of Mr. John Bowles, who, from what source the reader may easily judge, found the means of setting all the machines in motion. But, whether the three persons, before mentioned, thought that John’s weighty matter would be apt to be too heavy for the wire-drawn work in which they excelled, or whether they were afraid that he would, as senior tradesman, and projector of the establishment, aspire to be the head of the firm, they soon jostled him out of the concern, for which, it is said, John never cordially forgave them. Messrs. Canning & Co. being engaged in other branches of business at the same time, were, however, compelled to have assistance; and, not liking to take an additional partner into the House, they got a respectable journeyman to superintend the business for them, a Mr. William Gifford, who had written some good poetry and better prose; who was a very sensible, acute, and, I verily believe, a very honest man; who never ought to have been exposed to the necessity of becoming the journeyman of Canning and Co.; and who always appeared to me to be cursedly ashamed of the calling.
At the end of 26 Numbers the manufacture stopped, all of a sudden, to the great surprise of every body; but, the fact is, that the raw material was wanting. Messrs. Canning and Co. had expended their stock of epigrams and antitheses, and, in the latter Numbers, were reduced to downright punning. Their pride would not suffer them to resort to the stores of their journeyman; and so the thing went out, like the snuff of a candle.
Short, however, as was its duration, it produced a very powerful example. Mr. Wm. Gifford had first a patent place given to him; to that was added a double commissionership of the Lottery; to that another place in the Household, making, in total amount, about a thousand pounds a year for life. Pretty well, I think, for 26 weeks superintendence on the printing and publishing of the droppings of the brains of Mr. Canning, Mr. George Ellis, and Mr. John Hookham Frere, neither of whom ever knew him previous to that time!
Reader, stop here, a moment, and ask yourself if it be any wonder that the taxes are heavy. Ask yourself if it be any wonder that the landowners are little more than stewards and collectors for the government. Ask yourself if it be any wonder that family hospitality has ceased, and pauperism has reared its head where plenty, or, at least, comfortable independence, formerly presided.
Are we told by the traders, that these places must have been given to somebody, and that, therefore, it makes no difference to us, in point of expense? First, I deny the premises; for, such places should be abolished as fast, at least, as they become vacant. But, if we admit the premises the conclusion does not follow; for, if such places must be given to somebody, are there not enough disabled officers of the navy or army; are there not enough superannuated servants of the public; are there not enough and enough persons, who have done something for the country, and who are either pensioned, or starving; are there not enough of these to give such places to?
But, it is useless for us to swell and foam with indignation. Thus it has been, thus it is, thus it will be, and thus it must be, while seats in Parliament are to be obtained in the manner negotiated for by Mr. Reding and Lord Clancarty.
Now we come back to the great regular trader, Mr. John Bowles, who, though he had been jostled out of the firm of Canning & Co., though he was not allowed to take any, or but very little, share in what they sent forth against every man, be his rank what it would, who disapproved of any of the measures of Pitt, he continued to push on a very valuable concern of his own; and, as the booksellers well remember, to their cost, he absolutely inundated the town with his pamphlets. He used to publish pamphlets upon “The Political and Moral State of Society at the end of such and such a year,” in all which pamphlets, though containing some very good stuff, as a sort of passport to the rest, he failed not to introduce an abundance of sterling Anti-Jacobinism. In 1804, at the time of one of the Middlesex Elections, he made a grand effort to restore the trade to the flourishing state in which it was in 1797 and 1798; and, failing in that attempt did not discourage him from another in 1806, at another Middlesex Election, when he and his new associate, Redhead, did actually bring forward that very Mr. Mellish, who was, the other day, so justly treated by the freeholders of the county, met at Hackney.
“Well,”
