[6] "A provincial from Bristol"[9] working as a customs official,[10][n 4] Roe attracted the attention of Thomas Anguish after writing a series of critical, moralistic articles concerning Lord Shelburne's 1783 peace treaty with America.
[9] That year,[12] Anguish co-opted Roe as a Commissioner for Auditing Public Accounts;[9] the commission, which was tasked with investigating government finances and making recommendations, produced influential reports on reforming public expenditure and has been considered a catalyst for the "administrative revolution" in British government which followed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
[14] In 1788, Roe was appointed a Commissioner of Customs, replacing John Pownall;[15] seen as an "active administrator", the appointment was made by William Pitt the Younger's government as part of a series of moves to reform the "tangled" finances and inefficiencies of the Board of Customs, a department which (with the Board of Revenue) was responsible for two thirds of the national income.
[15] When he resigned his commission, Roe negotiated to have his son William appointed in his place;[15][17][18] for the historian John Ehrman, this highlights the blurred distinctions between administrative appointees and political or social ones,[18] while W. R. Ward argues that such a bargain show how the office was viewed as a "negotiable asset".
[25][26] The younger William received an income from an estate called Cochrane's, Old North Sound, in Antigua, which (with its slaves) had been placed in trust for Roe and his wife by Mathew under the terms of their marriage settlement made in 1815; it was sold by the trustees a year later.