ABSTRACT
After the closure of The Anti-Jacobin, John Hookham Frere’s political career developed satisfactorily, though not as successfully as that of the future Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister Canning. He was Undersecretary of State at the Foreign Office in 1799, in succession to Canning, and in the following year was appointed envoy extraordinary to Portugal. However, his diplomatic career was blighted in 1808, when he was criticised for endangering the peninsular army by advising its then commander, Sir John Moore, to retreat from the Napoleonic forces to La Corruna in Spain. Forced into retirement, he returned to England, eventually living in Malta from 1820 until his death in 1846. The most significant literary venture of Frere’s later life was the Prospectus and Specimen of an Intended National Work; by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stow-Market, in Suffolk, Harness and Collar-Makers. Intended to comprise the most Interesting Particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table. The first two cantos were published by John Murray in 1817, 1 with the third and fourth cantos appearing in the following year. All four cantos were later published together as The Monks and the Giants (also in 1818).
