As Geoffrey Holt’s article in ODNB shows, these four books are part of a longer controversy in which Douglas, who had earlier come to SJ’s attention when he revealed the forgeries of William Lauder (see p. 361 above) showed that Bower was a plagiarist, a liar, and a cheat. Bower posed as a Roman Catholic convert to Protestantism when issuing proposals for his History of the Popes (1747), a work dedicated to George II and eventually filling seven volumes (1748–66). In 1754, when the third volume came out, Rev. Alban Butler demonstrated that much of Bower’s work in the first two volumes was plagiarized and that he had discovered a packet of incriminating letters to a Jesuit priest showing that he was a fraud. When Bower argued that the letters were forged, Douglas entered the case. In SJ’s circle, Garrick and Birch had been friendly with Bower, but became convinced of the fraud and notified Lord Lyttelton, one of Bower’s powerful supporters. The publisher of the Literary Magazine, William Faden, was also involved (see p. 325, n. 2 below). Bower’s Affidavit in Answer to the False Accusation Brought Against Him by Papists (1756) provoked Douglas’s Six Letters from A——d B——r to Father Sheldon, provincial of the Jesuits in England; illustrating with several remarkable facts tending to ascertain the authenticity of the said letters and the true character of the writer (1756). In response to Douglas, Bower wrote Mr. Bower’s Answer to a Scurrilous Pamphlet, Intituled, Six Letters from A——d B——r to Father Sheldon (1757). On the same day (6 January) Douglas published Bower and Tillemont Compared: or, The First Volume of the pretended original and Protestant History of the Popes, shewn to be chiefly a traslation [sic] from a Popish one; with Some farther Particulars, relating to the True Character and Conduct of the Translator.

In the year 1747, Mr. Bower published proposals for a history of the Popes, in the title of which he gives himself many titles to which his claim has been publicly questioned, and not yet proved; among others that of counsellor, which, in the stile of foreign courts, implies judge of the inquisition at Macerata, is apparently false, no Jesuit being ever an inquisitor.1

To give his history credit, he declares, that he was employed in the Vatican to write in defence of the Pope’s supremacy, but that the further he advanced in the work, the more he was convinced that the supremacy of the Pope was not to be defended, and that he then abjured in his heart the religion of Rome.2

It is asserted that after this mental abjuration he was still so well contented with popery that he took his last vows among the Jesuits, and in the account which multitudes are said to have heard from him, he has been accustomed to ascribe his conversion to the sight of the cruelties practiced by the inquisition at Macerata.

Little doubt, however, was made by the public of the reality of our historian’s conversion, till in 1750, Mr. Barron a dissenting teacher published the following narrative, as taken from Mr. Bower’s own mouth. . . .3

This account Mr. B——r publicly disowned in two advertisments, in the first of which he declares it “in almost every particular absolutely false,” in the second “very imperfect and false in many circumstances,” promising when he had compleated his second volume to publish his own story. This promise, however, he has never performed. Mr. Barron charged him with denying at one time what he asserted at another.

Mr. Bower had been near twenty years in England, when he published his proposals, in which he declares that from the time when he discovered the falshood of the Pope’s claim to supremacy, he resolved as soon as he could come into a country where truth might be uttered without danger, to write an history to undeceive the “many Protestants” who are not sufficiently guarded against the papal emissaries. Yet now there is reason to suspect that for many years after this conversion and resolution, Mr. Bower continued to correspond with the Jesuits, and to act in all respects as a Papist.

Sir Henry Bedingfield of Norfolk, produced last February six letters, said to be written by Mr. Bower to father Sheldon, the provincial of the Jesuits, who entered upon his office in 1745, and at the end of the year having a warrant issued against him, took the name of Elliot Brown, to whom these letters are directed.

If these letters are genuine, there is no doubt, but that this man who on the 25th of March, 1747, commenced so zealous a champion for the reformation, was on the 14th of March, 1747, a very zealous Papist, and a Jesuit unreservedly submissive to his superiors.

These letters have been compared with other pieces written by him, and the handwriting appears the same. Mr. Bower, however, has denied them upon oath. This is said to prove nothing, and indeed cannot prove much when the question concerning which the oath is taken, is only whether the deponent is a man to be credited.

Whether from the facts mentioned in them they can be proved to be counterfeit is then to be examined. Mr. Bower fixes this part of his defence upon the mention of the woman and the child, and has indeed urged this objection with great force.

As to the woman and the child, it is, like the rest, a most impudent fiction. Mr. Bower calls on the Authors of these letters to produce the one or the other, or any person that ever knewa the one or the other. A woman of fortune, of family, seduced, injured in her person and fortune, she and her innocent child unjustly turned off, afterwards taken again, must have some name, some friends, some relations, some acquaintance, some residence.—They have diligently been sought for, and have no where been found.—The reason is plain—they never existed but in the forged and fictitious letters in question, and the wicked hearts of the authors.5

To this it is answered, that the letters had been published as the letters of an honest man; to have proved them false would be to prove them spurious, but that it can be no matter of wonder that the letters of a liar should contain lies.

It is not however to be concealed, that Sir Henry Bedingfield seems to act in a manner not quite conformable to that ingenuity and openness, which a question in which a moral character is involved requires. He for some time refused upon many pretences to exhibit the originals, “they were” at one time “not in his possession”; at another “they were in the hands of his lawyer, who was out of town,” or “in a Bureau of which he had lost the key,” and at last he has not told how these letters came into his hands, and what he personally knows of this dark transaction.6

In the pamphlet by which Mr. Bower is attacked, though written in general with great strength and perspicuity, there is sometimes mention of a distinguished “Clergyman, a noble lord that wears a ribbon, of a lady of quality of the first distinction,”7 and such other nameless evidences as can very little corroborate an assertion. Surely, in a case like this, it is better either to tell all or nothing, either to name or not to mention. Mr. Bower has likewise injur’d his own cause, by a postscript to his affidavits, in which he imputes this attack on his character to a “Protestant Papist,” and to the desire of the Romanists to obstruct his continuation of the history of the popes.8

The transaction referred to in the letters is this. After having lived in England from the year 1726 in a course of libertinism, he was at last desirous of being readmitted among the Jesuits, he offered to put a sum of money into their hands, in consideration of an annuity, and accordingly between the 21st of August 1741, and the 6th of August 1743, he paid into the hands of Father Sherburn one thousand three hundred and fifty pounds, for which an annuity was to be paid him of 94 l. 10 s. secured by a bond, and commencing August 27, 1743.—He was then about the end of the year 1744 re-admitted into the order. After this it is supposed, that he had some reasons to wish himself released from his vows, and he contrived this story of the woman and her child to get back the money, but as appears with no success; he therefore about the year 1747 published his proposals, and on the 20th of June the same year the Jesuits paid him his money.

In evidence of this whole transaction are produced receipts given by Mr. Bower, for his annuity to father Hill, who transacted such affairs for the Jesuits, and entries in the books of Mr. Wright, a banker, who paid the annuity by Hill’s order to Mr. Bower.9

His re-admission into his order was attested by father Carteret the person who re-admitted him, and his conversion to popery is further attested by Mrs. Hoyles, “widow of Mr. Hoyles, a printer now living in Great Wild-street, Lincoln’s Inn-Fields . . . .”1

This relation is corroborated by the testimony of Mr. Faden, a man, whose character will not suffer him to be considered as an exceptionable witness. . . .2

The evidence against him is concluded by a letter from Rome. . . .3

Thus we have laid before the public a summary of the charge against Mr. Bower, with the evidence on which it is founded, which those who shall consult the masterly pamphlet from which this extract was made, will find that we had no desire to aggravate; we hope Mr. Bower has some answer to make more cogent than his own testimony, but would remind him that silence is better, at least more modest than a weak plea.

. . . This is the account given by the antagonist of Mr. Bower, as taken from Mr. Bower’s own mouth. Mr. Bower has at last published an account of his escape, in an Answer to a Scurrilous Pamphlet, &c. The narrative which he has printed is conformable enough, in the first part, to that which he is said to have given in conversation, the slight disagreements between them being, as Mr. Bower himself allows, only failures of memory, and geographical mistakes.

In the forgoing narrative the rewards offered by the inquisition are 300£. for his person alive, and 600£. for his head; in Mr. Bower’s, more probably, 800 crowns for his person, and 600 crowns for his head.5 In his own account there is no mention of his design to “travel on horseback through the Adriatic.”6 He tells nothing of the alarm spread through the canton of Bern.

The chief variation between the two relations begins where Mr. Bower quitted the boat at Strasburgh, the account which we have inserted having more omissions, and insertions, than could easily have happened by chance or forgetfulness. We shall therefore insert his own words.7

After the relation of his escape, Mr. Bower proceeds to deliver the series of his life from his arrival in England, of which we have given a very contracted epitome.

Mr. Bower, according to his own relation, came to England in July or August 1726, from that time begins the history of his Protestantism.

“I continued,” says he,8 “some time a Papist and a Jesuit, I had rejected the pope’s supremacy, but the other points of the controversy I had yet to study. I applied to Dr. Aspinwal,9 who had been likewise a Jesuit, and was by him introduced to Dr. Clark,1 with whom and with Dr. Bekley2 I had many conferences, and in about four months withdrew from the communion of Rome, and from that time have never been present at any office of the Popish religion.

“I was for six years a Protestant without any settled denomination, I then conformed to the Church of England.

“Dr. Aspinwal introduced me early to his acquaintance, and among others to Mr. Dalton of Cleveland-row now living.3 At the recommendation of Dr. Aspinwal and Dr. Clark, I was taken by Lord Aylmer to assist him in his studies.4 Lord Aylmer made enquiries without my knowledge, by his friends in Italy, after my character, and was so well satisfied, that by his means I became acquainted with all his relation, and among others with his niece, afterwards Mrs. Littleton.5

“In 1730, while I was yet with Lord Aylmer, I wrote the Historia Literaria, in which there will be found many passages sufficient to evince that the author was a Protestant.6

“In 1735, I undertook part of the Universal History, and continued employed in it to 1744;7 during which time I passed a year with Mr. Thomson of Cooley in Berkshire, as tutor to his son, and afterwards undertook, at lord Aylmer’s desire, the education of his two sons, of whom one is now living, a prebendary of Bristol.

“In 1747, and the following year, I corrected the whole Universal History in order to a new impression, and Mr. Millar would have engaged me to write the whole Modern History,8 but I declined the offer, that I might apply myself wholly to the History of the Popes.”

Having thus given the general history of his life. Mr. Bower proceeds to examine the particular facts alledged against him.

It has been objected that he calls himself “Counsellor of the Inquisition,” the meaning and even the existence of this title is doubted, and a “Jesuit Inquisitor” is said not to be known or admitted in Italy.9

Mr. Bower answers, that in every court of Inquisition there are twelve counsellors; four divines, four canonists, four civilians; there is indeed no “Jesuit Inquisitor,” nor did he claim that title, he was not an Inquisitor, but “Counsellor of the Inquisition.” The letter indeed from Montecuccoli, the Inquisitor, and others from Douay and Rome, which would have proved this, are all destroyed, and those to whom they were shewn all dead. But Mr. Aylmer has often heard Lord Aylmer speak of that letter.1

He is said to have contradicted in the public papers the account of his escape, given by himself in conversation, and it is affirmed that a lady in Cumberland has a narrative taken from his own mouth, which agrees in all essential parts with that which he disavowed when published by Mr. Barron.2

To this it is answered, that finding Mr. Barron’s account full of mistakes Mr. Bower first charged it as “false in almost every circumstance,” and afterwards when he was cooler, as “false in many circumstances,” as where it is said that he embarked on the Rhine at Bern, instead of Basil; that he found himself described in the Swiss contons, instead of the pope’s dominions; that advertisements for apprehending him were fixed on the gates at Calais; that immediately on his arrival at Dover he received a letter from the Inquisitor general, which he did not receive till six months after, and then only for Montecuccoli the Inquisitor at Macerata.3

He affirms, “that he has a transcript of the narrative of the Cumberland Lady, and that none of these absurdities can be found in it.”4

Mr. Hill was sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury to know of Mr. Bower why he contradictedb Mr. Barron’s account, and came away with the “lowest opinion” of Mr. Bower’s “sincerity.”

Mr. Bower answers, “that he would have told Mr. Hill his reasons; but that he would not hear them, and said, ‘that does not concern me.’ That narrative was taken by William Duncombe, Esq;5 from the mouth of a ‘considerable person,’ to whom Mr. Bower told it, and that, tho’ he charges the faults only to want of memory, yet he still maintains that it is very faulty.”6

It is objected, “that Mr. Bower attempted at Macerata to debauch a nun of the family of Buonacorsi, that Bower being the lady’s spiritual father, the affair belonged to the inquisition, and was brought before them; that according to the account of Mr. Lunardi, Bower denounced himself, and advised her to do the same, but the inquisition proceeding to take further information, his superiors removed him to Perugia, where he was informed that a capiatur7 was issued out, and fled.”8

He replies, “that not being the lady’s confessor in ordinary, he could not be her spiritual father; that he only supplied for a fortnight the office of confessor to the nunnery; that lady Buonacorsi being a nun, he probably heard her confession, though he knew not when; for the Italian nuns confess in a dark room, with a grate and a curtain within it between them and the confessor, and seldom tell their names. That after some time he visited the nun Buonacorsi, having seen her with the abbess, but not often, and without any scandal.

“That the affair did not belong to the inquisition, unless some very particular circumstances had concurred; and that it is absurd that he should advise the lady to denounce herself, since her crime was not cognizable by the inquisition; that the secresy of the inquisitorial procedure makes any notice of a capiatur impossible; and that the whole account pretended to be received from Italy, and attested by these eminent Jesuits, is full of absurdities.” He adds “that he has advised young gentlemen who consulted him about their travels, to stop at Macerata which shewd no fear of these reports.”9

Mr. Bower then attempts to prove his right to the titles which he has assumed, and which his popish adversary had denied.

He declares, “that he never pretended to have brought any peculiar materials from the Vatican, and that the charge of spinning out his history for gain is groundless, since he no longer anticipates his pay by asking a subscription.”1

It is charged upon Mr. Bower, that according to his own declaration, he began to write at Rome “a history of the popes,” but that endeavouring to maintain their supremacy, he found it chimerical, and became a proselyte to the opinion that he had undertaken to confute, that from this time he was a Protestant in his heart, and yet after this he made his last tour among the Jesuits, and sat in the court of the inquisition.

Mr. Bower answers, “That in five months after his arrival in England, he withdrew from the church of Rome, and as soon as he wrote at all, wrote against it. That he continued his acquaintance with the Jesuits as gentlemen and scholars to whom he had obligations, and that he never concealed this acquaintance from his Protestant friends. That the monks and secular clergy were more to be dreaded by him than the Jesuits, and that they attempted to carry him off by water at Greenwich in 1728, when he was saved by the Lord Aylmer, who often told the story.”3

He now comes to the six letters of which he still denies the authenticity, and promises in his next pamphlet to detect them of forgery; he then spends a few pages in denying some of the stories told of his connections with Papists, or levity of behaviour. At a house in Covent-Garden he owns he was once seen, but declares he entered it only to bring out a young man, and reconcile him to his father.4

It is affirmed, “that Mr. Bower told a ‘worthy divine’ that he and Mr. Barton curate of St. Ann’s who had likewise been a popish priest, attended Dr. Aspinwal in his last illness.”- And it is asserted in another place, that Dr. Aspinwal “died a faithful son of the church of Rome, that the fact was notorious at that time, and that Mrs. Aspinwal made no secret of her husband’s dying sentiments, and being a good Protestant would not admit a priest to administer extreme unction to the Doctor who desired it.”

Mr. Bower answers, “That he did not attend Dr. Aspinwal in his last illness, and that the divine mentioned has declared that Mr. Bower never gave any such account to him, nor he to any other.” And two very solemn attestations are produc’d, one of Mrs. Sydal relict of the late bishop of Gloucester, the intimate friend of Mrs. Aspinwal, who died with her hand in Mrs. Sydal’s: and the other of Mrs. Deschamps who lived with Mrs. Aspinwal as her companion for thirty years from before her marriage to her death, which proves so far as negatives can be proved, that Mrs. Aspinwal never thought that the Dr. died a Papist: “And Mrs. Deschamps offers to make oath, that the Doctor never desired extreme unction, and that no priest ever offered it, nor any Papist visited the Doctor in his last sickness.”

Upon this Mr. Bower calls upon his Adversaries publickly to retract what they have so publickly and positively asserted.5

It is alledged, “that Mr. Bower was ejected from the order of the Jesuits, that he negociated for several years about, being re-admitted without success; but that he succeeded at last by bribing them with all he was worth, and was readmitted in a formal manner about the end of the year 1744.”

Mr. Bower answers, that “by the last vows a man is tied to his order, and his order to him, so that they cannot throw him off, but must receive him whenever he will return, he appeals to the Jesuits whether they would not always have received him, and allow him first to give away all that he has.

“That he placed his money in the hands of Mr. Hill, a Jesuit, he confesses; but declares, that he had first offered it to Protestants, that his Protestant friends knew of the contract, that he took a bond, and received seven per cent. interest, which he could get no where else; that repenting of having bought an annuity he desired his money back, and that it was repaid by Mr. Hill, deducting only what interest had been received above four per cent.” This bond he urges, and urges speciously as a proof that he had no design to return to the order, in which property has no place, and where therefore the bond would be null at the moment of his re-admission, and that he could very little oblige the Jesuits by putting money in their hands at seven per cent. “Lord Aylmer,” he says, “charged him on that occasion with having acted INDISCREETLY, as a great commander in the navy can now attest.”6

This is the long expected defence of Mr. Bower which I have endeavoured not to weaken by contracting it. He has defended himself not unskilfully if he be innocent; if he be guilty he has pleaded his cause with great ability. The proofs of the spuriousness of the letters are yet to come, and of them I shall only observe that proofs must be very strong that will counterbalance similitude of hand. To write a name so as to deceive is easy, to write a line is possible; to write a letter, and even six letters, in an imitated hand with success, I believe no man will undertake: Similitude of hand, if there be a sufficient quantity of writing to be compared, is a physical testimony, perhaps irrefragably cogent.

In the defence which we have just perused Mr. Bower allows that Father Carteret declared that “he had reconciled him to the Church,” and seems to endeavour to evade that assertion by fixing it on his adversary’s mistaken opinion, that he was reconciled to the order.7

While I was engaged in the foregoing extract Mr. Faden has again declared to me that Mr. Bower converted Mrs. Hoyles to popery; that in the years 1734 and 35, during which Mr. Faden lodged in her house, Mr. Bower frequently visited her, and was received and considered as a Papist.

Here is an accusation confirmed by every kind of evidence. It is known that Mrs. Hoyles and her husband were converted to popery; it is known that about that time Mr. Bower frequently visited her, and her conversion is here imputed to him, and imputed to him by a Protestant.