[1] He married Sarah Wymondesold of East Lockinge, Berkshire, on 25 March 1780 at St Mary, Lambeth.

In 1801 when colonel of the same regiment John Pollexfen Bastard quelled a riot of workmen and prevented the destruction of the Plymouth docks and dockyards.

According to the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, Bastard indirectly inspired the familiar form of the children's rhyme "Old Mother Hubbard..." after instructing its author Sarah Catherine Martin, his sister-in-law, to "run away and write one of your stupid little rhymes."

He also can be spotted in Karl Anton Hickel's William Pitt addressing the House of Commons on the French Declaration of War, 1793 in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

A detailed account of his last journey and subsequent death can be found in the letters of Miss Eliza Simcoe, daughter of John Graves Simcoe, who travelled with John Pollexfen Bastard and his wife to Leghorn as part of her Grand Tour.