John Bowring and the Nineteenth-Century Peace Movement

JOHN BOWRING was a man of many parts. Yet if he is remembered at all by general readers of nineteenth-century British history, it will probably be as the Sir John Bowring who, as governor of Hong Kong, in October 1856 ordered the bombardment of the Canton forts. The episode itself is hardly well known. It usually merits a mention in general historical surveys only on account of its domestic repercussions: Bowring’s actions led an improbable parliamentary combination of radicals, disaffected Whigs, Conservatives and Peelites to topple Palmerston’s government in March 1857; only for the electorate emphatically to vindicate Palmerston, and in the process unseat such pacifically-inclined radicals as Cobden, Bright and Milner Gibson.

There were some well-known names among Bowring’s extra-parliamentary supporters at this time, including J. S. Mill, who disliked him personally, and Edwin Chadwick.’ But during the parliamentary debates that culminated in Palmerston’s temporary discomfiture, Bowring’s gunboat diplomacy was strongly criticized. In the house of lords, the earl ofEllenborough described him as ‘the eternal obstacle to peace’? Here was paradox indeed, for Bowring had spent many years as an active campaigner for peace and international understanding before he went to China. Indeed, in I 842, at the time of the first AngleChinese war, he had bitterly attacked the very kind of measures for which in I 856-7 he himself was held responsible? And even when he went out to the Far East, at least in the early stages of his less- than-happy time as a commercial and imperial functionary, Bowring continued to pride himself on his pacific intentions. In December I 8 5 I, for instance, he wrote unprophetically that, despite many disappointments, he had ‘the comfort of thinking that during the three years I have been in China, there has been no quarrel between our community and the people’.‘

It is not the object of this article to trace the steps that led Bowring, less than five years later, to start a war against those same people.‘ The aim is rather to rescue from obscurity Bowring’s earlier and sharply contrasting work for the peace

‘ Mill to Chadwick I3 March (18571. The Later Letters cfjohn Stuart Mill, ed. F. E. Mineka and D. N. Lindley (4 vols., Toronto, 1972). ii. 528 & n.;Wars for Free Trade. Case ofchina’, n.d. [1857], Chadwick MS. 85, University College London.

* Hansard, Parliamenfary Debates. 3rd ser., cxliv, col. 1362 (26 Feb. 1857). ’ See Bowring’s speech to a meeting of the Anti-Corn Law League, 27 Oct. 1842. reported in the Anti-

‘ Bowring to Richard Cobden, 20 Dec. 1851, Cobden Papers, British Library, Additional MS. 43670 Bread Tax Circular, 3 Nov. 1842.

fo. 190. See G. F. Barrle, ‘Sir John Bowring and the Anow War in China’, Bu/l.]ohn RyIunds Libr., xliii ( 1960-I),

293-316; D. Hurd, The Arrow War:an Anglo-ChineseConfusion, 1856-60 (1967).

JOHN BOWRING A N D THE PEACE MOVEMENT 345

movement-the work carried out between about 1819 and his appointment as consul at Canton at the end of 1848. As little has been written about t h i s side of Bowring’s life, I shall start by giving a brief description of his irenical activities. The second part of the article will comprise a more speculative examination of the reasons for his involvement in the peace movement.

It must be conceded that even before the Canton affair Bowring had snayed- albeit less dramatically-from the path of peace. In I 8 38-40, his enthusiasm for the Egyptian pasha, Mehemet Ali, led him to condone (or even encourage) the Egyptian war against the Turks for possession of Syria6 In the Crimean war, Bowring’s attitude was similarly less than wholeheartedly pacific. His partisanship was undisguised when he wrote of Prussia as in reality an enemy and Ausma as a doubt- ful friend.’ Moreover, as the Chartist George Julian Harney acutely observed, Bowring’s love of peace sat uneasily with his fervent support for Polish and Italian national independence, an independence unlikely to be achieved without bloodsheds The same point could be made, afortiori, about Bowring’s earlier attempts to assist the Greeks in their war for independence.

To expect rigid consistency is, of course, to be constantly disappointed. In Bowring’s case, given the breadth of his interests and activities, such expectations would seem particularly inappropriate. There were inevitably times when his liberalism was at odds with his pacific sentiments. But it would be unfortunate if Bowring’s deviations and inconsistencies were allowed to overshadow his involvement in the peace movement, or, worse still, to cast doubt on the sincerity of his commitment. The accumulated weight of his public and private comments over many years leaves little room for such suspicions. He displayed moral courage in defending the peace cause in a generally hostile parliament, most notably during the debate on a vote of thanks to the victorious army in India on 2 March 1846, when, against the mood of the House, Bowring expressed the hope that ‘the time will come when the pacific principle would be more and more d e n as the groundwork of our policy’? Scattered through his letters to family and friends are statements of the same kind. Typical is the simple but evidently heartfelt sentence from a letter of 28 November 1840 to his son Frederick Hermam The more I think of war, the more gigantic its inequities appear to be‘.’O

So what part did Bowring play in the peace movement? In about 1819 he joined

G. F. Bartle, ‘Bowring and the Near Eastern crisis of 1838-40’. Ens. Hist. Rev., lxxix (1964). 761-74. This enthusiasm for Mehemet Ali no doubt helps ro explain the vehemence ofBowring’s denunciadon ofBridsh measures designed to force the Egyptian pasha out of Syria (see J. Bowring. ‘Anglo-Turkish War Egypt and Syria‘, Westminrter Rev., xxxv (1841). 187-224; Bowring to W. L. Garrison, 9 Nov. 1840, in British and American Ahulitiunisrx an Episode in Transatlantic Understanding, ed. C. Taylor (Fdinburgh. 1974). p. 122;

Bowring to J. H. Burton, 19 Oct. 1840. John Hill Burton Papers, MS. 9404 fos. 60-1, National Library of Scorland). ’ Bowring to F. H. Bowring, 28 June 185s. Bowring Papers, Eng. MS. 1rz9/~03,JohnRylands Universiry

of Manchesrer Library. ’ W. H. van der Linden, ThelnternatiunalPeaceMuvem~t, 1815-74 (Amsterdam, 1987). p. 364. ’ Hanurd, 3, Ixxxiv, col. 419.

lo Bowring Papers, Eng. MS. 1zz9/75.

346 JOHN BOWRING A N D THE PEACE M O V E M E N T

the Society for the Promotion ofpermanent and Universal Peace, usually known for the sake ofbrevity as the Peace Society. Founded in I 8 I 6, this organization formed the core of the British peace movement. In November I 820, Bowpng, then aged twenty- eight, became its foreign secretary." In this capacity he corresponded regularly with peace campaigners abroad, especially in the United States, where a number of Peace Societies had been formed in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. At the same time, he endeavoured to encourage the establishment of similar societies in Europe. In 1820, for instance, he was in communication with the Dutch professor Theodorus van Swinderen, in an attempt to persuade him to join a projected peace society in Amsterdam, or to found one in Groningen. In the following year,Bowring attended a preliminary meeting in Paris of what was to become the Socikti. de la Morale Chrktienne, at which a resolution was passed in favour of cordial co-operation with the British Peace Society.12 This and other mps abroad inevitably limited Bowring's attendance at committee meetings. But between his first recorded attendance as a member of the committee in May I 820, and his last in January I 823, he was present at sixteen meetings, one of which he chaired.13

Bowring's resignation from the foreign secretaryship in May 1823 almost certainly owed something to a personal retreat from absolute pacifism. Members of the Society's committee were required to accept that all wars-defensive as well as offensive-were unjustified, but in May I 824, in a letter to the Dutch writer Willem de Clercq, Bowring suggested that he no longer adhered to the docmne of non- resistance." This was certainly his line later, for when he spoke in the Commons twenty years afterwards, he was at pains to point out that he 'disapproved all aggressive war', the qualifymg adjective implying that there were some wars of which he could appro~e.'~ Nevertheless, Bowring continued to be an active member of the Peace Society after his resignation of the foreign secretaryship, maintaining his yearly donation of Es ss.16 He continued, furthermore, to have his poetry published in the Society's journal, The Herald $Peace, where his translations of foreign verse on pacific themes also appeared." He lectured on the Society's behalf,'* spoke for it in parliament while he was an M.P.,19 and appears to have been

Bowring is listed as a subscriber in the minutes of 3 Apr. 1819. He was proposed as a committee member in the following December, and became foreign secretary on 17 Nov. 182.0 (see Minute-book 1816-36, pp. 88, 108, I 16,129, Peace Society Papers, Fellowship House, London).

Van der Linden, pp. 63,76. For Bowring's activities at this time see also The Herald ofPeace, new ser., i (1822)~ 4,6, 132.

I' Minute-book 1816-36, pp. 118, 120, 127, 128, 1 3 0 . 1 3 1 . 132. 134. 139, 146, 152, 188, 190. 191, 201.

Peace Society Papers. I' Van der Linden, p. 62. I5 Hansard, 3. Luxii, col. 576 (12 Feb. 1844). I6 AnnualRepon. . .for1823,p. 3 3 ; AnnualRepon. , .for1824, p. 30; AnnualReporf . . .for1825, p. 45; The

Herald ofpeace, new ser., x (1835-6). 2. John Bevans, assistant secretary of the Society, told a Dutch correspondent in Oct. 1 8 3 1 that though Bowring's 'official connection with us has ceased, he has since that event become a Life Subscriber to the Peace Society, and continues to promote its interests' (Letter-book, 181 8-39, p. 264. Peace Society Papers).

TkeHeraldofPeace, newser.,i(1822), 114;ii(1823),63-4;viii (1831-z), 3354.400. See J. Bowring, The Political and Commerciallmportance ofpeace: a Lecture delivered in the Hall of Commerce,

London [1846?], published by the Peace Society. I9 Hansard, 3. Ixxxiv, cols. 419-20; Ixxxix, col. 425.

J O H N BOWRING A N D THE PEACE MOVEMENT 347

a diligent attender of the Society’s meetings, which he addressed on a number of occasions.M

He was also involved in the free-trade agitation, which, while by no means dedicated solely to the securing of peace, had an important irenical aspect?’ In the last years of his life, after his breach with Cobden and Bright over the bombard- ment of Canton, Bowring believed that he had not been given sufficient credit for his early labours in the cause of commercial liberty.u This resentment should not be dismissed too hastily as the product of crabbed old age. Bowring’s is not now a name automatically associated with the struggle against protection. Yet he established a reputation as a free trader long before the Anti-Corn Law League was formed; before, indeed, the London-based Anti-Corn Law Association was founded at the end of I 836. He may not have been the first in the field, but in terms of practical campaigning Bowring could say without hyperbole that he was ‘one of the earliest advocates of Free From I 8 3 I to I 8 34 he was in France with George Villiers negotiating on commercial matters for the British government. In this capacity he toured the French provinces in an attempt to stimulate free-trade agitation, and worked assiduously to place anti-protectionist articles in the French press.u By January I 8 34 the radical M.P. Joseph Hume was able to recommend Bowring for ‘the service you have already done towards removing the ignorance and prejudice that exist in France, as well as in England on commercial matter^'?^ In the following year, as newly-elected M.P. for the Clyde Burghs, Bowring aired his free-trade views in the Commons during debates on the corn laws and the timber duties,26 and around this time he took the opportunity to ensure that his various commercial reports for the government were infused with free-trade sentiment.n Moreover, Bowring could with some justice claim to have been responsible for the shifting of the centre of the free-trade agitation from London to Lancashire: for it was his speech at Manchester on 10 September 1838 that provided the impetus for the foundation of the local Anti-Corn Law Association, and it was t h i s Association that in 1839 played a major part in creating the League.

In his numerous pronouncements in favour of free trade, Bowring often dwelt on its role in promoting international harmony. True, the main thrust of his case against protection was economic, but he rarely missed the chance to argue that peace and free trade were intimately connected. Indeed, like Cobden and many other Leaguers, he saw the cause of free trade and the cause of peace as one and the

The HeraldofPeace, new ser., vi (1827-8). 328-9; vii (1829-30), 76-7.336-8. I’ On 17 a t . 1853 Cobden warned Henry Richard. the Peace Society’s secretary. chat ‘you ought not to

calculate upon the old Leaguers transferring their free-trade energies to the Peace cause’ (Cobden Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 43657 fo. 217). But for the pacific side of the League see R F. Spall Jnr.. ‘Free trade, foreign relations and the Anti-Corn Law League’. brmtat ioM/Hist . RN., x (1988). 405-32.

If Bowring to Chadwick, 17 May 1865, Bentham MS. UC clv. 100, University College London. I’ Bowring to Revd. R L. Carpenter, 8 Feb. 1860, Carpenter Papers, Manchcster College, Oxford.

L. Brown, TheBoardofTradeandth~~-TradeMovrmmr, 1830-42 (Oxford, 1958), pp. 121, 124-3. Hume to Bowring, 1 5 Jan. 1834, MS. Add. 175, University College London. Hansard. ~ , x x v i i , c o l s . 2 1 7 ( ~ ~ March 1835). 1254(19May 1835);xxx,col. 1319(3kpt. 1835).

I’ See. for instance, J. Bowring. Rqr. on rh C o m m e r c e a n d M a n u f c t u r r s o f ~ ~ ~ / a n d (601, p. 3. H.C. (I 836). dv. 657.

348 JOHN BOWRING A N D THE PEACE MOVEMENT

same.28 When he spoke at Manchester in I 8 3 8, he asked the rhetorical question: ‘Do you believe that war would be possible when we had universal trade? ‘The happy state of things will come’, he prophesied, ‘in which we shall look on the victories of commerce, and the victories of peace, as far more glorious than any that have been gathered in fields where blood has been poured like water’.29 Four years later, his message was much the same. He expressed satisfaction that the League ‘had done great service to the cause of morality by the development of the pacific principle’. ‘If governments would make the pacific principle their polar star,’ he continued, ‘if they would look to commerce instead of war, as a means of influence; if they would think more of our merchants, and less of our fleets and armies, we should be stronger, and we should be wiser’.m

The fiee-trade radicals and the Peace Society activists were brought together in a series of peace congresses. Bowring again was conspicuous, at least until his Far Eastern appointment obliged him to leave Europe in 1849. He took part in the preparations for the first peace convention, and was present when it assembled in London in June I 843?l When the convention completed its business, Bowring was among those chosen to deliver its address to the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, and to the king of the Belgians, who was then in London3* Bowring was unable to attend the international peace congress held at Brussels in September 1848:~ but he spoke at the meetings in Birmingham and Manchester organized to generate public pressure in support of the resolutions of the Brussels congress.3J

Besides his connection with the three main parts of the peace movement already mentioned-the Peace Society, the free-trade agitation and the peace congresses- Bowring pamcipated in a number of less celebrated or more transient peace initiatives. In I 842, for example, he was involved with the American diplomat and lawyer Henry Wheaton and the French writer and politician Alphonse de Lamartine in plans to establish a French language newspaper designed to promote peace and international understanding. He was associated in 1847 with the short- lived Peace of Nations Society, and with the People’s International League inspired by Giuseppe Mazzini. In the same year he spoke on peace and free trade at an international congress of economists organized by the Association Belge pour la Liberti C0mmerciale.3~

Nor should the contribution Bowring made through his published writings be forgotten. Deontology , Bowring’s edition ofJeremy Bentham’s unpublished work on ethics, appeared in several languages in 1834. It contains a number of passages

See The League, 28 June 1845: ‘The cause of Free Trade is the cause of peace’; Cobden to Henry

A. henrice. Histoty ofthe Anti-Corn Law Lcagur (2 vols., 1853). i. 69. Anti-Bread Tax Circular, 3 Nov. 1842.

Ashworth, 12 Apr. 1842. J. Morley, The LifcofRichard Cobden (2 vols., 1896). i. 230.

” Proceedings oftheRnt GmrralPeace Convention (1843). p. 43. ” Van der Linden, p. I 5 I.

” He sent a message of support though (see Rcporn of the Peace Congresses at Brussels, Paris, Frankfort, London

The Great Peace G m p : Rrpat ofthe Spches and Proceedings at the Confnencc and Public Meetings held in and Edinburgh (1861). Brussels C o v report, p. 27).

London, Birmingham andhfanchester [1848], pp. 14,16. 35 Van der Linden, pp. 203,210,279-80,309.

JOHN B O W R I N G A N D THE PEACE M O V E M E N T 349

critical ofwar, some ofwhich were almost certainly penned by Bowring rather than Bentham?6 No manuscripts corresponding to the following extract survive in Bentham’s papers, and its verbose and grandiloquent style is very much Bowring’s:

As knowledge has, in its progress, gathered families and tribes, once hostile, into the regions of common interest and mutual affection, so it will, in its further triumphs, fling the girdle of beneficence around now-separated nations. As the crimes of violence have diminished under the rebuke of more enlightened opinion-as that opinion, acquiring strength, will not fail to act upon the other departments of improbity, who can doubt that war-the maximizer of every crime, the harvester of every violence, the picture of every horror, the representative of every folly, will at last be overwhelmed and annihilated by the mighty and resistless influence of truth, virtue, and felicity?’

In his own MinorMoralsfor Young People, published in three parts between 1 8 3 4 and I 8 39, Bowring again dilated on pacific themes. ‘The dependence of nations upon one another affords the true security for peace and common prosperity’, he announced in suitably didactic tones: ‘It is the destiny of commerce to undo what hatred and war have done’. A few pages later, as if to dispel any lingering preference on the part of his youthful readers for the gliner and excitement of war over the tranquility of peace, he launched a furious attack on ‘War of all plagues the most pestilential-the most prolific! War, compared to which dl other crimes are small- all other follies triflingYJ8 Similar ideas can be found in Bowring’s Influence o j Knowledge on Domestic and Social Happiness, published about I 840; though here the language is more optimistic, if no less expansive:

Let nations communicate with one another, as individuals are beginning to communicate, and war will become impossible. The time will amve-I hope its arrival is not far distant,- in which it will be incredible to our descendants that there should have been so much folly, and so much fanaticism in the world, as to have induced two tribes of men, solely because they spoke different languages, or lived on the opposite sides of a river, or a mountain, to be led forth by princes or politicians to fields of slaughter. . . ?9

In view of all this irenical endeavour, it seems legitimate to ask why Bowring invested so much time and energy-and so many words-in the promotion of peace. How did he come to hold such views? We cannot, of course, gain access to Bowring’s innermost thoughts and motivations. But it is possible to suggest several influences that were probably important.

The first is Bowring’s mercantile background. His father Charles, a 1eadingExeter merchant, was an exporter of coarse woollens to the Iberian peninsula and ChinaM The young John Bowring started to learn a number of languages from the well- travelled traders he met in the Exeter serge market.“ In I 8 I I he was sent off to

ojtheSprings $Action and Article on Utilitarianism, ed. A. Goldworch (Oxford, 1983), pp. xxix-xxxiii. 16 F0rBowring.s part in the work see The Collected Work to f Ier rmyBenthcrm~~nto lo~ , togetkerurithA Table

17 J. Bentham. Deontolw; or, theScience OjMoraliy, ed. J. Bowring (2 vols.. 1834). ii. 49-50. JI1 J.Bowring, MinorMoralsfor YoungPeople (3 pm.. 18349). ii. 9 4 132. l9 Idem. The InJuence $KnourledF on Domestic and Social Happines [I 840?], p. 5 .

“ J. Bowring, ‘Ancient Exeter and its trade’, Trans. h n h o t . , v (1872). 95. D. Kerr, TheBowringStory (1962). p. 8 3 .

350 JOHN B O W R I N G A N D THE PEACE M O V E M E N T

London to work as a clerk to John Milford, a merchant operating, according to the London trade directories, first from Size Lane and then from King’s Arms Yard, Coleman Street. By 1818 Bowring had established his own business, trading as Bowring and Company, merchants, of 23 Bucklerbury.“2 He was not, in the long run, an especially successful businessman. He met with financial disaster in I 827, and again in 1847. None the less, it seems likely that involvement in trade, and particularly overseas trade, coloured his thinking. Most directly, perhaps, it gave h m a personal stake in peace. War might provide fresh opportunities for the entrepreneur, but it could also-and more predictably-lead to losses of ships and cargoes, disrupt carefully-constructed and often highly complex trading arrange- ments, increase insurance premiums, and raise the cost of maritime labour. Considerations of this kind would surely have had some weight for one who had grown to adulthood during a period of long and almost uninterrupted Anglo- French conflict, and then started his own business in very different post-war conditions.

But to emphasize this financial aspect-to concentrate on the influence of Bowring’s bank balance-is to do him less than justice. His commercial activities made an indirect conmbution that was at least as important. His travels abroad, at first for his own mercantile purposes but from 1828 predominantly to study the public accounts of continental states or on commercial missions for the government, facilitated the pursuit of his interest in the literature and culture of different peoples. The knowledge and sympathies he acquired in the process probably disposed him all the more strongly to favour what would later be called the principle of national self-determination. But at the same time, his literary propensities seem to have increased his emotional commitment to international understanding and his aversion to war. The man who solicited conmbutions to the Westminster Review from the Italian poet Ugo Fosco10,’~ and was responsible for bringing out such works as Specimens ofthe Russian Poets (I 820). Ancient Poetry and RomancesofSpain (1823), Specimenr ofthePolish Peers (1827). Sketch ofthehnguageand Literature ofHolland (I 829) and Poetry ofthe Maaan (I 8 30) could hardly be accused of holding narrow or xenophobic viewsu For Bowring, the creation of an harmonious commercial interdependence was merely one facet of a wider vision of greater co-operation and mutual enrichment. His arguments for unrestricted trading relations were paralleled by appeals for the abolition of passports and the free interchange of literature.“

Bowring’s first-hand contact with war ought to be mentioned. He first left the shores of England in I 8 I 3, to go to Spain, ‘a country’, he recalled much later, ‘where war was raging and dangers were on every side’“ Aged only twenty-one, he was

By I 820 he had moved to Freeman’s Court, Cornhill, and by 1823 was at Jeffrey’s Square, St. Mary-Axe. See J. Lindon, ‘Foscolo and the WesrminnerReuiw’, Forum Itulicum, xii (1978). 596-617. Bowring projected. but never finished, a similar work on Danish poetry (see H. Toldberg, The

correspondence and autobiographical notes of Sir John Bowring’, Notes and Queria. cxcii (1947). 82). ‘I Hansard. 3. xxvii, cols. 232-3 (25 March 1835); xxk 421 (10 July 1835); xxxi. 212-13 (9 Feb. 1836).

Bowring’s advocacy of decimalization probably owed something to the same spirit (see J. Bowring, Decimal Spem in Numben, Coim a d Accounb (I 8 54)).

Bowring to F. H. Bowring, 6 Aug. 1839. Bowring Papers Eng. MS. 1229/6.

J O H N BOWRING A N D THE PEACE MOVEMENT 351

sent by Milford to act as his local agent, supervising the delivery of food and supplies to the British army. The fighting appears to have left a deep impression on the young Bowring. In his Minor Morals he devoted several pages to an account of what he had seen in the Peninsular war, and he concluded his denunciation of war in general with a poem on the sanguinary scenes at San Sebastiin, the storming and merciless pillage of which formed one of the most notorious incidents in a particularly long and bitter conflict!’ Years later, in November 1848,when he was speaking in Birmingham in support of the Brussels peace congress, Bowring reminded his listeners that ‘He had passed over battle-fields, he had witnessed scenes of carnage, he had seen the fields red with human blood . . Later still, when in reflective old age he came to pen the memoirs published after his death, his language was more temperate, but he still felt the need to state that his time in Spain had provided him with ‘occasion to see war with all its attendant horrors’; and again he related vividly the terrible carnage he had beheld at San Seba~tiin.‘~

Yet if we are to explain Bowring’s fervent advocacy of peace, his Peninsular war experiences, profound though their impact must have been, are probably less important than h s Christianity. The Peace Society was made up very largely of dedicated Christians, and contained many millennialists who saw the achievement of peace on earth as a prerequisite to the return of ChristM Most of the free-trade radicals were also religiously committed. For the vast majority of peace cam- paigners war was wrong because it was essentially unchristian. Thus we find James Hargreaves writing shortly after the foundation of the Peace Society that armed conflict ‘is at variance with the spirit and commands of the Bible’;51 and in 1832 John Jefferson’s message was precisely the same: ‘In declaring the unlawfulness of War, I must be understood to refer to those pure and elevated principles of morality which are contained in the New Testament’?2 Cobden similarly believed that the peace cause was ‘sanctioned by the law of God’. He explained to Joseph Sturge that his concentration on ‘the pecuniary view of the question’ was largely tactical: it arose from a depressing realization that the New Testament alone had failed ‘to inspire Christian nations with faith in the principles of pea~el.5~

Bowring used Christian arguments against war with great regularity, even after he had abandoned pure pacifism. In his Minor Morals he described war as ‘the scandal of religion’ and ‘the perpetual insult to man’s brotherhood and God’s paternity!’54 In a speech at Manchester in 1848 he depicted it as ‘irreligious’ and ‘the

‘’ MinorMoraL. ii. 129-34. 4a The Great Peace Congress, p. 14. ‘9 Autobiographical Recollections ofsirjohn Bown’ng, ed. L. B. Bowring (1877). p. 100.

A. Tyrrell, ‘Making :he Millennium: the mid-19th century peace movement’, HistoricalJour.. xxi (1978). 75-95. ” J. Hargreaves, Univrrml and Permanent Peace a Desirable Object [ 18181, p. 20. The comments of William

Allen, one of the Society’s founders, are also worth noting. In his review ofthe week of the bade ofwaterloo he recorded the ‘news ofa horrible carnage’ and concluded despairingly that all this had taken place between ‘countries calling themselves Chnstian!’ (Allen’s diary for 1815, Temp. MSS. Box 57/13, Friends House Library, London).

J. Jefferson, The Unhwfulnerr ofwar (1832). p. 4.

MinorMorals, ii. I 32. ” Cobden to Sturge. 16 Sept. 1848, Cobden Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 43656 fos. 53-4.

3 52 JOHN B O W R I N G A N D THE PEACE MOVEMENT

worst work of the de~iP.5~ Peace, by contrast, was the realization of divine intention. The aim of peace campaigners, Bowring explained in 1821, was to be ‘instrumental in introducing the happy reign of the Messiah-the founder-the Prince of Peace’.s6 In one of the poems in his Matins and Vespers, first published in 1823, he wrote of God’s ‘eye of holiness’ looking down benignly on His kingdom.

Where peace and joy and truth and love and light Mingle harmoniously. . ?’

When Bowring spoke at an Anti-Corn Law League meeting in April 1843 he likewise stressed that men were created ‘to love and serve one another’,S8 and he returned to this theme in July 1846 ‘we begin to see that mankind were made to exchange with each other the blessings of so vast and varied a Providence, and live in love, not hatred, towards one

Bowring’s sectarianism may well have given extra force to his Christian pleas for peace. He was a convinced Protestant dissenter, one of whose earliest works contains an impassioned attack on the debilitating effects of Catholic superstition in Spain.60 As a Protestant he objected to ‘the religion of priest-craft and of kingcraft’!’ and sought a return to a simpler and more authentic Christianity that was faithful to the scriptures. More specifically, Bowring was an enthusiastic Unitarian. He attended George’s Meeting House in Exeter until he left for London, where he became a member of the Unitarian congregation at Hackney. When he returned to Exeter after his recall from China, he resumed his attendance at George’s Meeting House until his death in 1872:~ He subscribed to the Unitarian Fund, which aimed to finance popular preaching of ‘rational religion’;63 he played a leading role in the foundation in 1819 of the Unitarian Association for Promoting the Civil Rights of Unitarians, serving-inevitably-as its foreign secretary;@ and on his various continental travels he took the opportunity to pursue his interest in Unitarian hi~t01y.6~ On a number of occasions he readily acknowledged his great debt to his ‘spiritual father’, the Unitarian minister Dr. Lant Carpenter,66 and as late as 1861 he published a vigorous statement of his own Unitarian beliefs!’

I5 The Great Peace Congress, p. 16.

56 Bowring to Eleazor Lord, 27 June 1821, Letter-book. 1818-39, p. 78, Peace Society Papers. 57 J.Bowring,MatinsandVc~(1823),~. 1 1 3 .

L19 The k s s and the People, or a Report an the Proceedings connected with the Opening ofthe Barker Steam Press

6o J. Bowring, Obserwtions on the State ofReligion and Literature in Spain, made during a Journey through the

6’ ‘Switzerland, ‘Geneva-Religion’, nd., Bentham MS. UC cx I 33.

Anti-Bread Tar Circular, 18 Apr. 1843.

(1846) p. 6.

Peninsula in 1819 (1819). especially p. 6.

A. Brockett, NonronJmityin fixem, 1650-1875 (Manchester, 1962)). p. 187. Rules of the Unitarian Fund. . . and a LUt ofsubscriben. . .fir 1816 and 1817 (1816). p. 13.

‘Swiacrland’, ‘Geneva-Religion’, Bentham MS. UC cx. 133; Bowring to -, 8 Aug. 1821, D. R Bentham MS., Loughborough

66 Autobiographical RecoNcrtions, pp. 42, 337; Bowring to Carpenter, 15 Apr. 1837, Carpenter Papers. Bowring dedkated the fint edition of M a t h and Vecpm to Carpenter, but apparently was persuaded by the doctor to remove the dedication from subsequent editions (see Bowring to Carpenter, 25 Dec. 1823, Carpenter Papers).

a R W. Davis Dissent in Politics, 1780-1830: the Political Life o/WilliamSmith, M.P. (1971) pp. 202-3.

67 u. Bowring.] The A t h a m a n Creed (I 86 1).

JOHN BOWRING A N D THE PEACE M O V E M E N T 353

Bowring saw his brand of Christianity-‘pure and genuine Christianity’ as he termed it,& which rejected ‘the shackles of authority’ and emphasized ‘enlightened enquiry’ in search of ‘truth in its nakedness’-as especially in tune with the reforming spirit of the And if his was a Christianity particularly linked with human improvement and progress (‘“Forward forward” is my device and my motto and my maxim’, Bowring wrote in 1826)~ then it was a Christianity particularly conducive to peace; for this he saw as the pinnacle of human achievement. Peace, he declared, was mankind’s ‘highest mission’, a ‘noble mumph‘ that would lead ‘the God of peace’ to ‘look down complacently on his peace promoting Children’.’1

Bowring might have reached such a conclusion in a manner befitting a serious Unitarian-as a result of his own ‘argumentative reasoning’” from personal study. None the less, he would surely have been heartened to know that other Unitarians held similar views. Despite their emphasis on the individual, the Unitarian congregations were closely-knit communities. Professing Unitarians were subject to legislative sanctions until I 8 I 3, and they were prosecuted at Common Law after the repeal of the penal ~tatutes.7~ The threat of prosecution naturally engendered a defensive mentality, and led them to draw comfort from their shared values. Bowring would have been well aware that Unitarians had led the anti-war agitation during the struggle against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. After 18 I 5 evangelicals of various denominations tended to become more conspicuous than the Unitarians, but ‘rational dissenters’ continued to display an abhorrence of war, even though many of them-as Bowring was to do from about 1823-upheld the legitimacy of self-defence.” Here we might note a few such Unitarians with whom Bowring would have been acquainted. He was probably aware of the anti-war views of Thomas Belsham, the most prominent Unitarian divine after the death in 1808 of Theophilus Lind~ey.7~ Timothy Kenrick, Lant Carpenter’s predecessor at Exeter, and a preacher whom Bowring’s father would surely have heard, was well known as a determined opponent of the French wars.’6 Carpenter himself, Bowring’s religious mentor, appears to have become a member of the Bristol auxiliary of the Peace Society after he moved there from Exeter in 18 17?7 Robert Aspland. whom Bowring would have met in Hackney and with whom he co-operated in the founding of the Unitarian Association, refused to fast and pray for the success of

Switzerland’, ‘Geneva-Religion’, Bentharn MS. UC cx. 133. 69 ‘On the Literary Spirit of Christianity & of reform’, n.d., hntham MS. UC cx 139. Bowring to De Clercq, 22 May 1826. cited in Van der Linden, p. 262.

” The InJuence OfKnowIedF, p. 6. ’* ‘On the Literary Spirit of Christianity . . .(, Bentham MS. UC cx. I 39. ” See. for instance, A Sennon, del iwed at the Long Room, Marble Street, Lilwrpwl, on Tuesday mning, April I 8,

74 J. E. Cookson, TheFrirndrofPcaee:Anti-warLibnnlicm in England, 1793-1815 (Cambridge, 1982). pp. 3& 40-1.

75 See T. Belsharn, The Providence ofcod owr-ruling the Issuer of War and Conquest: a Sermon, preached at the Chapel in &ex Street, February 25, I 807 (I 807); idem, The Prospect 4 P e p u a l and Univmol Peace: a Thankpving Smna forthe Conrlun’on cfPeace with France,preachedat &ex-Street Chapel, J u l y 3 1814 (1814).

I 81 7, ~JI John Wright, for which a prosecution is commenced on a charge of Blasphemy (Liverpool, I 8 17).

Cookson. p. 11.

AnnualReportofheCommit~ofrheSocirryforthePromotionofPmnanrntand UnivmalPeacefwl823,p. 52.

See also Memoirs $the LifcoftheRev. Lant COIJWNIV, U.D., ed. R L. Carpenter (1842). pp. 123,358.

354 JOHN B O W R I N G A N D THE PEACE M O V E M E N T

British fleets and armies in the conflict with France.’* William Johnson Fox, who became a friend of Bowring’s in I 8 1 7 , ~ published a series of lectures two years later, one of which was devoted to the subject of war, and appears also to have been a member of the Peace Society for a time.@ In addition to these British Unitarians, William Ellery Channing, the great American Unitarian divine, should be mentioned. He published several sermons, lectures and articles on war, in which the standard Christian arguments were presented alongside more secular points about the bellicose influence of the literature of classical antiquity; the delusive use of words like ‘honour’ and ‘glory’; the unhealthy growth of government patronage and corruption during war, and the benefits to be derived from economic inter- dependence.8’ Bowring knew Channing personally,82 and certainly read some of his irenical p~blications.8~

A final consideration is the influence on Bowring of utilitarianism, or more specifically of Benthamic utilitarianism, a philosophy with which Channing was not much in sympathy,84 but which attracted a good many Unitarians. Bentham, like Bowring, was an opponent of aggressive warn5 He became a member of the Peace Society in the eighteen-twenties, probably on Bowring’s prompting, though we should note that he had advocated the establishment of just such an organization as early as 1 7 8 9 . ~ At that time Bentham had also criticized the interventionist foreign policy of Pitt the Younger in a series of letters sent to the press over the signature ‘Anti-Machiavel’,87 and had written a number of essays on international law-including ‘A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace’-which remained unpublished in his lifetime.88 His aversion to war surfaces in many of his later writings too, such as his articles on public economy that appeared in The Pamphleteer in 1817, Plan ofParliamentary Refom, published in the same year and Constitutional Code, volume i of 1830.

” R B. Aspland, Memoir of the L$, Works and Correspondence ofthe Rev. Robert Aspland, $Hackney (1850), p. 357.

79 Eli= Florance to Fox, I 3 Aug. I 8 I 7. refers to Fox’s ‘new friend Bowring’ (Memoir ofMrs. Eliza Fox, ed. F. FOX (1869). p. 134).

W. J. Fox, A C o u m OfLectures on Sul@fs connected with the Corruption, Revival and Future In&?tzce $ Genuine Christianiy (and edn., 1819). pp. 164-92; AnnualRTorf. . .f.r 1823, p. 46. Fox went on to criticize war in another lecture first published in 1846 (rep.. in W. J. Fox, Lectures Addressed ChieJy to the Working Clacser (4 vols., I 845-9). iv. I I 3-29) but he was a supporter of the Crimean war. ‘I have long thrown overboard the argument from New Testament precepts as such‘, he told George Holyoake in Sept. 1855 (see R Garnen, The L$ofW./. Fox (1910). p. 327).

See W. E.Channing,ASmnonon War(Boston,Mass., 1816),pp. 3. 11,t1-2;ASermonon War(zndedn., Boston, Mass., 1835). p. 8; Lectureon War (Boston, Mass., 1839). pp. v, 2 3 , 2 5 4 .

Bowring to Revd. Lant Carpenter, 7 July 1828, Carpenter Papers.

Channing to Lucy Aikin, 28 Dec. 1833. Correspondence ofWilliam Ellmy Channing, D.D. andLucy Aikin.

” For a more detailed exposition ofBentham’s views see S. Conway, ‘Bentham on peace and war’, Utilitas,

86 Bentham MS. UC cix. 2.

*’ Bowring to W. J. Fox, 6 Jan. 1836?, D. R Bentham MSS.

ed. A. L. Le Breton (1874). p. 193.

i (1989). 82-101.

See S. Conway. ‘Bentham versus Pice Jeremy Bentham and British foreign policy, 1789’. Histoticaljour..

These were published in The Workto/jeremyy&ntham, ed. J. Bowring (I I vols., Edinburgh, 1838-43), ii. xxx (1987). 791-809.

5 37-60,

JOHN BOWRING A N D THE PEACE M O V E M E N T 3 5 5

On the level of detailed argument, Bowring’s views on peace and war were in many respects smkingly similar to Bentham’s. Bowring shared with Bentham a belief in free trade and economic interdependence as prophylactics against war: both of them attacked ‘balance of power’ politics, interventionist foreign policy; and those classes that have an interest in war and therefore seek its promotion.89 Bowring, like Bentham, laid great emphasis on the use of delusive language by these classes-particularly terms like ‘honour’ and ‘glory’-to fool the people and foster a warlike spirit.w More positively, he supported reductions in the armed forcesgl-a proposal of Bentham’s-and recommended the Benthamic desiderata of codifica- tion of international law and the foundation of an international court of

Some of these ideas could, no doubt, have come from other sources. We have already seen that in certain respects Channing made similar points. But that Bowring owed more to Bentham seem likely for four reasons. First, he knew Bentham well and seems enthusiastically to have embraced his general principles. Second, he referred admiringly to Bentham when discussing peace, war and related issues. Third, he was certainly aware of Bentham’s views on these matters. Fourth, he used utilitarian language in his own presentation of anti-war arguments. Even taken together these points may not add up to a cast-iron case, but they certainly amount to weighty circumstantial evidence.

Bowring met Bentham in September 1820.9~ The young merchant and the old phdosopher (Bentham was then seventy-two) quickly formed a close friendship. In December I 820 Bentham told his brother that Bowring came to talk at length with him at least once a week.94 The relationship was to become more and more intimate over the years, and in 1827, after Bowring’s first financial disaster, he and h s family came to live in Bentham’s Westminster h0me.9~ When Bentham died in 1832, Bowring became his literary executor, and in 1834, as we have seen, he brought out Deontology, an expanded version of Bentham’s writings on ethics. In further fulfilment of his responsibilities, Bowring supervised the preparation of the edition of Bentham’s Works published by William Tait of Edinburgh between 1838 and 1843.

Despite these connections, the extent to which Bowring was committed to utilitarianism has been questioned. Many of those in Bentham’s circle were convinced that Bowring had won Bentham’s affection through flattery and obsequiousness, and that he was concerned only to use Bentham’s name to further

09 ‘Anglo-Turkish War’, p. 188; Thelnfluence OfKttowledge, p. 5;Bowring to F. H. Bowring, 18 Nov. 1840. 14 Apr. 1852, Bowring Papers, Eng. MS. 1229/68,182.

9o MinorMords, ii. 124; Deontology, ii. 307 (almost certainly written by Bowring rather than Bentham). 91 Hansard, 3. xxxii, cols. 216-17 ( I I March 1836). 9* AutoCiographical Recollections, pp. 267-8. ’’ Bowring dined with Bentham, apparently for the first time, on 16 Sept. He had been in written

communication in August (see thejournal ofJ. F. Colls, Bentham MS. UC cvi. 252-3; see also Bentham to Sir Samuel Bentham, mid Sept. 1820, Bentham Papers. Brit. Libr.. Add. MS. 33545 fos. 443-6).

91 Bentham to Sir Samuel Bentham, 29 N0v.-18 Dec. 1820, Bentham Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 33545

9s See Bowring to John Cam Hobhouse, 4 Oct. I 827, Broughton Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 36464 fo. 64. fo. 455.

356 J O H N BOWRING A N D THE PEACE MOVEMENT

his own. J. F. Colls, an amanuensis of Bentham's who wimessed the relationship at close quarters, was later bitterly to criticize Bowring for 'perpetually lavishmg on him [Bentham] 'the warmest eulogies and adulation, often too palpable to be endured by any other than the unmercihlly-bespattered subject of them himself'."

This depiction probably contains some truth, but it falls a long way short of the whole truth. It underestimates both parties. Bentham might have been flattered, but he had a more cogent reason to look favourably on Bowring. When Bentham compared his young friend to 'Omniscient'Jackson, the highly-talented eighteenth- century lawyer and p~l i t ic ian,~ or pronounced him'without doubt' the most illustri- ous of his followers,98 he was thinking primarily of Bowring's ability to disseminate the verities of utilitarianism Bowring's wide knowledge of languages and his exten- sive foreign contacts made him, in Bentham's opinion, an invaluable assistant, a vital coadjutor in the great Benthamic enterprise.*Bowring, for his part, might well have been keen to further his own fame and fortune-hardly an unusual desire-but we should not assume from this that his interest in Bentham's ideas was more apparent than real. He seems genuinely to have been impressed by Bentham's 'extraordinary mind', as he described it,''''' and dedlared Bentham to be 'my venerated master'.'O' He might not have understood Bentham's philosophical system in the way that James and John Stuart Mill did, but he was attracted by many of the tangible political recommendations that flowed from that system, and as Bentham's follower he saw his task as propagating the utilitarian gospel at home and abroad. Deontology,Bowring told Macvey Napier, was intended 'to bring the Utilitarian Philosophy into the busi- ness of daily life'.lo2 In the same spirit he sawJames Mill's articles for the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica as doing service to the cause: Bowring wanted to send a copy to a German correspondent whom he hoped would be instrumental in 'the spread of Utilitarian Phil~sophy'.'~~ Even the anecdotal material on Bentham inserted by Bowring in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine was written, it seems, with dissemi- nation in view. 'I thought by and by of bringing in all the great Utilitarian truths through Benthamic tittle-tattle', Bowring explained to one of his fellow editors.'O' We might also note that as late as 1865-long after Bowring had anythtng to gain from his connection with Bentham-he was still pressing for prison reform on Ben- thamic lines, and arguing that Bentham was The most profound and philanthropic writer on Prison Dis~ipline'.'~~

v6 J. F. Colls, Urilitarinnum Unmasked (1x44). p. 10. Bowring is defended against this kind of attack in

''I Bentham to John Tyrrell, 27 Jan. 183 I, Tyrrell Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 34661 fos. 13-14. G. F. Bartle, 'Jeremy Bentham andJohn Bowring', mfe, xxxvi (1963). 27-35.

Thomas Erskine Perry's account of a visit to Bentham, 7 Feb. 1831. Horace Smith Papers, D/DRh C I 30/1. Essex Record Office, printed in S. Conway and P. Schofield, 'A visit to Bentham, February I 83 I', 7 % ~ Eenrhm Nwdetfer, no. I I (1987). 46-7.

See Bentham to Ramohun Roy, n.d. [but 18281. Works o/Bpnt/tam, x. ~9;Bentham to Henry Brougham, I Jan. 1828, Brougham MSS., University College London.

loo Bowring to Hobhouse, 23 Feb. 1826. Broughton Papen, Brit. Libr, Add. MS. 36461 fo. 505 . lol Bowring to F. H. Bowring, 19 Nov. 1 8 6 Bowring Papers, Eng. MS. 1z29/130. 101 Bowri ng to Napier, 17 Jan. 1834, Macvey Napier Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 34616 fo. 264. lo' Bowring to Francis Place, 18 July 1829, Place Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 37950 fo. 26. lM Bowring to Burton, 3 Nov. 1838, John Hill Burton Papers, MS. 9404 fo. 26. 10s J. Bowring, On Remunerative Prison Labour [1865], p. 2.

J O H N BOWRING A N D THE PEACE MOVEMENT 357

This general commitment to Bentham and his ideas forms an essential background to Bowring’s willingness to associate Bentham in the public mind with the peace cause, and to imply a debt to him in thls area. Bowring acknow- ledged that it was worlung with Bentham on commercial questions that turned him into an active free trader.Iw When Bowring talked about peace and war he made no similar acknowledgement, but his references or allusions to Bentham suggest that he had exerted an influence on Bowring’s thinking. In I 829 Bowring reminded the Peace Society that Bentham was one of its ‘apostles’ and ‘one conducing towards its great end’.’’’ In 1846, in a lecture published by the Peace Society, Bowring spoke of a proposal by ‘a benevolent philosopher’ that every government should have a ‘Peace Department’ whose minister would be encharged with promoting ‘the pacific interests of the people’.lffl The ‘benevolent philosopher’ was not named, but his audience would surely have believed that Bowring was referring to Bentham.

Of course to conscript Bentham’s reputation to add weight to one’s arguments does not mean that those arguments have derived from Bentham. Politicians are apt to drop the names of the good and the great to support their case without necessarily knowing much about the ideas of such worthies.’” But Bowring was certainly familiar enough with Bentham’s anti-war views to have been influenced by them. The snippets of Bentham’s conversation introduced by Bowring into his ‘Memoirs of Bentham’ in the Works show that the two of them discussed questions of peace and waG1l0 and in this connection it might usefully be added that it was Bowring who, in I 827, arranged for Bentham to meet Jabez Henry, a lawyer whom Bentham hoped would produce an international code on utilitarian principles.”’ More importantly, perhaps, Bowring knew of Bentham’s own writings on international matters. We have seen that he brought out Bentham’s Deontofogv, a work containing several passages from Bentham’s papers which are highly critical of war.’12 Bowring had worked with Bentham many years before to produce a pamphlet published in 1821 as Observations on the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial System, in whch one finds the characteristically Benthamic argument that unjust wars are ‘the h i t s of the determination formed by the ruling few to keep the subject many in a state of ignorance and Still more relevant is Bowring’s inclusion of the ‘Anti-Machiavel’ letters in the ’Memoirs of Bentham’;”*

‘OL J. Bowring, ‘Free Trade Recollections. No. VII-Jeremy Bentham’, Howitt’r journal $Literature and

‘07 The Herald ofpeace. new ser., vii ( 1 8 2 p 3 0 ) . 76-7. ‘08 The Political and Commercial Importance $Peace, p. I I . ‘09 On this see M. Bentley, ‘Party, docnine, and thought‘, HI# andlow Politicc in Modern Britain, ed. M.

‘lo Worko/BPnrham,x 581. ‘I’ Bentham to Henry. 30 July 1827, Henry Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 3 0 1 5 1 fo. I . ‘I* For a passage that can be ascribed to Bentham see &ontology, i. 9 3 . ‘I’ J. Bentham, Obrewationson theRestrictivPandProhibitoryCommercialSystem,ed.J.Bowring(18~1), p. 3 8 .

For the joint-authorship of this pamphlet see Bentham to Sir Samuel Bentham. 28 March 1 8 2 1 , Bentham Papers, Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 3 3 5 4 5 fos. 5 1 1-13; Bentham to Simon Bdivar, 31 May 1 8 2 3 , Secretaria del Interior y de Relaciones Exteriores, tom. 159, fo. 303, Archivo Historic0 Nacional. Bogota.

‘I’ Works $Bentham. x. 201-1 I . For Bowring’s incorrect ordering of these letters, and his omission of a

PopularPragrerc. ii (1847). 123-4.

Bentley and J. Stevenson (Oxford, 1983). esp. p. 140.

358 JOHN BOWRING A N D THE PEACE M O V E M E N T

and although he was not responsible for editing Bentham’s international law essays them~elves,”~ he was sufficiently well acquainted with their contents to be able to urge his son Frederick Hermann to study them for guidance.’I6

In view of this close acquaintance with Bentham’s arguments, Bowring’s use of Benthamic idiom provides a further indication of Bentham’s influence. Bowring, like Bentham, spoke and wrote of the division between the ‘ruling few’ and the ‘subject many’.’’’ He echoed Bentham in identifylng the ‘sinister interest’ of the ‘ruling few’ in favour of war.”* He even used the same description of war itself. Bentham called it ‘murder on the largest s~ale’:’’~ Bowring referred to it as the ‘assassination of our fellow creatures on the grandest scale’;’m ‘but multitudinous murder’; and-in a particularly close imitation of the Benthamic original-‘murder on the mightiest scale’.’’’ In a letter to one of his sons, written in 1840, Bowring lamented the ‘state of opinion which makes murder on a large scale honourable while murder on a small scale is penal’.’’’ This was a view expressed more ponderously in Thomas Clarkson’s Essay on the Doctrine and Practice ofthe Early Christians, as thq, Relate to War, a tract published by the Peace Society in 18 17 which Bowring would probably have read. It can be found, too, in one of Channing’s sermons published in I 8 16.”~ But the point was also made-and almost exactly as Bowring made it-in one of Bentham’s commonplace books, which Bowring was editing in 1840 for the ‘Memoirs of Bentham’.’’

All this suggests that Bowring had absorbed many elements of Bentham’s thinking on peace and war into his own. Christianity, and particularly Unitarian Christianity, almost certainly inspired Bowring’s work for peace, but Bentham seems to have played a significant part in shaping Bowring’s approach in detail and in determining the concepts and arguments he employed.

STEPHEN C O N W A Y

fourth, see Conway, ‘Bentham versus Pitt’, pp. 797-9. For Bowring’s instructions to the printer see Bentham MS. UC ix. 50-90.

Richard Smith was the editor (see Workc oJBtntham, x. 548 n.). ‘I6 Bowring to F. H. Bowring, 2 Sept. 185s.Bowring Papers, Eng. MS. IZZ~/ZO~. ‘I’ Anti-Bread Tar Circular, 18 Apr. 1843. ”* The Influence OfKnowledge, p. 5. ‘I9 ‘Emancipation Spanish‘, 24 June 1820, Bentham MS. UC clxiv. log, I 56. ‘’O The People and rhe Press, pp. 6-7. ‘’I The Influence ofKnowledge, p. 6. ”’ Bowring to F. H. Bowring, 28 Nov. 1840, Bowring Papers, Eng. MS. 1229/75.

T. Clarkson, A n h a y on the Docrrine and Practice ofthe Early Christians (2nd edn., I 817). p. 7; Channing, Spnnon on War (1816). p. 3.

la Works ofBenrham, x. 509. The same idea can be found, in slightly different form, in Deonrology, ii. 307- 8. For Bowring’s editing of the ‘Memoirs’ see Thejournals ofCaroline Fa, 1835-71, ed. W. Monk (1972). pp. 100-1 and Bowring to Maria Bownng, 24 Aug. 1840, Bowring Papers, Eng. MS. 1230/9.