‘The Real Grounds of the Present War’: John Bowles and the French Revolutionary Wars, 1792–1802

First paragraph: John Bowles (1751-1819), one of the most successful British loyalist writers of the French Revolutionary period, admired the writings of Edmund Burke on the French Revolution, and he was substantially influenced by them. He was a 'war crusader' by conviction, wishing to see the downfall of the revolutionary regime in France as the primary aim of the British war, and not simply because the government paid him to be one. Moreover, he was intellectually sophisticated and eloquent enough to be judged more than a mere copyist of Burke's views