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113-430: The committee was established by John Bowring and Edward Blaquiere. Its early members included the reformer Jeremy Bentham and Lord Byron . Other members included Francis Burdett , John Hobhouse , Joseph Hume , Edward Ellice and David Ricardo . There were two causes that prompted the formation of the committee. Viscount Castlereagh died in 1822 and was replaced by George Canning as Foreign Secretary; and Byron

226-550: A Vision in a Dream which had been disparaged by the critics and discarded soon after first publication. In the mid-19th century a district of the Llynfi Valley , Glamorgan , south Wales was known as Bowrington as it was built up when John Bowring was chairman of the local iron company. Bowring's ironworks community later became part of the Maesteg Urban District. The name was revived in the 1980s when

339-451: A broader readership of minimally educated book buyers, thereby intending to guarantee the existence of an American national literature by ensuring its economic viability. Starting in the late 1820s, Neal shifted his focus from nationalism to regionalism to challenge the rise of Jacksonian populism in the US by showcasing and contrasting coexisting regional and multicultural differences within

452-652: A clerk at Milford & Co. where he began picking up a variety of languages. His experiences in Spain fed a healthy skepticism towards the administrative capabilities of the British military . He travelled extensively and was imprisoned in Boulogne-sur-Mer for six weeks in 1822 for suspected spying (though merely carrying papers for the Portuguese envoy to Paris). He incorporated Bowring & Co. with

565-567: A compromise that directly led to the issue of the florin (one-tenth of a pound sterling), introduced as a first step in 1848, by way of pattern coins not issued for circulation, and in 1849 as a circulating coin known as the 'Godless' Florin due to it omitting the words 'DEI GRATIA' in the obverse legend. As the 1849 coins proved unpopular, the coins were redesigned accordingly and went into general production 3 years later in 1852 and became known as 'Gothic Head' Florins remaining in production until 1887. He lost his seat in 1849 but went on to publish

678-500: A dozen [American] authors; and of these, only Washington Irving had received more than enough to pay for the salt in his porridge." Neal was nevertheless inspired by Pierpont's financial success with his poem The Airs of Palestine (1816) and encouraged by the reception of his initial submissions to The Portico . He resolved that "there was nothing left for me but authorship, or starvation, if I persisted in my plan of studying law". Composing his first and only bound volume of poetry

791-570: A dry goods shop in Boston and moved to the larger city. In Boston, Neal established a partnership with John Pierpont and Pierpont's brother in-law, whereby they exploited supply chain constrictions caused by the War of 1812 to make quick profits smuggling contraband British dry goods between Boston, New York City, and Baltimore . They established stores in Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston before

904-460: A few months on the assumption that "if people gave any thing [ sic ] for books here, they would not be able to starve me, since I could live upon air, and write faster than any man that ever lived." His financial situation had become desperate when William Blackwood asked Neal in April 1824 to become a regular contributor to Blackwood's Magazine . For the next year and a half, Neal

1017-509: A lecturer in 1829, reaching the height of his influence in the women's rights movement in 1843 when he was delivering speeches before large crowds in New York City and reaching wider audiences through the press. This period of juggling literary, activist, athletic, legal, artistic, social, and business pursuits was captured by Neal's law apprentice James Brooks in 1833: Neal was   ... a boxing-master, and fencing-master too, and as

1130-741: A man in his early twenties who was smoking on a non-smoking streetcar. John Neal died on June 20, 1876, and was buried in the Neal family plot in Portland's Western Cemetery . Neal's body of literary work spans almost sixty years from the end of the War of 1812 to a decade following the Civil War , though he achieved his major literary accomplishments between 1817 and 1835. His writing both reflects and challenges shifting American ways of life over those years. He started his career as an American reading public

1243-565: A new, literary direction. Bentham's personal secretary at the time, John Neal , labelled Bowring a "meddling, gossiping, sly, and treacherous man" and charged him with deceiving investors in his Greek adventure and mismanaging Bentham's funds for Bowring's own prestige with the Westminster Review and an early public gymnasium . Bowring had begun contributing to the newly founded Westminster Review and had been appointed its editor by Bentham in 1825. By his contributions to

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1356-617: A partner in 1818 to sell herrings to Spain (including Gibraltar by a subsidiary) and France and to buy wine from Spain. It was during this period that he came to know Jeremy Bentham , and later became his friend. He did not, however, share Bentham's contempt for belles lettres . He was a diligent student of literature and foreign languages, especially those of Eastern Europe. He somehow found time to write 88 hymns during this time, most published between 1823 and 1825. Failure of his business in 1827, amidst his Greek revolution financing adventure, left him reliant on Bentham's charity and seeking

1469-537: A printer's devil came in, crying "copy, more copy," he would race with a huge swan's quill, full gallop, over sheets of paper as with a steam-pen, and off went one page, and off went another, and then a lesson in boxing, the thump of glove to glove, then the mask, and the stamp of the sandal, and the ringing of the foils. In 1828, Neal married his second cousin Eleanor Hall and together they had five children between 1829 and 1847. The couple raised their children in

1582-637: A proud and ambitious young man who viewed reliance on his own talents and resources as the key to his recovery and future success. Neal's time in Baltimore between his business failure in 1816 and his departure for London in 1823 was the busiest period of his life as he juggled overlapping careers in editorship, journalism, poetry, novels, law study, and later, law practice. During this period he taught himself to read and write in eleven languages, published seven books, read law for four years, completed an independent course of law study in eighteen months that

1695-450: A reception in Siam that could not have stood in starker contrast to Peking's constant intransigence. He was welcomed like foreign royalty, showered with pomp (including a 21-gun salute), and his determination to forge a trade accord was met with the open-minded and intelligent interest of King Mongkut . Negotiations were buoyed by the cordiality between Mongkut and Bowring and an agreement

1808-515: A reckless and slanderous press, made the conduct of public affairs one of extreme difficulty." He plunged into writing a 434-page account of his Philippines sojourn which was published the same year. His last employment by the British government was as a commissioner to Italy in 1861, to report on British commercial relations with the new kingdom. Bowring subsequently accepted the appointment of minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary from

1921-794: A seat in parliament in 1841, as member for Bolton , perhaps England's constituency most affected by industrial upheaval and riven by deep social unrest bordering on revolution. In the House, he campaigned for free trade, adoption of the Charter, repeal of the Corn Laws, improved administration of the Poor Law, open borders, abolition of the death penalty, and an end to flogging in the Army and payments to Church of England prelates. During this busy period he found leisure for literature, and published in 1843

2034-613: A series of reports laid before the House of Commons and even a paper delivered to the British Association of Science with his observations on containment of the plague in the Levant. He also spoke out passionately for equal rights for women and the abolition of slavery. On a still narrow, landed constituency, Bowring, campaigning on a radical and, to Marx and Engels, inconsistent platform of free trade and Chartism , secured

2147-598: A shopping development in Maesteg was called the Bowrington Arcade. Bowring Road, Ramsey , Isle of Man , was named for him in appreciation of his support of universal suffrage for the House of Keys and his efforts to liberalise trade with the island. As the 4th Governor, several places in Hong Kong came to be named after him: John Neal (writer) John Neal (August 25, 1793 – June 20, 1876)

2260-539: A single exception." Fred Lewis Pattee corroborated this statement seventy years after Neal's death: "Where he condemned, time has almost without exception condemned also." As an American literary nationalist, he called for "faithful representations of native character" in literature that utilize the "abundant and hidden sources of fertility   ... in the northern, as well as the southern Americas". His American Writers essay series in Blackwood's Magazine (1824)

2373-555: A small group of wealthy London merchants and bankers as Chairman of the Llynvi Iron Company and established a large integrated ironworks at Maesteg in Glamorgan during 1845–46. He installed his brother, Charles, as Resident Director and lost no time in naming the district around his ironworks, Bowrington. He gained a reputation in the Maesteg district as an enlightened employer, one contemporary commenting that 'he gave

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2486-815: A source of income. James Neal died in 1832 and Stephen Neal in 1836, but the second inheritance was held up until 1858 in a legal battle involving Stephen's daughter, suffragist Lydia Neal Dennett . In 1845 he became the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company 's first agent in Maine, earning enough in commissions that he decided to retire from the lecture circuit, law practice, and most writing projects. Neal began developing and managing local real estate, operating multiple granite quarries, developing railroad connections to Portland, and investing in land speculation in Cairo, Illinois . He led

2599-708: A translation of the Manuscript of the Queen's Court , a collection of Czech medieval poetry, later considered false by Czech poet Václav Hanka . In 1846 he became President of the Mazzinian People's International League. Without inherited wealth, or salary as MP for Bolton, Bowring sought to sustain his political career by investing heavily in the south Wales iron industry from 1843. Following huge demand for iron rails brought about by parliament's approval of massive railway building from 1844 to 1846, Bowring led

2712-601: A work entitled The Decimal System in Numbers, Coins and Accounts in 1854. The trade depression of the late 1840s caused the failure of his venture in south Wales in 1848 and wiped out his capital, forcing Bowring into paid employment. His business failure led directly to his acceptance of Palmerston 's offer of the consulship at Canton. By 1847, Bowring had assembled an impressive array of credentials: honorary diplomas from universities in Holland and Italy, fellowships of

2825-447: Is a " gothic tapestry" of "superstition, supernatural suggestions, brutality, sensuality, colossal hatred, delirium, rape, insanity, murder   ... incest and cannibalism". By "elevating emotional effect over coherence, the novel excites its readers to death." It challenged the national narrative of American Indians' foreordained disappearance in the face of White Americans' territorial expansion and collapsed racial boundaries between

2938-405: Is a perplexing position to know that a price is set on our heads, that our servants cannot be trusted, that a premium is offered to any incendiary who will set fire to our dwellings, to any murderer who will poison or destroy us. ... We have many grievances to redress, and I will try to redress them; many securities to obtain, and I mean to obtain them. ... many unfortunate wretches of all nations (as

3051-479: Is considered an author without a masterpiece, though his short stories are his highest literary achievements and ranked with the best of his age. Rachel Dyer is considered his best novel, "Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" and "David Whicher" his best tales, and The Yankee his most influential periodical. His "Rights of Women" speech (1843) at the peak of his influence as a feminist had a considerable impact on

3164-614: Is highly ridiculous. Yet his work was so highly regarded by the Whig government that he was then appointed secretary of the Royal Commission on the Public Accounts. He had made his name as something of an expert on government accounting. He stood the same year for the newly created industrial constituency of Blackburn but was unsuccessful. In 1835, Bowring entered parliament as member for Kilmarnock Burghs ; and in

3277-512: Is not to be bilked of his fee, a thimble-full of newspaper notoriety". Called "the inventor of the American short story", Neal's tales are "his highest literary achievement". He published an average of one per year between 1828 and 1846, helping to shape the relatively new short story genre, particularly early children's literature. Considered his best short stories, "Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" (1829) and "David Whicher" (1832) "overshadow

3390-631: Is noteworthy as the first work of fiction to utilize psychotherapy . "The Old Pussy-Cat and the Two Little Pussy-Cats" and "The Life and Adventures of Tom Pop" (1835) are both considered pioneering works of children's literature . Like his magazine essays and lectures, Neal's stories challenged American socio-political phenomena that grew in the period leading up to and including Andrew Jackson 's terms as US president (1829–1837): manifest destiny , empire building, Indian removal , consolidation of federal power, racialized citizenship, and

3503-449: Is now worshipped under the name of classical English", which was "the deadest language I ever met with or heard of". Neal's voice was one of many following the War of 1812 calling for an American literary nationalism , but Neal felt his colleagues' work relied too much on British conventions. By contrast, he felt that "to succeed   ..., I must be unlike all that have gone before me" and issue "another Declaration of Independence, in

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3616-536: Is the earliest written history of American literature, and was reprinted as a collection in 1937. Neal dismissed almost all of the 120 authors he critiqued in that series as derivative of their British predecessors. John Neal used his role as critic, particularly in the pages of his magazine The Yankee , to draw attention to newer writers in whose work he saw promise. John Greenleaf Whittier , Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow all received their first "substantial sponsorship or praise" in

3729-628: The American Writers series was Neal's most noteworthy contribution to the magazine. Blackwood provided the platform for Neal's earliest written works on gender and women's rights and published Brother Jonathan , but a back-and-forth over manuscript revisions in autumn 1825 soured the relationship and Neal was once again without a source of income. After a short time earning much less money writing articles for other British periodicals, thirty-two year-old John Neal met seventy-seven year-old utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham through

3842-625: The Arrow affair. In October 1856, a dispute broke out with the Canton vice-consul Ye Mingchen over the Chinese crew of a small British-flagged trading vessel, the Arrow . Bowring saw the argument as an opportunity to wring from the Chinese the free access to Canton which had been promised in the Treaty of Nanking but so far denied. The irritation caused by his "spirited" or high-handed policy led to

3955-644: The Cult of Domesticity . "David Whicher" challenged a body of popular literature that converged in the 1820s around a "divisive and destructive insistence on frontiersman and the Indian as implacable enemies". "Idiosyncrasies" is a "manifesto for human rights" in the face of "hegemonic patriarchalism". His stories in this period also used humor and satire to address social and political phenomena, most notably "Courtship" (1829), "The Utilitarian" (1830), "The Young Phrenologist" (1836), "Animal Magnetism" (1839), and "The Ins and

4068-780: The Hawaiian government to the courts of Europe, and in this capacity negotiated treaties with Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Bowring was an accomplished polyglot and claimed he knew 200 languages of which he could speak 100. Many of his contemporaries and subsequent biographers thought otherwise. His chief literary work was the translation of the folk-songs of most European nations, although he also wrote original poems and hymns, and books or pamphlets on political and economic subjects. The first fruits of his study of foreign literature appeared in Specimens of

4181-563: The London Debating Societies . In late 1825 Bentham offered him rooms at his "Hermitage" and a position as his personal secretary. Neal spent the next year and a half writing for Bentham's Westminster Review . In spring 1827, Bentham financed Neal's return to the US. He left the UK having caught the attention of the British literary elite, published the novel he brought with him, and "succeeded to perfection" in educating

4294-700: The Netherlands in 1828, the University of Groningen conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws in February the next year for his Sketches of the Language and Literature of Holland. In 1830, he was in Denmark , preparing for the publication of a collection of Scandinavian poetry. As a member of the 1831 Royal Commission, he advocated strict parliamentary control on public expenditure, and considered

4407-730: The Review he attained considerable repute as a political economist and parliamentary reformer. He advocated in its pages the cause of free trade long before it was popularized by Richard Cobden and John Bright , co-founders of the Anti-Corn Law League in Manchester in 1838. He pleaded earnestly on behalf of parliamentary reform , Catholic emancipation , and popular education . Bentham failed in an attempt to have Bowring appointed professor of English or History at University College London in 1827 but, after Bowring visited

4520-476: The Second Opium War (1856–1860). Martineau put the war down to the "incompetence and self-seeking rashness of one vain man". It was under Bowring that the colony's first ever bilingual English-Chinese law, "An Ordinance for licensing and regulating the sale of prepared opium" (Ordinance No. 2 of 1858), appeared on its statute books. In April the same year, Bowring was the subject of scandal when

4633-526: The Second Opium War sparked by her husband. Bowring married his second wife, Deborah Castle (1816–1902), in 1860; they had no children. Deborah, Lady Bowring died in Exeter in July 1902. She was a prominent Unitarian Christian and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. John Bowring died on 23 November 1872, aged 80. Bowring is credited with popularising Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's Kubla Khan or

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4746-544: The Society of Friends after his participation in a street brawl. In reaction to insults against prominent lawyer William Pinkney published in Randolph just after Pinkney died, his son Edward Coote Pinkney challenged Neal to a duel. Having established himself six years earlier as an outspoken opponent of dueling, Neal refused and the two engaged in a battle of printed words in the fall of that year. Neal became "weary of

4859-402: The "father of American subversive fiction". Generally regarded as a failure, the book shows that "the gulf between Neal's prophetic vision of a native literature and his own capacity to fulfill that vision is painfully apparent". The productivity of Neal's Baltimore days is "hard to believe—until one reads the novels" and notices the haste with which they were written. Logan, a Family History

4972-683: The 1820s: to supplant Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper as the leading American literary voice, to bring about a new distinctly American literary style, and to reverse the British literary establishment's disdain for American writers. He followed Irving's precedent of using temporary residence in London to earn more money and notoriety from the British literary market. London publishers had already pirated Seventy-Six and Logan , but Neal hoped those companies would pay him to publish Errata and Randolph if he were present to negotiate. They refused. Neal brought enough money to survive for only

5085-564: The British about American institutions, habits, and prospects. Yet Brother Jonathan was not received as the great American novel and it failed to earn Neal the level of international fame he had hoped for, so he returned to the US no longer Cooper's chief rival. Neal returned to the United States from Europe in June 1827 with plans to settle in New York City, but stopped first in his native Portland to visit his mother and sister. There he

5198-540: The Buildings and Nuisances Ordinance, No. 8 of 1856, in the face of stiff opposition, Bowring ensured the safer design of all future construction projects in the colony. He sought to abolish monopolies. Bowring was impressed by the yawning gulf of misunderstanding between the expatriate and Chinese communities, writing, "We rule them in ignorance and they submit in blindness." Notwithstanding, in 1856, Bowring went so far as to attempt democratic reform. He proposed that

5311-878: The Linnean Society of London and Paris, the Historical Institute of the Scandinavian and Icelandic Societies, the Royal Institute of the Netherlands, the Royal Society of Hungary, the Royal Society of Copenhagen, and of the Frisian and Athenian Societies. Numerous translations and works on foreign languages, politics and economy had been published. His zeal in Parliament and standing as a literary man were well known. In 1849, he

5424-500: The Netherlands and France in 1832 by the government and House of Commons, respectively. The mark left by his work in France was not welcomed by all; as one commentator remarked, Of all men, high or low, that I ever met in society, this Dr Bowring is the most presuming and the most conceited. He is a fit charlatan , for Whig employment; pushing and overbearing in his manner, and, like other parvenus , assuming an official importance which

5537-526: The Night in the opening movement of his Fourth Symphony . Selected publications: Bowring married twice. By his first wife, Maria (1793/94–1858), whom he married in 1818 after moving to London, he had five sons and four daughters (Maria, John, Frederick, Lewin, Edgar, Charles, Edith, Emily, and Gertrude). She died in September 1858, a victim of the arsenic poisoning of the bread supply in Hong Kong during

5650-823: The Outs" (1841). With the exception of True Womanhood (1859), John Neal published all of his novels between 1817 and 1833. The first five he wrote and published in Baltimore: Keep Cool (1817), Logan (1822), Seventy-Six (1823), Randolph (1823), and Errata (1823). He wrote Brother Jonathan in Baltimore, but revised and published it in London in 1825. He published Rachel Dyer (1828), Authorship (1830), and The Down-Easters (1833) while living in Portland, Maine, but all are reworkings of content he wrote in London. Keep Cool , Neal's first novel, made him "the first in America to be natural in his diction" and

5763-629: The Philippines, sailing on the steam-powered paddle frigate Magicienne on 29 November 1858, returning seven weeks later. Stripped of his diplomatic and trade powers, weakened by the effects of the arsenic, and seeing his administration torn apart by anti-corruption inquiries in a campaign launched by him, Bowring's work in Hong Kong ended in May 1859. His parting sentiment was that "a year of great embarrassment ... unhappy misunderstandings among officials, fomented by passionate partisanship and by

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5876-820: The Russian Poets (1821–1823). These were followed by Batavian Anthology (1824), Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824), Specimens of the Polish Poets , and Serbian Popular Poetry , both in 1827, and Poetry of the Magyars (1830). Bowring's 88 published hymns include "God is love: his mercy brightens", "In the Cross of Christ I glory", and "Watchman, tell us of the night". "In the Cross" and "Watchman", both from his privately published collection Hymns (1825), are still used in many churches. The American composer Charles Ives used part of Watchman, Tell Us of

5989-499: The United States. The collection of essays and stories he published in his magazine The Yankee "lays the groundwork for reading the nation itself as a collection of voices in conversation" and "asks readers to decide for themselves how to manage the multiple and contending sides of a federal union." To preserve variations in American English he feared might disappear in an increasingly nationalist climate, he became one of

6102-686: The absence on leave of Sir George Bonham , who he was later to succeed. Bowring was instrumental in the formation in 1855 of the Board of Inspectors established under the Qing Customs House, operated by the British to gather statistics on trade on behalf of the Qing government and, later, as the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, to collect all customs duties, a vital reform which brought an end to

6215-418: The bar and started practicing law in Baltimore in 1820. Neal's final years in Baltimore were his most productive as a novelist. He published one novel in 1822 and three more the following year, eventually rising to the status of James Fenimore Cooper 's chief rival for recognition as America's leading novelist. In this turbulent period he quit the Delphian Club on bad terms and accepted excommunication from

6328-506: The bar. Neal defiantly resolved to settle in Portland instead of New York. " 'Verily, verily,' said I, 'if they take that position, here I will stay, till I am both rooted and grounded—grounded in the graveyard, if nowhere else. ' " Neal became a proponent in the US of athletics he had practiced abroad, including Friedrich Jahn 's early Turnen gymnastics and boxing and fencing techniques he learned in Paris, London, and Baltimore. He opened Maine's first gymnasium in 1827, making him

6441-433: The case of criminal libel against the editor of the Daily Press , Yorick J. Murrow, came to trial. Murrow had written of Bowring's having taken numerous steps to favour the trade of his son's firm, Messrs Jardine, Matheson & Co., enriching it as a result. Murrow, having been found guilty by the jury, emerged from six months' imprisonment to take up precisely where he left off, vilifying Bowring from his press. The scandal

6554-493: The catalyst to move to London was a dinner party with an English friend who quoted Sydney Smith 's 1820 then-notorious remark, "in the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?". Whether it had more to do with Smith or Pinkney, Neal took less than a month after that dinner date to settle his affairs in Baltimore and secure passage on a ship bound for the UK on December 15, 1823. Neal's relocation to London figured into three professional goals that guided him through

6667-444: The commercial viability of his works, and craft a new American literature. As a pioneer of "talk[ing] on paper" or "natural writing", Neal was "the first in America to be natural in his diction " and his work represents "the first deviation from   ... Irvingesque graciousness" in which "not only characters but also genres converse, and are interrogated, challenged, and transformed." Neal declared that he "never shall write what

6780-445: The constitution of the Legislative Council be changed to increase membership to 13 members, of whom five be elected by landowners enjoying rents exceeding 10 pounds, but this was rejected by Henry Labouchère of the Colonial Office on the basis that Chinese residents were "deficient in the essential elements of morality on which social order rests". The constituency would only have amounted to 141 qualified electors, in any event. He

6893-603: The corruption of government officials and led modernisation of China's international trade. Concerned for the welfare of coolies being exported to Australia, California, Cuba and the West Indies, and disturbed by the coolie revolt in Amoy in May 1852, Bowring tightened enforcement of the Passenger Act so as to improve coolie transportation conditions and ensure their voluntariness. The newly knighted Bowring received his appointment as Governor of Hong Kong and her Majesty's Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China on 10 January 1854. He arrived in Hong Kong and

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7006-405: The country's first daily columnist. The same year he wrote three-quarters of History of the American Revolution , otherwise credited to Paul Allen . Neal's substantial literary output earned him the moniker " Jehu O' Cataract " from his Delphian Club associates. By these means he was able to pay his expenses while completing his apprenticeship and independently studying law. He was admitted to

7119-426: The dimensions of faith to Bowring who, in 1841, quipped, "Jesus Christ is free trade and free trade is Jesus Christ", adding, in response to consternation at the proposition, that it was "intimitely associated with religious truth and the exercise of religious principles". Through Bentham connections and in spite of his radicalism, Bowring was appointed to carry out investigations of the national accounting systems of

7232-405: The end of slavery and racial prejudice, and helped establish the American gymnastics movement . The first American author to use natural diction and a pioneer of colloquialism , Neal was the first to use the phrase son-of-a-bitch in a US work of fiction. He attained his greatest literary achievements between 1817 and 1835, during which time he was America's first daily newspaper columnist,

7345-564: The ensuing reform one of his main achievements. Till 1832, he was Foreign Secretary of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association . Bowring was appointed Jeremy Bentham's literary executor a week before the latter's 1832 death in his arms, and was charged with the task of preparing a collected edition of his works. The appointment was challenged by a nephew but Bowring prevailed in court. The work appeared in eleven volumes in 1843, notably omitting Bentham's most controversial works on female sexuality and homosexuality. Free trade took on

7458-602: The first American published in British literary journals , author of the first history of American literature , America's first art critic , a short story pioneer, a children's literature pioneer, and a forerunner of the American Renaissance . As one of the first men to advocate women's rights in the US and the first American lecturer on the issue, for over fifty years he supported female writers and organizers, affirmed intellectual equality between men and women, fought coverture laws against women's economic rights, and demanded suffrage , equal pay, and better education for women. He

7571-516: The first American to establish a public gym in the US. He offered lessons in boxing and fencing in his law office. The same year he started gyms in nearby Saco and at Bowdoin College . The year before he had published articles on German gymnastics in the American Journal of Education and urged Thomas Jefferson to include a gymnastics school at the University of Virginia . Neal's athletic pursuits modeled "a new sense of maleness" that favored "forbearance based on strength" and helped him regulate

7684-497: The first writers to employ colloquialism and regional dialects in his writing. Neal used literary criticism in magazines and novels to encourage desired changes in the field and to uplift new writers, most of them women. Noted for his "critical vision", Neal expressed judgments that were widely accepted in his lifetime. "My opinion of other [people's] writings", he said, "has never been ill received; and in every case   ... my judgment has been confirmed, sooner or later, without

7797-424: The following year he was appointed head of a government commission to be sent to France to inquire into the actual state of commerce between the two countries. After losing his seat in 1837, he was busied in further economic investigations in Egypt, for which he produced a very extensive report, as well as Syria, Switzerland, Italy, and some of the states in Imperial Germany . The results of these missions appeared in

7910-436: The fourth Governor of Hong Kong . He was appointed by Queen Victoria as emissary to Siam, later he was appointed by King Mongkut of Siam as ambassador to London, also making a treaty of amity with Siam on 18 April 1855, now referred to as the "Bowring Treaty". His namesake treaty was fully effective for 70 years, until the reign of Vajiravudh . This treaty was gradually edited and became completely ineffective in 1938 under

8023-441: The future of the movement. John Neal and his twin sister Rachel were born in the town of Portland in the Massachusetts District of Maine on August 25, 1793, the only children of parents John and Rachel Hall Neal. The senior John Neal, a school teacher, died a month later. Neal's mother, described by former pupil Elizabeth Oakes Smith as a woman of "clear intellect, and no little self-reliance and independence of will", made up

8136-562: The government of Plaek Phibunsongkhram . Later, he was sent as a commissioner of Britain to the newly created Kingdom of Italy in 1861. He died in Claremont in Devon on 23 November 1872. Bowring was born in Exeter of Charles Bowring (1769–1856 ), a wool merchant whose main market was China, from an old Unitarian family, and Sarah Jane Anne (d. 1828), the daughter of Thomas Lane, vicar of St Ives, Cornwall . His last formal education

8249-488: The great Republic of Letters ." To achieve this he exploited distinctly American characters, settings, historical events, and manners of speech in his writing. This was a "caustic assault" on British literary elites viewed as aristocrats writing for personal amusement, in contrast to American authors as middle class professionals plying a commercial trade for sustenance. By mimicking the common and sometimes profane language of his countrymen in fiction, Neal hoped to appeal to

8362-449: The guise of running a money-lending operation from the ground floor of his residence, collecting debts at extortionate rates. The charges found unproved, Caldwell was exonerated and Anstey suspended, and Bridges later to be appointed acting Colonial Secretary by Bowring, but suspicions remained and Bowring's administration had been ruined. In mourning for the recent loss of his wife to the arsenic poisoning, Bowring made an official tour of

8475-471: The hatred of the Chinese is indiscriminating) have been seized, decaptitated; and their heads have been exposed on the walls of Canton, their assailants having been largely rewarded; ... All this is sufficiently horrible ... we shall exact indemnities for the past, and obtain securities for the future. We shall not crouch before assassination and incendiarism ... I did all that depended upon me to promote conciliation and establish peace. ... but every effort I made

8588-686: The house he built on Portland's prestigious State Street in 1836. Also in 1836 he received an honorary master's degree from Bowdoin College, the same institution at which Neal made a living as a self-employed teenage penmanship instructor and that later educated the more economically privileged Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . After the 1830s, Neal became less active in literary circles and increasingly occupied with business, activism, and local arts and civic projects, particularly after receiving inheritances from two paternal uncles that dramatically reduced his need to rely on writing as

8701-491: The influence of the British literary elite and to develop a rival American literature were largely credited to his successors until more recent twenty-first century scholarship shifted that credit to Neal. His short stories are "his highest literary achievement" and are ranked with those of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe , Herman Melville , and Rudyard Kipling . John Neal is often considered an influential American literary figure with no masterpiece of his own. Defying

8814-455: The late 1820s and the mid 1840s and was during this time a highly sought-after contributor on a variety of topics. Neal published three novels from material he produced in London and focused his new creative writing efforts on a body of short stories that represents his greatest literary achievement. Neal published an average of one tale per year between 1828 and 1846, helping to shape the relatively new short story genre. He began traveling as

8927-468: The law—weary as death", feeling that he spent those years in "open war, with the whole tribe of lawyers in America". "Ironically,   ... at precisely the moment when [Neal] was endeavoring to establish himself as the American writer, Neal was also alienating friends, critics, and the general public at an alarming rate." By late 1823, Neal was ready to relocate away from Baltimore. According to him,

9040-530: The less inspired efforts of his more famous contemporaries and add a dimension to the art of storytelling not to be found in Irving and Poe, rarely in Hawthorne, and rarely in American fiction until Melville and Twain decades later (and Faulkner a century later) began telling their tales." Ironically, "David Whicher" was published anonymously and not attributed to Neal until the 1960s. "The Haunted Man" (1832)

9153-438: The lost family income by establishing her own school and renting rooms in her home to boarders . She also received assistance from the siblings' unmarried uncle, James Neal, and others in their Quaker community. Neal grew up in "genteel poverty", attending his mother's school, a Quaker boarding school, and the public school in Portland. Neal claimed his lifelong struggle with a short temper and violent tendencies originated in

9266-684: The magazine's pages. When submitting poetry to Neal for review, Whittier made the request, "if you don't like it, say so privately; and I will quit poetry, and everything also of a literary nature ". Poe was Neal's most historically impactful discovery and when he quit poetry for short stories it was likely due to Neal's influence. Poe thanked Neal for "the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard". After Poe's death two decades later, Neal defended his legacy against attacks in Rufus Wilmot Griswold 's unsympathetic obituary of Poe, labeling Griswold "a Rhadamanthus , who

9379-581: The movement to incorporate Portland as a city and build the community's first parks and sidewalks. He became interested in architecture, interior design, and furniture design, developing pioneering, simple, and functional solutions that influenced other designers outside his local area. Many of his literary contemporaries interpreted Neal's change in focus as a disappearance. Hawthorne wrote in 1845 of "that wild fellow, John Neal", who "surely has long been dead, else he never could keep himself so quiet." James Russell Lowell in 1848 claimed he had "wasted in Maine

9492-459: The poor their rights and carried away their blessing'. In 1845 he became Chairman of the London and Blackwall Railway , the world's first steam-powered urban passenger railway and the precursor of the whole London Rail system. Bowring distinguished himself as an advocate of decimal currency . On 27 April 1847, he addressed the House of Commons on the merits of decimalisation. He agreed to

9605-736: The public school, at which he was bullied and physically abused by classmates and the schoolmaster. To reduce his mother's financial burden, Neal left school and home at the age of twelve for full-time employment. As an adolescent haberdasher and dry goods salesman in Portland and Portsmouth , Neal learned dishonest business practices like passing off counterfeit money and misrepresenting merchandise quality and quantity. Laid off multiple times due to business failures resulting from US embargoes against British imports , Neal traveled through Maine as an itinerant penmanship instructor, watercolor teacher, and miniature portrait artist. At twenty years of age in 1814, he answered an ad for employment with

9718-432: The recession following the war upended the firm and left Pierpont and Neal bankrupt in Baltimore in 1816. Though the "Pierpont, Lord, and Neal" wholesale/retail chain proved to be short-lived, Neal's relationship with Pierpont grew into the closest and longest-lived friendship of his life. Neal's experience in business riding out the multiple booms and busts that eventually left him bankrupt at age twenty-two made him into

9831-419: The rigid moralism and sentimentality of his American contemporaries Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, Neal's early novels between the late 1810s and 1820s depict dark, physically-flawed, conflicted Byronesque heroes of great intellect and morals. His brand of Romanticism reflected an aversion for self-criticism and revision, relying instead on "nearly automatic writing" to define his style, enhance

9944-772: The sinews and cords of his pugilist brain". Friend and fellow Portland native Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described Neal in 1860 as "a good deal tempered down but fire enough still". After years of vaguely affiliating with Unitarianism and universalism , Neal converted to Congregationalism in 1851. Through deepened religiosity he found new moral arguments for women's rights, potential release from his violent tendencies, and inspiration for seven religious essays. Neal collected these "exhortations" in One Word More (1854), which "rambles passionately for two hundred pages and closes with breathless metaphor" in an effort to convert "the reasoning and thoughtful among believers". At

10057-408: The two groups. "It was there," said he, "there exactly where that horse is passing now, that they first fired upon me. I set off at a speed up that hill, but, finding nine of the party there, I determined to dash over that elevation in front; I attempted it, but shot after shot was fired after me, until I preferred making one desperate attempt, sword in hand, to being shot down, like a fat goose, upon

10170-472: The urging of Longfellow and other friends, John Neal returned to novel writing late in life, publishing True Womanhood in 1859. To fill a gap in his income between 1863 and 1866 he wrote three dime novels . In 1869 he published his "most readable book, and certainly one of the most entertaining autobiographies to come out of nineteenth-century America". Reflecting on his life this way inspired Neal to amplify his activism and assume regional leadership roles in

10283-498: The very survival of the British administration, culminated in the Esing Bakery incident of 15 January 1857 in which 10 pounds of arsenic was mixed in the flour of the colony's principal bakery, poisoning many hundreds, killing Bowring's wife and debilitating him for at least a year. This was a turning point for Bowring who, cornered, all but abandoned his liberality in favour of sharply curtailed civil liberties. He bemoaned: It

10396-497: The violent tendencies with which he struggled throughout his life. In 1828, Neal established The Yankee magazine with himself as editor, and continued publication through the end of 1829. He used its pages to vindicate himself to fellow Portlanders, critique American art and drama, host a discourse on the nature of New Englander identity, advance his developing feminist ideas, and encourage new literary voices, most of them women. Neal also edited many other periodicals between

10509-589: The way back to the Colonial Office for resolution. He won. He was faulted for failing to prevent a scandalous action in slander, in 1856, by the assistant magistrate W. H. Mitchell against his attorney-general T. Chisholm Anstey over what was essentially a misapprehension of fact but which was thought "unique in all the scandals of modern government of the Colonies or of English Course of Justice". A Qing-sponsored campaign of civil disruption, threatening

10622-545: The women's suffrage movement. His last two books are a collection of pieces for and about children titled Great Mysteries and Little Plagues (1870), and a guidebook for his hometown titled Portland Illustrated (1874). By 1870, in his old age, he had amassed a comfortable fortune, valued at $ 80,000. His last appearance in the public eye was likely an 1875 syndicated article from the Portland Advertiser about an eighty-one year-old Neal physically overpowering

10735-409: Was "handsomely paid" to be one of the magazine's most prolific contributors. His first Blackwood's article, a profile on the 1824 candidates for US president and the five presidents who had served to that point, was the first article by an American to appear in a British literary journal and was quoted and republished widely throughout Europe. As the first written history of American literature,

10848-416: Was Neal's nighttime distraction from laboring sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for more than four months to produce an index for six years of weekly publications of Hezekiah Niles 's Weekly Register magazine, which Niles admitted was "the most laborious work of the kind that ever appeared in any country". In 1819, he published a play and took his first paying job as a newspaper editor, becoming

10961-427: Was an American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist. Considered both eccentric and influential, he delivered speeches and published essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1810s and 1870s in the United States and Great Britain, championing American literary nationalism and regionalism in their earliest stages. Neal advanced the development of American art , fought for women's rights , advocated

11074-434: Was an extremely industrious reformist governor. He allowed the Chinese citizens in Hong Kong to serve as jurors in trials and become lawyers. He is credited with establishing Hong Kong's first commercial public water supply system. He developed the eastern Wan Chai area at a river mouth near Happy Valley and Victoria Harbour by elongating the river as a canal, the area being named Bowring City (Bowrington). By instituting

11187-564: Was appointed British consul at Canton (today's Guangzhou ), and superintendent of trade in China. Arriving on HMS Medea on 12 April 1849, he took up the post in which he was to remain for four years the next day. His son John Charles had preceded him to China, arriving in Hong Kong in 1842, had been appointed Justice of the Peace and was at one point a partner in Jardines . Bowring

11300-608: Was at a Unitarian school in Moretonhampstead and he started work in his father's business at age 13. Bowring at one stage wished to become a Unitarian minister. Espousal of Unitarian faith was illegal in Britain until Bowring had turned 21. Bowring acquired first experiences in trade as a contract provider to the British army during the Peninsular War in the early 1810s, initially for four years from 1811 as

11413-470: Was confronted by citizens offended by his derision of prominent citizens in the semi-autobiographical Errata , the way he depicted New England dialect and habits in Brother Jonathan , and his criticism of American writers in Blackwood's Magazine . Residents posted broadsides , engaged in verbally and physically violent exchanges with Neal in the streets, and conspired to block his admission to

11526-464: Was designed to be completed in seven-to-eight years, earned admission to the bar in a community known for rigorous requirements, and contributed prodigiously to newspapers and literary magazines, two of which he edited at different points. Two months after Neal's bankruptcy trial, he submitted his first contribution to The Portico and quickly became the magazine's second-most prolific contributor of poems, essays, and literary criticism, though he

11639-460: Was equally impressed by the dearth of expenditure on education, noting that 70 times more was provided for policing than for instruction of the populace, so he rapidly brought in an inspectorate of schools, training for teachers and opening of schools. Student number increased nearly ten-fold. He became embroiled in numerous conflicts and disputes, not least of which was a struggle for dominance with Lieutenant Governor William Caine , which went all

11752-446: Was just beginning to emerge, working immediately and consistently within the nation's developing "complex web of print culture". Throughout his adult life, especially in the 1830s, Neal was a prolific contributor to newspapers and magazines, writing essays on a wide variety of topics including but not limited to art criticism, literary criticism, phrenology , women's rights, early German gymnastics, and slavery. His efforts to subvert

11865-566: Was never paid. Two years later he took over as editor for what ended up being the last issue. The magazine was closely associated with the Delphian Club , which he founded in 1816 with Dr. Tobias Watkins , John Pierpont, and four other men. Neal felt indebted to this "high-minded, generous, unselfish" association of "intellectual and companionable" people for many of the happy memories and employment connections he enjoyed in Baltimore. While writing his earliest poetry, novels, and essays he

11978-570: Was quickly appalled by endemic corruption and frustrated by finding himself powerless in the face of Chinese breaches of the Treaty of Nanking and refusal to receive him at the diplomatic level or permit him to travel to Peking, and by his being subordinate to the Governor of Hong Kong who knew nothing of his difficulties. For almost a year from 1852 to 1853, he acted as Britain's Plenipotentiary and Superintendent of Trade and Governor of Hong Kong in

12091-478: Was reached on 17 April 1855, now commonly referred to as the Bowring Treaty . Bowring held Mongkut in high regard and that the feeling was mutual and enduring was confirmed by his 1867 appointment as Siam's ambassador to the courts of Europe. Bowring's delight in this "remarkable" monarch has been seen by at least one commentator as a possible encouragement to his frustration with Peking and rash handling of

12204-478: Was recruited to the cause. This article about an organisation in the United Kingdom is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . John Bowring Sir John Bowring KCB FRS FRGS , or Phrayā Siam Mānukūlakicca Siammitra Mahāyaśa (17 October 1792 – 23 November 1872) was a British political economist , traveller, writer, literary translator , polyglot and

12317-639: Was rekindled in December when Murrow brought an ultimately unsuccessful suit in damages against Bowring in connection with his imprisonment. A commission of inquiry into accusations of corruption, operating brothels and associating with leading underworld figures laid by Attorney-General Anstey against Registrar-General Daniel R Caldwell scandalised the administration. During the course of its proceedings Anstey had opportunity to viciously accuse William Thomas Bridges , one-time acting Attorney-General and constant favourite of Bowring, for receiving stolen goods under

12430-455: Was studying law as an unpaid apprentice in the office of William H. Winder , a fellow Delphian. Neal's business failure had left him without enough "money to take a letter from the post-office", so Neal "cast about for something better to do   ... and, after considering the matter for ten minutes or so, determined to try my hand at a novel." When he wrote his first book, fewer than seventy novels had been published by "not more than half

12543-648: Was sworn in on 13 April 1854, in the midst of the Taiping Rebellion occupying the attentions of his primary protagonists and the Crimean War distracting his masters. He was appointed over strong objections from opponents in London. Fellow Unitarian Harriet Martineau had warned that Bowring was "no fit representative of Government, and no safe guardian of British interests", that he was dangerous and would lead Britain into war with China, and that he should be recalled. Her pleas went unheeded. Bowring

12656-571: Was the first American to establish a public gymnasium in the US and championed athletics to regulate violent tendencies with which he himself had struggled throughout his life. A largely self-educated man who attended no schools after the age of twelve, Neal was a child laborer who left self-employment in dry goods at twenty-two to pursue dual careers in law and literature. By middle age, Neal had attained comfortable wealth and community standing in his native Portland, Maine , through varied business investments, arts patronage, and civic leadership. Neal

12769-480: Was treated with scorn and repulsion. The forbearance with which the Chinese have been treated has been wholly misunderstood by them, and attributed to our apprehensions of their great power, and awe of the majesty of the 'Son of Heaven'. So they have disregarded the most solemn engagements of treaties, and looked upon us as 'barbarians,' ... I doubt not that Government, Parliament, and public opinion will go with us in this great struggle, ... In 1855, Bowring experienced

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