Girdlestone Reasons for rejecting the presumptive Evidence of Mr. Almon THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD ENDOWMENT FUND REASONS FOR REJECTING THE PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE OF MR. A1LMOX, THAT " Mr. Hugh Boyd was the Writer of Junius." WITH PASSAGES SELECTED TO PROVE THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 1J fr ** k.CV* a-G j_. " How many of every Rank and Profession are too indolent to search for Information; who judge by hearsay, and volun- tarily renounce the Right of thinking for themselves." LONDON: BY T.HARPEK jus. AND co.4, CBAKE COURT, rurr ITCH? FOR S. HIGhLEY, 2+, FLEET STREET. 1807, , REASONS, 1 HE following passage relative to Junius is taken from the St. James's Chronicle of April 16, 1803. " The impenetrable mystery that hangs over the Author of the celebrated Letters of Junius, is so favourable to the propagation of reports, that we may expect to hear that they have been ascribed, in succession to every distinguished character who flourished during the period (f their republication. The following article, however, which appeared in a late Number of THE WILMINGTON (Dela- ware) MIRROR, is founded upon a stronger asser- tion than has ever before been made upon the sub- ject ; for IT proceeds upon a supposed acknowledg- ment (f Junius himself ! Of Mr. Rodney, or of the degree of credit that may reasonably be attached to his declaration, we know nothing , but the subject is so curious, that we think our readers will not be averse from having their atten- tion once more drawn to it. " No political writings ever made more noise " in the world, or were more celebrated, than the ' " Letters signedJHpj^, and published in Lon- " don more than* 'twenty years ago. And as the st Author conveyed those letters to the press in " such a secret manner as to conceal himself en- " tirely from the knowledge of the public, and te every other person, the public curiosity has " been excited from time to time to this, to know t( who he was. " Frequent and various have been the conjec- " tures respecting him ; but all have accorded in 11 * f attributing those Letters to one person or other " of the most eminent abilities. This, without " doubt, does the Author great honour. I have " observed, in some of our late papers, that they " were attributed to the celebrated Dunning, by " one writer, and to the late Earl of Chatham by '"' another. But to satisfy the curiosity of the " world, and to preclude all future and uncertain " conjectures, I can assure the public, that our " celebrated Major-General Charles Lee, of the " American army, was the real Author of these " Letters. And although he had declared that " the secret rested solely with himself, and that 1 ' he meant to carry it to the grave with him ; yet, when Junius was first published. Let us read General Lee's let- ters, and we shall find that General Lee was not at Warsaw after 17^7- See his letter to M. dolman^ in 17^7, page 301, where he says, " I wish, by practice, to make myself a sol- " dier for purposes honest, but which I shall not " mention. " If 1 am defeated in my intention of joining " the Russians, I think of passing through Hun- " gary, and spending the ensuing winter in the " South' cf Italy, bici'y, or some of the islands " in the JEgean Sea" That General Lee left Warsaw in 17^7- and was either on his road to or from Italy, his letter to Sir Charles Davers evinces ; for it is dated Dijon, 19th January, 176*8. And as this was the last letter of his, previously to his departure from England to America, it is plain that his duel in Italy took place a year after he had left War- saw, and a year before the publication of Juius. Here then are the principal objections of Mr. Almon proved to be founded on a chronology which is incorrect. And the possibility that Ju- nius absented himself from London to the Conti- nent during most o/ the time thai his letter* were publishing in London*, is not contradicted by the interval of one letter from another ; especially after his letter to the King. From that letter to the next nearly two months intervened. And as we were then at peace with France, ten or twelve * See Mr. Rodney's Testimony. days were sufficient to return answers to letters, admitting that he had thought it necessary to ab- sent himself sooner. As it is probable that the letters to the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford, and Lord Mansfield, had been long written before they were published, it would have been no difficult matter for Junius to have occasionally had two letters appear within a few days of each other ; even had he been at a greater distance on the Continent from London than perhaps he ever was during the publication of any of them. For there are only the notes of General Lee's own writing (which were written, perhaps, to give a more colourable objection to the suspicion of his being the writer of these letters), to prove that he had made such rapid movements over the Continent. Mr. Almon says that General Lee went to Ame- rica in 1774. Mr. Longworthy, the Editor of General Lee's Memoirs, says that General Lee arrived in America in 177^ ' and Mr. Rodney, that it was in 1773, that his conversation took place with the General in America. And as Mr. Almon has taken no notice of the testimony of Mr. Rodney, though it occasioned the Letters of Junius to be attributed to General Lee, and Mr. Almon has supposed General Lee an infinitely Inte- rior writer these are reasons to believe that Mr. 1O Almon had allowed his prejudices to get the better of his judgment, viz. if ever he possessed any with regard to writing. That he ever possessed any sort of judgment, becomes questionable, from the feeble arguments which he has advanced in favour of Boyd being the writer of Junius, which resolve themselves into the following propositions : 1st. That he once had an opportunity of cast- ing his eye on a manuscript letter of Junius, while Mr. Woodfall was reading it, and imme- diately suspected it, from its being written in Italian hand, to be the hand writing of Boyd. 2. Because Mr. Boyd changed colour when Mr. Almon accused him of being the writer of Junius. 3. Because Lord Temple said to Mr. Almon, Junius was written by an Irishman. 4. Because the letter to the Ring, which was published 19th December, 17^9 occasioned the prosecutions of the printers, among whom Mr. Almon : and that while his prosecution was going on, Mr. Almon did not, as usual, see Mr. Boyd!!! Having adduced the arguments of Mr. Almon to prove Boyd to be the writer of Junius, let us proceed to the specimen which Mr. Almon pro- duces to compare with Junius. 11 Junius, 1769, which Mr. Almon thinks resembles Bond's specimen. " If it be really a part of oar Constitution, and not a mere dictum of the law, that ' the King can do no wrong,' it is not the only instance where theory is at variance with prac- tice. That the Sovereign of this country is not ameniable to any form of trial known to the laws, is unquestionable ; but exemption from punish- ment, is a singular privilege annexed to the royal charac- ter, and no way exceeding the possibility of deserving it. HOW long, and to what ex- tent, a king of England may be protected by the forms, when he violates the spirit of the Constitution, deserves to be considered. A mistake in this matter proved fatal to Charles and his sou." Boyd, Wfcg, No. S, written 1779- " When it is truly said, that the King can do no wrong, the office is intended, and not the person; and this true con- struction is the perfect praise of our admirable Constitu- tion. The King of England can do no wrong, for it is not the office of the King to do any thing ; the cautious wis- dom of our policy will not permit the King to act. The office of the King being thus considered (I trust with due respect*, for I think it re- ceives the highest, when de- stined as part of the Constitu- tion), it remains to remind the person appointed to that of- fice, that he is a man ; that in his personal capacity, he may, he must do wrong ; for error f is essential to humanity. It remains to demonstrate to him that whoever confounds his person with his office, is a fa- * When did the lofty Junius trust -with due respect ? f Junius never made such allowances for the failings of mankind. He attributed every error either to the badness of the heart, or the weakness of the head. 12 tal enemy to both ; for that they are so perfectly distinct in their nature, attiibutes, and interests, Ural the abuse of one is expiable only by the pu- nishment of the other. The Constitution will not admit that the King did wrung, and the hw says, that the King never dies ; but Charles Stuait was an obstinate tyrant, and Charles Stuart lo(t his head." The specimens which Mr. Almor, has given of Mr. Boyd's writings, are all written seven and ten years after the publication of the Letters of Junius, therefore no proof could have been esta- blished in favour of Mr. Boyd, admitting that his writings had been equal in spirit to those of Ju- nius. 1 here is hardly a supporter of the daily eloquence of a newspaper, who could not, after the perusal of a letter of Junius, have adopted his sentiments in language more nearly resembling that of Juniufi, than any specimen which Mr. Aim on has produced from Boyd's publications. By Mr. Alrnon's own confession, Boyd had not attained his twenty-third year, when Junius was published. Is it likely that the writings of Junius could have been the production of so young a man ? The deep thinking and long experience which 13 many of the passages must have required, are suf- ficient to discredit the idea of these Letters being the production of a very young man. Many of the parts discover that personal knowledge of the members of both Houses of Parliament, of men of rank in our army, and of princes and peasants in foreign countries, which no man of twenty-three had ever attained. Many of the aphorisms had, doubtless, been deliberately made and long trea- sured up for some great design. And had Junius lived to have doubled the number of his letters, it is not very likely that he could, in his succeeding writings, have scattered an equal number of beau- tiful and original images *, or of such maxims as the following: " Reproaches and injuries have no power to " afflict either the man of unblemished inte- " grity, or the abandoned profligate. It is the " middle compound character which alone is " vulnerable ; the man who, without firmness " enough to avoid a dishonourable action, has " feeling euough to be asjiamed of it." " Good faith and folly have so long been re- ' ceived as synonymous terms, that the reverse * A careful examination of the Letters of Juuius will con- vince the reader, that as Juuius approached a conclusion, he became less of a figurative, and more of a mere matter of fact writer. 14 cf proposition has grown into credit, and every " villain fancies himself a man of abilities." " The rays of Royal indignation collected Girdlestone - 08 Reasons for re- je cting the pre- sumptive evidence of Mr. Almon 000 DA 508