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 THE LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 J U N I U S 
 
 WOODFALL'S EDITION REVISED 
 AND ENLARGED BY 
 
 JOHN WADE. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN, 
 
 AND NEW YORK. 
 
 1894.
 
 LONDON . 
 BBPBINTED FROM THE STEKLOTYPE PLAT8 BY WM. CLOWES & BOSS, LTD., 
 
 STAMFOBD 8T&BTT AND CBARIKG CROSS. 

 
 SOB 
 
 v, ) 
 ADVEETISEMENT. 
 
 three generations have elapsed since the "Letters of 
 Junius " were first published ; and it may be safely affirmed 
 that, during this long ordeal, no contemporary work has main- 
 tained a higher estimation has received more marked and 
 uniform approval from competent literary judges or has 
 called into existence so many commentators, editors, and 
 investigators. 
 
 As there is little in the subject matter of these famous 
 epistles that could confer upon them such enduring celebrity, 
 they must be mainly indebted for it to the writer's extra- 
 ordinary powers, the varied resources of which have enabled 
 him, with the peculiar characteristic of genius, to dignify and 
 immortalize that which, in its own nature, is secondary and 
 perishable. In this respect Junius stands alone he is the 
 Napoleon of public writers ; and, like the author of the first 
 and noblest epic, though he has had a host of imitators, he is 
 still without an equal. 
 
 The STANDARD LIBRARY would have been imperfect had it 
 not included among its elect the most celebrated of political 
 gladiators. The very complete edition now submitted to the 
 public comprises all that was given in the three volumes pub- 
 lished in 1812, and again in 1814, by the late Mr. George 
 Woodfall indeed all that was authentically known of Junius 
 and his writings. 
 
 To specify more distinctly the merits of Woodfall's edition, 
 now reprinted entire, it may be proper to enumerate its con- 
 tents, which are: 1. The public letters of Junius as revised 
 and annotated by himself, and published collectively, under his 
 direction, subsequent to their appearance in the Public Adver- 
 tiser. 2. A collection of Miscellaneous Letters, ascribed to 
 Junius. 3. His private notes and confidential communica- 
 tions with Mr. Woodfall (published only after they had beeii
 
 Vi ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 preserved in honourable privacy for forty years). 4. Illus- 
 trative notes ; and a copious Preliminary Essay, comprising a 
 critical analysis of the Letters : and an examination of the 
 various claims to their authorship. 
 
 In an edition already so complete little scope was left for 
 useful enlargement. Nevertheless, even in this respect, some- 
 thing has been contributed. Besides a more careful discrimina- 
 tion of the authentic writings of Junius, the Editor, by the 
 courtesy of the present proprietor of the Junius Manuscripts, 
 and the abundant materials placed at his disposal by the 
 publisher, has been enabled to present further illustrations. 
 He has examined the formidable array of "inquiries" with 
 considerable diligence, and the reader will have the benefit 
 of the little that is to be gleaned from them. 
 
 But his most critical task is reserved for the second and 
 concluding volume. Junius remains at least una vowed. The 
 editor's own impression as to the authorship is strong, based, 
 he thinks, upon adequate testimony; but his hero and his 
 arguments must be deferred until the due season of pub- 
 lication. The solemn enunciation, that " I am the sole de- 
 positary of my own secret, and it shall perish with me," has 
 to the present time been kept inviolate. 
 
 Since the present volume was put to press, the publisher 
 has become possessed of some manuscripts relative to Junius 
 by the late Sir Harris Nicolas, destined, it is believed, towards 
 a new edition. This acute scholar had devoted his mind to 
 the subject for years, and has drawn up an ingenious analysis, 
 which will be presented to the reader in the next volume. 
 
 1854.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT to present Edition T 
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY on Junius and his Writings 1 
 
 DEDICATION to the English Nation 85 
 
 PREFACE by Junius 91 
 
 LETTER I. To the Printer of the Public Advertiser 102 
 
 II. Sir William Draper's reply 112 
 
 Short Sketch of Sir William Draper's character note, 116 
 
 III. Junius to Sir William Draper 116 
 
 Corsica reduced by the French note, 117 
 
 IV. Second Letter of Sir Wm. Draper to Junius 121 
 
 V. Junius to Sir William Draper 126 
 
 VI. Sir William Draper to Junius 126 
 
 Til. Junius to Sir William Draper 129 
 
 Sir William Draper to the Printer 132 
 
 vm. Junius to the Duke of Grafton 134 
 
 ix. Junius to the same 141 
 
 x. Junius to Mr. Edward Weston 144 
 
 xi. Junius to the Duke of Grafton 147 
 
 XII. Junius to the same 153 
 
 Statement of American politics at this period note, 158 
 
 xm. Philo-Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 162 
 
 Xiv. Second Letter of Philo-Junius 164 
 
 XV. Junius to the Duke of Grafton . 168 
 
 Note on Parties 168 
 
 XVI. Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 175 
 
 Statement of Mr. Walpole's expulsion from the House of 
 
 Commons notes, 178 
 
 XVII. Philo-Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 180 
 
 A speech without doors (Sir William Blackstone's) on the 
 
 Middlesex election note, 184 
 
 xvni. Junius to Dr. William Blackstone 185 
 
 XIX. Philo-Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser .-. 190 
 
 Pamphlet ascribed to Sir William Blackstone 191 
 
 XX. Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 197 
 
 Philo-Junius in explanation 202 
 
 XXL Junius on Walpole's case 204 
 
 XXII. Philo-Junius to the Public Advertiser 205 
 
 Xxiii. Junius to the Duke of Bedford 210 
 
 On the unpopular peace of 1763, and anecdote of the 
 Duke notes, 210
 
 Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 LETTER 1>A01 
 
 xxiv. Sir William Draper to Junius 219 
 
 xxv. Junius to Sir William Draper ... 221 
 
 XXVI. Sir William Draper's parting better to Junius 224 
 
 Note on Sir William Draper 227 
 
 XXVII. Junius in reply to Sir William Draper 228 
 
 M. Tullius in defence of the Duke of Bedford note, 232 
 
 xxvui. Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 234 
 
 xxix. Philo-Junius to Modestus 235 
 
 XXX. Junius on Rescue of General Gansel 239 
 
 General Gansel's case, and brigade order in consequence of 
 
 it note, 240 
 
 xxxi. Philo-Junins to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 245 
 
 xxxn. Junius on Modestus 248 
 
 xxxni. Junius to the Duke of Grafton 249 
 
 xxxiv. Junius to the same 250 
 
 Justice to the Printer of the Public Advertiser in defence of 
 the Duke of Grafton, on the gift of the patent place to Col. 
 
 Burgoyne note, 253 
 
 xxxv. Junius's address to the King 255 
 
 On Woodfall's trial for publishing this letter note, 255 
 
 Wilkes, his imprisonment note, 268 
 
 xxxvi. Junius to his Grace the Duke of Grafton 270 
 
 xxxvii. Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 279 
 
 Address, remonstrance and petition of the city of London to 
 
 the King ."..... note, 280 
 
 His Majesty's answer to the foregoing note, 280 
 
 The Lord Mayor's (Beckford) reply to his Majesty's an- 
 swer note, 281 
 
 Xixviil. Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 285 
 
 xxxix. Junius's Retrospect of Parliamentary Session 291 
 
 XL. Junius to Lord North 303 
 
 XLI. To Chief Justice Mansfield 305 
 
 Lord Mansfield. Explanation of the story of his having drank 
 
 the Pretender's health upon his knees note, 307 
 
 Judge Yates. Anecdote of him note, 310 
 
 XLII. Junius on the Falkland Islands 316 
 
 Dr. Johnson. Extracts from his " Thoughts on the late 
 
 transactions respecting Falkland's Islands " note, 324 
 
 XLIII. Philo-Junius on the Spanish convention 325 
 
 Publication of Parliamentary Debates 328 
 
 XLIV. Junius on Privileges of Parliament 328 
 
 XLV. Philo-Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 339 
 
 XLVL Mr Walpole's case... 340 
 
 Erasure of the decision of the House of Commons, on the 
 Middlesex election, from their Journals, with Mr. Wilkes's 
 
 speech in prefacing his motion for that purpose note, 342 
 
 Short biographical notice of Mr. Wilkes's political life, from 
 the period of publishing the North Briton, No. 45, to hig 
 death note, 344
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER PAG1 
 
 XLVII. Philo-Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 346 
 
 XLVIII. Junius on Parliamentary resolutions 349 
 
 XLIX. Junius to the Duke of Grafton 350 
 
 L. Election of Messrs. Wilkes and Bull to be sheriffs of Lon- 
 don, and Mr. Robinson's note in favour of the ministerial 
 
 candidates note, 38 
 
 Origin of the dispute between Junius and Mr. Home ...note, 358 
 
 LI. The Rev. Mr. Home to Junius 360 
 
 LII. Junius to the Rev. Mr. Home 364 
 
 Account of the quarrel between Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Home, 
 and extracts from various letters which passed between 
 
 them during the dispute note, 368 
 
 Lin. The Rev. Mr. Home to Junius 372 
 
 Mr. Home's explanation, as extracted from one of his letters, 
 
 of his reasons for originally supporting Mr. Wilkes... note, 375 
 Mr. Wilkes's reply to a passage in the foregoing extract. . .note, 376 
 W. B. to the Rev. Mr. Home, on a passage in his letter, 
 taken from a remark made by Mr. Wilkes on the margin 
 
 of his Clarendon note, 380 
 
 Vote of thanks from the Common Council to Lord Chatham, 
 
 for his declaration in favour of short parliaments note, 384 
 
 Lord Chatham's reply to the committee deputed to present it 385 
 
 LIT. Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 387 
 
 LV. Philo-Junius to the same 394 
 
 LVI. The Rev. Mr. Home to Junius 396 
 
 LYII . Junius to the Duke of Grafton 397 
 
 Story of the Oaks, in answer to Junius's charge against the 
 
 Duke of Grafton respecting Whittlebury Forest note, 403 
 
 LVIII. Junius to the Livery of London 405 
 
 LIX. Junius recommends union 408 
 
 LX. Philo-Junius to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 417 
 
 Scaevola to Junius in defence of Lord Camden note, 418 
 
 LXI. Philo-Junius to Zeno 421 
 
 Zeno, addressed to Junius, alias Edmund the Jesuit of St. 
 
 Omer's note, 421 
 
 LXII. Philo-Junius to an Advocate in the cause of the People 429 
 
 The letter of an Advocate, &c. to which the foregoing is an 
 
 answer note, 432 
 
 LXIII. A friend of Junius, in answer to a Barrister-at-law 432 
 
 The Barrister's letter note, 435 
 
 LXIV. To the Printer of the Public Advertiser Declaration in 
 
 behalf of Junius 437 
 
 LXV, Junius to the Lord Chief Justice Mansfield 440 
 
 Statement of the case of Eyre note, 441 
 
 LXVI. Junius engage* to make good his charge against Lord C. J. 
 
 Mansfield 441 
 
 LXTII. Junius to the Duke of Grafton 441 
 
 Disgraceful anecdote of Lord Imham 443 
 
 txvin. Junius to Lord C. J. Mansfield . 445
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 1ETTER 1'AOE 
 
 LXVIII. Case of the Kennedys 468 
 
 LXIX. Junius to Lord Camden 465 
 
 Extracts from the letter of Junius to Mr. Wilkes, dated 
 
 Sept. 7, 1771 467 
 
 Conclusion 470 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Trial of Mr. Woodfall 471 
 
 Fees and Expenses of Imprisonment 474 
 
 Imprisonment of Mr. Wilkes note, 477 
 
 Original Letter of David Garrick -.. 477 
 
 Extract from Lord Mansfield's Speech 478
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY*. 
 
 IT was not from personal vanity, but a fair estimate of his 
 own merit, and the importance of the subject on which he 
 wrote, that the author of the ensuing letters predicted their 
 immortality. Their matter and their manner, the times they 
 describe, and the talents they disclose, the popularity which 
 attended them at their outset, the impression they produced 
 on the public mind, and the triumph of most of the doctrines 
 they inculcate, all equally concur in stamping for them a 
 passport to the most distant posterity. 
 
 In their range these letters comprise a period of about five 
 years : from the middle of 1767 to the middle of 1772 : and 
 never has the history of this country, from its origin to the 
 present hour, exhibited a period of equal extent that more 
 peremptorily demanded the severe, decisive, and overpower- 
 ing pen of such a writer as JUNTOS. The storms and tem- 
 
 * This able and comprehensive Essay on Junius and his Writings was 
 affixed to Woodfall's edition published in 1812, and is ascribed to John 
 Mason Good, a ph ysician and miscellaneous writer of eminence, who died 
 Jan. 2, 1827 Of its purport and the views of the writer some observations 
 by the present editor will be found at the end. The commencement of the 
 second paragraph requires passing- explanation. The Letters of Junius as 
 acknowledged by him, and published under his own revision in a collec- 
 tive edition in 1772, by Henry Sampson Woodfall, proprietor of the Public 
 Advertiser, appeared in that journal between Jan. 21, 1769, and Jan. 21, 
 1772, concluding with a brief impressive letter addressed to Lord Gamden, 
 and a paper by Junius, explanatory of his views on long parliaments and 
 rotten boroughs. Dr. Good includes in the term of Jive years the Miscella- 
 neous Letters given in the second volume of the present edition, some of 
 which Junius acknowledges to have written, at an earlier or later period, 
 under different signatures; and other letters collected by Mason Good, of 
 which the authorship is not equally well authenticated. 
 
 The omission of a quotation or two, of no present interest, and the correc- 
 tion of a few inaccuracies of language, are the only alterations that have been 
 made in the Preliminary Eway. EDITOE. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 Vv
 
 2 PBELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 pests that, within the last twenty years, have shaken the 
 political world to its centre, have been wider and more tre- 
 mendous in their operation ; but they have, for the most 
 part, discharged their fury at a distance. The constitutions 
 of other countries have been swept away by the whirlwind; 
 but that of England still towers, like the pyramids of Egypt, 
 a wonderful fabric, overshadowing the desert that surrounds 
 it, and defying the violence of its hurricanes. In the period 
 however in question, this admirable structure of govemment 
 was itself attacked, and trembled to its foundation ; a series 
 of unsuccessful ministries, often profligate and corrupt, and 
 not unfrequently cunning, rather than capable ; a succession 
 of weak and obsequious parliaments, and an arbitrary, though 
 able chief justice, addicted to the impolitic measures of the 
 cabinet, fatally concurred to confound the relative powers of 
 the state, and equally to unhinge the happiness of the crown 
 and of the people ; to frustrate all the proud and boasted 
 triumphs of a glorious war, concluded but a few years before 
 by an inglorious peace * ; to excite universal contempt abroad, 
 and universal discord at home. Hence France, humiliated as 
 she was by her losses and defeats, did not hesitate to invade 
 Corsica in open defiance of the remonstrances of the British 
 minister, and succeeded in obtaining possession of it ; whilst 
 Spain dishonourably refused to make good the ransom she 
 had agreed to, for the restoration of the capital of the Phi- 
 lippine Isles, which had been exempted from pillage upon this 
 express stipulation. They saw the weakness and distraction 
 of the English Cabinet, and had no reason to dread the chas- 
 tisement of a new war. 
 
 The discontents in the American colonies, which a little 
 address might at first have stifled, were blown into a flame 
 cf open rebellion, through the impolitic violence of the very 
 minister who was appointed, by the creation of a new office 
 at this very time and for this express purpose, to examine 
 into the causes of dissatisfaction, and to redress the griev- 
 ances complained of; while, at home, the whole of the ways 
 and means of the ministry, instead of being directed against 
 the arn gance of the common enemy, were exhausted against an 
 individual, who, perhaps, would never have been so greatly dis- 
 
 * IB 1763, through the negotiation of the Duke of Bedford.
 
 JUN1US AND HIS WRITINGS. 3 
 
 tiuguished, had not the ill-judged and contumacious opposition 
 of the cabinet, and their flagrant violation of the most sacred 
 and important principles of the constitution in order to punish 
 him, raised him to a height of popularity seldom attained 
 even by the most successful candidate for public applause , 
 and embroiled themselves on his account in a dispute with 
 the nation at large, almost amounting to a civil war, and which 
 at length only terminated in their own utter confusion and 
 defeat*. 
 
 It was at this period, and under these circumstances, that 
 the ensuing letters successively made their appearance in the 
 Public Advertiser, the most current newspaper of the day f. 
 The classic purity of their language, the exquisite force and 
 perspicuity of their argument, the keen severity of their re- 
 proach, the extensive information they evince, their fearless 
 and decisive tone, and, above all, their stern and steady at- 
 tachment to the purest principles of the constitution, acquired 
 for them, with an almost electric speed, a popularity which 
 no series of letters have since possessed, nor, perhaps, ever 
 will; and what is of far greater consequence, diffused among 
 the body of the people a clearer knowledge of their constitu- 
 tional rights than they had ever before attained, and animated 
 them with a more determined spirit to maintain them invio- 
 late. Enveloped in the cloud of a fictitious name, the writer 
 of these philippics, unseen himself, beheld with secret satis- 
 faction the vast influence of his labours, and enjoyed, though, 
 as we shall afterwards observe, not always without apprehen- 
 sion, the universal lumt that was made to detect him in his 
 disguise. He beheld the people extolling him, the court 
 execrating him, and ministers and more than ministers trem- 
 bling beneath the lash of his invisible hand. 
 
 That the same general impression was produced by the 
 appearance of these letters in parliament, which is so well 
 known to have been produced out of it, is evident from al- 
 most all the speeches of the day, as the ensuing extracts 
 from speeches delivered by Mr. Burke and Lord North will 
 attest. 
 
 * In the language of Lord Chatham, delivered May 1, 1771, in the Houae 
 of Lords, " they rendered the very name of parliament ridiculous, by carrying 
 on a constant war against Mr. Wilkes." 
 
 f They were generally copied from the Public Advertiser into all the daily 
 and evening papers. 
 
 B 3
 
 4 PRELIMINARY E88AT ON 
 
 " Whore then shall we look for the origin of this relixation of the la\ri 
 and all government] How comes this Junius to haye broke through the 
 cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrolled, unpunished, through the 
 land I The mvrmidons of the court have been long, and are still, pursuing 
 him in vain. They will not spend their time upon me, or you, or you. No : 
 they disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of the forest, that has broke 
 through all their toils, is before them. But what will all their efforts avail ] 
 No sooner has he wounded one than he lays down another dead at his feet. 
 For my part, when I saw his att.ick upon the king, I own my blood ran 
 eold. I thought he had ventured too far, and there was an end of his 
 triumphs, not that he had not asserted many truths. Yes, Sir, there are in 
 that composition many bold truths, by which a wise prince might profit. It 
 was the rancour and venom with which I was struck. In these respects the 
 North Briton is as much inferior to him, as in strength, wit, and judgment. 
 But while I expected in this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold him 
 rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both Houses of Parliament. 
 Yes, he did make you his quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of 
 his talons. You crouched, and still crouch, beneath his rage. Nor has he 
 dreaded the terrors of your brow, Sir ; he has attacked even you he has 
 and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. In short, 
 after carrying away our Royal Eagle in his pounces, and dashing him against 
 a rock, he has laid you prostrate. King, lords, and commons are but the 
 sport of his fury. Were he a member of this house, what might not be ex- 
 pected from his knowledge, his firmness, and integrity 1 He would be easily 
 known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetration, by his vigour. 
 Nothing would escape his vigilance and activity. Bad ministers could con- 
 ceal nothing from his sagacity ; nor could promises nor threats induce him to 
 conceal anything from the public." 
 
 The following is part of a speech delivered by Lord North : 
 
 " When factions and discontented men have brought things to this pass, 
 why should we be surprised at the difficulty of bringing libellers to justice ? 
 Why should we wonder that the great boar of the wood, this mighty Junius, 
 has broke through the toils and foiled the hunters ? Though there may be at 
 present no spear that will reach him, yet he may be some time or other 
 caught. At any rate he will be exhausted with fruitless efforts ; those tusks 
 which he has been whetting to wound and gnaw the constitution will be 
 worn out. Truth will at last prevail. The public will see and feel that he 
 has either advanced false facts, or reasoned falsely from true principles ; and 
 that he has owed his escape to the spirit of the times, not to the justice of 
 his cause. The North Briton, the most flagitious libel of its day, would have 
 been equally secure, had it been as powerfully supported. But the press had 
 not then overflowed the land with its black gall, and poisoned the minds of 
 the people. Political writers had some shame left ; they had some reverenct 
 for the crown, some respect for the name of Majesty. Nor were there any 
 members of parliament hardy enough to harangue in defence of libels. 
 Lawyers could hardly be brought to plead for them. But the scene is now 
 entirely changed. Without doors, within doors, the same abusive strains 
 prevail. Libels find patrons in both Houses of Parliament as well as in 
 Westminster Hall. Nay, they pronounce libels on the very judges. Thej
 
 JUNTOS AND HIS WRITJXGS. O 
 
 pervert the privilege of this house to the purposes of faction. They catch 
 and swallow the breath of the inconstant multitude, because, I suppose, they 
 take their voice, which is now that of libels, to be the voice of God." 
 
 It is not the intention of the editor of the present volumes 
 to vindicate the whole of the method pursued by Junius towards 
 the accomplishment of the patriotic objects on which his heart 
 appears to have been most ardently engaged. Much of his 
 individual sarcasm might perhaps have been spared with ad- 
 vantage and especially the whole of his personal assaults 
 upon the character and motives of the king. Aware as the 
 editor is of the arguments in favour of occasionally attacking 
 the character of the chief magistrate, as urged by Junius him- 
 self in his Preface, he still thinks that no possible circum- 
 stances could justify so gross a disrespect and indecency; that 
 no principle of the constitution supports it, and that every 
 advantage it was calculated to produce, might have been ob- 
 tained in an equal degree, and to an equal extent, by animad- 
 verting upon the conduct of the king's ministers, instead of 
 censuring that of the king in person. In the volumes before 
 us the editor is ready to acknowledge that these kinds of 
 paragraphs seem at times not altogether free from what ought 
 never to enter the pages of a writer on national subjects in- 
 dividual spleen and enmity. But well may we forgive such 
 trivial aberrations of the heart, in the midst of the momentous 
 matter these volumes are well known to contain, the import- 
 ant principles they inculcate ; and especially under the recol- 
 lection that, but for the letters of Junius, the Commons of 
 England might still have been without a knowledge of the 
 transactions of the House of Commons, consisting of their par- 
 liamentary representatives have been exposed to arbitrary 
 violations of individual liberty, under undefined pretexts of 
 parliamentary privileges against which there were no appeal 
 defrauded of their estates upon capricious and interested 
 claims of the crown and deprived of the constitutional right 
 of a jury to consider the question of law as well as of fact. 
 To the steady patriotism of the late Mr. Fox is the nation 
 solely indebted for a direct legislative decision upon this last 
 important point; but the ground was previously cleared by 
 the letters before us ; it is not often that a judge has dared 
 openly to controvert this right since the manly and unanswer- 
 able argument of Junius upon tLis subject, in opposition to
 
 6 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OH 
 
 the arbitrary arid illegal doctrine of Lord Mansfield, as urged 
 in the case of the King v. Woodfall : an argument which 
 seems to have silenced every objection, to have convinced 
 every party, and without which perhaps even the zeal and 
 talents of Mr. Fox himself might have been exercised in vain. 
 
 But, after all, \\ho or what was Juuius? this shadow of a 
 name, who thus shot his unerring arrows from an impene- 
 trable concealment, and punished without being perceived? 
 The question is natural ; and it has been repeated almost 
 without intermission, from the appearance of his first letter. 
 It is not unnatural, moreover, from the pertinacity with which 
 he has at all times eluded discovery, that the vanity of many 
 political writers of inferior talents should have induced them 
 to lay an indirect claim to his Letters, and especially after 
 the danger of responsibility had considerably ceased. Yet 
 while the Editor of the present impression does not under- 
 take, and, in fact, has it not in his power, to communicate 
 the real name of Junius, he pledges himself to prove, from 
 incontrovertible evidence, afforded by the private letters of 
 Jdnius himself during the period in question, in connection 
 with other documents, that not one of these pretenders has 
 ever had the smallest right to the distinction which some of 
 them have ardently coveted. 
 
 These private and confidential letters, addressed to the late 
 Mr. Woodfall, are now for the first time made public by his 
 son, who is in possession of the author's autographs * ; and 
 
 * There must have been some misunderstanding either of the extent of the 
 question, or the nature of the answer in that part of a conversation which 
 Mr. Campbell, in his Life of Hugh Boyd, states to have occurred between 
 Mr. H. S. Woodfall (editor and one of the proprietors of the Public Adver- 
 tiser) and himself in relation to the preservation of these autographs. " I 
 proceeded," says Mr. Campbell, " to ask him if he had preserved any of the 
 manuscripts of Junius ] He said he did not." p. 164. The veracity of Mr. 
 H. S. Woodfall is well known to have been unimpeachable : and it is by no 
 means the intention of the editor to suspect that of Mr. Campbell. It is 
 probable that Mr. Woodfall understood the question to be whether he had 
 regularly preserved the manuscripts of Junius, or had preserved any of the 
 manuscripts of Junius which had publicly appeared under Viat signature I 
 Ko man, not even Mr. Campbell himself, could have suspected Mr. Woodfall 
 to have been guilty of a wilful falsehood ; nor can any advantage be assigned, 
 or even conceived, that could possibly have resulted from such a falsehood, 
 had it taken place. 
 
 It it equally extraordinary ths; Mr. Campbell, in this same conversation.
 
 JUNTOS AND HIS WHITINGS. 7 
 
 from the various facts aud anecdotes they disclose, not only 
 in relation to this extraordinary character, but to other cha- 
 racters as well, they cannot fail of being highly interesting 
 to the political world. To have published these letters at an 
 earlier period would have been a gross breach of trust and de 
 corum : the term of trust, however, seems at length to have 
 expired ; most, of the parties have pairl fye '^V-'T. i, "'.""" 
 =kould any h* r-'- 1: --&> Llie length ot time which has since 
 elapsed has so completely blunted the asperity of the strictures 
 they contain, that they could scarcely object to so remote a 
 publication of them. Junius, in the career of his activity, was 
 the man of the people ; and when the former can receive no 
 injury from the disclosure, the latter have certainly a claim to 
 every information that can be communicated concerning him. 
 It was on the 28th of April, in the- year 1767, that the late 
 Mr. H. S. Woodfall received, among other letters from a 
 great number of correspondents, for the use of the Public Ad- 
 vertiser, of which he was a proprietor, the first public address 
 of this celebrated writer*. He had not then assumed the 
 name, or rather written under the signature, of Junius ; nor 
 
 should represent Mr. Woodfall as saying that " as to the story about Hamilton 
 quoting Junius to the late Duke of Richmond, he knew it to be a misconcep- 
 tion." In regard to the story itself, Woodfall knew it to be founded in fact 
 from Hamilton's own relation and has repeatedly mentioned it as such ; 
 but he may have meant that the story as told by Mr. Campbell was a mis- 
 conception. 
 
 In effect the late Duke of Richmond himself distinctly informed the soi 
 of the late Mr. Woodfall, that such a communication with Hamilton haa 
 taken place, while his Grace was riding with Sir James Peachey, afterwards 
 Lord Selsey, in the park at Goodwood, though he could not at that distance 
 of time recollect the particular letter to which it referred. The clue to the 
 mystery is that Mr. Hamilton was acquainted with the late Mr. H. S. Wood- 
 fall, and used occasionally to call at his office ; whence it is highly probable 
 that Mr. Woodfall had shown him or detailed to him a letter from Juniua 
 then just received, and intended for publication on a certain day. Hamilton 
 alluded to the general purport of this letter, on the day on which it was to 
 have been published, as though he had just read it ; when, to the astonish- 
 ment of his Grace an.d Sir James Peachey, to whom he thus mentioned it, 
 no such letter appeared, though it did appear the next day or the day after. 
 
 * Dr. Good is a forcible, but careless writer ; the letter referred to, the 
 first of the Miscellaneous Letters, was published, not received on the day 
 mentioned, and preceded by twenty months the appearance of the first letter of 
 Junius. It was sicned Poplicola, and, as it contained a severe attack on Lord 
 Chatham, there is *lie strongest reason for doubting its assigned origin. B&
 
 8 PHELIMINABY ESSAY OK 
 
 did he always indeed assume a signature of any kind. When 
 he did so, however, his signatures were diversified, and the 
 chief of them were Mnemon, Atticus, Lucius, Junius, and 
 Brutus. Under the first he sarcastically opposed the ministry 
 upon the subject of the Nullum Tempus Bill, which involved 
 the celebrated dispute concerning the transfer on the part of 
 nrehm . , ^..,_ of p tlan(1 - s estate O f the forest of 
 Inglewood, and the manor ana casue ur o..-i:,/u tn c;j r James 
 Lowther, son-in-law of lord Bute, upon the plea that thcao 
 lands, which formerly belonged to the crown, had not been 
 duly specified in King William's grant of them to the Port- 
 land family ; and that hence, although they had been in the 
 Poi'tland family for nearly seventy years, they of right be- 
 longed to the crown still. The letters signed Atticus and 
 Brutus relate chiefly to the growing disputes with the Ameri- 
 can colonies : and those subscribed Lucius exclusively to the 
 outrageous dismission of Sir Jeffery Amherst from his post of 
 governor of Virginia. 
 
 The name of Mnemon was, perhaps, taken up at hazard. 
 That of Atticus was unquestionably assumed from the author's 
 own opinion of the purity of his style, an opinion in which the 
 public universally concurred ; and the three remaining signa- 
 tures of Lucius, Junius, and Brutus were obviously deduce 3 
 from a veneration for the memory of the celebrated Roman 
 patriot, who united these three names in his own. 
 
 Various other names were also occasionally assumed by this 
 fertile political writer, to answer particular purposes, or more 
 completely to conceal himself and carry forward his extensive 
 design. That of Philo-Junius, he has avowed to the public, 
 in the authorized edition of the Letters of Junius : but beside 
 this, he is yet to be recognised under the mask of Poplicola, 
 Domitian, Vindex, and several others, as the subjoined pages 
 will sufficiently testify. 
 
 The most popular of our author's letters anterior to those 
 published with the signature of Junius in 1769, were those 
 subscribed Atticns and Lucius ; to the former of which the 
 few letters signed Brutus seem to have been little more than 
 auxiliary, and are consequently not polished with an equal 
 degree of attention. These letters, in point of time, preceded 
 those with the signature of Junius by a few weeks : they are 
 eertainly written with admirable spirit and perspicuity, and
 
 JTJNtUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 9 
 
 are entitled to all the popularity they acquired : yet they are 
 not perhaps possessed of more merit than our author's *etter3 
 signed Mnemon. They nevertheless deserve a more minute 
 attention from their superior celebrity. The proofs of their 
 having been composed by the writer denominated Junius are 
 incontestible : the manner, the phraseology, the sarcastic, 
 exprobratory style, independently of any other evidence, suffi 
 ciently identify them. These, therefore, together with such 
 others as are equally and indisputably genuine, are now added 
 to tin; acknowledged letters of Junius, to render his produc- 
 tions complete. 
 
 It is no objection to their genuineness that they were 
 omitted by Junius in his own edition published by Mr. 
 Woodfall : there is a material difference between printing 
 a complete edition of the letters of Junius, and a complete 
 edition of the letters that appeared under this name. The 
 first was the main object of Junius himself, and it was not 
 necessary, therefore, that he should have extended it to letters 
 composed by him under any other signature, excepting, ir- 
 deed, those of Philo-Junius, which it was expedient for him tc 
 avow ; the second is the direct design of the edition before us ; 
 and it would be inconsistent with it to suppress any of his 
 letters, under what signature soever they may have appeared, 
 that possess sufficient interest to excite the attention of the 
 public *. 
 
 The first of the letters (signed Atticus) was written in the 
 beginning of August, 1768. It takes a general, and by no 
 means an uncandid, survey of the state of the nation at that 
 period, and particularly in regard to its funded property, the 
 alarming depression of which, from the still hostile appear- 
 ance of France, the prospect of a rupture with the American 
 colonies, the wretchedness of the public finances, and the 
 imbecility of the existing administration, struck the writer so 
 forcibly as to induce him, as he tells us, to transfer his 
 property from the funds to, what he conceived, the more solid 
 security of landed estate. The conclusion of this letter 
 
 * Mason Good's unhesitating affiliation of those unavowed letters on 
 Junitig will form a subject of after inquiry; that those signed Poplicola, 
 JSrutii.it, and others were not written by him, strong proof will be adduced ; 
 and thereby the impression entertained by some against the undeviating 
 onsisteney of this famous writer be removed. K.
 
 10 PBELtMINART ESSAY ON 
 
 exhibits so much of the essential style and manner of Junius, 
 that it has every claim to be copied in this place as affording 
 an internal proof of identity of pen. 
 
 " \Ve are arrived at that point when new taxes either produce nothing, or 
 defeat the old ones, and when new duties only operate aa a prohibition : yet 
 these are the tiniea when ever}- ignorant boy thinks himself fit to be a 
 minister. Instead of attendance to objects of national importance, our 
 worthy governors are contented to divide their time between private pleasures 
 and ministerial intrigues. Their activity is just equal to the persecution of 
 a prisoner in the King's Bench, and to the honourable struggle of providing 
 for their dependants. If there be a good man in thp king's service they dis- 
 miss him of course; and when bad news arrives, instead of uniting to consider 
 of a remedy, their time is spent in accusing and reviling one another. Thus 
 the debate concludes in some half misbegotten measure, which is left to 
 execute itself. Away they go : one retires to his country house ; another is 
 engaged at a horse race ; a third has an appointment irilh a prostitute ; 
 and as to their country, they leave her, like a cast-off' mistress, to perish under 
 the diseases they Jtave given her." 
 
 It was just at this period that the very extraordinary step 
 occurred of the dismissal of Sir Jeffery Amherst from his 
 government of Virginia, for the sole purpose, as it should 
 seem, of creating a post for the Earl of Hillsbo rough's inti- 
 mate friend Lord Boutetort, who had completely ruined 
 himself by gambling and extravagance. This post had been 
 expressly given to Sir Jeffery for life, as a reward for his past 
 services in America, and it was punctiliously stipulated that a 
 personal residence would be dispensed with. It was an 
 atrocity well worthy of public attack and condemnation ; and 
 the keen vigilance of Juuius, which seems first to have 
 traced it out, hastened to expose it to the public in all its 
 indecency and outrage, and with the warmth of a personal 
 friendship for the veteran hero. The subject being of a 
 different description from that he had engaged in under the 
 signature of Atticus, he assumed a new name, and for the 
 first time sallied forth under that of Lucius, subscribed to a 
 letter addressed to the Earl of Hillsborough, minister for the 
 American department, and published in the Public Advertiser 
 Aug. 10, 1768. A vindication, or rather an apology, was 
 entered into, by three or four correspondents under different 
 signatures, but almost every one of whom was regarded by 
 Junius, and indeed by the public at large, as the Earl oi 
 Hillsborough himself, or some individual writer under his 
 immediate control ; thus assuming a mere diversity of mask
 
 AND HIS WRITINGS. II 
 
 the better to accomplish the purpose of a defence. Lucius 
 Junius followed up the contest without sparing, the minister 
 became ashamed of his conduct, and Sir Jeffery, within a few 
 weeks after his dismissal and the resignation of two regiments 
 which he had commanded, was restored to the command of 
 one of them, and appointed to that of another ; and in May, 
 1776, was created a peer of the realm, which the Duke of 
 Grafton had refused him, under the strange and impolitic 
 assertion that he had not fortune enough to maintain such a 
 dignity with the splendour it required. Tho sarcastic remark 
 of Lucius upon this observation of his Grace, is entitled to 
 attention, as identifying him with Juniua in his peculiar 
 severity of reproach. 
 
 " Thfi Duke of Grafton's idea of the proper object, of a British peerage 
 differs very materially from mine. His Grace, in the true spirit of business, 
 looks tor nothing but an opulent fortune; meaning, I presume, the fortune 
 which can purchase, as well as maintain a title. We understand his Grace, 
 and know who dictated that article. He has declared the terms on which 
 Jews, gamesters, pedlars, and contractors (if they have sense enough to take 
 the hint) may rise without difficulty into British Peers. There was a time 
 indeed, though not within his Grace's memory, when titles were the reward 
 of public virtue, and when the crown did not think its revenue ill employed 
 in contributing to support the honours it had bestowed. It is true his 
 Grace's family derive their wealth and greatness from a different origin, from 
 a system which he, it seems, is determined to revive. His confession is frank, 
 and well becomes the candour of a young man, at least. I dare say, that if 
 either his Grace or your Lordship had had the command of a seven years' 
 war in America, you would have taken care that poverty, however honour- 
 able, should not have been an objection to your advancement; you would 
 not have stood in the predicament of Sir Jeffery Amherst, who is refused a 
 title of honour, because he did not create a fortune equal to it, at the expense 
 of the public." 
 
 He is not less severe upon Lord Hillsborough in a succeed- 
 ing letter ; and the editor extracts the following passage for 
 the same purpose he has introduced the preceding. 
 
 " That you are a civil, polite person is true. Few men understand the 
 kittle morals better or olserve the great ones less than your Lordship. You 
 can bow and smile in an honest man's face, while you pick his pocket. These 
 are the virtues of a court, in which your education has not been neglected. 
 In any other school you might have learned that simplicity and integrity are 
 vorth them all. Sir Jeffery Amherst was fighting the battles of his country, 
 while you, my Lord, the darling child of prudence and urbanity, were prac- 
 tising the generous arts of a courtier, and securing an honourable interest in 
 the antichumber ot a favourite."
 
 12 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OH 
 
 Having thus signally triumphed in the affair of Sir JeSer; 
 Amherst, our invisible state-satirist now returned to the 
 subject he had commenced under the signature of Atticus, 
 and pursued it in three additional letters, with the same 
 signature, from the beginning of October till the close of 
 November, in the same year ; offering a few general remarks 
 upon collateral topics in two or three letters signed Brutus. 
 The characteristics of Junius are often as conspicuous here as 
 in any letters he ever wrote : it will be sufficient to confine 
 ourselves to two passages, since two competent witnesses are 
 as good as a thousand. The following is his description of 
 the prime minister of the day. 
 
 -TTI^ *k Q Duke of Grafton first entered into office, it was the fashion of 
 the times to suppose that young men r.; 5 i>t haco wisdom without experience. 
 They thought so themselves, and the most important affairs of this country 
 vere committed to the first trial of their abilities. His Grace had honour- 
 ably fleshed his maiden sword in the field of opposition, and had gone 
 through all the discipline of the minority with credit. He dined at Wildman's, 
 railed at favourites, looked up to Lord Chatham with astonishment, and was 
 the declared advocate of Mr. Wilkes. It afterwards pleased his Grace to 
 enter into administration with his friend Lord Buckingham, and in a very 
 little time it pleased his Grace to abandon him. He then accepted of the 
 treasury upon terms which Lord Temple had disdained. For a short time 
 his submission to Lord Chatham was unlimited. He could not answer a 
 private letter without Lord Chatham's permission. I presume he was then 
 learning his trade, for he soon set up for himself. Until he declared himself 
 the minister, his character had been but little understood. From that moment 
 a system of conduct, directed by passion and caprice, not only reminds us 
 that he is a young man, but a young man without solidity of judgment. One 
 day he desponds and threatens to resign, the next he finds his blood heated, 
 and swears to his friends he is determined to go on. In his public measures 
 we have seen no proof either of ability or consistency. The stamp-act had 
 been repealed (no matter how unwisely) under the preceding administration. 
 The colonies had reason to triumph, and were returning to their good humour. 
 The point was decided, when this young man thought proper to revive it 
 without either plan or necessity; he adopts the spirit of Mr. Grenville's 
 measures, and renews the question of taxation in a form more odious and less 
 effectual than that of the law which had been repealed." 
 
 The following is his character of the members of the cabinet 
 generally. " The school they were bred in taught them how 
 to abandon their friends, without deserting their prirjciples. 
 There is a littleness even in their ambition ; for money is 
 their first object. Their professed opinions upon some great 
 points are so different from those of the party with whicli they 
 are now united, that the council chamber is become a scene of
 
 JUNIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 13 
 
 open hostilities. While the fate of Great Britain is at sttke, 
 these worthy counsellors dispute without decency, advise 
 without sincerity, resolve without decision, and leave the 
 measure to be executed by the man who voted agaiust it. 
 This, I conceive, is the last disorder of the state. The 
 consultation meets but to disagree, opposite medicines are 
 prescribed, and the last fixed on is changed by the hand that 
 gives it." 
 
 The attention paid to these philippics, and the celebrity 
 they had so considerably acquired, stimulated the author to 
 new and additional exertions : and having in the beginning of 
 the ensuing year completed another with more than usual 
 elaboration and polish, which he seems to have intended as a 
 kind of introductory address to the nation at large, he sent it 
 forth under the name of Junius, (a name he had hitherto 
 assumed but once,) to the office of the Public Advertiser, in 
 which journal it appeared on Saturday, January 21, 1769 
 The popularity expected by the author from this performance 
 was more than accomplished ; and what in some measure 
 added to his fame, was a reply (for the Public Advertiser was 
 equally open to all parties) from a real character of no small 
 celebrity both as a scholar and as a man of rank, Sir William 
 Draper ; principally because the attack upon his majesty's 
 ministers had extended itself to Lord Granby, at that time 
 commander in chief, for whom Sir William professed the most 
 cordial esteem and friendship. 
 
 Sir William Draper appears to have been a worthy, and, on 
 the whole, an independent man; and Lord Granby was, 
 perhaps, the most honest and immaculate of his majesty's 
 ministers. Junius did not begin the dispute with the former, 
 and seems, from a regard for his character, to have continued 
 it unwillingly : " My answer," says he to him in his last 
 letter, upon a second assault, and altogether without reason, 
 "shall be short; for I write to you with reluctance, and I 
 hope we shall now conclude our correspondence for ever ! " 
 At the latter he had only glanced incidentally, (for upon the 
 whole he approved his conduct,) and seems' rather to have 
 done so on account of the company he consorted with, than 
 from any gross misdeeds of his own. Nothing could, there- 
 fore, have been more improvident or impolitic than this attack 
 of Sir William Draper: if volunteered in favour of the
 
 14 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 ministry, it is impossible for a defence to have been worse 
 planned; for, by confining the vindication to the individual 
 that was least accused, it tacitly admits that the charges 
 advanced against all the rest were well founded ; while, it 
 volunteered in favour of Lord Granby alone, it might easily 
 have been anticipated by the writer that his visionary oppo- 
 nent would be hereby challenged to bring forward pecadillos 
 which would otherwise never be heard of, and that he would 
 not fail, at the same time, to scrutinize the character of Sir 
 William himself, and to ascribe this act of precipitate zeal to 
 an interested desire of additional promotion in the army. It 
 was too much for Sir William to expect that Junius would be 
 hurried into an intemperate disclosure of his real name by a 
 swaggering offer to measure swords with him ; while the 
 following rebuke was but a just retaliation for his challenge. 
 
 " Had you been originally and without provocation attacked bjan anony- 
 mous writer, you would have some right to demand his name. But in this 
 cause you are a volunteer. You engaged in it with the unpremeditated 
 gallantry of a soldier. You were content to set your name in opposition to 
 a man who would probably continue in concealment. You understood the 
 terms upon which we were to correspond, and gave at least a tacit assent 
 to them. After voluntarily attacking me under the character of Jur.ius, what 
 possible right have you to know me under any other! Will you forgive me 
 if I insinuate to you, that you foresaw some honour in the apparent spirit 
 of coming forward in person, and that you were not quite indifferent to the 
 display of your literary qualifications]" 
 
 In reality Junius, though a severe satirist, was not in his 
 general temper a malevolent writer, nor an ungenerous man. 
 No one has ever been more ready to admit the brilliant talents 
 of Sir William Blackstone than himself, or to apply to his 
 Commentaries for legal information, while reprobating his 
 conduct in the unconstitutional expulsion of Mr. Wilkes from 
 the House of Commons. " If I were personally your enemy," 
 says he in his letter to him upon this subject, "I should dwell 
 with a malignant pleasure upon those great and useful qualifi- 
 cations which you certainly possess, and by which you once 
 acquired, though they could not preserve to you, the respect 
 and esteem of your country. I should enumerate the honours 
 you have lost, and the virtues you have disgraced : but having 
 no private resentments to gratify, I think it sufficient to have 
 given my opinion of your public conduct, leaving the punish- 
 ment it deserves to your closet and self."
 
 JCNIT7S AND HIS WRITINGS. 15 
 
 The rescue of General Gansel, by means of a party of 
 guards, from the hands of the sheriffs officers after they had 
 arrested him for debt, was an outrage upon the law which 
 well demanded castigation ; and the attempt to quash this 
 transaction on the part of the minister, instead of delivering 
 the culprits over to the punishment they had merited, was an 
 outrage of at least equal atrocity, and demanded equal repro- 
 bation. The severity with which the minister was repeatedly 
 attacked by Junius on this subject is still well known to many: 
 but the reason is not yet known to any one, perhaps, why the 
 latter suddenly dropped this subject, after having positively 
 declared in his letter of November 15, 1709, "if the gentle- 
 men, whose conduct is in question, are not brought to a trial, 
 the Duke of Grafton shall hear from me again." From his 
 Private Letters to Mr. Woodfall, we shall now learn that he 
 was solely actuated in his forbearance by motives of humanity : 
 " The only thing," says he in a note alluding to this transac- 
 tion, " that hinders my pushing the subject of my last letter, 
 is really the fear of ruining that poor devil Gansel, and those 
 other blockheads.' * 
 
 In like manner having been betrayed by the first rumours 
 of the day into what he afterwards found to have been too 
 severe an opinion, and expressed himself with too indignant 
 a warmth upon the conduct of Mr. Vaughan in his well known 
 attempt to purchase of the Duke of Grafton the reversion of 
 a patent place in Jamaica, he hastened to make him both 
 publicly and privately all the reparation in his power. " I 
 think myself obliged," says he in a letter to the Duke of 
 Grafton, " to do this justice to an injured man, because I was 
 deceived by the appearances thrown out by your Grace, and 
 have frequently spoken of his conduct with indignation. If 
 he really be, what I think him, honest, though mistaken, he 
 will be happy in recovering his reputation, though at the ex- 
 pense of his understanding." Vaughan himself had so high 
 an opinion of our author's integrity, though a total stranger 
 to him, that he intrusted him with his private papers upon the 
 subject in question, which Junius, in return, took care to em- 
 ploy to Vaughan 's advantage f. 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 11. 
 
 f Compare his private letter to Woodfall, Dec. 12, 1759, No. 15, with his 
 public letter to the Puke of Grafton, February 14, 1770, aftel he haj
 
 16 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OX 
 
 From the extraordinary effect produced by his first lettei 
 under the signature of Junius, he resolved to adhere to thia 
 signature exclusively, in all his subsequent letters, in which 
 he took more than ordinary pains, and which alone he was 
 desirous of having attributed to himself ; while to other letters, 
 composed with less care, and merely explanatory of passages 
 in his more finished addresses, or introduced for some other 
 collateral purpose, he subscribed some random name which 
 occurred to him at the moment. The letters of Philo-Junius 
 are alone an exception to this remark. These he always in- 
 tended to acknowledge ; and in truth they are for the most 
 part composed with so much of the peculiar style and finished 
 accuracy of the letters of Junius, properly so called, that it 
 would have required but little discernment to have regarded 
 the two correspondents as the same person under different 
 characters, idem et alter if Junius himself had not at length 
 admitted them to be his own productions, which he expressly 
 did, in an authorized note from the printer, inserted in the 
 PubKc Advertiser, Oct. 19, 1771. "The auxiliary part of 
 Philo-Junius," says he in his Preface, " was indispensably 
 necessary to defend or explain particular passages in Junius, 
 in answer to plausible objections ; but the subordinate charac- 
 ter is never guilty of the indecorum of praising his principal. 
 The fraud was innocent, and I always intended to explain it." 
 Yet whatever were the signatures he assumed, or the loose 
 paragraphs he occasionally addressed to the public, without a 
 signature of any kind, we have his own assertion, that from 
 the time of his corresponding, as Junius, with the editor of 
 the Public Advertiser, he never wrote in any other newspaper. 
 " I believe," says he, " I need not assure you that I have 
 never written in any other paper since I began with yours ; " 
 Private Letter, No. 7. So also in another Private Letter, 
 No. 13, " T sometimes change my signature, but could have 
 no reason to change the paper, especially for one that does uot 
 circulate half so much as yours." 
 
 That he was not only a man of highly cultivated general 
 talents and education, but who had critically and successfully 
 studied the language, the law, the constitution and history of 
 
 txamined these papers, and especially the passage, " You laboured then, by 
 every species of false suggestion, id even by publishing coorterfeil 
 letter*," &c.
 
 JUNTS3 AND HIS WRITINGS. 17 
 
 bis native country, is indubitable. Yet this it- lot all ; the 
 proofs are just as clear that he was also a man of independent 
 fortune, that he moved in the immediate circle of tbe court, 
 and was intimately acquainted, from its first conception, with 
 almost every public measure, every ministerial intrigue, and 
 every domestic incident. 
 
 That he was a man of easy, if not of affluent circumstances, 
 is unquestionable from the fact that he never could be induced 
 in any way or shape to receive any acknowledgment from the 
 proprietor of the Public Advertiser, for the great benefit and 
 popularity he conferred on this paper by his writings, and to 
 which he was fairly entitled *. When the first genuine edition 
 of his letter, was on the point of publication, Mr. Woodfall 
 again urged him either to accept half its profits, or to ooint 
 out some public charity or other institution to which an equal 
 sum might be presented. His reply to this request is con- 
 tained in a paragraph of one of his Private Letters, No. 59, 
 and confers credit on both the parties. " What you say about 
 the profits is very handsome. I like to deal with such men. 
 As for myself, be assured that 1 am far above all pecuniary 
 vieii'S, and no other person I think has any claim to share with 
 you. Make the most of it, therefore, and let all your views 
 in life be directed to a solid, however moderate independence : 
 without it no man can be happy, nor even honest." In this 
 last sentence he reasoned from the sphere of life in which he 
 was accustomed to move ; and, confining it to this sphere, 
 the transactions of every day show us that he reasoned cor- 
 rectly. It is an additional proof, as well of his affluence 
 as of his generosity, that not long after the commencement of 
 his correspondence with the printer of the Public Advertiser, 
 he wrote to him as follows : " For the matter of assistance, be 
 assured that, if a question should arise upon any writings of 
 mine, you shall net want it ; in point of money be assured 
 you shall never suffer." In perfect and honourable con- 
 sonance with which, when the printer was at length involved 
 in a prosecution in consequence of Junius's letter to the king, 
 he wrote to him as follows : " If your affair should come to H 
 trial, and you should be found guilty, you will the a let tne 
 know what expense falls particularly on yourself : for I n/i 
 
 Letter, No. 6, dated Aug. 6, 178&. 
 VOL. I. G
 
 18 FKEUMINABY ESSAT O* 
 
 derstaud you are engaged with other proprietors. Some way 
 or other you shall be reimbursed," Private Letter, No. 59 *. 
 
 " As you have told us," says Sir W. Draper, in his last 
 letter to Junius, " of your importance ; and that you are a 
 person of rank and fortune, and above a common bribe, you 
 may, in all probability, be riot unknown to his Lordship 
 (Earl of Shelburne), who can satisfy you of the truth of what 
 I say." Sir William alludes, in this passage, to a short 
 public note of Juuius to the printer of the Public Advertiser, 
 addressed in consequence of some verses which had just ap 
 
 * Had Dr. Good been as industrious in his researches as a recent writer 
 in the Athenczum, he might have ascertained, from an undoubted source, 
 the direct effect of the pen of Junius on the pecuniary interests of Wood- 
 fall, in promoting the sale of the Public Advertiser. As the question is 
 of some moment, by elucidating the influence of powerful writing on the 
 popularity of a journal, we shall avail ourselves of the inquiries of our con- 
 temporary. By reference to the "Day-book," of the Public Advertiser. 
 the Athenaeum, found that neither the first letter of Junius, nor many 
 subsequent ones, had any immediate effect on the sale of the paper. But on 
 the 19th of December, 1769, appeared his celebrated letter to the king, the 
 effect of which was immediate and electrifying; to meet the increased demand 
 from this formidable appeal, not 500 copies, as Mason Good states, were re- 
 quired, but 1750 additional copies. "To meet the demand expected, or 
 which followed, for Junius's next letter (to the Duke of Grafton) published 
 14th February, 1770, 700 additional copies were printed ; for the following 
 on the 19th of March, the additional supply was 350 ; for the letter in April, 
 350 but not an additional copy was printed of the letter of tha 28th May. 
 There were 100 only on the 22nd August for the letter to Lord North. The 
 letter to Lord Mansfield again awakened public attention, and 600 additional 
 copies were printed. We have no detailed account of the sale in January : but 
 500 additional copies were printed of the Public Advertiser which contained 
 the letter in April, 1771 100 of the June letter to the Duke of Giafton 25C 
 for the first in July to the same not one for the second letter to Home 
 Tooke of the 24th of July 200 for the August letter to the same- -250 for 
 the letter to the Duke of Grafton in September. \Vi:h the letter to the 
 LiTery of London in September the sale fell 250 with the letter of the 5th 
 of October there was neither rise nor fall with the letter of the 2nd Nov. 
 to Mansfield it may have risen 50, but we doubt it and on the 28th with 
 that to the Duke of Grafton it rose 350." Athenaeum, July 29, 1848. The 
 Pti.llic Advertiser had long been a successful and rising paper, whose average 
 sale, with the exception of two, was little inferior to that of our existing 
 London daily papers. But the sale of a periodical, however important to the 
 proprietors, is only a vulgar test of the influence of a writer ; that of Juniua 
 was unquestionably immense; but it was at the court of George III., in his 
 cabinet, among his ministers, judges and employes, and among the higher 
 class of statesmen and politicians, that the tusk of Burke' g " great boar of th 
 fcrest" was n:of Vo^r'y felt ED.
 
 JUNTOS AND HIS WRITINGS. 19 
 
 peared in that paper, entitled " The tears of Sedition 011 the 
 death of Junius ; " in which h) observes : " It is true I have 
 refused offers which a more prudent or a more interested man 
 would have accepted. Whether it be simplicity or virtue in 
 me, I can only affirm that I am in earnest, because I am con 
 \inced, as far as my understanding is capable of judging, that 
 the present ministry are driving this country to destruction ; 
 and you, I think, Sir, may be satisfied that my rank and for- 
 tune place me above a common bribe."* Sir William sneers 
 at the appeal, and treats it as the mere unfounded boast of a 
 man of arrogance and invisibility ; but the reader now sees 
 sufficiently that it had a solid foundation to rest upon. 
 
 That Junius moved in the immediate circle of the court, 
 and was intimately and confidentially connected, either directly 
 or indirectly, with all the public offices of government, is, if 
 possible, still clearer than that he was a man of independent 
 property ; for the feature that peculiarly characterized him, 
 at the time of his writing, and that cannot even now be con- 
 templated without surprise, was the facility with which he 
 became acquainted with every ministerial manoeuvre, whether 
 public or private, from almost the very instant of its concep- 
 tion. At the first moment the partisans of the prime minister 
 were extolling his official integrity and virtue, in not only 
 resisting the terms offered by Mr. Vaughan for the purchase 
 of the reversion of a patent place in Jamaica, but in com- 
 mencing a prosecution against Vaughan for thus attempting 
 to corrupt him, Juuius, in his letter of Nov. 29, 1769, exposed 
 this affectation of coyness, as he calls it, by proving that the 
 minister was not only privy to, but a party concerned in, the 
 sale of another patent place, though the former had often been 
 disposed of before in a manner somewhat if not altogether 
 similar. The particulars of this transaction are given in his 
 letter to the Duke of Grafton, Dec. 12, 1769, and in his 
 private note to Mr. Woodfall of the same date, No. 15. The 
 rapidity with which the affair of General Gansell reached him 
 has been already noticed. In his letter to the Duke of Bed- 
 ford he narrates facts which could scai'cely be known but to 
 persons immediately acquainted with the family. And when 
 the printer was threatened with a prosecution in consequence 
 
 See Miscellaneous Letters, No. 54. 
 
 o 8
 
 20 PBELTM1XABT E3SA5T OW 
 
 of this letter, he says to him in a private n./te, " it is clearly 
 tny opinion that you have nothing to fear from the Duke of 
 Bedford. I reserve some things expressly to awe him in case 
 he should think of bringing you before the House of Lords. 
 I am sure I can threaten him privately with such a storm, as 
 would make him tremble even in his grave." * He was equally 
 acquainted with the domestic concerns of Lord Hertford's 
 family t. Of a Mr. Swinney, a correspondent of the printer's, 
 he observes in another confidential letter, " That Swinney is 
 a wretched but a dangerous fool : he had the impadence to go 
 to Lord G. Sackville, whom he had never spoken to, and to 
 ask him whether or no he was the author of Junius take care 
 of him. "| This anecdote is not a little curious: the fact was 
 irue, and occurred but a short period before the letter was 
 written : but how Junius, unless he had been Lord Sackville 
 himself, should have heeu so soon acquainted with it, baffles 
 all conjecture. In reality several persons to whom this trans- 
 action has been related, connecting it with other circumstances 
 of a similar tendency, have ventured, but too precipitately, to 
 attribute the letters of Junius to his lordship . 
 
 His secret intelligence respecting public transactions is as 
 extraordinary. The accuracy with which he first dragged to 
 general notice the dismission of Sir Jeffery Amherst from his 
 governorship of Virginia has been already glanced at. " You 
 may assure the public," says he, in a private letter, Jan. 16, 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 10. 
 
 f- The following are two of the paragraphs alluded to in Private Letter, 
 No. 42. " The Earl of Hertford is most honourably employed as terrier to 
 find out the clergyman that married the Duke of Cumberland, an errand well 
 fitted to the man. He might, however, be much better employed in marrying 
 liis daughters at the public expense. Witness the promise of an Irish peer- 
 age to Mr. S 1, &c., &c." "Nobody is so vociferous as the E:irl of 
 
 Hertford on the subject of the late unprecedented marriage ! " 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 5. 
 
 In the Miscellaneous Letters, No. 7, is the following passage, pretty 
 conclusively showing the little ground there ever has been for any such 
 opinion. " I believe the best thing I can do will be to consult with my 
 Lord G. Sackville. His character is known and respected in Ireland as much 
 as it is here ; and I know he loves to be stationed in the rear as well as mv- 
 self." The letter from which the above is an extract, independently of its 
 containing the style and sentiments of Junius, is thus additionally brought 
 home to him by the printer's customary acknowledgment in the P. A. being 
 followed by the subjoined observation : ' Our friend and correspondent G- 
 will 'always find the utmost attention paid to his favours.'
 
 JUN1U8 AND HIS WRITINGS. 21 
 
 1771, "that a squadron of four ships of the line is ordered 
 to be got ready with all possible expedition for the East In 
 dies. It is to be commanded by Commodore Spry. With 
 out regarding the language of ignorant or interested people, 
 depend upon the assurance / give you, that every man in 
 administration looks upon war as inevitable."* 
 
 But it would be endless to detail every instance of early 
 and accurate information upon political subjects with which 
 his public and private letters abound. In many cases he was 
 able to indicate even to tho printer of the Public Advertiser 
 himself the real names of those who corresponded with him 
 under fictitious signatures. " Your Veridicus," says he in one 
 letter, " is Mr. Whitworthf. I assure you I have not con- 
 fided in him."J "Your Lycurgus," he observes in another 
 letter, "is a Mr. Kent, a young man of good parts upon 
 town." 
 
 Thus widely informed, and applying the information he 
 was possessed of, with an unsparing hand, to purposes of 
 general exposure in every instance of political delinquency, 
 it cannot but be supposed that Junius must have excited a 
 host of enemies in every direction, and that his safety, per 
 haps his existence, depended alone upon his concealment. 
 Of this he was sufficiently sensible. In his last letter to Sir 
 W. Draper, who had endeavoured by every means to stimu 
 late him to a disclosure of himself, he observes, " As to me, 
 it is by no means necessary that I should be exposed to the 
 resentment of the worst and the most powerful men in this 
 country, though I may be indifferent about yours. Though you 
 would ]%7i, there are others who would assassinate." To the 
 same effect is the following passage in a confidential letter 
 to Mr. Woodfall : " I must be more cautious than ever: I 
 am sure I should not survive a discovery three days ; or if I 
 did they would attaint me by bill."]) On many occasions, 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 28. The knowledge of this preparation was commu. 
 nicated four days before the meeting of parliament : the war, however, did 
 not take place ; but the preparation is now known to have been a fact, tha 
 ministry being themselves fearful that the temper of parliament would have 
 forced them into hostilities, from which in truth they very narrowly escaped, 
 See note to the Private Letter, No. 28. 
 
 t Kichard Whitworth, Esq., M.P. for Stafford. 
 
 J Private Letter, No. 6. Id. No. 6. il Id. No 4L
 
 22 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OH 
 
 therefore, notwithstanding all the calmness and intrepidity 
 he affected in his public letters, it is not to be wondered at 
 that he should betray some feelings of apprehension in his 
 confidential intercourse. In one of his private letters, in- 
 deed, he observes, " As to me, be assured that it is not in tho 
 nature of things that they (the Cavendish family) or you, or 
 anybody else should ever know me, unless I make myself 
 known : all arts, or enquiries, or rewards, would be equally 
 ineffectual."* But in other letters he seems not a little 
 afraid of detection or surmise. " Tell me candidly," he says, 
 at an early period of his correspondence with Mr. Woodfall 
 under the signature of Junius, " whether you know or sus- 
 pect who I am."f "You must not write to me again," he 
 observes in another letter, " but be assured I will never de- 
 sert you."! "Upon no account, nor for any reason whatso- 
 ever, are you to write to me until I give you notice."! 
 " Change to the Somerset Coffee House, and let no mortal 
 know the alteration. I am persuaded you are too honest a 
 man to contribute in any way to my destruction. Act honoui 
 ably by me, and at a proper time you shall know me.''j| 
 
 The Somerset Coffee House formed only one of a great va 
 riety of places, at which answers and other parcels from the 
 printer of the Public Advertiser were ordered to be left. No 
 plan indeed could be better devised for secrecy than that by 
 which this correspondence was maintained. A common name, 
 such as was by no means likely to excite any peculiar atten- 
 tion, was first chosen by Junius, and a common place of de- 
 posit indicated : the parcels from Junius himself were sent 
 direct to the printing office, and whenever a parcel or letter 
 in return was waiting for him, the Public Advertiser an- 
 nounced it in the notices to its correspondents by such signals 
 as " N. E. C." "a letter," "Vindex shall be considered," 
 " C. in the usual place," " an old correspondent shall be at- 
 tended to," the introductory C. being a little varied from that 
 commonly used ; or by a line of Latin poetry. " Don't al- 
 ways use," says our author, "the same signal: any absurd 
 Latin verse will answer the purpose.'' 11 And when the an.- 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 10. t Id. No. 3. i Id. No. 18. 
 
 Id. No. 47. II Id. No. 41. 
 
 H Private Letter, No. 43. As instances of these signals of different kindl
 
 JOMUS AND HIS WHITINGS. 23 
 
 swer implied a mere negative or affirmative, it was commu- 
 nicated in the newspaper by a simple yes or no. The names 
 of address more commonly assumed were Mr. William Mid- 
 dleton, and Mr. John Fretly ; and the more common places 
 of address were the bar of the Somerset Coffee House as stated 
 above, that of the New Exchange, and Munday's in Maiden 
 Lane, the waiters of which were occasionally feed* for their 
 punctuality. But even these names and places of abode we i'e 
 varied for others as circumstances might dictate 
 
 By what conveyance Junius obtained his letters and par- 
 cels from the places at which' they were left for him, is not 
 very clearly ascertained. From the passage quoted from his 
 private letter, No. 10, as also from the express declaration in 
 the dedication to his own edition of his letters, that he was at 
 that time " the sole depositary of his own secret," it should 
 seem that he had also been uniformly his own messenger ; yet 
 in his private letter of January 18th, 1772, he observes, 
 "the gentleman who transacts the conveyancing part of our 
 correspondence tells me there was much difficulty last night. "f 
 In truth the difficulty and danger of his constantly perform- 
 ing his own errand must have been extreme ; and it is more 
 reasonable therefore to suppose that he employed some per- 
 
 the reader may accept the following, taken from the Public Advertiser accord 
 ing to their dates. 
 
 August 12, 1771. A Correspondent may rest assured that his directions evef 
 have been, and ever will be, strictly attended to. 
 September 13. C. 
 
 17. C. 
 
 21. C. 
 
 27. C. 
 October 19. C. 
 November 5. C. 
 
 8. C. 
 
 12. Vindex shall be considered. 
 
 21. Die quibus in terris, et mihi eris magnus Apollo. 
 
 26. Quid rides? de TE fabula narratur 
 
 28. Received. 
 
 30. dicere verum 
 
 Quid vetat 1 
 
 December 5. Jam NOVA progenies ccelo dimittitur ai*. 
 
 6. Received. 
 
 Quis te MAGNE OATO taciturn 1 
 
 17. Infandum, REQINA ! jubes renovare dolorem. 
 
 * Private Letter. No. 35*. f Private Letter. No, 5L
 
 24. rRELIMINABT. ESSAY ON 
 
 son on whom he could place an implicit reliance ; while to 
 avoid the apparent contradiction between such a fact and that 
 of his affirming that he was the sole depositary of his own 
 secret, it is only necessary to conceive at the same time that 
 the person thus confidentially employed was not entrusted 
 with the full scope and object of his agency*. He some- 
 times, as we lean from his own testimony, employed a com- 
 men chairman as his messenger f, and perhaps this, after all, 
 was the method most usually resorted to. 
 
 That a variety of schemes were invented and actually in 
 motion to detect him there can be no doubt ; but the extreme 
 vigilance he at all times evinced, and the honourable forbear- 
 ance of Mr. Woodfall, enabled him to baffle every effort, and 
 to persevere in his concealment to the last. " Your letter," 
 says he in one of his private notes, " was twice refused last 
 night, and the waiter has often attempted to see the person 
 who sent for it."} 
 
 On another occasion his alarm was excited in consequence 
 of various letters addressed to him at the printing office, with 
 a view, as he suspected, of leading to a disclosure either of 
 his person or abode. " I return you," says he in reply, " the 
 letters you sent me yesterday. A man who can neither write 
 common English, nor spell, is hardly worth attending to. It 
 is probably a trap for me : 1 should be glad, however, to know 
 what the fool means. If he writes again open his letter, and 
 if it contain anything worth my knowing, send it : otherwise 
 not. Instead of ' C. in the usual place' say only 'a letter 
 when you have occasion to write to me again. I shall under- 
 stand you." 
 
 Some apprehension he seems to have suffered, as already 
 observed, from the impertinent curiosity of Swinney; but his 
 
 * Mr. Jackson, the present respectable proprietor of the Ipswich Journal, 
 who was at this time residing with the late Mr. Woodfall, for the purpose of 
 instruction in the London mode of conducting business, observed to the editor 
 in a conversation on this subject, that he once saw a tall gentleman dressed 
 in a light coat, with bag and sword, throw into the office door opening in 
 Ivy Lane a letter from Junius, which he picked up and immediately followed 
 the bearer of it into St. Paul's Church Yard, where he got into a hackney 
 coach and drove off. But whether this was " the gentleman who transacted 
 the conveyancing part" or Junius himself, it is impossible to ascertain, 
 f See Private Letters, Nos. 58, and 65, note. J Id. No. 68. 
 
 g Id, No. 12.
 
 JTINIU8 AND HJB WRITINGS. 25 
 
 resentment was chiefly roused by that of David Garrick, who 
 appears from his own account, and from intelligence on which 
 he fully relied, to have been pertinacious in his attempts to 
 discover h ; m. For three weeks or a month, he could scarcely 
 ever write to Mr. Woodfall without cautioning him to be 
 specially on his guard against Garrick : and under this im 
 pression alone he once changed his address*. He wrote to 
 Garrick a private note of severe castigation, through the me- 
 dium of the printer, which the latter, from an idea that it 
 was unnecessarily acrimonious, resubmitted to his considera 
 lion- with a view of dissuading him from sending itf, upon 
 which our author desired him to tell Garrick personally to 
 desist, or he would be amply revenged upon him. "As it is 
 important," says he, " to deter him from meddling, I desire 
 you will tell him I am aware of his practices, and will cer- 
 tainly be revenged if he does not desist. An appeal to the 
 public from Junius would destroy him."J 
 
 It is not impossible to form a plausible guess at the age of 
 Junius, from a passage in one of his private letters ; an in- 
 quiry, which, though otherwise of little or no consequence, is 
 rendered in some measure important, as a test to determine 
 the validity of the claims that have been laid to his writings 
 by different candidates or their friends. The passage re- 
 ferred to occurs in his letter to Woodfall, dated Nov. 27, 
 1771 ; "after long experience of the world," says he, " I af- 
 firm before God, I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy." 
 Now when this declaration is coupled with the two facts, that 
 he made it under the repeated promise and intention of 
 speedily disclosing himself to his correspondent ||, and that 
 the correspondent thus schooled, by a moral axiom gleaned 
 from his own " long experience of the world," was at this 
 very time something more than thirty years of age ; it seems 
 absurd to suppose that Junius could be much less than fifty, 
 or that he affected an age he had not actually attained. 
 
 There is another point in the history of his life, during his 
 appearance as a public writer, which for the same reason must 
 not be suffered to pass by without observation, although other- 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 41. 
 
 f Compare Private Letter, No. 41, with No. 43. The letter to Qarricli 
 will be found in the former of these. 
 $ Priyate Letter, No. 43. Id. No. 44. Ii ^o. 41,
 
 26 PEELIMINABY E88AT OH 
 
 v.ise it might be scarcely entitled to notice ; and ths.t is, that 
 during a great part of this time, from January, 1769, to 
 January, 1772, he uniformly resided in London, or its imme- 
 diate vicinity, and that he never quitted his usual habitation 
 for a longer period than a few weeks. This too, we may col- 
 lect from his private correspondence, compared with his pub- 
 lic labours. No man but he, who with a thorough knowledge 
 cf our author's style, undertakes to examine all the numbers 
 of the Public Advertiser for the three years in question, can 
 nave any idea of rhe immense fatigue and trouble he sub- 
 mitted to in composing other letters, under other signatures, 
 in order to support the pre-eminent pretensions and character 
 of Junius, attacked as it was by a multiplicity of writers in 
 favour of administration, to whom, as Junius, he did not 
 choose to make any reply whatever. Surely Junius himself, 
 when he first undertook the office of a public political censor, 
 could by no means foresee the labour with which he was 
 about to encumber himself. And instead of wondering that 
 he should have disappeared at the distance of about five 
 years *, we ought much rather to be surprised that he should 
 have persevered through half this peiiod, with a spirit at once 
 so indefatigable and invincible. Junius had no time for re- 
 mote excursions, nor often for relaxation, even in the vicinity 
 of the metropolis itself. 
 
 Yet from his Private Letters we could almost collect a 
 journal of his absences, if not an itinerary of his little tours 
 for he does not appear to have left London at any time with- 
 out some notice to the printer, either of his intention, or of 
 the fact itself upon his return home ; independently of which 
 the frequency and regularity of his correspondence seldom 
 allowed of distant travel. " I have been out of town," says 
 he, in his letter of Nov. 8, 1769, " for three weeks; and 
 though I got your last, could not conveniently answer it.''| 
 On another occasion, " I have been some days in the country, 
 and could not conveniently send for your letter until this 
 night: "J and again, " I must see proof-sheets of the Dedica- 
 tion and Preface ; and these, if at all, I must see before the 
 end of next week " In like manner, " I want rest most 
 
 * Junius, as already remarked (note, p. 1), is only known authentically ta 
 have been before the public about three years. ED. 
 
 Private Letter No. 11. t 'id. No. 7. Id. No. 45.
 
 .TUNIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 27 
 
 severely, and am going to find it in the country foi a few 
 days."* 
 
 The last political letter that ever issued under the signature 
 of Juriius was addressed to Lord Camden. It appeared in 
 the Public Advertiser for Jan. 21, 1772, and followed the pub- 
 lication of his long and elaborate address to Lord Mansfield 
 upon the illegal bailing of Eyre ; and was designed to stimu- 
 late the noble earl to a renewal of the contest which he had 
 commenced with the chief justice towards the close of the 
 preceding session of parliament. It possesses the peculiarity 
 of being the only encomiastic letter that ever fell from his 
 pen under the signature of Junius. Yet the panegyric be- 
 stowed wag not for the mere purpose of instigating Lord 
 Camden to the attack in question. There is sufficient evi- 
 dence in his Private Letters that Junius had a very high as 
 well as a very just opinion of the integrity of this nobleman ; 
 and an ardent desire that the estimate he h&d formed of his 
 integrity should be known to the world at large. In the whole 
 course of his political creed there seems to have been but one 
 point upon which they differed, and that was the doctrine 
 assented to by his lordship, that the crown possesses a power, 
 in case of very urgent necessity, of suspending the operation 
 of an act of the legislature. It is a mere speculative doc- 
 trine, and Junius only incidentally alluded to it in a letter 
 upon a very different subject f. The disagreement upon this 
 point seems eagerly to have been caught at, however, by 
 another correspondent in the Public Advertiser, who chose 
 the signature of Scaevola, apparently for the express purpose 
 of involving the political satirist in a dispute with his lord- 
 ship. " Scaevola," observes he in a private letter, " I see is 
 determined to make me an enemy to Lord Camden. If it be 
 not wilful malice, I beg you will signify to him. that when I 
 originally mentioned Lord Camden's declaration about the 
 corn bill, it was without any view of discussing that doctrine, 
 and only as an instance of a singular opinion maintained by 
 a man of great learning and integrity. Such an instance was 
 necessary to the plan of my letter." J And again, shortly 
 afterwards, finding that the communication had not been 
 received as it ought to have been, " I should not trouble you or 
 
 * Private Letter, Nc, 43. f Letter 59. J Private Letter, No. 45.
 
 28 pHELimNAsy ESSAY 05 
 
 myself about that blockhead Scajvola, but that his absurd 
 fiction of my being Lord Camden's enemy has done harm 
 Every fool can do mischief, therefore signify to him what I 
 said."* Not satisfied, however, with this hint to the printer, 
 he chose, at the same time, under the subordinate character of 
 Philo-Junius, to settle the point, and preclude all possibility 
 of altercation, by an address to the public, that should dex- 
 trously mark out this single difference in a mere speculative 
 opinion; and, while it amply defended the view he had taken 
 of the subject, should evince such an evident approbation of 
 his lordship's general conduct, as could not fail of being 
 gratifying to him. This letter appeared in the Public Adver- 
 tiser, Oct. 15, 177 If. 
 
 Lord Camden, however, was not induced by this earnest 
 attempt and last letter of Junius to renew his attack upon 
 Lord Mansfield; yet this was not the reason, or at least not the 
 sole or primary reason, for Junius's discontinuing to write. It 
 has already been observed, that so early as July, 1769, he began 
 to entertain thoughts of dropping a character and signature 
 which must have cost him a heavy series of labour, and fre- 
 quently perhaps exposed him to no small peril. " I really doubt, 
 says he, " whether I shall write any more under this signature. 
 I am weary of attacking a set of brutes, whose writings are 
 too dull to furnish me even with the materials of contention, 
 and whose measures are too gross and direct to be the subject 
 of argument, or to require illustration."! 
 
 In perfect consonance with this declaration, in his reply to 
 the printer, who had offered him half the profits of the letters 
 at that time published under his own correction, or an equal 
 sum for the use of any public institution he should choose to 
 name, he makes the following remark, of which a part has 
 been already quoted on another occasion : " As for myself, be 
 assured that I am far above all pecuniary views, and no other 
 person, I think, has any claim to share with you. Make the 
 most of it therefore, and let all your views in life be directed 
 to a solid, however moderate, independence : without it no 
 man can be happy, nor even honest. If I saw any prospect 
 of uniting the city once more, I would readily continue to 
 labour in the vineyard. Whenever Mr. Wilkes can tell me 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 46. f Letter 60. J Private Letter, No, 5.
 
 AND HIS WHITINGS. 29 
 
 that such an union is in prospect, he shall hear of me. Quod 
 ti quis existimat me aut voluntate esse mutatd, aut debilitatd 
 virtute, aut animofracto, vehementer errat."* 
 
 Even so long afterwards as January 19, 1773, in the very 
 last letter \ve have any certain knowledge he ever addressed to 
 Mr. Woodfall, he urges precisely the same motives for his 
 continuing to desist. " 1 have seen the signals thrown out 
 for your old friend and correspondent. Be assured that I 
 have had good reason for not complying with them. In the 
 present state of things, if I were to write again, I must be as 
 silly as any of the horned cattle that run mad through the 
 city, or as any of your wise aldermen. / meant the cause and 
 the public: BOTH ARE GIVEN UP. I feel for the honour of this 
 country, when I see that there are not ten men in it, who will 
 unite and stand together upon any one question. But it is all 
 alike vile and contemptible. You have never flinched that I 
 know of; and I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity 
 If you have anything to communicate (of moment to yourself,) 
 you may use the last address, and give a bint."f 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 59. " But if any one believes me to be changed in 
 will, weakened in integrity, or broken in courage, he errs grossly." 
 
 j" Private Letter, No. 63. The signals here referred to were thrown out 
 on the very morning of the day on which this letter was written, and consisted 
 of the following Latin quotation, inserted in the Public Advertiser for January 
 19, 1773, among the other answers to correspondents: Iterumque, ite- 
 rumque monebo. The printer, within a few weeks afterwards, availed him- 
 self of the liberty of making a communication to Junius by the last address, 
 and, in the Public Advertiser of March 8, gave the following hint : " The 
 Ittter from AN OLD FKIEND AND CORRESPONDENT, dated January 19, came safe 
 to hand, and his directions are strictly followed, Quod si quis existimat aut, 
 &c" The quotation is peculiarly happy : for it is not only a copy of what 
 Junius had cited himself in his last private letter but one, and was hence 
 sure to attract his attention, but is a smart replication to the passage in the 
 letter it immediately refers to, " You have never flinched that I know of." 
 The subject of some part of the communication at this time made by the 
 printer to Junius, the editor has been able to discover, by having accidentally 
 found among Mr. Woodfall's papers, and in his own hand-writing, a rough 
 draft of one of the three letters of which it appears to have consisted. This 
 letter the reader will meet with in the private correspondence, arranged 
 according to its date, which is March 7, 1773, the day antecedent to the 
 public notice given in the Public Advertiser as above. Among the answers 
 to correspondents, March 20, we find another signal of the very same kind 
 in the following terms, " Aut voluntate esse mutatd ; " and in the same place 
 March 29, a third ensign under the following form, "Aut debililatd virtute j f 
 both of which it wi'l be observed, upon a comparison, are verbal cca
 
 30 PRELIM ."NAKY ESSAY ON 
 
 In effect, from the dissolution of the consolidated Wlug 
 party upon the death of George Grenville, the absurd divisions 
 in the Bill of Rights Society, and the political separations in 
 the city, our author had much reason to despair of the cause 
 in which he had so manfully engaged. 
 
 To the moral character of Junius this letter is of more 
 value than all the popular addresses he ever composed in his 
 life. It is impossible to suppose it to flow from the affecta- 
 tion of an honesty which did not exist iu his heart. The cir- 
 cumstances under which it was sent altogether prohibit such 
 an idea : unknown as he was, and unknown as he had now 
 determined to continue, to his correspondent, there was no 
 adequate motive for his assuming the semblance of an in- 
 tegrity which he felt not. and which did not fairly belong to 
 him. It was, it must have been, a pure, disinterested testi- 
 monial of private esteem and public patriotism, consentaneous 
 with the uniform tenour both of his open and his confidential 
 history, and conscientiously developing the real cause of his 
 secession. 
 
 In truth it must have been, as he himself states it, insanity, 
 to have persisted any longer in anything like a regular at- 
 
 tinuations of Junius's own quotation, and hence identify with double force 
 the person to whom they relate. In the Public Advertiser of April 7, we 
 find the following signal of a similar description, and it is the last we have 
 been able to discover, " Die quibus in ten-is." It is probable that these all 
 related to matters of a personal concern, upon which, by the above private 
 letter, the printer had still leave to address his correspondent : at least 
 there is no reason for believing that Juuius ever broke through the silence 
 upon which he so inflexibly determined on January 19, or consented to re- 
 appear before the public in any character whatever. There were some very 
 excellent letters signed Atticus that appeared in the Public Advertiser be- 
 tween the dates of June 26, 1772, and October 14, 1773, and exhibit much 
 of our author's style, spirit and sentiments ; and which, hence, by some tole- 
 rable judges, have been actually ascribed to him : but, for various reasons, 
 independently of that afforded by the above private letter, the editor is con- 
 vinced they are not the production of Junius. The talents they afford proof 
 of, though considerable, are inferior; they contain attacks upon some states- 
 men who were never attacked by Junius ; and it is well known from the 
 following notice Inserted among the addresses to correspondents in the Public 
 Advertiser for June 19, 1773, as well as from other facts, that there wag at 
 this period, and had been for some time past, another writer in this journal 
 who assumed the name of Atticus. " Some circumstances render it necessary 
 that the printer should communicate a line to ATTICUS, not his OLL Ccrr* 
 tpondent ''
 
 JUNIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 31 
 
 tack ; Lord Camden had declined to act upon h.s suggestion ; 
 the great phalanx of the "Whig party was broken up by thu 
 death of Mr. George Grenville; the vanity and extreme 
 jealousy of Oliver and Home had introduced the most acrimo- 
 nious divisions into the Society for supporting the Bill of 
 Rights ; and the leading patriots of the city had so intermixed 
 their own private interests, and their own private squabbles, 
 with the public cause, as to render this cause itself contempti- 
 ble in the eye of the people at large. He had already tried, 
 but in vain, to awaken the different contending parties to a 
 sense of better and more honourable motives ; to induce them 
 to forego their selfish and individual disputes, and to make a 
 common sacrifice of them upon the altar of the constitution *. 
 Yet, at the same time, so small were his expectations of suc- 
 cess, so mean his opinion of the pretensions of most of the 
 leading demagogues of the day to a real love of their country, 
 and so grossly had he himself been occasionally misrepre- 
 sented by them, that in his confidential intercourse he bade 
 his correspondent beware of entrusting himself to them 
 " Nothing," says he, " can be more express than my declara 
 tion against long parliaments: try Mr. Wilkes once more, 
 (who was in private possession of his sentiments upon this sub- 
 ject^;) speak for me in a most friendly but firm tone, that I 
 will not submit to be any longer aspersed. Between our 
 selves, let me recommend it to you to be much upon your 
 guard with patriots." J 
 
 With his public address to the people, therefore, in Letter 
 59, he seems in the first instance to have resolved upon 
 closing his labours, at least under the character of Junius. 
 provided no beneficial effect were likely to result from it, and 
 as the printer had expressed to him an earnest desire of pub- 
 lishing a genuine edition of his letters, in a collective form, 
 in consequence of a variety of incorrect and spurious editions 
 at that time circulating through the nation, he seems to have 
 thought that a consent to such a plan would afford him a good 
 ostensible motive for putting a finish to his public career ; 
 und on this account he not only acceded to the proposal, but 
 undertook to superintend it as far as his invisibility might 
 
 * See .Tuning, Letter 59, and Private Letter, No. 65. 
 
 f See Private Letter, No. 66. J Private Letter. No. 45.
 
 82 FSELIMINAB7 J5SSA.Y ON 
 
 allow him ; and also to add a few notes, as well as a dedication 
 and preface. 
 
 Nothing can be more absurd than the idea entertained by 
 some writers, that Junius himself was the previous editor of 
 one or two of these irregular editions, and especially of an 
 edition published but a short time anterior to his own, auda 
 ciously enough entitled " The Genuine Letters of Junius, to 
 which are prefixed, Anecdotes of the Autlwr ;"* a pamphlet in 
 which the anonymous anecdotist takes it for granted, from his 
 very outset, that Junius and Edmund Burke were the same 
 person, and then proceeds to reason concerning the former, 
 from the known or acknowledged woi'ks of the latter. 
 
 It was not till the appearance of Newberry's edition, with 
 which it is not pretended that our author had any concern, 
 that even Woodfall himself had conceived an idea of the pro- 
 priety of collecting these letters, and publishing them in au 
 edition strictly genuine, in consequence of the numerous 
 blunders by which the common editions were deformed ; of 
 these Xewberry's was, perhaps, the freest from mistakes : yet 
 Newberry's had so many, that our author, upon receiving a 
 copy of it, addressed a note to Woodfall, begging him to hint 
 to Newberry, that as he had thought proper to reprint his 
 letters, he ought at least to have taken care to have corrected 
 the errata : adding at the same time, " I did not expect more 
 than the life of a newspaper; but if this man will keep me 
 alive, let me live without being offensive.''! 
 
 His answer upon Woodfall's application to him for leave to 
 reprint his letters collectively, and subject to his own revisal, 
 was as follows : " I can have no manner of objection to your 
 reprinting my letters, if you think it will answer, which I 
 believe it might before Newberry appeared. If you determine 
 to do it, give me a hint, and I will send you more errata 
 (indeed they are innumerable) and perhaps a preface."} It 
 was on this occasion he added, as conceiving it might afford 
 him a proper opportunity for a general close of the character, 
 though so early in his correspondence under the name of 
 Junius, as July 1709, " I really doubt whether I shall write 
 any more under this signature ; I am weary of attacking a set 
 
 * See Mr. Chalmers'8 Appendix to tne Supplemental Apology, &e., -, %i 
 1 Private Letter, No. 4. $ Id. No. 6.
 
 JUNTOS AND HIS WRITINGS 33 
 
 of brutes, &c." * In answer to Woodfall's next letter upou 
 the same subject he observes, " Do with my letters exactly as 
 you please. I should think that, to make a better figure than 
 Newberry, some others of my letters may be added, and so 
 throw out a hint that you have reason to suspect they are by 
 the same author. If you adopt this plan, I shall point out 
 those, which I icould recommend ; for you Jmow, I do not nor 
 indeed have I time to give equal care to them all."\ 
 
 The plan for publication, however, though it commenced 
 thus early, was not matured till October, 1771 : when it was 
 determined that the work should comprise all the letters 
 which had passed under the signatures of Junius and Philo- 
 Junius to this period inclusively, and be occasionally enriched 
 by a selection of other letters under a variety of other 
 signatures, such as will be found in the Miscellaneous Letters 
 of the present edition ; which, independently - J that of Philo- 
 Junius, our author, as has been observed already, not un- 
 frequently employed to explain what required explanation, or 
 ilefend what demanded vindication, and which he himself 
 thought sufficiently correct to associate with his more laboured 
 productions. In the prosecution of this intention, however, 
 he still made the two following alterations. Instead of closing 
 the regular series of letters possessing the signature of Junius 
 with that dated October 5, 1771 J, upon the subject of " the un- 
 happy differences," as he there calls them, " which had arisen 
 among the friends of the people, and divided them from each 
 other " he added five others which the events of the day had 
 impelled him to write during the reprinting of the letters, 
 notwithstanding the intention he had expressed of offering 
 nothing further under this signature. And instead of intro- 
 ducing the explanatory letters written under other signatures, 
 he confined himself, in order that the work might be published 
 before the ensuing session of parliament, to three justificatory 
 papers alone : the first, under the title of "A Friend of Junius," 
 containing an answer to " A Barrister at Law ; " the second an 
 anonymous declaration upon certain points on which his opinion 
 had been mistaken or misrepresented ; and the third an extract 
 from a letter to Mr. Wilkes, drawn up for the purpose of being 
 'aid before the Bill of Rights Society, with a view of vindi- 
 cating himself from the charge of having written iu favour of 
 ' Private Letter, No. 6. t Id. No. 7. t Letter 59 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34: PRELIMINARY ESSAY OH 
 
 long parliaments and rotten boroughs. This last, however, 
 was furnished, not by Mr. Wilkes, but from his own notes , 
 "you shall have the extract" says he, " to go into the second 
 volume: it will be a short one."* 
 
 Of the five letters added after he meant to have closed, and 
 had actually begun to reprint his series, four of them aro 
 either expressly addressed to Lord Mansfield, or incidentally 
 relate to him, in consequence of his having illegally (as it was 
 contended) admitted a felon of the name of John Eyre to bail, 
 who, although possessing a fortune of nearly thirty thousand 
 pounds sterling, had stolen a quantity of paper in quires out 
 of one of the public offices at Guildhall, and was caught in 
 the very theft. The other letter is addressed to the object of 
 his steady and inveterate hatred, the Duke of Grafton, upon 
 the defeat of his attempt to transfer the Duke of Portland's 
 estate in Cumberland, consisting of what had formerly been 
 crown lands, to Sir James Lowther, in order to assist the 
 latter in securing his election for this county. 
 
 Such, however, was his anxiety to get this work completed 
 and published before the winter session of parliament, that 
 he was ready to sacrifice the appearance of the whole of these 
 additional letters, even that containing his elaborate accusa- 
 tion of Lord Mansfield, and which he acknowledged to have 
 cost him enormous pains, rather than that it should be 
 delayed beyond this period. ' " I am truly concerned," says 
 he in a private letter dated January 20, 1772, "to see that 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 45. The reader will readily pardon, and perhaps 
 thank us, for pointing out to his particular attention the following exquisite 
 paragraph with which the ahove letter closes, but which formed no part of it 
 as originally addressed to Mr. Wilkes. It refers to an able argument that 
 an excision of the rotten boroughs from the representative system might 
 produce more mischief than benefit to the constitution. "The man who 
 fairly and completely answers this argument shall have my thanks and my 
 applause. My heart is already with him. I am ready to be converted. 
 I admire his morality, and would gladly subscribe to the articles of his 
 faith. Grateful, as I am, to the GOOD BEING, whose bounty has imparted to 
 me this reasoning intellect, whatever it is, I hold myself proportionably in- 
 debted to him, from whose enlightened understanding another ray of know- 
 ledge communicates to mine. But neither should I think the most exalted 
 faculties of the human mind a gift worthy of the Divinity, nor any assistance 
 in the improvement of them a subject of gratitude to my fellow-creature, if I 
 were not satisfied, that really to inform the understanding corrects and 
 enlarge* the heart."
 
 TON1TJS AND HIS WRITINGS. 35 
 
 the publication cf the book is so long delayed. It ought to 
 have appeared before the meeting of parliament. By no 
 means would I have you insert this long letter, if it make 
 more than the difference of two days in the publication. 
 Believe me, the delay is a real injury to the cause."* 
 
 The difficulties, however, of sending proofs and revises 
 forward and backward were so considerable, that the anxiety 
 of the author was not allayed : parliament met, but the book 
 was not published. Junius became extremely impatient ; yet 
 still, in the most earnest terms pressed its publication before 
 Alderman Sawbridge's motion in favour of triennial parlia- 
 ments, which was to be brought forward in the beginning of 
 March. " Surely," says he, in his private letter of February 
 17 f, " you have misjudged it very much about the book. I 
 could not have conceived it possible that you could protract 
 the publication so long. At this time, particularly before Mr 
 Sawbridge's motion, it would have been of singular use. You 
 have trifled too long with the public expectation : at a certain 
 point of time the appetite palls : I fear you have already lost 
 the season. The book, I am sure, will lose the greatest part 
 of the effect I expected from it But I have done." 
 
 He was soon however consoled by intelligence from his 
 friend Woodfall that, unduly as the book had been postponed, 
 it was not for want of any exertions of his own ; and that, late 
 as the season was, it would still precede the expected motion 
 of Alderman SawbridgeJ. He, in consequence, replied as 
 follows : " I do you the justice to believe that the delay has 
 been unavoidable. The expedient you propose, of printing 
 the Dedication and Preface in the Public Advertiser, is unad- 
 visable. The attention of the public would then be quite lost 
 to the book itself. I think your rivals will be disappointed : 
 nobody will apply to them, when they can be supplied at the 
 fountain head. All I can now say is, make haste with the 
 book." 
 
 The Dedication, Preface, and the materials for his notes 
 were all finished about the beginning of the preceding Novem- 
 ber (177 1). The letters at large, excepting the first two sheets 
 
 Private Letter, No. 51. t Id. No. 55. 
 
 J The letters were actually published March 3, and Alderman Sawbridge'i 
 motion discussed the ensuing day which motion, however, was lost by n 
 majority of 251 against 83. Private Letter. No. 56. 
 
 D S
 
 36 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 whijh were revised by the author himself, were from the 
 difficulty of conveyance entrusted to the correction of Mr 
 Woodfall, with incidental amendments obtained, as they could 
 be, by un interchange of letters. The Dedication and Preface 
 were confided to the correction of Mr. Wilkes*, with whose 
 attention the author expresses himself well pleased. " When 
 you see Mr. Wilkes," says he in a note of February 29, 177^, 
 " pray return him my thanks for the trouble he has taken. 
 I wish he had taken more : " intimating hereby that there 
 were still errors of which he was aware, and which he would 
 have corrected if possible. 
 
 Yet though he thus continued to adhere rigidly to his 
 determination never again to appear before the public in his 
 full dress, or under the signature of Junius, as he expresses it 
 in his Private Letter of November 8, 1771, he did not object 
 occasionally to introduce his observations and continue his 
 severe strictures in a looser and less elaborate form, and 
 under some appellative or other, that might not interfere with 
 the claims of Junius as a whole, as iu the case of his series of 
 letters to Lord Barringtou, Nos. 105, 107, &c. These, how- 
 ever, it was not easy, in spite of the characteristic style that 
 still, to an acute eye, pervaded them, for the world at large to 
 bring completely home to the real writer, though many of 
 them were frequently charged to the account of Junius by the 
 political critics of the day, in different addresses to the printer 
 upon this subject. 
 
 To judge of the moral and political character of Junius from 
 his writings, as well private as public, he appears to have been 
 a man of a bold and ardent spirit, tenaciously honourable in 
 his personal connections, but vehement and inveterate in his 
 enmities, and quick and irritable in conceiving them. In his 
 political principles he was strictly constitutional, excepting, 
 perhaps, upon the single point of denying the impeccability of 
 the crown ; in those of religion he, at least, ostensibly professed 
 nn attachment to the established church. 
 
 Of his personal and private honour, we can only judge from 
 his connection with Mr. Woodfall. Yet this connection is 
 perhaps sufficient ; for throughout the whole of it he appears 
 l u a light truly ingenuous and liberal. " If undesignedly,' 
 
 PriTate Letter, No. 40. t Id. No. 67.
 
 3UKIUS AXD HTS WRITINGS. 3? 
 
 says he in one of his letters, " I should send you anything 
 you may think dangerous, judge for yourself, or take any 
 opinion you think proper. You cannot offend or afflict me, 
 hut by hazarding your own safety."* To the same effect in 
 another letter, '" For my own part I can very truly assure you 
 that nothing would afflict me more than to have drawn you 
 into a personal danger, because it admits of no recompense. 
 A little expense is not to be regarded, and I hope these papers 
 have reimbursed you. I never will send you anything that I 
 think dangerous ; but the risk is yours, and you must de- 
 termine for yourself."! 
 
 Upon another occasion, being sensible that he had written 
 with an asperity that might alarm his correspondent, he again 
 begged him not to print if he apprehended any danger; 
 adding that, for himself, he should not be offended at his 
 desisting ; and merely requesting that if he did not choose to 
 take the risk he would transmit the paper as sent to him, to a 
 printer who was well known to be less cautious than himself. 
 " The inclosed," says he in one of his notes, " is of such 
 importance, so very material, that it must be given to the 
 public immediately. I will not advise, though I think you 
 perfectly safe. All I say is that I rely upon your care to have 
 it printed either to-morrow in your own paper, or to-night in 
 the Pacquet."J To the same effect is the following upon 
 another occasion : " I hope you will approve of announcing 
 the inclosed Junius to-morrow, and publishing it on Monday 
 If, for any reasons that do not occur to me, you should think 
 it unadvisable to print it, as it stands, I must entreat the 
 favour of you to transmit it to Bingley, and satisfy him that 
 it is a real Junius, worth a North Briton extraordinary. Tt 
 will be impossible for rue to have an opportunity of altering 
 any part of it." 
 
 Upon the printer being menaced with a prosecution on 
 the part of the Duke of Grafton. in consequence of the 
 publication of Junius's letter to him of the date of December 
 12, 1769, accusing this nobleman of having, in the most 
 corrupt and sinister manner, either sold or connived at the 
 sale of a patent place in the collection of the customs af 
 Exeter, he writes as follows: "As to yourself, I am con 
 
 Private Letter, No. 43. + Id. No. 33. 
 
 J Id No. 38. Id. No. 34.
 
 38 PRELIMINABT ESSAY ON 
 
 vinced the ministry will not venture to attack you ; they 
 dare not submit to such an inquiry. If they do, show iw 
 fear, but tell them plainly you will justify, and subpoena Mr. 
 Hine, Burgoyne, and Bradshaw of die Treasury : that will 
 silence them at once."* The printer, however, was still fear- 
 ful, and could not avoid expressing himself so to his invisible 
 friend ; who thus replied to his proposal of volunteering an 
 apology : " Judge for yourself. I enter sincerely into the 
 anxiety of your situation; at the same time I am strongly 
 inclined to think that you will not be called upon. They 
 cannot do it without subjecting Bine's affair to an inquiry, 
 which would be worse than death to the minister. As it is, 
 they are more seriously stabbed with this last stroke, than all 
 the rest. At any rate, stand firm : (I mean with all the 
 humble appearances of contrition :) if you trim or faul ter, you 
 will lose friends without gaining others."! The friendly 
 advice thus shrewdly given was punctiliously followed ; and 
 the predictions of Juuius were more than accomplished : for 
 the minister not only did not dare to enforce his menaces, 
 but at the same time thought it expedient to drop abruptly 
 the prosecution of Mr. Vaughan, which this attack upon him 
 was expressly designed to fight off; and to i.op it, too, after 
 the rule against Vaughan had been made absoi .;- 
 
 Upon the publication of Junius's letter to the lung, Wood- 
 fall was not quite so fortunate but his invisible friend still 
 followed him with assistance ; he offered him, as has already 
 been observed, a reimbursement of whatever might be his 
 pecuniary expenses, and aided him in a still higher degree 
 with the soundest prudential and legal advice. Upon a sub- 
 sequent occasion also, he makes the following observation : 
 " As to yourself, I really think you in no danger. You are 
 not the object, and punishing you would be no gratification to 
 the king." J But upon this subject, the following is one of 
 the most important notes, as, although he expressly denies all 
 professional knowledge of the law, it sufficiently proves that 
 he was better acquainted with it than many who are actual 
 practitioners. " I have carefully perused the Information : it 
 is so loose and ill-drawn that I am persuaded Mr. De Grey 
 
 Private Letter, No. 15. f H- No. 17. Id. No. 48. 
 
 At that time Attorney General
 
 JUXIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 39 
 
 could not have had a hand in it. Their inserting the whole, 
 proves they had no strong passages to fix on I still think it 
 will not be tried. If it should, it is not possible for a jury to 
 find you guilty." * 
 
 In his first opinion he was mistaken ; in his second he was 
 correct. The cause was tried at Nisi Prius but no one has 
 yet forgotten that the verdict returned was "guilty of printing 
 and publishing only;" which in fact implied not guilty at all. 
 
 It is to this cause, as has been already glanced at, we are 
 chiefly indebted for an acknowledged and unequivocal right in 
 the jury to return a general verdict that is, a verdict that 
 shall embrace matter of law as well as matter of fact. From 
 the ambiguity of the verdict, however, in the case before us, a 
 motion was made by the defendant's counsel in arrest of 
 judgment; at the same time that an opposite motion was 
 advanced by the counsel for the crown, for a rule upon the 
 defendant to show cause why the verdict should not be entered 
 up according to the legal import of the words. On both sides 
 a rule to show cause was granted, and the matter being argued 
 before the Court of King's Bench, notwithstanding the bench 
 appears to have been strongly and unanimously in favour of 
 the verdict being entered up, the result was the grant of a 
 new trial ; which, however, was not proceeded in, for want of 
 proof of the publication of the paper in question. 
 
 That Junius was quick and irritable in conceiving disgust, 
 and vehement, and even at times malignant, in his enmities, 
 we may equally ascertain from his private and his public 
 communications. In the violence of his hatreds almost every 
 one whom he attacks is guilty in the extreme ; there are no 
 degrees of comparison either in their criminality or his own 
 detestation : the whole is equally superlative. If the Duke of 
 Grafton be the object of his address, " every villain in the 
 kingdom," says he, " is your friend f the very sunshine you 
 live in is a prelude to your dissolution." If Lord Mansfield 
 fall beneath his lash, " I do not scruple to affirm, with the 
 most solemn appeal to God for my sincerity, that, in my 
 judgment, he is the very worst and most dangerous man in 
 the kingdom. "J An opinion corroborated by him in his 
 
 Private Letter, No. 20. f Letter, No. 67 
 
 J Letter, No. 69.
 
 40 PBELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 private corresj.cndence : " We have got the rascal down," 
 says he, "let us strangle him if it be possible."* In lika 
 manner addressing himself to Lord Barrington, " You are so 
 detested and despised by all parties (because all parties know 
 you) that England, Scotland, and Ireland, have but one wish 
 concerning you;"f while his note to the printer, accompanying 
 this address, closes thus : " The proceedings of this wretch 
 are unaccountable. There must be some mystery in it, which 
 I hope will soon be discovered to his confusion. Next to the 
 Duke of Grafton, I verily believe tha.t the blackest heart ic 
 the kingdom belongs to Lord Barrington. "J Even Scaevola, 
 an anonymous writer, whom he knew not, is " a blockhead ' 
 and " a fool," for opposing him : Swiuuey, for his imper- 
 tinent inquiry of Lord G. Sackville, " a wretched but a danger 
 ous fool, ''II and Garrick, on the same account, " a mscal, and a 
 vagabond. "IT 
 
 Yet it is not difficult to account for the more violent of his 
 political abhorrences ; and which seem, indeed, to have been 
 almost exclusively directed against the three ministerial 
 characters just enumerated in conjunction with the Earl of 
 Bute : for his attacks upon the Duke of Bedford and Sir 
 William Blackstone are but light and casual when compared 
 with his incessant and unmitigated tirades against these 
 noblemen. 
 
 Firmly rooted in the best Whig principles of the day, he 
 had an invincible hatred of Lord Bute as the grand prop and 
 foundation-stone of Toryism in its worst and most arbitrary 
 tendencies : as introduced into Carl ton House against the con- 
 sent of his present Majesty's royal grandfather, through the 
 overweening favouritism of the Princess Dowager of Wales ; 
 as having obtained an entire ascendancy over this princess, 
 and through this princess over the king, whose non-age had 
 been entirely entrusted to him, and through the king over 
 the cabinet and the parliament itself. The introduction ol 
 Lord Bute into the post of chief preceptor to his Majesty waa 
 in our author's opinion an inexpiable evil. " That" says he, 
 " was the salient point from which all the mischiefs and dia 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 24. t Miscellaneous Letters, No. 111. 
 
 J Private Letter, No. 61. Id. Nos. 46 and 47. 
 
 li Id. No. 5. U Id. Nos. 41 and 43,
 
 JTNTU8 ANZ HIS WRITINGS. 41 
 
 graces of thi present reign took life and motion."* Thus 
 despising the tutor, he could have no great reverence for tha 
 pupil : and hence the personal dislike he too frequently be 
 trays, and occasionally in language altogether intemperate 
 and unjustifiable, for the sovereign. Hence, too. his uncon 
 querable prejudice against Scotchmen of every rank. 
 
 The same cause excited his antipathy against Lord Mans- 
 field, even before his lordship's arbitrary line of conduct had 
 proved that our author's suspicions concerning him were well 
 founded. Lord Mansfield was a Scotchman but this was 
 not the whole. Under the patronage of Lord Stormont, he 
 had been educated with the highest veneration for the whole 
 Stuart family, and especially for the Pretender ; whose health^ 
 when a young man, had been his favourite toast, and to whom 
 his brother was attached as a confidential and private agent. 
 It was for these sentiments, and for the politics which in- 
 truded themselves in his judicial proceedings, where the 
 crown was concerned, that our author expressed himself in 
 such bitter terms against the chief justice. " Our language," 
 says he, in Letter 41, "has no term of reproach, the mind 
 has no idea of detestation, which has not already been hap- 
 pily applied to you and exhausted. Ample justice has been 
 done, by abler pens than mine, to the separate merits of your 
 Hfe and character. Let it be my humble office to collect the 
 scattered sweets, till their united virtue tortures the sense." 
 
 His detestation of the Duke of Graf ton proceeded from his 
 Grace's having abandoned his patron Lord Chatham, and the 
 Whig principles into -which he had been initiated under him, 
 to gratify his own ambition on the first offer that occurred : 
 from his having afterwards united sometimes with the Bedford 
 party, sometimes with Lord Bute, and sometimes with other 
 connections, of whatever principles or professions, whenever 
 the union appeared favourable to his personal views ; and 
 from his having hereby prevented that general coalition of the 
 different divisions of Whig statesmen, which must in all pro 
 bability have proved permanently triumphant over the power 
 of the king himself. " My abhorrence of the duke," saya 
 Junius, "arises from an intimate knowledge of his character, 
 ind from a thorough conviction that his baseness has been tha 
 
 * Letter to the King, No. 35, Note by Jumua. ED
 
 42 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OK 
 
 cause of greater mischief to England than even the unfortu- 
 nate ambition of Lord Bute." * 
 
 It was not necessary for Lord Barrington to be a Scotch- 
 man in order to excite the antipathy of Junius. He might 
 justly despise and even hate him (if it be allowable to indulge 
 a private hatred against a public character of any kind) for 
 his political versatilities and want of all principle; for atro 
 cities, indeed, which no man can yet have forgotten, and which 
 never can be buried in forgetfulness but with the total ob- 
 livion of his name. Barrington, independently of these 
 general considerations, however, was the man who moved for 
 Wilkes's expulsion from Parliament, in which he was seconded 
 by Mr. Rigby. 
 
 These were the prime objects of our author's abhorrence ; 
 and in proportion as other politicians were connected with 
 them by principles or want of principles, confederacy, nation, 
 or even family, he abhorred them also. 
 
 His reasons for believing that the constitution allows him 
 to regard the reigning prince as occasionally culpable in his 
 own person, are given at large in his Preface. To few peo- 
 ple perhaps, in the present day, will they carry conviction. 
 But, bating this single opinion, his view of the principles and 
 powers of the constitution appears to be equally correct and 
 perspicuous. Upon the question of general warrants ; of the 
 right of juries to return general verdicts, or in other words, to 
 determine upon the law as well as upon the fact ; of the un- 
 limited power of Lords Chief Justices to admit to bail ; of the 
 illegality of suspending Acts of Parliament by proclamation, 
 we owe him much ; he was a warm and rigid supporter of the 
 co-extent, as well as co-existence of the three estates of the 
 Government, and it was from this principle alone that he ar- 
 gued against the system of indefinite privilege as appertaining 
 to either house individually ; and as allowing it a power of 
 arbitrary punishment, for what may occasionally be regarded 
 as a contempt of such house, or a breach of such privilege. 
 
 Personally and outrageously inimical, however, as he was 
 to the reigning prince, and earnestly devoted as he seems to 
 have been to the cause of the people, neither his enmity nor 
 his patriotism hurried him into any of those political eitraia 
 
 * Letter, No. 51
 
 JCN1US AND HIS WRITINGS 43 
 
 gaucies which have peculiarly marked the character of the 
 present age : a limited monarchy, like our own, he openly 
 preferred to a republic ; he contended for the constitutional 
 right of impressing, in case of emergency, sea-faring men for 
 the common service of the country ; strenuously opposed the 
 supporters of the Bill of Rights, in their endeavours to restore 
 annual Parliaments, and their fanciful but, as it appeared to 
 him, unconstitutional plan of purifying the legislature by dis- 
 franchising a number of boroughs which they had chosen to 
 regard as totally corrupt and rotten ; and, anterior to the 
 American contest, was as thoroughly convinced as Mr. George 
 Grenville himself of the supremacy of the legislature of this 
 country over the American colonies *. 
 
 Upon the first point he observes : " I can more readily ad- 
 mire the liberal spirit and integrity, than the sound judgment 
 of any man, who prefers a republican form of government, in 
 this or any other empire of equal extent, to a monarchy so 
 qualified and limited as ours. I am convinced, that neither 
 is it in theory the wisest system of government, nor practica- 
 ble in this country, "f Upon the second point he appears to 
 have been chiefly influenced by Judge Foster's argument on 
 the legality of pressing seamen, and his comment on that ar- 
 gument may be seen in his observations, Letters Nos. 59, 62, 
 and 64. Upon the third and fourth points he thus ingenuously 
 expresses himself: " Whenever the question shall be seriously 
 agitated, I will endeavour (and if I live, will assuredly attempt 
 it) to convince the English nation, by arguments to my un- 
 dei'standing unanswerable, that they ought to insist upon a 
 
 triennial, and banish the idea of an annual Parliament. 
 
 As to cutting away the rotten boroughs, I am as much 
 offended as any man at eeeing so many of them under the 
 direct influence of the crown, or at the disposal of private 
 persons ; yet, I own, I have both doubts and apprehensions, 
 in regard to the remedy you propose. I shall be charged, 
 perhaps, with an unusual want of political intrepidity, when I 
 honestly confess to you, that I am startled at the idea of so 
 extensive an amputation. In the first place, I question the 
 power, de jure, of the legislature to disfranchise a number of 
 
 * Miscellaneous Letters, No. 10, as well as various others in the yeai 1768. 
 f Letter, No. 69.
 
 44 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OH 
 
 boroughs, upon the general ground of improving the constitu 
 tion. When you propose to cut away the rotten parts, cau 
 you tell us what parts are perfectly sound ? Are there any 
 certain limits, in fact or theory, to inform you at what point 
 you must stop at what point the mortification ends ? " 
 
 Junius has been repeatedly accused of having been a party- 
 man, but perhaps no political satirist was ever less so. To 
 Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Home he was equally indifferent, ex- 
 cept in regard to their public principles and public characters 
 In his estimation the cause alone was everything, and they 
 were only of value as the temporary and accidental supporters 
 of it. " Let us employ these men," says he, " in whatever 
 departments their various abilities are best suited to, and as 
 much to the advantage of the common cause, as their different 
 inclinations will permit. If individuals have no virtues, their 
 vices may be of use to us. I care not with what principle 
 the new-born patriot is animated, if the measures he supports 
 are beneficial to the community. The nation is interested in 
 his conduct. His motives are his own. The properties of a 
 patriot are perishable in the individual, but there is a quick 
 succession of subjects, and the breed is worth preserving."! 
 It was in this view of the politics of the day, that he privately 
 cautioned his friend Woodfall, as has been already noticed, 
 " to be much upon his guard against patriots;" I and in the 
 consciousness of possessing a truly independent spirit, that he 
 boasted of being " disowned, as a dangerous auxiliary, by 
 every party in the kingdom," his creed not expressly com- 
 porting with any single party creed whatever. 
 
 Yet there were statesmen whom he believed to be truly 
 honest and upright, and for whom he felt a personal as well 
 as a political reverence : and it is no small proof of the keen- 
 ness of his penetration that the characters, whom he thus 
 singled out from the common mass of pretenders to genuine 
 patriotism, have been ever since growing in the public esti- 
 mation, and are now justly looked back to as the pillars and 
 bulwarks of the English constitution. His high opinion oi 
 the general purity and virtue of Lord Camden we have 
 already noticed. " Lord Bute," sayi he, in describing several 
 
 * Vide the paj>er subsequent tc Letter 69. f Letter, No. 69. 
 
 t Private Letter, No. 44. Letter, No. 4i.
 
 JTJNIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 45 
 
 others of whom he equally approved, " found no resource of 
 dependence or security in the proud, imposing superiority of 
 Lord Chatham's abilities, the shrewd, inflexible judgment of 
 Mr. Grenville*, nor in the mild but determined integrity of 
 Lord Rockingham."f He also seems disposed to have enter- 
 tained a good opinion of Lord Holland ; and this is the rather 
 entitled to attention, as the opinion was communicated con- 
 fidentially. " I wish," says he, "Lord Holland may acquit him 
 self with honour : if his cause be good, he should at once have 
 published that account to which he refers in his letter to the 
 mayor." J With respect to Mr. Sawbridge, and his worthy 
 colleague, he observes, " My memory fails me if I have men- 
 tioned their names with disrespect ; unless it be reproachful 
 to acknowledge a sincere respect for the character of Mr. 
 Sawbridge, and not to have questioned the innocence of Mr. 
 Oliver's intentions. " And again, adverting to the former, 
 " It were much to be desired, that we had many such men as 
 Mr. Sawbridge to represent us ia Parliament I speak from 
 common report and opinion only, when I impute to him a spe- 
 culative predilection in favour of a republic. In the personal 
 conduct and manners of the man, I cannot be mistaken. He 
 has shown himself possessed of that republican firmness, 
 which the times require, and by which an English gentleman 
 may be as usefully and as honourably distinguished, as any 
 citizen of ancient Rome, of Athens, or Lacedaemon." 
 
 Yet the times were too corrupt, and the instances of defec- 
 tion too numerous, to allow so wary a statesman as Junius to 
 regard even these exalted characters without occasional sus- 
 picion and jealousy. Much as he approved of the Marquis of 
 Rockingham personally, he regarded him publicly as forming 
 a feeble administration that dissolved in its own weakness ||. 
 He had more than once some doubts of the motives both of 
 Lord Camden and Lord Chatham: their opposition at 
 the commencement of the American contest he was jealous ef; 
 
 * Of all the political characters of the day, Mr. Grenville appears to have 
 been our author's favourite ; no man was more open to censure in many parts 
 of his conduct, but he is never censured ; while, on the contrary, he is ex- 
 tolled wherever an opportunity offers ; yet Junius positively asserted that ha 
 had no personal knowledge of Mr. Grenville. Compare Miscellaneous Letters, 
 No. 29, with Junius's Letter, No. 18. + Letter, No. 15. 
 
 3" Private Letter, No. 5. Letter, No. 54. J| Id No. 2a
 
 46 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OK 
 
 and ascribed it rather to political j ique than to liberal patriot- 
 ism *. To his frieud he writes thus confidentially : ' The 
 Duke of Grafton has been long labouring to detach Cam- 
 den;"! ail d in unison with this idea he tells his lordship 
 himself publicly, " If you decline this honourable office, I fear 
 it will be said that, for some months past, you have kept too 
 much company with the Duke of Grafton." J And even as 
 late as August, 1771, when Lord Chatham had been progres- 
 sively growing on his good opinion, he thus cautiously praises 
 him. " If his ambition be upon a level with his understand- 
 ing ; if he judges of what is truly honourable for himself, 
 with the same superior genius which animates and directs 
 him to eloquence in debate, to wisdom in decision, even the 
 pen of Juuius shall contribute to reward him. Recorded 
 honours shall gather round his monument, and thicken over 
 him. It is a solid fabric, and will support the laurels that 
 adorn it. I am not conversant iu the language of panegyric. 
 These praises are extorted from me ; but they will wear 
 well, for they have been dearly earned. " 
 
 In his religious opinions Junius has been accused of deism 
 and atheism ; but on what account it seems impossible to 
 ascertain : he has by others been conceived to have been a 
 dissenter || ; yet with as little reason. To judge from the few 
 passages in his own writings that have any bearing upon the 
 question, and which occur chiefly in his letter, under the sig- 
 nature of Philo-Junius, of Aug. 26, 1771, he appears to have 
 been a Christian upon the most sincere conviction ; one of 
 whose chief objects was to defend the religion established by 
 law, and who was resolved to renounce and give up to public 
 
 * Letter, No. 23. t Private Letter, No. 47. 
 
 J Letter, No. 69, to Lord Camden. Letter, No. 54. 
 
 || Heron's edition of the Letters of Junius, vol. i. p. 69. [There is nothing 
 in Heron at the page referred to that has the least allusion to the religion of 
 Junius. What Heron, who was a more correct and careful writer than Good, 
 remarks on that topic, is at p. 46, from which we extract the concluding 
 sentence. " His (Junius's) allusions to religion, so far as they are con- 
 temptuous, relate chiefly to the absurdities of the Roman Catholic religion ; 
 a fact from which we may fairly infer, either that the course of his education 
 or the incidents of his life, led him into a particular acquaintance with these, 
 and an indignant disgust against them [Heron was a trained minister of th 
 Scottish Presbyterian Kirk], or else th it he, in this instance, merely echoed 
 the voices of Pascal and Chillingworth." ED.]
 
 JUNICS AND HJS WRITINGS. 47 
 
 contempt and indignation every man who should je capable 
 of uttering a disrespectful word against it. To the religion of 
 the court, it must be confessed that he was no friend ; and to 
 speak the truth it constituted, at the period in question, an 
 anomaly not a little difficult of solution. To behold a sanc- 
 tuary self-surrounded by a moat of pollution ; a prince strictly 
 and exeraplarily pious, selecting for his confidential advisers 
 men of the most abandoned debauchery and profligacy of life, 
 demanded, in order to penetrate the mystery, a knowledge 
 never completely acquired till the present day, which has suf- 
 ficiently demonstrated how impossible it is for a king of Eng- 
 land to exercise at all times a real option in the appointment 
 of his ministers. The severity with which our author uni- 
 formly satirized every violation of public decorum, at least 
 entitles him to public gratitude, and does credit to the purity 
 of his heart : and if his morality may be judged of by various 
 occasional observations and advices scattered throughout his 
 private intercourse with Mr. Woodfall, some instances of 
 which have already been selected, it is impossible to do other- 
 wise than approve both his principles and his conduct. 
 
 Whether the writer of these letters had any other and less 
 worthy object in view than that he uniformly avowed, namely, 
 a desire to subserve the best political interests of his country, 
 it is impossible to ascertain with precision, It is unquestion- 
 ably no common occurrence in history, to behold a man thus 
 steadily, and almost incessantly, for five years, volunteering 
 his services in the cause of the people, amidst abuse and 
 slander from every party, exposed to universal resentment, 
 unknown, and not daring to be known, without having any 
 personal object to acquire, any sinister motive of individual 
 aggrandisement or reward. Yet nothing either in his public 
 or private letters affords us any tangible proof that he was 
 thus actuated *. Throughout the whole, from first to last, in 
 the midst of all his warmth and rancour, his argument and 
 declamation, his appeal to the public, and his notes to his 
 confidential friend, he seems to have been influenced by the 
 stimulus of sound and genuine patriotism alone. With this 
 he commenced his career, and with this he retired from the 
 
 * The only h'.nts which can be gathered that he had any prospect at any 
 time of engaging in public life are in Private Letters, No. 17, and No. 65 
 Wit even these an of questionable meaning.
 
 13 PBELIMINABY. ESSAY ON 
 
 6eld of action, retaining, until the latest period at which we 
 are able to catch a glimpse of him, the same political sen- 
 timents he had professed on his first appearance before the 
 world, and still ready to renew his efforts the very moment 
 he could perceive they had a chance of being attended with 
 benefit. Under these circumstances, therefore, however dif- 
 ficult it may be to acquit him altogether of personal con- 
 siderations, it is still more difficult, and must be altogether 
 unjust, ungenerous, and illogical to suspect his integrity. 
 
 It has often been said, from the general knowledge he has 
 evinced of English jurisprudence, that he must have studied 
 the law professionally ; and in one of his private letters 
 already quoted, he gives his personal opinion upon the 
 mode in which the information of the King v. Woodfall was 
 drawn up, in a manner that may serve to countenance such 
 an opinion. Yet on other occasions he speaks obviously not 
 from his own professional knowledge, but from a consultation 
 with legal practitioners. " The information," says he, " will 
 only be for a misdemeanor, and I am advised that no jury, 
 especially in these times, will find it."* In like t manner, 
 although he affirms in his elaborate letter to Lord Mansfield, 
 " I well knew the practice of the Court, and by what legal 
 rules it ought to be directed ;" yet he is for ever contemning 
 the intricacies and littlenesses of special pleading, and in his 
 Preface declares unequivocally, " I am no lawyer by pro- 
 fession, nor do I pretend to be more deeply read than every 
 English gentleman should be in the laws of his country. If, 
 therefore, the principles I maintain are truly constitutional, 
 I shall not think myself answered, though I should be con- 
 victed of a mistake in terms, or of misapplying the language 
 of the law."J 
 
 That he was of some rank and consequence, seems gene- 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 18. 
 
 + He speaks in like manner of legal consultation, and the difficulties he 
 laboured under of obtaining legal advice, from the peculiarity of his situation, 
 in Private Letter 70. And in the same letter, he makes the following 
 pointed confession : " though I use the terms of art, do not injure me so 
 much as to suspect I am a lawyer. I had as lief be a Scotchman." 
 
 The late Lord Eldon, a competent judge, and who, to all intents, was a 
 lawyer, once remarked in the House of Lords, " that the author of the Lettcrt 
 of Junius, if not himself a lawyer, mv st certainly have written in concet 
 vith the ablest and the best of lawyers " E.
 
 JOTIUS AND HIS wnrrnrGs. 49 
 
 rally to have been admitted by his opponents, and must in- 
 deed necessarily follow, as has been already casually hinted 
 at, from the facility with which he acquired political informa- 
 tion, and a knowledge of ministerial intrigues. In one place 
 he expressly affirms that his " rank and fortune place kirn 
 above a common bribe;"* in another, " I should have hoped 
 that even my name might carry some authority with it." On 
 one occasion he intimates an intention of composing a regular 
 history of the Duke of Grafton's administration. " These 
 observations," says he, " general as they are, might easily be 
 extended into a faithful history of your Grace's administra- 
 tion, and perhaps may be the employment of a future hour ;" 
 and on another, that of Lord Townshend's, " the history of 
 this ridiculous administration shall not be lost to the public." 
 And on two occasions, and on two occasions only, he appears 
 to hint at some prospect, though a slender one, of taking a 
 part in the government of the country They occur in his 
 private letters to Woodfall and Wilkes : to the former he 
 says, " if things take the turn I expect, you shall know me by 
 my works."\ To the latter, " though I do not disclaim the 
 idea of some personal views to future honour and advantage, 
 (you would not believe me if I did) yet I can truly affirm, that 
 neither are they little in themselves, nor can they, by any j)os- 
 sible conjecture, be collected from my writing*." \ 
 
 Of those who have critically analyzed the style of his com- 
 positions, some have pretended to prove that he must neces 
 sarily have been of Irish descent or Irish education, from the 
 peculiarity of his idioms ; while, to show how little depend 
 ence is to be placed upon any such observations, others have 
 equally pretended to prove, from a similar investigation, that 
 he could not have been a native either of Scotland or Ire- 
 land, nor have studied in any university of either of those 
 countries. The fact is, that there are a few phraseologies in 
 his letters peculiar to himself; such as occur in the composi- 
 tions of all original writers of great force and genius, but 
 which are neither indicative of any particular race, nor refer- 
 able to any provincial dialect. 
 
 The distinguishing features of his style are ardour, spirit, 
 
 * Miscellaneous Letters, No. 54. t Private Letter, No. 1 7. 
 
 J Correspondence with Wilkes, post, No. 66. 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 PREUMINAHT ESSAY ON 
 
 perspicuity, classical correctness, sententious, epigrammatic 
 compression : his characteristic prnaments keen, indignant 
 invective, audacious interrogation, shrewd, severe, antithetic 
 retort, proud, presumptuous disdain of the powers of his 
 adversary, pointed and appropriate allusions that can never 
 be mistaken, but are often overcharged, and at times perhaps 
 totally unfounded, though derived from popular rumour, 
 similies introduced, not for the purpose of decoration , but of 
 illustration and energy, brilliant, burning, admirably selected, 
 and irresistible in their application *. In his similies, how- 
 ever, he is once or twice too recondite, and in his grammatical 
 construction still more frequently incorrect. Yet the latter 
 should in most instances perhaps, if not the whole, be rather 
 attributed to the difficulty of revising the press, and the 
 peculiar circumstances under which his work was printed and 
 published, than to any inaccuracy or classical misconception 
 of his own. As to the surreptitious copies of his letters, he fre- 
 quently complains of their numerous errors ; " indeed," says he, 
 " they are innumerable ;"f and though the genuine edition 
 labours under very considerably fewer, and on several occasions 
 received his approbation on the score of accui'acy, yet it would 
 be too much to assert that it is altogether free from errors. In 
 
 * The following character of his style and talents is the production of a 
 pen contemporaneous but hostile to him. It occurs in a letter in the Public 
 Advertiser subscribed Alciphron, and dated August 22, 1771. The writer 
 bad well studied him. 
 
 " The admiration that is so lavishly bestowed upon this writer affords one 
 of the clearest proofs, perhaps, that can be found, how much more easily men 
 are swayed by the imagination, than by the judgment; and that a fertile in- 
 vention, glittering language, and sounding periods, act with far greater force 
 upon the mind, than the simple deductions of sober reasoning, or the calm 
 evidence of facts. For the talents of Junius never appeared in demonstra- 
 tion. 
 
 " Rapid, violent, and impetuous, he affirms without reason, and decides 
 without proof; as if he feared that the slow methods of induction and argu- 
 ment would interrupt him in his progress, and throw obstacles in the way of 
 his career. But though he advances with the largest strides, his steps are 
 measured. His expressions are selected with the most anxious care, and his 
 periods terminated in harmonious cadence. Thus he captivates by his con- 
 fidence, by the turn of his sentences, and by the force of his words. Hia 
 readers are persuaded because they are agitated, and convinced because they 
 we pleased. Their assent, therefore, is never withheld; though they scarcely 
 know why, or even to what it is yielded." 
 
 J Private Letter, No. 5.
 
 JUNITJS AND HIS WKnTNOS. 51 
 
 truth this was not to be expected, for it is not known that a 
 fiingle proof sheet (excepting those containing the first two 
 letters) was ever sent to him. " You must correct the press 
 yourself," says he, in one of his letters to Woodfall; " but 1 
 should be glad to see corrected proofs of the two first sheets."* 
 The dedication and preface he certainly did not revise. 
 
 Yet if the grammatical construction be occasionally imper- 
 fect, (sometimes hurried over by the author, and sometimes 
 mistaken by the printer,) the general plan and outline, the 
 train of argument, the bold and fiery images, the spirited 
 invective that pervade the whole, appear to have been always 
 selected with the utmost care and attention. Such finished 
 forms of composition bear in themselves the most evident 
 marks of elaborate forecast and revisal, and the author rather 
 boasted of the pains he had bestowed upon them than at- 
 tempted to conceal his labour. In recommending to Wood- 
 fall to introduce into his purposed edition various letters of 
 his own writing under other signatures, he adds, " If you 
 adopt this plan, I shall point out those which I would recom- 
 mend ; for you know, I do not, nor indeed have I time tc 
 give equal care to them all. As to Junius, I must wait foi 
 fresh matter, as this is a character which must be kept up 
 with credit." f The private note accompanying his first letter 
 to Lord Mansfield commences thus : " The inclosed, though 
 begun within these few days, has been greatly laboured. It 
 is very correctly copied, and I beg that you will take care thai- 
 it be literally printed as it stands." J The note accompany- 
 ing his last and most celebrated letter observes as follows : 
 " At last I have concluded my great work, and I assure you 
 with no small labour." On sending the additional papers 
 for the genuine edition he asserts, " I have no view but to 
 serve you, and consequently have only to desire that the 
 dedication and preface may be correct. Look to it ; if you 
 take it upon yourself, I will not forgive your suffering it to 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 40. The truth is that the genuine edition was re- 
 printed from "VYheble's : the author correcting a few, and Woodfall a few 
 more of the blunders which had crept into Wheble's text; though many oi 
 them still remained untouched. The letters in this and the former edition 
 hare been careful!}- collated with the Public Advertisers, and a numerous list 
 of other errors have been consequently expunged. 
 
 + Private Lette: No. 7. J Id. No. 24. Id. No. 40, 
 
 E *
 
 52 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 be spoiled. / weigh every word ; and every alteration, in my 
 eyes at least, is a blemish."* In like manner, in his letter to 
 Mr Home, he interrogates him, "What public question have 
 I declined, what villain have I spared? Is there no labour in 
 the composition of these letters^? In effect no excellence of 
 any kind is to be attained without labour : and the degree of 
 excellence that characterizes the style of these addresses, in- 
 trinsically demonstrates the exercise of a labour unsparing 
 and unremitted. Mr. Home, in his reply, attempts to ridi- 
 cule this acknowledgment: " I compassionate," says he, 
 " your labour in the composition of your letters, and will 
 communicate to you the secret of my fluency. Truth needs 
 no ornament ; and, in my opinion, what she borrows of the 
 pencil is deformity." Yet no man ever bestowed more pains 
 upon his compositions than Mr. Home has done ; nor needed 
 he to have been more ashamed of the confession than his 
 adversary. To have made it openly would have been honest 
 to himself, useful to the young, and salutary to the conceited. 
 
 His most elaborate letters are that to the King, and that 
 to Lord Mansfield upon the law of bail : one of his most sar- 
 castic is that to the Duke of Grafton, of the date of May 30, 
 1769 ; and one of his best arid most truly valuable that to 
 the printer of the Public Advertiser, dated Oct. 5, 1771, upon 
 the best means of uniting the jarring sectaries of the popular 
 party into one common cause. 
 
 His metaphors are peculiarly brilliant, and so numerous, 
 though seldom unnecessarily introduced, as to render it diffi- 
 cult to know where to fix in selecting a few examples. The 
 following are ably managed, and require no explanation, 
 " The ministry, it seems, are labouring to draw a line of dis- 
 tinction between the honour of the crown and the rights of 
 the people. This new idea has yet been only started in dis- 
 course, for, in effect, both objects have been equally sacri- 
 ficed. I neither understand the distinction, nor what use the 
 ministry propose to make of it. The King's honour is that 
 of his people. Their real honour and real interest are the 
 same. I am not contending for a vain punctilio. Private 
 credit is wealth ; public honour is security. The feather 
 that adorns the royal bird, supports its flight. Strip him of 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 46. t Letter, No. 54.
 
 JUXIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 53 
 
 his plumage and you fix him to the earth."* Again, " above 
 all things, let me guard my countrymen against the meanness 
 and folly of accepting a trifling or moderate compensation for 
 extraordinary and essential injuries. Concessions, such as 
 these, are of little moment to the sum of things ; unless it 
 be to prove, that the worst of men are sensible of the injuries 
 they have done us, and perhaps to demonstrate to us the im- 
 minent danger of our situation. In the shipwreck of the 
 state, trifles float and are preserved; while everything solid 
 and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever."f 
 Once more : " The very sunshine you live in, is a prelude to 
 your dissolution. When you are ripe, you shall be plucked. "J 
 The commencement of his letter to Lord Camden shall fur- 
 nish another instance : " I turn with pleasure, from that bar- 
 ren waste, in which no salutary plant takes root, no verdure 
 quickens, to a character fertile, as I willingly believe, in every 
 great and good qualification. " 
 
 In a few instances his metaphors are rather too far-fetched 
 or recondite. "Yet for the benefit of the succeeding age, I 
 could wish that your retreat might be deferred, until your 
 morals shall be happily ripened to that maturity of corrup- 
 tion, at which the worst examples cease to be contagious." 
 The change which is perpetually taking place in the matter 
 of infection gives it progressively a point of utmost activity ; 
 after which period, by the operation of the same continued 
 change, it becomes progressively less active, till at length it 
 ceases to possess any effect whatever. The parallel is cor- 
 rectly drawn, but it cannot be followed by every one. In the 
 same letter we have another example : " His views and situa- 
 tion require a creature void of all these properties ; and he 
 was forced to go through every division, resolution, compo- 
 sition, and refinement of political chemistry, before he hap- 
 pily arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your Grace. 
 Flat and insipid in your retired state, but brought into action, 
 you become vitriol again." This figure is too scientific, and 
 not quite correct : vitriol cannot, properly speaking, be said 
 to be, in any instance, a caput mortuum. He seems, however, 
 to have been unjustly charged with an incongruity of meta- 
 
 * Last sentence in Letter, No. 42. f Letter, Nc . 59. 
 
 J Conclusion of Letter to Duke of Grafton, No. 67. Letter, No. 6
 
 54 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OW 
 
 phonn bis repartee upon the following observation of Sir W. 
 Draper : " You, indeed, are a tyrant of another sort, and 
 upon yaur political bed of torture can excruciate any subject, 
 from a first minister down to such a grub or butterfly as my- 
 self."* To this remark his reply was as follows : " If Sir W. 
 Draper's bed be a bed of torture, he has made it for himself. 
 I shall never interrupt his repose."^ We need not ramble so 
 far as to vindicate the present use of this last -word by refer- 
 ring to its Latin origin : he himself has justly noticed, under 
 the signature of Philo-Junius, that those who pretend to 
 espy any absurdity either in the idea or expression, " cannot 
 distinguish between a sarcasm and a contradiction. "J 
 
 To pursue this critique further would be to disparage the 
 judgment of the reader. Upon the whole, these letters, 
 whether considered as classical and correct compositions, or 
 as addresses of popular and impressive eloquence, are well 
 entitled to the distinction they have acquired ; and quoted, as 
 they have been, with admiration in the senate, by such nice 
 judges and accomplished scholars as Mr. Burke and Lord 
 Eldon, eulogized by Dr. Johnson, and admitted by the author 
 of the " Pursuits of Literature," to the same rank among 
 English classics as Livy or Tacitus among Roman, there can 
 be no doubt that they will live commensurately with the lan- 
 guage in which they are composed. 
 
 These few desultory and imperfect hints are the whole thai 
 the writer of this essay has been able to collect concerning 
 the author of the Letters of Juuius. Yet desultory and im- 
 perfect as they are, he still hopes that they may not be ut- 
 terly destitute both of interest and utility. Although they 
 do not undertake positively to ascertain who the author was ; 
 they offer a fair test to point out negatively who he was not ; 
 and to enable us to reject the pretensions of a host of persons, 
 whose friends have claimed for them so distinguished an 
 honour. 
 
 From the observations contained in this essay it should 
 seem to follow unquestionably that the author of the Letters 
 of Junius was an Englishman of highly cultivated education, 
 deeply versed in the language, the laws, the constitution and 
 history of his native country : that he was a man of easy, ii 
 
 Letter, No. 26. f Letter, No. 27. J Letter, No. 29.
 
 JTJNIUS AND HIS wRmrros. 55 
 
 not of affluent circumstances, of unsullied honour and gene- 
 rosity, who had it equally in his heart and in his power to 
 contribute to the necessities of other persons, and especially 
 of those who were exposed to troubles of any kind on his own 
 account: that he was in habits of confidential intercourse, if 
 not with different members of the cabinet, with politicians 
 who were most intimately familiar with the court, and en- 
 trusted with all its secrets : that he had attained an age 
 which would allow him, without vanity, to boast of an ample 
 knowledge and experience of the world : that during the 
 years 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, and part of 1772. he 
 resided almost constantly in London or its vicinity, devoting 
 a very large portion of his time to political concerns, and 
 publishing his political lucubrations, under different signa- 
 tures, in the Public Advertiser : that in his natural temper, 
 he was quick, irritable, and impetuous ; subject to political 
 prejudices and strong personal animosities, but possessed of 
 a high independent spirit; honestly attached to the princi- 
 ples of the constitution, and fearless and indefatigable in 
 maintaining them : that he was strict in his moral conduct, 
 and in his attention to public decorum; an avowed member 
 of the established church, and, though acquainted with Eng- 
 lish judicature, not a lawyer by profession. 
 
 What other characteristics he may have possessed, we know 
 not; but these are sufficient; and the claimant who cannot 
 produce them conjointly, is in vain brought forward as the 
 author of the Letters of Junius. 
 
 The persons to whom this honour has at different times, 
 and on different grounds, been attributed, are the following : 
 Charles Lloyd, a clerk of the Treasury, and afterwards a 
 deputy teller of the Exchequer; John Roberts, also a clerk 
 in the Treasury at the commencement of his political life, 
 but afterwards private secretary to Mr. Pelham, when suc- 
 cessively chancellor of the exchequer, member of parlia- 
 ment for Harwich, and commissioner of the board of trade* ; 
 Samuel Dyer, a man of considerable learning, and a friend 
 of Mr. Burke and of Dr. Johnson ; William Gerard Hamil- 
 ton, another friend and patron of Mr. Burke ; Edmund 
 
 * Anonymously accused ot having written these letters in the Public 
 Advertiser, March 21, 1^72, et passim.
 
 56 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 Burke himself; Dr. Butler, late Bishop of Hereford; the 
 Rev. Philip Rosenhagen ; Major-General Charles Lee, well 
 known for his activity during the American war, John 
 Wilkes; Hugh Macauley Boyd; John Dunning, Lord Ash- 
 burton; Henry Flood; and Lord George Sackville*. 
 
 Of the first three of these reported authors of the Let- 
 ters of Junius, it will be sufficient to observe, without en- 
 tering into any other fact whatever, that Lloyd was on hia 
 death-bed at the date of the last of Junius's private letters ; 
 an essay, which has sufficient proof of having been written in 
 the possession of full health and spirits ; and which, together 
 with the rest of our author's private letters to the printer of 
 the Public Advertiser, is in the possession of the proprietor 
 of this edition, and bears date January 19, 1773. While 
 as to Roberts and Dyer, they had both been dead for many 
 months anterior to this period : Lloyd died, after a lingering 
 illness, January 22, 1773: Roberts, July 13, and Dyer on 
 September 15, both in the preceding year. 
 
 Of the two next reputed authors, Hamilton had neither 
 energy nor personal courage enough for such an undertaking f, 
 and Burke could not have written in the style of Junius, 
 which was precisely the reverse of his own, nor could he have 
 consented to disparage his own talents in the manner in which 
 Junius had disparaged them in his letter to the printer of the 
 Public Advertiser, dated October 5, 1771 ; independently of 
 which, both of them solemnly denied that they were the au- 
 thors of these letters, Hamilton to Mr. Courtney in his last 
 illness, as that gentleman has personally informed the editor ; 
 
 * According to Mr. Britton (Authorship of the Letters of Junius) and who 
 himself brings forward three at once Barre, Shelburne, and Dunning no 
 fewer than thirty claimants or candidates have appeared as the veritable 
 Junius ; but the topic is reserved to the concluding volume. ED. 
 
 f Hamilton, from his having once made a brilliant speech in the House 
 of Commons, and ever afterwards remaining silent, was called Single- 
 speech Hamilton. In allusion to this fact, and that he was the real Ju- 
 nius, there is a letter in the Public Advertiser of November 30, 1771, ad- 
 dressed to WILLIAM JUNICS SINGLE-SPEECH, Esq. The air of Dublin, however, 
 should seem, according to Mr. Malone's account of him, to have been more 
 favourable to his rhetorical powers than that of Westminster : for this writer 
 tells us that Mr. Hamilton made not less than five speeches in the Irish par- 
 liament in the single Session of 1761-2. Parliamentary Logic, Preface p. 
 Jtxii. Lord Orford, indeed, contrary to general rumour, intimates thit he was 
 twke a speaker in the British parliament ED.
 
 JCNIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 57 
 
 aud Burke expressly and satisfactorily to Sir William Draper, 
 who purposely interrogated him upon the subject ; the truth 
 of which denial is moreover corroborated by the testimony of 
 the late Mr. Woodfall, who repeatedly declared that neither 
 of them was the writer of these compositions. Why Burke 
 was so early and generally suspected of having written them, 
 it is not easy to say ; but that he was so suspected is obvious, 
 not only from the opinion at first entertained by Sir William 
 Draper, but from various public accusations conveyed in dif- 
 ferent newspapers and pamphlets of the day ; the Public 
 Advertiser in the month of October containing one letter 
 under the signature of Zeno, addressed " to Junius, alias 
 Edmund, the Jesuit of St. Omers;"* another under the 
 signature of Pliny Junior, a third under that of Querist, a 
 fourth under that of Oxoniensis, and a fifth under that of 
 Scaevola, together with many others to the same effect : and, 
 as has already been hinted at, an anonymous collector of many 
 of the letters of Junius, prefixing to his own edition certain 
 anecdotes of Mr. Burke, which he confidently denominated 
 " Anecdotes of Junius," thus purposely, but fallaciously, iden 
 tifying the two characters f. 
 
 * Note to Letter 61. 
 
 f In addition to the above proofs that Burke and Junius were not the 
 same person, the editor might refer to the prosecution which Mr. Burke insti- 
 tuted against Mr. Woodfall, the printer of the Public Advertiser, and con- 
 ducted with the utmost acrimony, for a paper deemed libellous that ap- 
 peared in this journal in 1783. Considerable interest was made with 
 Mr. Burke to induce him to drop this prosecution in different stages of its 
 progress, but he was inexorable. The cause was tried at Guildhall, July 
 15, 1784, and a verdict of a hundred pounds damages was obtained against 
 the printer; the whole of which was paid to the prosecutor. It is morally 
 impossible that Junius could have acted in this manner: every anecdote in 
 the preceding sketch of his public life forbids the belief. 
 
 Neither is it to be conceived, without greatly disparaging Mr. Burke's 
 memory, that he could have written the letter to Garrick (No. 41) j or 
 have spoken in the terms in which Junius has spoken of Chamier, 
 while he professed a warm and unreserved friendship for both. We may 
 also further remark that the well known pamphlet, entitled " The Pre- 
 sent State of the Nation," published in 1769 by George Grenville, was im- 
 mediately answered by Mr. Burke in a tract entitled " Observations on a 
 late publication, entituled, The Present State of the Nation," in which the 
 political opinions of Mr. Grenville, and consequently of Junius, who, as wa 
 have already observed, was the general advocate of Mr. George Grenville, 
 tre censured with a vehemence peculiar to Mr. Burke, and altogether sufficient,
 
 68 PRELIMINABY ESSAY ON 
 
 If, however, there should be readers so inflexible as still to 
 believe that Mr. Burke was the real writer of the Letters of 
 Junius, and that his denial of the fact to Sir William Draper 
 was only wrung from him under the influence of fear, it will 
 be sufficient to satisfy even such readers by showing that the 
 system of politics of the one was in direct opposition to that 
 of the other upon a variety of the most important points. 
 Burke was a decided partisan of Lord Rockingham, and con- 
 tinued so during the whole of that nobleman's life ; Junius, 
 on the contrary, was as decided a friend to Mr. George Gren- 
 ville. Each was an antagonist to the other upon the great 
 subject of the American Stamp Act. Junius was a warm and 
 powerful' advocate for triennial parliaments ; Burke an inve- 
 terate enemy to them. To which the editor may be allowed 
 to add, that while Mr. Burke in correcting his manuscripts 
 for the press, and revising them in their passage through it, 
 is notorious for the numerous alterations he was perpetually 
 making, the revised copy with which the late Mr. Woodfali 
 was furnished by Junius for such part of the genuine edition 
 of his Letters as he re-examined, contained very few amend- 
 ments of any kind*. 
 
 were there no other proof, to demonstrate that Burke and Junius could not 
 be the same person. The reader may take the following extracts as speci- 
 mens : " This piece is called, ' The present State of the Nation.' It may In 
 considered as a sort of digest of the avowed maxims of a certain political 
 school, the effects of whose doctrines and practices this country will feel long 
 and severely." * * * * " A diversity of opinion upon almost every 
 principle of politics had indeed drawn a strong line of separation between 
 them and some others." [The marquess of Rockingham. * * * * " The 
 purpose of this pamphlet, and at which it aims directly or obliquely in every 
 page, is to persuade the public of three or four of the most difficult points in 
 the world that all the advantages of the late war were on the part of the 
 Bourbon alliance; that the peace of Paris perfectly consulted the dignity and 
 interest of this country; and that the American stamp act was a master- 
 piece of policy and finance; that the only good minister this nation haa 
 enjoyed since his Majesty's accession is the Earl of Bute; and the only good 
 managers of revenue \ve have seen are Lord Despenser and Mr. George 
 Grenville ; and under the description of men of virtue and ability, he holds 
 them out to us as tlie only persons fit to put our affairs in order." 
 Burke's Works, vol. ii., 8vo edit., pages 11, 12, and 15. 
 
 * Dr. Good here inserts the well-known speech of Mr. Burke on American 
 taxation, but, as th'> controversial questions that gave it its chief interest have 
 been settled, and it is readily accessible in the works of that eminent states- 
 Uuin, we have deemed its omission excusable. ED.
 
 JUNIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 59 
 
 Mr. Malone, in his preface to Mr. Hamilton's Parliament- 
 ary Logic, offers a variety of remarks in disproof that this 
 gentleman was the writer of the letters, several of which are 
 possessed of sufficient force, though few persons will perhaps 
 agree with him in believing that if Hamilton had written 
 them, he would have written them better. The following 
 are his chief arguments : 
 
 " Now (not to insist on his own solemn asseveration near the time of his 
 death, that he was not the author of Junius*) Mr. Hamilton was so far from 
 being an ardent party man, that during the long period above mentioned 
 [from Jan. 1769 to Jan. 1772] he never closely connected himself with any 
 party. * * * * Notwithstanding his extreme love of political discussion, he 
 never, it is believed, was heard to speak of any administration or any opposition 
 with vehemence either of censure or of praise ; a character so opposite to the 
 fervent and sometimes coarse acrimony of Junius, that this consideration 
 alone is sufficient to settle the point, as far as relates to our author, for ever. 
 * On the question who was the author ] he was as free to talk aa 
 any other person, and often did express his opinion concerning it to the writer 
 of this short memoir ; an opinion nearly coinciding with that of those per- 
 sons who appear to have had the best means of information on the subject. In 
 a conversation on this much agitated point, he once said to an intimate friend, in 
 atone bet ween seriousness and pleasantry, 'You know, JJ******* *n, 
 I could have written better papers than those of Junius:' and so the gentle- 
 man whom he addressed, who was himself distinguished for his rhetorical 
 powers, and a very competent judge, as well as many other persons, thought. 
 
 " It may be added, that his style of composition was entirely different 
 from that of this writer. * * * * That he had none of that minute commis- 
 sarial knowledge of petty military matters, which is displayed in some of the 
 earlier papers of Junius. 
 
 " And, finally it may be observed, that the figures and allusions of Junius 
 are often of so different a race from those which our author [Hamilton] would 
 have used, that he never spoke of some of them without the strongest dis- 
 approbation ; and particularly when a friend, for the purpose of drawing him 
 out, affected to think him the writer of these papers ; and bantering him on 
 the subject, taxed him with that passage in which a nobleman, then in a high 
 office, is said to have ' travelled through every sign in the political zodiac, 
 from the SCORPION, in which he stung Lord Chatham, to the hopes of a 
 VIRGIN,' &c., as if this imagery were much in his style, Mr. Hamilton with 
 great vehemence exclaimed, ' had I written such a sentence as that, I should 
 have thought I had forfeited all pretensions to good taste in composition for 
 ever ! ' " 
 
 Mr. Malone further observes, that Hamilton filled the office 
 of Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland, from September, 
 1763, to April, 1784, during the very period in which all the 
 
 * " It has been said that he at the same time declared that he knew who 
 was the author; but unquestionably he never made any such dsclaration." 
 MALONE.
 
 60 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 letters of Junius appeared before the public; anil it will not 
 very readily be credited by any one that this is likely to have 
 been the exact quarter from which the writer of the letters in 
 question fulminated his severe criminations against Govern- 
 ment. The subject, moreover, of parliamentary reform, for 
 which Junius was so zealous an advocate, Mr. Malone ex- 
 pressly tells us was considered by Hamilton to be " of so 
 dangerous a tendency, that he once said to a friend now 
 living, that he would sooner suffer his right hand to be cut 
 off, than vote for it." 
 
 The only reason indeed that appears for these letters having 
 ever been attributed to Hamilton is, that on a certain morn- 
 ing he told the Duke of Richmond, as has been already hinted 
 at *, the substance of a letter of Junius which he pretended to 
 have just read in the Public Advertiser; but which, on con 
 suiting the Public Advertiser, was not found to appear there, 
 an apology instead of it being offered for its postponement till 
 the next day, when the letter thus previously adverted to by 
 Hamilton did actually make its appearance. That Hamilton, 
 therefore, had a knowledge of the existence and purport of 
 this letter is unquestionable ; but, without conceiving him the 
 author of it, it is easy to account for the fact, by supposing 
 him (as we have supposed already) to have had it read to him 
 by his friend Woodfall, antecedently to its being printed. 
 
 Another character that has been started as a claimant to 
 the letters of Junius is the late Dr. Butler, Bishop of Here 
 ford, formerly secretary to the Right Hon. Bilson Legge, 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, and father to the present Lord 
 Stawell. Dr. Butler was a man of some talents, and was 
 occasionally a political writer, and felt no small disgust and 
 mortification upon his patron's dismissal from office. But 
 he never discovered those talents that could in any respect 
 put him upon an equality with Junius. He was, moreover, a 
 man of mild disposition, and in no respect celebrated for 
 political courage. To which general remarks, in contraven- 
 tion of this gentleman's claim, the editor begs leave to sub- 
 join the following extract of a letter upon the subject, 
 addressed by a friend of Dr. Butler's, and who himself took 
 sn active part in the politics of the times, to a high official 
 
 * Ante, p. 7, note.
 
 JTJNIUS AND HIS WBITINGS. 61 
 
 character of the present day, and which he has been allowed 
 the liberty of copying: 
 
 " Mr. Wilkes shewed me the letters he received privately from Junius : 
 parts of one of these were printed in the public papers at the request of the 
 Bill of Rights. The autograph was remarkable it was firm and precise, 
 and did not appear to me at all disguised. Mr. Wilkes had been intimate with 
 Bishop Butler when quartered as colonel of the militia at Winchester ; and, 
 from some very curious concurrent circumstances, he had strong reasons for 
 considering that the bishop was the author, and I had some reasons for con- 
 jecturing the same. Yet I must confess, that if these suspicions were 
 stronger and more confirmed, yet I think I should require more substantial 
 proofs; and my reasons are, that from all I was ever able to learn of the 
 bishop's personal character, he was incapable of discovering, or feeling those 
 rancorous sentiments, so unbecoming his character as a Christian, and his 
 station as a prelate, expressed towards the Duke of Grafton, Lord North, Sir 
 William Draper, and others more especially the king. Nor do I think that 
 his being the sole depositary of his own secret, which, as Junius says, would 
 be, and I fancy was, buried in everlasting oblivion, when he was entombed ; 
 would have encouraged him to have used such opprobrious language." 
 
 The pretensions of the Rev. Philip Rosenhagen, though 
 adverted to in a preceding edition of these letters, are hardly 
 worth noticing. He was at one time chaplain to the 8th 
 regiment of Foot ; and is said to have endeavoured to impose 
 upon Lord North with a story of his having been the author 
 of the letters in order to induce his lordship to settle a pension 
 upon him. It is sufficient to observe, that Mr. Rosenhagen, 
 who was a school-fellow of Mr. H. S. Woodfall, continued on 
 terms of acquaintance with him in subsequent life ; and occa- 
 sionally wrote for the Public Advertiser: but was repeatedly 
 declared by Mr. Woodfall, who must have been a competent 
 evidence as to the fact, not to be the author of Junius's 
 Letters. A private letter of Rosenhagen's to Mr. Woodfall 
 is still in the possession of his son *, and nothing can be more 
 different from each other than this autograph and that of 
 Junius. 
 
 It has been said in an American periodical work entitled 
 " The Wilmington Mirror," that General Lee in confidence 
 communicated to a friend the important secret that he waa 
 the author of these celebrated letters ; but, whether Lee ever 
 made such a communication or not, nothing is more palpable 
 than that he did not write them since it is a notorious fact, 
 tliat during the whole, or nearly the whole of the period in 
 
 * And has descended to his grandson, the present Mr. Woodfall. KD.
 
 62 PBELIMINARY. ESSAY ON 
 
 which they successively appeared, this officer was on the 
 continent of Europe, travelling from place to place, and 
 occupying the whole of his time in very different pursuits. 
 
 The friend to whom this communication is said to have 
 been made, is a Mr. T. Rodney, who declares as follows in 
 communication inserted in the above-mentioned American 
 periodical work. 
 
 " In the fall of 1773, not long after General Lee had arrived in America, 
 I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon in his company, when there was 
 no other person present. Our conversation chiefly turned on politics, and was 
 mutually free and open. Among other things, the Letters of Juriius were 
 mentioned, and General Lee asked me, who was conjectured to be the authoi 
 of these letters. I replied, our conjectures here generally followed those 
 started in England; but for myself, I concluded, from the spirit, style, 
 patriotism, and political information which they displayed, that Lord Chatham 
 was the author; and yet there were some sentiments there that indicated hia 
 not being the author. General Lee immediately replied, with considerable 
 animation, affirming that, to his certain knowledge, Lord Chatham was not 
 the author; neither did he know who the author was, any more than I did ; 
 that there was not a man in the world, no, not even Woodfall, the publisher, 
 that knew who the author was ; that the secret rested solely with himself, 
 and for ever would remain with him. 
 
 " Feeling, in some degree, surprised at this unexpected declaration, after 
 pausing a little, I replied : ' No, General Lee, if you certainly know what 
 you have affirmed, it can no longer remain solely with him; for, certainly, no 
 one could know what you have affirmed but the author himself 1 ?' 
 
 " Recollecting himself, he replied : ' I have unguardedly committed myself, 
 and it would be but folly to deny to you that I am the author; but I must 
 request that you will not reveal it during my life ; for it never was, nor never 
 will be revealed by me to any other.' He then proceeded to mention several 
 circumstances to verify his being the author; and, among them, that of his 
 going over to the Continent, and absenting himself from England most of the 
 time in which these Letters were first published in London, &c., &c. This 
 he thought necessary, lest, by some accident, the author should become 
 known, or at least suspected, which might have been his ruin, had he been 
 known to the Court of London," &c. 
 
 The account from which we have made this extract was 
 reprinted in the St. James's Chronicle for April 16, 1803, 
 which the editor prefaces by observing, " 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 
 attention once more drawn to it." 
 
 The public do not in any degree appear to have been 
 influenced either by General Lee's pretended assertion or 
 Mr. Rodney's positive declaration : and this claim had totally
 
 JtlNIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 63 
 
 died away like the rest when in 807 it was revived by Dr. 
 Girdlestone of Yarmouth, Norfolk, who endeavoured to esta- 
 blish General Lee's pretensions by a comparison of Rodney's 
 statement with Mr. Langworthy's Memoirs of the General's 
 life, in a pamphlet published anonymously, under the title of 
 " Reasons for rejecting the presumptive evidence of Mr. 
 Almon, that Mr. Hugh Boyd was the writer of Junius, with 
 passages selected to prove the real author of the Letters of 
 Junius." And in consequence of this revival of Mr. Lee's 
 claim, the editor feels himself called upon to examine its 
 foundation somewhat more in detail. 
 
 The passages selected are in no respect convincing to his 
 mind, and do not appear to have been so to that of the public. 
 But, without entering upon so disputable a question as that of 
 a superiority of literary taste, it will be sufficient to remark 
 that the great distance of General Lee from England during 
 the period in which the Letters of Junius were published, 
 together with the different line of politics which he pursued, 
 render it impossible that Lee could have been the author of 
 these letters. 
 
 The correspondence of General Lee previous to his quitting 
 England for America, in August, 1773, as published by Mr. 
 Langworthy in the memoirs of his life, and adverted to in Dr. 
 Girdlestone 's pamphlet, extend through a period of about 
 thirteen mouths, from Dec. 1, 1766, to Jan. 19, 1768, and 
 give us the following dates : 
 
 1766, Dec. 1. To the King of Poland, from London. 
 
 25. The Prince of Poland, the same. 
 
 1767, May 1. Mr. Coleman, from Warsaw. 
 
 2. Mrs. Macauley*, the same. 
 
 4. Louisa C., the same. 
 
 4. Lord Thanet, the same. 
 
 Aug. 16. King of Poland, Karnineck. 
 
 1768, Jan. 19. Sir C. Davers, Dijon. 
 
 The dates of the letters written by Junius under his occasional signatures 
 re as follows : 
 
 1767, April 28. Poplicola. 
 
 May 28. The same in answer to a letter of Sir AYilliam Draper's 1 ) 
 
 of May 21. 
 June 24. Anti-Sejanus, Jun. 
 
 * The letter was not addressed to Mrs. Macauley, but to Lady Blake.
 
 64 PREUMIKAUT ESSAT ON 
 
 1767, Aug. 25. A faithful Monitor, on the subject of Lord Townshend'i 
 appointment to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 which took place the preceding August 12. 
 Sept. 16. Correggio. 
 
 Oct. 12. Moderator in answer to a letter of October o. 
 22. Grand Council. 
 
 31. No signature, in answer to a letter of October 27. 
 Dec. 5. T. Z. on the King's speech, on opening the parliament 
 November 24, 1767 : the receipt of which will b 
 found acknowledged by the printer in his usual 
 method among the "answers to correspondents," 
 November 30. 
 
 19. No signature, on the subject of American politics. 
 22. Downright. 
 
 It is only necessary for the reader to compare these two 
 lists of dates, and places; as for example, London, and War- 
 saw, or Kamineck, during the two months of May and August, 
 and to observe the rapidity with which the Letters of Juuius 
 were furnished, in answer to the different subjects discussed, 
 to obtain a full proof that the latter list of letters could not 
 have been written by the author of the former. 
 
 These remarks, however, relate only to the year 1767. Let 
 us see how the account stands for 1769, being the year in 
 which the author first appeared before the public under his 
 favourite signature (with the single exception of Miscellaneous 
 Letter, No. 52). It is difficult to ascertain exactly at what 
 places General Lee was residing during this period. Lang- 
 worthy's Memoirs abound with erroneous dates, which are not 
 material, however, to the present question. The only service- 
 able hint that can be collected from them is, that he was 
 rambling somewhere or other abroad, and " could never stay 
 long in one place:" to which the editor adds, "that we can 
 collect nothing material relative to the adventures of his 
 travels, as his memorandum-books only mention the names of 
 the towns and cities through which he passed. That he was 
 a most rapid and very active traveller is certain," p. 8. The 
 account furnished by Rodney confirms this statement, ty 
 telling us, "He then proceeded to mention several circum 
 stances to verify his being the author; and, among them, that 
 of his going over to the Continent, and absenting himself 
 from England most of the time in which these letters were 
 first puHished in London, &c., &c. This he thought necessary 
 lest, bv some accident, the author should become known, or;
 
 JITN1 US AND HIS WRITINGS. 
 
 63 
 
 at least, suspected, which might have been his ruin, had he 
 been known to tho Court of London," c. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that during the whole or the greater 
 part of 1769, General Lee was rambling over the Continent; 
 and of course had no possibility of keeping up a very close 
 correspondence with any person at home. Yet the following 
 table of the Letters of Junius, written either, under his 
 favourite or occasional signatures, or privately to Mr. Wood- 
 fall, will show that in the course of this very year, the author 
 maintained not less than fifty-four communications with Mr. 
 Woodfall : that not a single month passed without one or 
 more acts of intercourse : that some of them had not less 
 than seven, and many of them not less than six, at times 
 directed to events that had occurred only a few days antece- 
 dently : that the two most distant communications were not 
 more than three weeks apart, that several of them were daily> 
 and the greater number of them not more than a week from 
 each other. 
 
 July 
 
 August 
 
 September 
 
 There is but one conclusion that can be drawn from a 
 perusal of this table : which is, that the writer of the letters 
 of which it for is a diary, could not have been travelling over 
 the continent luring the year 1769 to which it is limited, 
 and conseque' tly that General Lee, who was travelling over 
 the continent, and who appears to have been chiefly in remote 
 northern parts of it. could not be Junius. 
 
 VOJL. i r 
 
 1769, January 
 
 21. 
 
 February 
 
 7. 
 
 
 21. 
 
 March 
 
 3. 
 
 
 18. 
 
 April 
 
 7. 
 
 
 10. 
 
 
 12. 
 
 
 20. 
 
 
 21. 
 
 
 24. 
 
 
 27. 
 
 Hay 
 
 6. 
 
 
 80. 
 
 June 
 
 6. 
 
 
 10. 
 
 
 12. 
 
 
 22. 
 
 8. 
 
 October 5. 
 
 15. 
 
 13. 
 
 17. 
 
 17. 
 
 19. 
 
 19. 
 
 21. 
 
 20. 
 
 29. 
 
 November 8. 
 
 1. 
 
 12. 
 
 6. 
 
 14. 
 
 8. 
 
 15. 
 
 14. 
 
 16. 
 
 16. 
 
 25. 
 
 22. 
 
 25. 
 
 4. 
 
 29. 
 
 7. 
 
 December 2. 
 
 8. 
 
 12. 
 
 10. 
 
 19. 
 
 19. 
 
 19. 
 
 25. 
 
 26.
 
 66 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 The editor has observed that it is equally obvious General 
 Lee could not have been Junius, from the different line oi 
 politics professed by the two characters; and r.ot merely 
 professed but fought for to his own outlawry by the former. 
 Junius, it has been already remarked, was a warm and deter- 
 mined friend to Mr. George Grenville: a zealous advocate 
 for the stamp act, Mr. Greuville's most celebrated measure ; 
 an|d a decided upholder of the power of the British Parlia- 
 ment to legislate for America, in the same manner as for any 
 county in England. And it was because Mr. Loe was an 
 inveterate oppugner of these doctrines, and was determined to 
 fight against them, and even against his native country, if 
 she insisted upon them, that he fled to the United States, 
 took a lead in their armies, and powerfully contributed to 
 their independence. The ensuing extracts taken from his 
 letters contained in Mr. Langworthy's Memoirs, give his own 
 opinions in his own words; and they may be compared with 
 those of Junius that follow the preceding extracts from Mr. 
 Burke. 
 
 '' You tell me the Americans are the most merciful people on the face of 
 the earth : I think so too ; and the strongest instance of it is, that they did 
 not long ago hang up you, and every advocate for the stamp act.''* 
 
 " As to the rest who form what is called the opposition, they are so odioua 
 or contemptible that the favourite himself is preferable to them ; such as 
 Grenville, Bedford, Newcastle, and their associates. Temple is one of the 
 most ridiculous order of coxcombs."f 
 
 "A formidable opposition is expected ; but the heads are toe odious to the 
 nation in general, in my opinion, to carry their point. Such as Bedford, 
 Sandwich, G. Grenville, and, with submission, your friend Mansfield."! 
 
 " We have had twenty different accounts of your arrival at Boston, which 
 have been regularly contradicted the next morning; but as I now find it 
 certain that you are arrived, I shall not delay a single instant addressing 
 myself to you. It is a duty I owe to the friendship I have long and sin- 
 cerely professed for you; a friendship to which you have the strongest claims 
 from the first moment of our acquaintance; there is no man from whom I 
 have received so many testimonies of esteem and affection ; there is no man 
 whose esteem and affection could in my opinion have done me greater 
 honour. * r I shall not trouble you with my 
 
 opinion of the right of taxing America without her own consent, as I am afraid, 
 from what I have seen of your speeches, that you have already formed your 
 creed on this article ; but I will boldly affirm, had this right been established 
 by a thousand statutes, had America admitted it from time immemorial, it 
 
 * Memoirs, p. 54, in a letter to W. H. Drayton, a member ot congr*i 
 t Id. p. 294. t Ii P- 297.
 
 JmCS AND HIS WHITINGS. 67 
 
 would be the duty of every good Englishman to exert his utmost to divest 
 parliament of this right, as it must inevitably work the subversion of the 
 whole empire. ' On these principles, I say, Sir, 
 
 every good Englishman, abstracted of all regard for America, must oppose her 
 being taxed by the British parliament; for my own part, I am convinced that 
 no argument (not totally abhorrent from the spirit of liberty, and the British 
 constitution) can be produced in support of this right. ******** 
 I have now, Sir, only to entreat, that whatever measure you pursue, whether 
 those which your real friends (myself among the rest) would wish, or un- 
 fortunately those which our accursed misrulers shall dictate, you will still 
 believe me to be personally, with the greatest sincerity and affection, yours, 
 &c., C. Lee." 
 
 It would be waste of time to pursue the claim of Genera. 
 Lee any further: though a multitude of similar proofs to the 
 same effect might be offered if necessary. 
 
 Another character to whom these letters have been ascribed, 
 is Mr. Wilkes ; but that he is not the author of them must be 
 clear to every one who will merely give a glance at either the 
 public or the private letters. Wilkes could not have abused 
 himself in the manner he is occasionally abused in the former ; 
 nor would he have said in the latter (since there was no 
 necessity for his so saying) " I have been out of town for three 
 weeks "f at a time when he was closely confined in the King's 
 Bench. 
 
 Of all the pretenders, however, to the honour of having 
 written the Letters of Junius, Hugh Macaulay Boyd has been 
 brought forward with the most confidence : yet of all of them 
 there is not one whose claims are more easily and completely 
 refuted. It is nevertheless necessary, from the assurance 
 with which they have been urged, to examine them with some 
 degree of detail. 
 
 Hugh Macaulay Boyd was an Irishman of a respectable 
 family, who was educated for the bar, which he deserted, at 
 an early age, for politics, and an unsettled life, that perpe- 
 tually involved him in pecuniary distresses ; and who is known 
 as the author of " The Freeholder," which he wrote at Belfast, 
 in the beginning of 1776 ; "The Whig," consisting of a series 
 
 * Letter to persuade General Burgoyne to jx>in the Americans. Memoirs, 
 p. 323-330. See Junius's opinion of General Burgoyne, Letter 34. 
 
 t Private Letters, No. 2. This letter is dated Nov. 8, 1769. Wilkeg 
 entered the King's Bench Prison April 27, 1768, and was liberated April 18, 
 1770. See, further, the private correspondence between Junius and Mr 
 Wilkea. 
 
 2
 
 68 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OH 
 
 of revolutionary papers which he published iu the London 
 Courant, between November, 1779, and March, 1780, and 
 the " Indian Observer," a miscellany of periodical essaya 
 published at Madras in 1793*. In his public conversation he 
 was an enthusiastic admirer of the style and principles of 
 Junius ; and in his political effusions he perpetually strove to 
 imitate his manner; and, in many instances, copied his 
 sentences verbally. On this last account the three advocates 
 for his fame, Mr. Almon who has introduced him into his 
 Biographical Anecdotes, Mr. Campbell who has published a 
 life of him, and prefixed it to a new edition of " Boyd's 
 Works," and Mr. George Chalmers, who has entered largely 
 into the subject, in his "Appendix to the Supplemental 
 Apology," have strenuously contended that Boyd and Junius 
 were the same person ; an opinion which, they think, is 
 rendered decisive from the following anecdote, as given in the 
 words of Mr. Chalmers himself. 
 
 " Boyd was in the habit of frequenting the shop of Almon, who detected 
 him, as the writer of Junius, as early as the autumn of 1769. At a meeting 
 of the booksellers and printers, H. S. Woodfall read a letter of Junius, which 
 he had just received, because it contained a passage, that related to th 
 business of the meeting. Almon had thereby an opportunity of seeing the 
 hand-writing of the manuscript, without disclosing his thoughts of the dis- 
 covery. The next time that Boyd called on him in Piccadilly, Almon said 
 to him, ' I have seen a part of one of Junius's Letters, in manuscript, which 
 I believe is your hand-writing.' Boyd instantly changed colour ; and after 
 a short pause, he said, ' the similitude of hand-writing is not a conclusive 
 fact' [proof]. Now, Almon does not deliver these intimations as mere opinions ; 
 but he speaks like a witness to facts, which he knows to be true. It is a fact, 
 then, that Almon taxed Boyd with being the writer of Junius's Letters ; that 
 Boyd thereupon changed colour ; and that he only turned off the imputation, 
 by the obvious remark, that comparison of hand-writing is not decisive evi- 
 dence to prove the writer. Add to this testimony that Boyd was, by nature, 
 confident, and, by habit, a man of the town, a sort of character who is not 
 apt to blush. From the epoch of this detection, it was the practice of Almon, 
 when he was asked who was the writer of Junius, to say, that he suspected 
 Jnnius was a broken gentleman, without a guinea in his pocket." 
 
 Mr. Almon's own words in relating this anecdote are as 
 follow : " The moment I saw the hand-writing I had a strong 
 suspicion that it was Mr. Boyd's, whose hand-writing I knew, 
 
 * He is also said by his friends to have written various letters in the 
 PvMic Advertiser, in the years 1769, 1770, 1771, and afterwards in 1779: 
 the former under a questionable signature, the latter under that cf Democrat ea 
 jt Democraticus.
 
 JUNIUS AND HIS WHITINGS. 69 
 
 having received several letters from him concerning boote." 
 And he afterwards adds in reference to Boyd's reply to him, 
 " though these words do not acknowledge the truth of the sus- 
 picion, they do not, however, positively deny it." * 
 
 This reply, " that the similitude of hand writing is not a con- 
 clusive proof," is called by Mr. Chalmers an " obvious remark;" 
 he might have added that the remark is just as general as it 
 is obvious, and consequently that it admits of no particular 
 deduction. It neither denies nor affirms, but leaves the ques- 
 tion, or rather the suspicion, precisely where it was at first. 
 
 But, say these gentlemen, it was preceded by a change of 
 colour; yet whether this change were to a flush or a paleness, 
 or any other hue, does not appear. Let it be taken for granted, 
 however, that they mean Macaulay Boyd blushed, and conse- 
 quently that he exhibited, on the spur of the moment, a secret 
 sense of shame ; yet what had that man to be ashamed of, 
 upon a detection of this kind, who openly gloried in the prin- 
 ciples of Junius, who had carried his own avowed sentiments 
 immeasurably farther, who was for ever publicly imitating his 
 style and copying his phrases? this man, who was "by 
 nature confident, and by habit a man of the town, a sort of 
 character who is not apt to blush," nothing surely could 
 have given him a higher delight than to have been suspected 
 to have been Junius himself: nothing could more agreeably 
 have flattered his vanity. His cheeks glowed with a flush of 
 rapture upon the supposed detection, and he could not even 
 consent to dissipate the fond illusion by telling the whole 
 truth. Shame he could not feel ; and as to the passion of 
 fear, it must not be mentioned for a moment : fear would have 
 made him turn pale, but not have blushed. 
 
 Yet these gentlemen, in the ardour of their pursuit, prove 
 too much for their own cause ; since we at length find that, 
 after all, there was NO SIMILITUDE of hand-writing whatever, 
 or at least none that could answer their purpose. The 
 letter shown by Woodfall, Almon asserted to be in the 
 common hand- writing of Boyd, the hand- writing employed by 
 him in his common and avowed transactions, and that he 
 knew it to be Boyd's on this very account. Now it so hap- 
 pened that Mr. Woodfall was also well acquainted, in conse- 
 
 * Letter from J. Almon to L. D. Campbell, Esq., Dec. 10, 1798.
 
 70 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 ^uence of a similar correspondence, with the hand-writing of 
 Mr. Boyd ; and Woodfall, whose veracity could not be ques 
 tioned, and who had far better opportunities of comparing the 
 autographs together, denied that the letters of Junius were 
 written in the hand-writing of Boyd ; adding, that Almon, 
 from the casual glance he had obtained, had conjectured erro- 
 neously. The difficulty was felt and acknowledged ; and the 
 following ingenious expedient was devised to get rid of it. It 
 vras contended that Boyd had, about the period of Junius's 
 first appearance, accustomed himself to what he used to call, 
 and his commentators and biographers call after him, a dis- 
 guised hand ; and that he uniformly employed this disguised 
 hand in writing these letters, in order to prevent detection. 
 And this ingenious discovery was afterwards brought forward 
 as an evidence of Boyd's good sense and discretion, and an 
 additional demonstration that he was the actual writer of 
 these letters. " It would require strong proof indeed," says 
 Mr. Chalmers, " to satisfy a reasonable mind that the writer 
 of Junius's Letters would send them to the printer in his real 
 hand- writing. It is impossible to conceive that such a man as 
 Boyd would take such successful pains to disguise his hand- 
 writing, if he had not had some design to deceive the world." 
 
 But this is to involve the argument in even more self-con- 
 tradiction than ever. Junius, whoever he was, wrote his 
 letters, we are told, in a disguised hand-writing, in order to 
 avoid detection : the letter which Alrnon saw was not a dis 
 guised hand-writing, but in the open and avowed hand-writing 
 of Boyd, with which Almon was well acquainted, and which 
 was made use of by Boyd in his common transactions and 
 correspondence. Upon their own reasoning, therefore, Boyd 
 could not have been the author of the letters of Junius. 
 
 But we are told, in reply tx> this second difficulty, that the 
 disguised hand-writing of Boyd, though different from Hs 
 common hand-writing, was nevertheless not so different, but 
 that those who were familiar with the latter could easily trace 
 its origin, and identify it with the former : " I have already 
 proved," says Mr. Campoell, " that those who are acquainted with 
 the one, would, upon inspection of the other, discover a strong 
 resemblance bet\veen them"* The result of course is, that 
 
 * Life of Boyd, p. 157.
 
 JTJN1US AND HIS WRITINGS. 71 
 
 Almon penetrated the deception, although from momentary 
 glance, while Woodfall was incapable of doing so, notwith- 
 standing his superior opportunities. Yet surely never was 
 such a disguise either attempted or conceived before. The 
 author wishes, we are told, to dissemble his hand-writing, in 
 order to avoid detection; and he devises a disguised hand 
 writing that can only be traced home and identified by those 
 who are acquainted with his common hand- writing ; as if his 
 common hand-writing could be identified by strangers as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 A disguised hand-writing that should conceal him from 
 all who were ignorant of his real hand-writing, and expose 
 him to all who were acquainted with it, was a truly brilliant 
 invention, and altogether worthy of Mr. Boyd's country and 
 pretensions. Yet, after all, we must not forget, that the 
 hand-writing supposed to have been seen by Almon, if 
 Boyd's at all, was not the mystical, esoteric autography, the 
 li^ct. y^ct^at-To. of the initiated, the disguised character that 
 could be detected by nobody but those who were acquainted 
 with his common writing, but the common and undisguised 
 character itself, his general and avowed hand-writing em- 
 ployed on purposes of ordinary business, and which, says Mr. 
 Almon, " I knew, in consequence of having received several 
 letters from him CONCERNING BOOKS." 
 
 But this is not the only disguise which Mr. Boyd must 
 have had recourse to, and which he is admitted to have had 
 recourse to, if he were the real author of these celebrated 
 epistles. He must have disguised his usual style even more 
 than his usual hand-writing, and that by the very extra- 
 ordinary assumption of an excellence which does not else- 
 where appear to have belonged to him; for it is not pretended 
 by any of his advocates that the general merit of any one of 
 his acknowledged productions is equal to the general merit of 
 the Letters of Junius ; but merely asserted that there is in his 
 works a general imitation of the manner of the latter, together 
 with an occasional copy of his very phrases and images, and that 
 he has at times produced passages not inferior to some of the 
 best that Juuius ever wrote. " Of all the characters," says Mr. 
 Chalmers himself, " who knew Boyd personally, I have only 
 met with one gentleman who is of opinion that he was able 
 to write Junius 's letters." And Mr. Campbell has hence con- 
 nived it necessary to offer two reasons for this palpable
 
 72 PKl.UJttlXARY ESSAY OK 
 
 inferiority of style. The one is, that all the acknowledged 
 productions of Boyd were written in a hurry stans pede in 
 MHO, while the letters of Junius, contrary indeed to his 
 otherwise uniform method, were possibly composed with con 
 siderable pains, and corrected by numerous revisions. The 
 other consists of a long extract from the Rambler, in denial 
 of the position that " because a man has once written well, 
 lie can never under any circumstances write ill."* 
 
 Now the whole of this reasoning, if reasoning it may be 
 called, is founded on gratuitous assumptions alone, and may 
 be just as fairly applied to any one else of the supposed 
 writers of the Letters of Junius as to Mr. Boyd. It is ad- 
 mitted that he occasionally wrote passages of considerable 
 merit ; and it is admitted also, that he was an imitator of 
 Junius's style, and a frequent copyist of his very words and 
 images. But this last fact is against Boyd, instead of being 
 in his favour, for the style of Junius is original and strictly 
 his own ; he is now here a copyist, and much less a copyist of 
 himself. Boyd might characteristically write, as he has 
 done in his Freeholder, " long enough have our eyes ached 
 over this barren prospect, where no verdure of virtue quickens," 
 because Junius before him had written, "I turn with pleasure 
 from that barren icaste in which no salutary plant takes root, 
 no verdure quickens;" but Junius could not write so, because 
 his genius was far too fertile for him to be driven to the dire 
 necessity of copying from his own metaphors, and even had 
 he done it in the present instance, he was too manly a writer 
 to have introduced into the simile the affected and con- 
 temptible alliteration of " verdure of virtue." 
 
 If Boyd, therefore, wrote Junius, he must have been pos 
 sessed of powers of which he has never otherwise given any 
 evidence whatever, and must not only have disguised his hand, 
 but. as well observed on a former occasion by the late Mr. 
 W. Woodfall, have disguised his style at the same time; and 
 this too " in that most extraordinary way of writing above his 
 own reach of literary talent," judging of his abilities from 
 every existing and acknowledged document. To conceive that 
 a man of versatile genius might disguise his accustomed style 
 of writing by adopting some other style on a level icith hi 
 oir, is not difficult; but to conceive, under the circumstances 
 
 Campbell's Life of Boyd, p. 31
 
 OTWITJS AND HIS WHITINGS. 73 
 
 of his authenticated talents, that Boyd could disguise hig 
 avowed style by assuming that of Junius, is to conceive, though 
 the difference between them was not altogether so extreme, 
 that a sign-post painter might disguise himself under the 
 style of Sir Joshua Reynolds, or a street fiddler under that of 
 Cramer 
 
 In effect Boyd appears to have been an enthusiastic ad- 
 mirer of the writings of Junius, ambitious enough to try to 
 imitate them, and vain enough to wish to be thought the 
 author of them. By the deep interest he displayed in their 
 behalf, he once or twice * induced his wife to challenge him 
 with having written them ; when accidentally taxed by Alrnon 
 with the same fact, he could not restrain his feelings, and his 
 cheeks flushed with rapture beneath the suspicion : and when, 
 upon a visit to Ireland in the year 1776, he wrote his address 
 to the electors of Antrim, under the title of " The Free- 
 holder," he so far succeeded by ealogizirig Junius, by quoting 
 his letters, and imitating his manner, as to induce a few other 
 persons to entertain the same idea, and, what was of no small 
 gratification to him, to acquire the honour of being generally 
 denominated Junius the Second. Yet, say his advocates, he 
 never dared to avow that he was Junius, because Junius had 
 declared in his Dedication, " I am the sole depositaiy of my 
 own secret, and it shall perish with me." 
 
 Upon the whole, however, these visits to Ireland are by no 
 means favourable to Mr. Boyd's claims ; for the letters of 
 Junius published in August, 1768, under the signatures of 
 Atticus and Lucius, were written during one of them ; and 
 from the rapidity with which they seized hold of the events 
 of the moment, and replied to the numerous vindications and 
 apologies of the government-party, must have bten written (not 
 at Belfast) but in London, or its immediate vicinity^. While 
 
 * Campbell's Life of Boyd, p. 136. 
 
 + Campbell in his Life of Boyd, p. 22, relates the following anecdote of 
 that gentleman, which occurred during the before-mentioned visit to Ireland 
 in the summer of 1768. " One evening while Mr. Flood sat at his own 
 table, after dinner, entertaining a large company, of which Mr. Boyd was 
 one, he received an anonymous note, inclosing a letter on the state of parties, 
 signed Sindercom.be. The note contained a request that Mr. Flood would 
 peruse the inclosed letter, and that if it met his approbation he would get it 
 published, which he accordingly dkl in a paper of the following morning, and 
 the letter produced a very strong sensation on the public mind." Mr. 
 Campbell proceeds to state that " every endeavour was made, without effect, 
 CO discover the author : that Mrs. Boyd always thought that Sindercombe wai
 
 74 PRELIM1NABY ESSAY ON 
 
 his visit to the same country in 177-2 was chiefly in conse- 
 quence of extreme pecuniary distress, which had oppressed 
 hitu for the preceding eighteen months or two years, and had 
 driven him from the world, through a fear of being arrested ; 
 such were the opposite circumstances of Junius, that the latter 
 \vas refusing, at this very moment, the moiety of the profits 
 resulting from the sale of his own edition of his letters, re- 
 peatedly pressed upon him, and to which he was fairly 
 entitled ; and offering, from a competent purse, a pecuniary 
 indemnification to Woodfall on account of his prosecution by 
 the crown. 
 
 There is, however, a note inserted in Junius 's own edition 
 of these letters *, in relation to Lord Irnham, and his base- 
 ness to a young and confidential friend, that has been con- 
 ceived by these same gentlemen as almost decisive in favour 
 of Mr. Boyd's pretensions ; the young man here alluded to 
 having been, as it should seem, one of Mrs. Boyd's guar- 
 dians ; the two families to which the fact relates, from the 
 peculiar motives they possessed for keeping it a secret, not 
 being supposed to have divulged it to any one, and Mrs. 
 Boyd herself having only communicated it in strict confi- 
 dence to her husband. Yet the reader of the ensuing Private 
 
 her husband's production, and that many years afterwards she was satisfied 
 that her conjecture was founded in fact." If Mrs. Boyd were correct in her 
 conjecture, as to her husband being the author of the letter under this signa- 
 ture, it would of itself all but indisputably prove that he was not the write! 
 of the Letters of Junius; as on Dec. 26, 1772, nearly twelve months after 
 Junius had ceased to publish under this signature, and many months after he 
 had declined to write under any other, Sindercombe addresses the following 
 card to him : 
 
 " For the Public Advertiser. 
 
 A CARD. Dec. 26, 1772. 
 
 " SINDEBOOMBE laments that Junius is silent at a season that demands hi 
 utmost eloquence. Sindercombe has long waited with impatience for the 
 completion of that promise, in which every friend to liberty is so deeply 
 interested. Junius has long since pledged himself that the corrupt adminis- 
 tration of Lord Townshend in Ireland ' shall not be lost to the public.' He 
 now calls upon Junius to fulfil that promise." 
 
 That is Boyd, the writer of Junius as Campbell contends, calls upon him- 
 self to fulfil a promise which he had not the smallest intention to perform, ae 
 may be seen by reference to Private Letter, No. 63. Sindercombe is a signa- 
 ture of some peculiarity, and never appeared in the Public Advertiser during 
 the period in which the writer of the letters of Junius was a correspondent 
 in that paper, which the reader will perceivt was from April 23, 1767, to 
 May 12, 1772. 
 
 * Letter. No. 67.
 
 JtJNIUS AND HIS WRITINGS. 75 
 
 Letters, after witnessing the rapidity with which Junius be- 
 came informed of Mr. Garrick's intimation to the king, and 
 Swinney's visit to Lord G. Sackville, will have no difficulty 
 in conceiving that Junius, though totally unacquainted with 
 Mr. Boyd or his family, might have easily acquired a know- 
 ledge of secrets far more securely locked up than the present. 
 Tn reality, from Mr. Campbell's own relation of this anecdote, 
 it seems rather a matter of wonder that it should have been a 
 secret to any one, than that it should have been known to Ju- 
 nius at the time of his narrating it ; for it appears that at 
 least six persons were privy to the transaction almost from its 
 first existence : the debauchee and the prostitute, the injured 
 bridegroom and his two brothers, and Mrs. Boyd as a part of 
 the bridegroom's family*. Yet, from these three slender 
 facts, Boyd's imitation of the style of Junius, Almon's sus- 
 picion concerning his hand-writing, and the anecdote of Lord 
 Irnham, in conjunction with a few others of a nature merely 
 collateral, and which, when separated from them, prove no- 
 thing whatever, these gentlemen undertake to " regard it as 
 a moral certainty that Macaulay Boyd did write the letters of 
 Junius. "f 
 
 The late Mr. Woodfall J, indeed, made no scruple of denying 
 ihe assertion peremptorily, admitting, at the same time, that 
 he was not absolutely certain who did write them. But this 
 testimony, it seems, though from the printer of the letters 
 themselves, and who, moreover, through the whole period of 
 their publication, was in habits of confidential correspondence 
 with the author, is of no consequence. Let us see by what 
 curious process of logic this testimony is attempted to be 
 invalidated : the reader will meet with it in Mr. Chalmers's 
 pamphlet, who thus observes and reasons : 
 
 " A few weeks after the publication of ' Almon's Anecdotes,' 
 in 1797, Mr. H. S. Woodfall, meeting the anecdote writer at 
 Longman's shop, complimented him on his entertaining book ; 
 
 * Letter, No. 67, with a note by Junius. ED. 
 
 t See Chalmers's Supplement, p. 94. Campbell's Life, 173, 277. 
 
 + It may be fit to explain that there are in connnection with Junius three 
 Woodfall' s the father, Mr. Henry Sampson Woodfall ; the son, Mr. George 
 Woodfall ; and the grandson ; the first, the original publisher of the Letters 
 of Junius; the second, the publisher of the editions of 1812 and 1814; and 
 the third, the present Mr. Henry Woodfall, who prints this ue\v ed't'uiB 
 in Bohn's St.ndard Library. ED.
 
 76 
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 but said that he was ' mistaken in supposing Mr. Boyd to 
 ha^e been the author of Junius's Letters;' and then added, 
 with an emphasis, that ' Mr. Boyd was not the author of them.' 
 To these emphatical observations Mr. Almon replied that 
 4 he had no doubt of Mr. Boyd's being the author of those 
 "letters ; that as you, Mr. H. S. Woodfall, never knew who 
 was the author, you cannot undertake to say who was not the 
 author of those letters.' Mr. Woodfall departed without 
 making any reply. What reply could he make ? It is ab- 
 surd in any man, who does not know the author of Junius's 
 letters, to say that Macaulay Boyd was not the writer of them 
 in opposition to affirmative proofs. Yet Mr. H. S. Woodfall 
 afterwards told Mr. L. D. Campbell that 'Mr. Boyd was not 
 the writer of Junius's letters,' without pretending, however, 
 that he knew the true author." 
 
 Now every one who knew Mr. H. S. Woodfall, knew him 
 also to be a man of strict unimpeachable veracity ; a man who 
 would not have ventured to speak decisively upon this or any 
 other point, if he had not had very sufficient grounds. We 
 are asked what reply he could have made ? and are told that 
 his negative assertion was absurd against the affirmative 
 proofs offered. These affirmative proofs have been already 
 sufficiently noticed ; our next business then is to state what 
 reply Mr. Woodfall could have made if he had chosen, and 
 perhaps would have made if he had been differently addressed, 
 of the absurdity of which the reader shall determine when he 
 has perused it : it shall be founded upon negative arguments 
 alone. Woodfall well knew the hand-writings of both Junius 
 and Boyd, and was in possession of many copies of both ; and 
 knowing them he well knew they were different. He well 
 knew that Junius was a man directly implicated in the circle 
 of the court, and immediately privy to its most secret in- 
 trigues ; and that Boyd was very differently situated, and 
 that whatever information he collected was by circuitous 
 channels alone. Junius he knew to be a man of affluence, 
 considerably superior to his own wants, refusing remunera- 
 tions to which he was entitled, and offering reimbursements 
 to those vho suffered on his account; Boyd to be labouring 
 under great pecuniary difficulties, and ready to accept what- 
 ever was offered him ; or, in the language of Mr. Almon, 
 " a broken gentleman without a guinea in his po'ket.* Ju
 
 JUNTOS AND HIS WBITINGS. 77 
 
 nias he knew to be a man of considerably more than his own 
 age, who, from a long and matured experience of the world, 
 was ec titled to read him lessons of moral and prudential 
 philosophy ; Boyd to be at the same time a very young man *, 
 who had not even reached his majority, totally without plan, 
 and almost without experience of any kind, who in the pros- 
 pect of divulging himself to Woodfall, could not possibly have 
 written to him " after LONG experience of the world, I affirm 
 before God I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy f." 
 Boyd he knew to be an imitator and copyist of Junius ; Juuius 
 to be no imitator or copyist of any man, and least of all of 
 himself. Junius he knew to be a decided mixed-monarchist, 
 who opposed the ministry upon constitutional principles ; 
 Boyd to be a wild random republican, who opposed them 
 upon revolutionary views : Junius to be a writer who could 
 not have adopted the signature of Democrates or Dernocrati- 
 cus ; Boyd a writer who could, and who, we are told, did do 
 so in perfect uniformity with his political creed. Woodfall, 
 it is true, did not pretend to know Junius personally, but 
 from his hand-writing, his style of composition, age, politics, 
 rank in life, and pecuniary affluence, he was perfectly as 
 sured that Junius could not be Boyd. 
 
 It was possible, therefore, for Mr. H. S. Woodfall to have 
 made some reply if he had chosen ; and it was possible also 
 for him to have said, without absurdity, and in opposition to 
 the affirmative proofs of his biographers, that Macaulay Boyd 
 was not the writer of Junius's Letters. 
 
 A thousand other proofs, equally cogent and insurmount- 
 able, might be advanced, if necessary, against the preten- 
 sions of Mr. Boyd. Among these let the reader compare 
 the letter of Junius, subscribed "Vindex," March 6, 1771, 
 Miscellaneous Letters, No. 91, in which he publicly ridicules 
 Mr. Laughlin Maclean, upon his defence of the ministry, in 
 regard to the Falkland Islands J. Mr. Laughlin Maclean is 
 
 * Boyd was born in October, 1746, and Junius's first letter, under the 
 signature of Poplicola, appeared in the Public Advertiser, April 28, 1767, 
 when Boyd had not, as yet, attained his 21st year. 
 
 t Private Letter, No. 44. 
 
 J This Mr. Laughlin Maclean is the person whom a writer in 1849 in the 
 North British Review (Sir David Brewster, it is sad) has started as a new 
 candidate for the honours of Junius. But the references in the text appear 
 sufficient to dispose of the new claimant; that is, supposing Junius win Kin-
 
 78 PRELIMINARY ESSAY OS 
 
 well known to have been the best and steadiest friend llml 
 Boyd ever possessed ; and a friend vrho adhered to him uu 
 interruptedly from 1764 to 1778*, in which year Maclean 
 commenced a voyage to India, upon official business relating 
 to the Nabob of Arcot. It was Maclean who, according to his 
 biographer, furnished Boyd with the greater part of the secret 
 transactions of our own government, and the intelligence he 
 made use of in relation to the oriental concerns of the Nabob 
 Mahomed Ali Khan ; who largely and liberally assisted him 
 with pecuniary aid while at home, and " faithfully promised 
 him he would, on his return from India, assist in clearing 
 him from all his pecuniary difficulties." The proofs are un- 
 questionable, that the above letter was written by Junius ; and 
 that he wrote it also in contempt and ridicule of Laughlin 
 Maclean, who, instead of being, as Mr. Campbell affirms, an 
 opponent of the ministry at this time, was an avowed de- 
 fendant of them. Will Mr. Boyd's biographers and advo- 
 cates, after this anecdote, so far vilify his memory as to con- 
 tend that it was written by himself? 
 
 dex, and wrote the commentary on Maclean referred to, and which will be 
 found in our second volume. Setting aside the great mistake committed in 
 the article alluded to, as to the personal history of Maclean, there is nothing 
 known of him to warrant the conclusion that he was competent to draw 
 the bow of Junius; moreover, in the years 1769 and 1770, when Junins 
 was in hot war, and unceasingly directing his keenest shafts against the 
 ministry, Mr. Maclean was absorbed in his own pecuniary difficulties, con- 
 sequent on gambling in India stock; and in 1772 he was collector at Phila- 
 delphia, while Junius is known to have been writing in London. ED. 
 
 * See Mr. Campbell's Life of Boyd, pp. 117, 125, 209, 210. In p. 141, he 
 gives us the following account of Mr. Boyd, in support of his assertion that 
 he was the writer of these letters. " From this time [Nov. 27, 1771] till 
 the 20th of January following, Mr. Boyd's whole time was occupied in 
 examining the law books and state trials above mentioned, and in writing 
 wlthfliis usual secrecy for the Public Advertiser : Junius's elaborate letter to 
 Lord Mansfield, in which he strove hard to make good his charge against 
 him, is dated the 21st of January, 1772: about three weeks after the publi- 
 cation of this letter, Mr. Boyd went to Ireland ; and Junius ceased to write 
 under that signature for the Public Advertiser." The reader will perceive 
 by a reference to Private Letters, Nos. 40 and 48, that the letter to Lord 
 Mansfield was finished some considerable time before it made its appearance 
 in the Public Advertise. ; and by comparing the dates of the Private Letters, 
 subsequent to that publication, up to Msrch 5, 1772, of which there are no 
 less than seven, he will be satisfied that it was totally impossible for the 
 writer of the Letters of Junius to have been in Ireland at the period described 
 Vy Mr. Campbell,
 
 JUNIUS AND HIS WRITfNOS 79 
 
 Of all the reputed authors of these celebrated addresses, 
 Dunning, Lord Ashburton, offers the largest aggregate of 
 ilaira in his favour ; and, but for a few facts which seem 
 decisive against him, might fairly be admitted to have 
 been the real Junius. His age and rank in life, his talents 
 and learning, (though perhaps not classical learning,) his 
 brilliant wit, and sarcastic habit, his common residence, dur- 
 ing the period in question, his political principles, attach- 
 ments and antipathies, conspire in marking him as the man : 
 but, unfortunately for such a conclusion, Dunning was Soli- 
 citor-General at the time these letters first appeared, and for 
 more than a twelvemonth afterwards : and Junius himself 
 has openly and solemnly affirmed, " I am no lawyer by pro- 
 fession ; nor do I pretend to be more deeply read than every 
 English gentleman should be in the laws of his country."* 
 Dunning was a man of high unblemished honour, as well as 
 of high independent principles ; it cannot, therefore, be sup- 
 posed that he would have vilified the King, while one of 
 the King's confidential servants and councillors : nor would 
 he, as a barrister, have written to Woodfall in the course of 
 a confidential correspondence, " / am advised that no jury 
 will find " a bill f. 
 
 Another person who has had a claim advanced in his favour 
 upon the same subject is the late celebrated Henry Flood, 
 M.P. of Ireland. Now, without wandering at large for 
 proofs that Mr. Flood could not have been the writer of the 
 Letters of Junius, it is only sufficient to call the reader's 
 attention to the two following facts, which are decisive of the 
 subject in question. 
 
 First, Mr. Flood was in Ireland throughout a great part of 
 the summer of 1768, and at a_time when Junius, whoever he 
 may have been, was perpetually corresponding with the 
 printer of the Public Advertiser, and with a rapidity which 
 could not have been maintained, not only in Ireland, but even 
 at a hundred, and occasionally at less than fifty miles' distance 
 from the British metropolis. This fact may be collected, 
 among other authorities, from the following passage in Mr. 
 Campbell's Life of Bcyd, and is just as adverse to the pre- 
 tensions of the one as of the other. 
 
 * Preface to Junius, + Private Letter, No. 18.
 
 80 PRELIMINARY ESAAT OK 
 
 " In the summer of 1768 Boyd went to Ireland for a fevi 
 months, on some private business. During his stay in Dub- 
 lin he was constantly in the company of Mr. Flood." 
 
 Next, by turning to the private letter of Juuius, No. 44, 
 of the date of Nov. 27, 1771, the reader will find the follow- 
 ing paragraph: "I fear your friend Jerry Dyson will lose 
 his Irish pension. Say " received." The mark " received " 
 occurs, accordingly, in the Public Advertiser of the day en 
 suing. Now by turning to the Irish debates of this period, 
 we shall find that the question concerning this pension was 
 actually determined by the Irish Parliament just two days 
 before the date of the above mentioned private letter, and 
 that Mr. Flood was one of the principal opponents of the 
 grant, a circumstance which precludes the possibility of be- 
 lieving him to have written the letter in question. We shall 
 extract the article from whence this information is derived, 
 from the Public Advertiser of Dec. 18, 1771. 
 
 " Authentic copy of the conclusion of the speech which Mr. Flood made 
 in the Irish House of Commons, on Monday the 25th of November last, 
 when the debate on the pension of Jeremiah Dyson, Esq., came on before the 
 committee of supplies : 
 
 " But of all the burthens which it has pleased government to lay 
 
 upon our devoted shoulders, that which is the subject of the present debate 
 is the most grievous and intolerable. Who does not know Jeremiah Dyson, 
 Esq. 1 We know little of him indeed, otherwise than by his name in our 
 pension list ; but there are others who know him by his actions. This is he 
 who is endued with those happy talents, that he has served every admi- 
 nistration, and served every one with equal success a civil, pliable, good- 
 natured gentleman, who will do what you will, and say what you please 
 for payment. 
 
 " Here Mr. Flood was interrupted, and called to order by Mr. M , who 
 
 urged that more respect ought to be paid to Mr. Dyson as one of his Miijesty's 
 officers, and, as such, one whom his Majesty was graciously pleased to repose 
 confidence in. However Mr. Flood went on. 
 
 " As to the royal confidence reposed in Mr. Dyson, his gracious Majesty 
 (whom God long preserve) has been graciously lavish of it, not only to Mr. 
 Dyson, but to the friends of Mr. Dyson ; and I think the choice was good : 
 the royal secrets will, I dare say, be very secure in their breasts, not only for 
 the love they bear to his gracious Majesty, but for the love they bear them- 
 selves. In the present case, however, we do not want to be informed of that 
 part of Mr. Dyson's character ; we know enough of him everybody knowi 
 enough of him ask the British treasury the British council ask any 
 Englishman who he is, what he is they can all tell you, for the gentleman 
 is well known. But what have we to do with him? He never served 
 Ireland, nor the friends of Ireland. And if this distressed kingdom was never
 
 JXJNIUS AND HIS WHITINGS. 81 
 
 benefited by his counsel, interest, or service, I see no good cause why this 
 kingdom should reward him. Let the honourable members of this house 
 consider this, and give their voices accordingly. For God's sake let every 
 man consult his conscience : if Jeremiah Dyson, Esq., shall be foui. d to de- 
 serve this pension, let it be continued; if not, let it be lopped off our revenue 
 as burthensome and unnecessary." 
 
 Let us proceed to the pretensions that have been offered 
 on the part of Lord George Sackville as the real Junius. 
 The evidence is somewhat indecisive even to the present 
 hour. Sir William Draper divided his suspicions between 
 this nobleman and Mr. Burke, and upon the personal and 
 unequivocal denial of the latter, he transferred them en- 
 tirely to the former : and that Sir William was not the only 
 person who suspected his lordship even from the first, is evi- 
 dent from the private letter of Junius, which asserts that 
 Swinney had actually called upon Lord Sackville and taxed 
 him with being Junius, to his face*. This letter is, in fact, 
 one of the most curious of the whole collection : if written 
 by Lord George Sackville it settles the point at once; and, 
 if not written by him, presupposes an acquaintance with his 
 lordship's family, his sentiments and his connections, so inti- 
 mate as to excite no small degree of astonishment. Junius 
 was informed of Swinney 's having called upon Lord George 
 Sackville, very shortly after his call, and he knew that before this 
 time he had never spoken to him in his life. It is certain, 
 then, that Lord George Sackville was early and generally sus- 
 pected : that Junius knew him to be suspected without assert- 
 ting, as in the case of the author of " The Whig,"f &c., that 
 he was suspected wrongfully ; and that this nobleman, if not 
 Junius himself, must have been in habits of close and inti- 
 mate friendship with him. The talents of Lord George Sack- 
 ville were well known and admitted, and his political prin- 
 ciples led him to the same side of the question that was so 
 warmly espoused by Junius. It is said, however, that on one 
 occasion his lordship privately observed to a friend of his, 
 " I should be proud to be capable of writing as Junius has 
 done ; but there are many passages in his letters I should be 
 very sorry to have written." J Such a declaration, however, 
 
 * Private Letter, No. 5. t Id. No. 23. 
 
 J See Chalmers's Ap*iendix to the Supplemental Apology, p. 7. 
 VOL. I Q
 
 82 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON 
 
 is too geiieial to be in any way conclusive : even Junius him- 
 self might, in a subsequent period, Lave regretted that he 
 had -written some of the passages that occur in his letters. 
 In the case of his letter to Junia, we know he did, from his 
 own avowal. It is nevertheless peculiarly hostile to the opi- 
 nion in favour of Lord George Sackville, that Junius should 
 roundly have accused him of want of courage, as he has done 
 in Miscellaneous Letters, No. 7. And if we examine into 
 his lordship's style, and even into his own opinion of his own 
 style, we shall meet with i'acts not much less hostile. Of his 
 own composition he thus speaks in a letter published shortly 
 after his return from Germany, drawn up in justification of 
 his conduct at the battle of Minden : " I had rather upon 
 this occasion submit myself to all the inconveniences that 
 may arise from the want of style than borrow assistance from 
 the pen of others, as I can have no hopes of establishing my 
 character, but from the force of truth." 
 
 And that his lordship has not in this passage spoken with 
 an undue degree of self-modesty, will, we think, be evident 
 from the following copy of a letter addressed by himself, upon 
 the preceding subject, to his friend Colonel Fitzroy. 
 
 COPY OF LORD G. SACKVILLE'S LETTER TO COLONEL FITZROY. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Minden, August 2, 1759. 
 
 The orders of yesterday, you may believe, affect me very sensibly. Hii 
 Serene Highness has been pleased to judge, condemn, and censure me, with- 
 out hearing me, in the most cruel and unprecedented manner; as he never 
 asked me a single question in explanation of anything he might disapprove : 
 and as he must have formed his opinion upon the report of others, it was 
 still harder he would not give me an opportunity of first speaking to him 
 upon the subject : but you know, even in more trifling matters, that hard 
 blows are sometimes unexpectedly given. If anybody has a right to say that 
 I hesitated in obeying orders, it is you. I will relate what I know of that, 
 and then appeal to you for the truth of it. 
 
 When you brought me orders to advance with the British cavalry, I was 
 near the village of Halen, I think it is called, I mean that place which the 
 Saxons burnt. I was there advanced by M. Malhorte's order, and no further, 
 when you came to me. Ligonier followed almost instantly; he said, the 
 whole cavalry was to advance. I was puzzled what to do, and begged the 
 favour of you to carry me to the Duke, that I might ask an explana- 
 tion of his orders : but that no time might be lost, I sent Smith with 
 orders to bring on the British cavalry, as they had a wood before they could 
 advance, as you directed; and I reckoned, by the time I had Been hi* Serene
 
 JUNICS AND KtS WRITINGS. 83 
 
 Highness, I should find them forming beyond the woorL This proceeding co 
 mine might possibly be wrong; but I am sure the service' could not suffer, as 
 no delay was occasioned by it. The duke then ordered me to leave gome 
 squadrons upon the right, which I did, and to advance the rest to support the 
 infantry. This I declare I did, as fast as I imagined it was right in cavalry to 
 march in line. I once halted by Lord Granby to complete my forming the 
 whole. Upon his advancing the left before the right I again sent to him to 
 stop : he said, as the prince had ordered us to advance, he thought we should 
 move forward. I then let him proceed at the rate he liked, and kept ray 
 right up with him as regularly as I could, 'till we got to the rear of the in- 
 fantry and our batteries. We both halted together, and afterwards received 
 no order, 'till that which was brought by Colonel Web and the Duke of 
 Richmond, to extend in one line to the morass. It was accordingly executed ; 
 and then, instead of finding the enemy's cavalry to charge, as I expected, the 
 battle was declared to be gained, and we were told to dismount our men. 
 
 This, I protest, is all I know of the matter, and I was never so surprised, 
 as when I heard the prince was dissatisfied that the cavalry did not move 
 sooner up to the infantry. It is not my business to ask, what the disposition 
 originally was, or to find fault with anything. All I insist upon is, that I 
 obeyed the orders I received, as punctually as I was able ; and if it was to 
 do over again, I do not think I would have executed them ten minutes sooner 
 than I did, now I know the ground, and what was expected; but, indeed, 
 we were above an hour too late, if it was the duke's intention to have made 
 the cavalry pass before our infantry and artillery, and charge the enemy's 
 line. I cannot think that was his meaning, as all the orders ran to sustain 
 our infantry : and it appears, that both Lord Granby and I understood we 
 were at our posts, by our halting, when we got to the rear of our foot. 
 
 I hope I have stated impartially the part of this transaction that comes 
 within your knowledge. If I have, I must beg you would declare it, so as 
 I may make use of it in your absence : for it is impossible to sit silent under 
 such reproach, when I am conscious of having done the best that was in my 
 power. For God's sake, let me see you, before you go to England. 
 I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 Your faithful humble Servant, 
 
 GEORGE SACKVILLE. 
 
 Upon the claim, then, of Lord George Sackvillo to the 
 honour of having written the Letters of Junius, the above are 
 the chief facts which the editor is able to lay before his 
 readers : he has laid them accordingly, and shall conclude 
 with leaving them to the exercise of their own judgment. 
 
 OF DB. GOOD'S PRELIMINARY ESSAY.
 
 84 
 
 Dr. Good, in the above elaborate dissertation, appears to 
 have fairly cleared the st&ge of all pretenders to Junius 's 
 honours up to the period of his editorship in 1812. Sixteen 
 years later he seems to have considered the mystery as in- 
 scrutable as ever, though he admits that at the time he wrote 
 the claims of Sir Philip Francis had not been publicly ad- 
 vanced. But with a full knowledge of Mr. Taylor's book 
 "Junius Identified with a Distinguished Living Character," 
 he still continued sceptical ; and in a letter addressed to Mr 
 Barker, concludes despairingly, with the expression, " that the 
 great political enigma of the eighteenth century was likely to 
 lie beyond the fathoming of any line and plummet that will 
 be applied to it in our days." We insert the entire letter 
 from the late Mr. Barker's pleasant volume of literary 
 melange on the Junius question. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, " Guildford Street, Oct. 13, 1826. 
 
 " Accept my thanks for your obliging copy of you! first letter on the subject 
 of Junius and Sir Philip Francis. Many years ago, as you perhaps may be 
 aware, I entered at full speed into this research, and beat the lush in every 
 direction. At that time, however, the claims of Sir Philip Francis had not 
 been advanced, at least not before the public. But had they been brought 
 forward, the arguments by which it is obvious they may be met, and many 
 of which you have yourself ably handled, would, I think, have succeeded in 
 potting him as completely out of the list as all the other competitors appear 
 to be put whose friends have undertaken to bring them forward. The ques- 
 tion is, nevertheless, one of great interest, as well on the score of national 
 history, as of literary curiosity. Yet, like many other desiderata, I am 
 afraid it is likely to lie beyond the fathoming of any line and plummet that 
 will be applied to it in our days. I shall always be happy to hear of your 
 access, and am, dear Sir, faithfully yours, 
 
 " To E. H. BARKER, Esq." J. M. GOOD." 
 
 It will be observed, in the above, that Dr. Good indirectly 
 acknowledges the authorship of the Preliminary Essay ; and, 
 on s'l^h authentication, his letter may be here properly ap- 
 pended. ED.
 
 JUNIUS, 
 
 CAREFULLY COLLATED WITH THE AUTHOR'S CORRECTED EDITION. 
 
 DEDICATION TO THE EXGLISH NATION. 
 
 REMARKS ON THE DEDICATION. 
 
 [THE Author of these Letters had the prudence or the good fortune to 
 discontinue them, at a time when the name of Junius still retained all its 
 first popularity. He was proudly conscious of their excellence, and believed 
 them to be destined to literary immortality. In the course of their first 
 publication, some of them had been, without his permission, collected and 
 republished. At the close of the whole, he prepared them to be reprinted in 
 that form in which he seems to have wished them ever after to appear. This 
 Dedication was then prefixed, to express the Author's gratitude for the en- 
 thusiastic applause with which his Letters had been honoured, to recall upon 
 them the popular curiosity, to suggest forcibly to the minds of careless readers 
 the principal topics of which the Letters treated, and to explain that his Book 
 was not to be regarded so much in the light of a collection of fugitive personal 
 satires, as in that of a system of fundamental principles of British Liberty 
 and Political Law, unfolded in a practical application of them, which was 
 well adapted to confirm their truth, and to evince their importance. 
 
 He bespeaks the continued partiality of the nation to his work, by re- 
 presenting it as the nursling of their favour. He boasts, that it cannot but 
 survive the interest of those temporary and personal matters to which it owes 
 a part of its present celebrity. He describes the principles which it inculcates, 
 as worthy to make the people value it as a riifut tls alii, and transmit it to 
 their posterity with the same care with which they would perpetuate the 
 Constitution which it vindicates and explains. For the boastfulness of these 
 assumptions, he apologizes, by observing, that the concealment of his person 
 and real name, takes away from his vanity whatever might appear par- 
 ticularly weak, or might prove the most offensive. He maintains that the 
 necessity for hindering the creation of precedents fatal to Liberty, makes it the 
 duty of the People to watch against even the slightest encroachments of the 
 Executive Power, as if these were innovations establishing, at once, the 
 Reign of Despotism. Alluding to the great question of parliamentary pri- 
 vilege which at the moment engrossed public attention, namely, whether the 
 power of the House of Commons to incapacitate any of its members, by a
 
 86 DEDICATION TO THE 
 
 wmple vote of expulsion, from being re-elected to serve in the parliament out 
 of which he has been expelled; Junius boldly asserts that the sovereignty ia 
 in the whole nation, not merely in its legislative representatives ; urges, that 
 this is, both directly, and by frequent implication, the genuine doctrine of the 
 fundamental laws and the forms of the constitution ; and earnestly warns the 
 people to make such conditions, as should leave this principle no longer in 
 doubt or contest with those whom they might choose to be their representa- 
 tives at the next general election. The liberty of the press, and the right of 
 juries to return in all cases a general verdict, he with equal earnestness de- 
 scribes as of infinite consequence to the support of British Freedom ; the dis- 
 cussions in which Junius had engaged, and the judicial trials which his and 
 other similar publications had produced, having brought these two great safe- 
 guards of public writers into eager controversy, he, in a truly patriotic spirit, 
 is anxious rightly to impress the community with their vital importance and 
 constitutional bearings. An alarm which had not yet subsided, had been 
 excited in regard to them, and Junius was anxious to keep alive the alarm 
 till the wishes of the people had prevailed and claimed respect for the exertions 
 which he had himself made on account of these objects. The general 
 election that approached was the sole occasion on which he supposed that 
 the people might command the redress of every grievance. Junius makes it 
 therefore, in this Dedication, his leading theme to rouse all the patriotism of the 
 people to an eager and resolute expectation of that event. He concludes with 
 one of those flashes of haughty, indignant sentiment, in which one of his best 
 powers as a writer consists. Such is the purport of this preliminary essay ; 
 evidently intended to sum up the Author's merits, to state what was his pri- 
 mary design, to make a last impression that should hinder those from being 
 effaced which he had so successfully made before. It does not appear to have 
 been laboured with Junius's happiest skill, nor with the most ardent and 
 trained exertion of the energies of his mind. He seems to have sitten down to 
 write it, while its particular design was but obscurely conceived, while his 
 imagination was still in a sort of tumultuous ferment with the ideas which it 
 contains. It was probably finished at one sitting, with labour of thought 
 rather exerted successively upon each particular part, than expanded, in the 
 progress of the composition, to a close consideration of the entire scope that 
 should give unity and effect to the whole. 
 
 It is, however, a genuine composition of Junius. The general cast of thought ; 
 the structure and the colours of the style, rather expressing the native character 
 of the Author's genius, than bearing the marks of cold, artificial imitation; 
 the combination of reasoning, with the gorgeous ornaments of fancy, and 
 with those incessantly bursting fires of lofty and ardent sentiment, which are 
 kindled only in great minds, infallibly bespeak in this Dedication the spirit 
 of Junius ; and would enable us easily to distinguish it as his, even if it did 
 not appear in connection with his Letters. When it is noticed as not the 
 most powerfully written or the most correctly and elaborately finished of all 
 his pieces, it is not meant to deny that it is well adapted to the use for which 
 it was intended, and worthy of the admirable letters to which it is prefixed.] 
 
 I DEDICATE to you a collection of letters, written by one of 
 yourselves for the coranx:n benefit of us all They vrould
 
 ENGLISH NATION. 87 
 
 never have grown to this size, without jour continued en- 
 couragement and applause. To me they originally owe 
 nothing, but a healthy, sanguine constitution. Under your 
 care they have thriven. To you they are indebted for what- 
 ever strength or beauty they possess. When kings and 
 ministers are forgotten, when the force and direction of 
 personal satire is no longer understood, and when measures 
 are only felt in their remotest consequences, this book will, T 
 believe, be found to contain principles worthy to be trans- 
 mitted to posterity. When you leave the unimpaired, 
 hereditary freehold to your children, you do but half your 
 duty. Both liberty and property are precarious, unless the 
 possessors have sense and spirit enough to defend them. 
 This is not the language of vanity. If T am a vain man, my 
 gratification lies within a narrow circle. I am the sole 
 depositaiy of my own secret, and it shall perish with me *. 
 
 If an honest man, and, I may truly affirm, a laborious zeal 
 for the public service has given me any weight in your esteem, 
 let me exhort and conjure you never to suffer an invasion of 
 your political constitution, however minute the instance may 
 appear, to pass by, without a determined, persevering resist- 
 ance. One precedent creates another. They soon accumu- 
 late, and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, to-day is 
 doctrine. Examples are supposed to justify the most dangerous 
 measures, and where they do not suit exactly, the defect is 
 supplied by analogy. Be assured that the laws, which protect 
 us in our civil rights, grow out of the constitution, and that 
 they must fall or flourish with it. This is not the cause of 
 faction, or of party, or of any individual, but the common 
 interest of every man in Britain. Although the king should 
 continue to support his present system of government, the 
 period is not very distant, at which you will have the means 
 of redress in your own power. It may be nearer perhaps 
 than any of us expect, and I would warn you to be prepared 
 for it. The king may possibly be advised to dissolve the 
 present Parliament a year or two before it expires of course, 
 and precipitate a new election, in hopes of taking the nation 
 
 * It would appear otherwise from Private Letter, No. 8, unless it were 
 wr tten to mystify Woodfall, which is probable, from the great care Juviui 
 took to preserve his incognita towards the printer. ED.
 
 88 DEDICATION TO 
 
 by surprise. If such a measure be in agitation, this vet* 
 caution may defeat or preveut it*. 
 
 T cannot doubt that you will unanimously assert the free- 
 dom of election, and vindicate your exclusive right to choose 
 your representatives. But other questions have been started, 
 on which your determination should be equally clear and 
 unanimous. Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be 
 instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the 
 palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an 
 Englishman, and that the right of juries to return a general 
 verdict, in all cases whatsoever, is an essential part of our 
 constitution, not to be controlled or limited by the judges, nor 
 in any shape questionable by the legislature. The power of 
 King, Lords, and Commons is not an arbitrary power. They 
 are the trustees, not the owners of the estate. The fee-simple 
 is in US. They cannot alienate, they cannot waste. When 
 we say that the legislature is supreme, we mean that it is the 
 highest power known to the constitution : that it is the 
 highest in comparison with the other subordinate powers 
 established by the laws. Tn this sense, the word supreme is 
 relative, not absolute. The power of the legislature is limited, 
 not only by the general rules of natural justice, and the wel- 
 fare of the community, but by the forms and principles of our 
 particular constitution. If this doctrine be not true, we must 
 admit, that King, Lords, and Commons have no rule to direct 
 their resolutions, but merely their owu will and pleasure. 
 They might unite the legislative and executive power in the 
 same hands, and dissolve the constitution by an Act of Parlia- 
 ment. But I am persuaded you will not leave it to the choice- 
 of seven hundred persons, notoriously corrupted by the 1 crown, 
 whether seven millions of their equals shall be freemen or 
 slaves. The certainty of forfeiting their own rights, when 
 they sacrifice those of the nation, is no cteck to a brutal, 
 degenerate mind. Without insisting upon the extravagant 
 concession made to Harrv the Eighth, there are instances, in 
 
 * The object to have been accomplished by obtaining a new Parliament 
 does not appear to have been of sufficient force to have precipitated such a 
 measure ; and was, in consequence, relinquished : on which account the par- 
 liament in question \ xs not dissolved till September 30, 1774 after having 
 existed upwards of sii years. ED.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 89 
 
 the history of other countries, of a formal, deliberate surrender 
 of the public liberty into the hands of the sovereign. If 
 England does not share the same fate, it is because we have 
 better resources, than in the virtue of either House of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 I said that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all 
 your rights, and that the right of juries to return a general 
 verdict is part of your constitution. To preserve the whole 
 system, you must correct your legislature. With regard to 
 any influence of the constituents over the conduct of the repre- 
 sentative, there is little difference between a seat in Parlia- 
 ment for seven years and a seat for life. The prospect of 
 your resentment is too remote ; and although the last session 
 of a septennial Parliament be usually employed in courting 
 the favour of the people, consider that, at this rate, your 
 representatives have six years for offence, and but one for 
 atonement. A death-bed repentance seldom reaches to resti- 
 tution. If you reflect that in the changes of administration, 
 which have marked and disgraced the present reign, although 
 your warmest patriots have, in their turn, been invested with 
 the lawful and unlawful authority of the crown, and though 
 other reliefs or improvements have been held forth to the 
 people, yet that no one man in office has ever promoted or 
 encouraged a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments, 
 but that (whoever was minister) the opposition to this mea- 
 sure, ever since the septennial act passed, has been constant 
 and uniform on the part of Government you cannot but con- 
 clude, without a possibility of a doubt, that long parliaments 
 are the foundation of the undue influence of the crown. This 
 influence answers every purpose of arbitrary power to the 
 crown, with an expense and oppression to the people, which 
 would be unnecessary in an arbitrary Government. The best 
 of our ministers find it the easiest and most compendious 
 mode of conducting the King's affairs; and all ministers have 
 a general interest in adhering to a system, which of itself is 
 sufficient to support them in office, without any assistance 
 from personal virtue, popularity, labour, abilities, or experi- 
 ence. It promises every gratification to avarice and ambition, 
 and secures impunity. These are truths unquestionable. 
 If they make no impression, it is because they are too vulgar 
 and notorious. But the inattention or indifference of the
 
 90 DEDICATION TO THE ENGLISH NATION. 
 
 nation has continued too long. You are roused at last to & 
 sense of your danger. The remedy will soon be in your 
 power. If Junius lives, you shall often be reminded of it 
 If, when the opportunity presents itself, you neglect to do 
 your duty to youselves and to your posterity to God and to 
 your country, I shall have one consolation left, in common 
 with the meanest and basest of mankind. Civil liberty may 
 still last the life of 
 
 JUNIUS.
 
 PREFACE BY JUN1US* 
 
 THE encouragement given to a multitude of spurious, mangled 
 publications of the Letters of Junius, persuades me, that a 
 complete edition, corrected and improved by the author, will 
 be favourably received. The printer- will readily acquit me 
 of any view to my own profit f. I undertake this troublesome 
 task merely to serve a man who has deserved well of me, and 
 of the public ; and who, on my account, has been exposed to 
 an expensive, tyrannical prosecution. For these reasons, I 
 give to Mr. Henry Sampson Woodfall, and to him alone, my 
 right, interest, and property in these letters, as fully and 
 completely, to all intents and purposes, as an author can 
 possibly convey his property in his own works to another. 
 
 This edition contains all the letters of Junius, Philo Junius, 
 and of Sir William Draper and Mr. Home to Junius, with 
 their respective dates, and according to the order in which 
 they appeared in the Public Advertiser. The auxiliary part 
 of Philo Juuius was indispensably necessary to defend or 
 explain particular passages in Junius, in answer to plausible 
 objections; but the subordinate character is never guilty of 
 the indecorum of praising his principal. The fraud was 
 innocent, and I always intended to explain it. The notes will 
 be found not only useful, but necessary. References to facts 
 not generally known, or allusions to the current report or 
 opinion of the day, are in a little time unintelligible. Yet 
 the reader will not find himself overloaded with explanations. 
 
 * As a literary composition, the Preface excels the Dedication. It con- 
 tains more profound remarks, more cogent reasoning, more fervid eloquence. 
 It must have been written with more elaborate care, and with a more studied 
 unity of design. But it bears this mark of the hand of an English, rather 
 than of a French or a Scottish author that it is finished with felicity, pains, 
 and skill, in particular passages, much rather than well-digested, with due 
 congruity and combination of parts, as a whole Ei>. 
 
 t Private Letter, No. 53.
 
 92 PREFACE 
 
 I was not born to be a commentator, even upon my owu 
 >vorks. 
 
 It remains to say a few words upon the liberty of the press 
 The daring spirit, by which these letters are supposed to be 
 distinguished, seems to require that something serious should 
 be said in their defence. I am no lawyer by profession, nor 
 do I pretend to be more deeply read, than every English 
 gentleman should be in the laws of his country. If therefore 
 the principles I maintain are truly constitutional, I shall not 
 think myself answered, though I should be convicted of a 
 mistake in terms, or of misapplying the language of the law. 
 I speak to the plain understanding of the people, and appeal 
 to their honest, liberal construction of me. 
 
 Good men, to whom alone I address myself, appear to me 
 to consult their piety as little as their judgment and expe- 
 rience, when they admit the great and essential advantages 
 accruing to society from the freedom of the press, yet indulge 
 themselves in peevish or passionate exclamations against the 
 abuses of it. Betraying an unreasonable expectation of 
 benefits, pure and entire, from any human institution, they in 
 effect arraign the goodness of Providence, and confess that 
 they are dissatisfied with the common lot of humanity. In 
 the present instance they really create to their own minds, or 
 greatly exaggerate the evil they complain of. The laws of 
 England provide, as effectually as any human laws can do, for 
 the protection of the subject, in his reputation, as well as in 
 his person and property. If the characters of private men are 
 insulted or injured, a double remedy is open to them, by 
 action and indictment. If, through indolence, false shame, or 
 indifference, they will not appeal to the laws of their country, 
 they fail in their duty to society, and are unjust to themselves. 
 If, from an unwarrantable distrust of the integrity of juries, 
 they would wish to obtain justice by any mode of proceeding, 
 more summary than a trial by their peers, I do not scruple to 
 affirm, that they are in effect greater enemies to themselves, 
 than to the libeller they prosecute. 
 
 With regard to strictures upon the characters of men in 
 office and the measures of Government, the case is a little 
 different. A considerable latitude must be allowed in the 
 discussion of public affairs, or the liberty of the press will be 
 of no benefit to society. As the indulgence of private malice
 
 BY JUNITJS. 93 
 
 and personal slander should be checked and resisted by every 
 legal means, so a constant examination into the characters 
 and conduct of ministers and magistrates should be equally 
 promoted and encouraged. They, who conceive that our 
 newspapers are no restraint upon bad men, or impediment to 
 the execution of bad measures, know nothing of this country. 
 In that state of abandoned servility and prostitution, to which 
 the undue influence of the crown has reduced the other 
 branches of the legislature, our ministers and magistrates 
 have in reality little punishment to fear, and few difficulties 
 to contend with, beyond the censure of the press, and the 
 spirit of resistance which it excites among the people. While 
 this censorial power is maintained, to speak in the words of a 
 most ingenious foreigner, both minister and magistrate is 
 compelled, in almost every instance, to choose between his duty 
 and his reputation. A dilemma of this kind, perpetually 
 before him, will not indeed work a miracle upon his heart, 
 but it will assuredly operate, in some degree, upon his con- 
 duct. At alt events, these are not times to admit of any 
 relaxation in the little discipline we have left. 
 
 But it is alleged that the licentiousness of the press is car- 
 ried beyond all bounds of decency and truth ; that our ex- 
 cellent ministers are continually exposed to the public hatred 
 or derision ; that, in prosecutions for libels on Government, 
 juries are partial to the popular side ; and that, in the most 
 flagrant cases a verdict cannot be obtained for the king. If 
 the premises were admitted, I should deny the conclusion. 
 It is not true that the temper of the times has, in general, an 
 undue influence over the conduct of juries. On the contrary, 
 many signal instances may be produced of verdicts returned 
 for the king, when the inclinations of the people led strongly 
 to an un distinguishing opposition to Government. Witness 
 the cases of Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Almon *. In the late pro- 
 
 * The case of Wilkes here alluded to is his prosecution, for having written 
 an obscene parody on Pope's Essay on Man, which he called " An Essay on 
 Woman." Almon was prosecuted merely for having sold in a magazine, 
 entitled "The London Museum," which he did not print, a transcript of 
 Junius's letter to the King, first published in the Public Advertiser, and 
 thence copied into a variety of other newspapers ; and the result was a ver- 
 dict against hira, although it did not appear to the court that he was privy 
 to the sale, or even knew that the magazine sold at his shop contained the 
 letter to the king.
 
 94 PREFACE 
 
 secutions of the printers of my address to a great personage, 
 the juries were never fairly dealt with. Lord Chief Justice 
 Mansfield, conscious that the paper in question contained no 
 treasonable or libellous matter, and that the severest parts of 
 it, however painful to the king, or offensive to his servants, 
 were strictly true, would fain have restricted the jury to the 
 finding of special facts, which, as to Guilty or Not Guilty, 
 were merely indifferent. This particular motive, comlined 
 with his general purpose to contract the power of juries, will 
 account for the charge he delivered in Woodfall's trial. He 
 told the jury, in so many words, that they had nothing to de- 
 termine, except the fact of printing and publishing, and 
 whether or no the blanks or innuendoes were properly filled up 
 in the information ; but that, whether the defendant had com- 
 mitted a crime or not, was no matter of consideration to twelve 
 men, who yet, upon their oaths, were to pronounce their peer 
 Guilty or Not Guilty *. When we hear such nonsense de- 
 livered from the bench, and find it supported by a laboured 
 train of sophistry, which a plain understanding is unable to 
 follow, and which an unlearned jury, however it may shock 
 their reason, cannot be supposed qualified to refute, can it be 
 wondered that they should return a verdict, perplexed, absurd, 
 or imperfect? Lord Mansfield has not yet explained to the 
 world, why he accepted of a verdict, which the court after- 
 wards set aside as illegal, and which, as it took no notice of 
 the innuendoes, did not even correspond with his own charge. 
 If he had known his duty he should have sent the jury back. 
 I speak advisedly, and am well assured that no lawyer of 
 character, in Westminster Hall, will contradict me. To show 
 the falsehood of Lord Mansfield's doctrine, it is not necessary 
 to enter into the merits of the paper which produced the trial. 
 If every line of it were treason, his charge to the jury would 
 still be false, absurd, illegal, and unconstitutional. If I 
 
 * The charge delivered to the jury by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, and 
 which Junius so bitterly arraigns, has lost much of its interest to the present 
 generation in consequence of the statutory change in the law that Ahnon'a 
 trial originated. By the Libel Bill of Mr. Fox, which was passed in 1792, 
 juries are empowered, in cases of libel, as in felony, or any other criminal in- 
 dictment, to judge of the laic as well as of the facts of printing and publish- 
 ing, to which their jurisdiction had been heretofore restricted by the judges. 
 Mr. Fox's bill has always been held as a great principle established in fa vow 
 of the freedom of the press. ED.
 
 BY JUNTOS. 95 
 
 stated the merits of my letter to the King, J should imitate 
 Lord Mansfield*, and TRAVEL OUT OF THE RECORD. When law 
 and reason speak plainly, we do not want authority to direct 
 our understandings. Yet, for the honour of the profession, I 
 
 * The following quotation from a speech delivered by Lord Chatham, on 
 the llth of December, 1770, is taken with exactness. The reader will find 
 it curious in itself, and very fit to be inserted here. " My Lords, the verdict, 
 given in Woodfall's trial, was guilty of printing and publishing only ; upon 
 which two motions were made in court; one, in arrest of judgment, by the 
 defendant's counsel, grounded upon the ambiguity of the verdict ; the other, 
 by the counsel for the crown, for a rule upon the defendant, to shew cause, 
 why the verdict should not be entered up according to the legal import 
 of the words. On both motions, a rule was granted, and soon after the 
 matter was argued before the Court of King's Bench. The noble judge, 
 when he delivered the opinion of the Court upon the verdict, went regularly 
 through the whole of the proceedings at Nisi Prius, as well the evidence 
 that had been given, as his own charge to the jury. This proceeding would 
 have been very proper, had a motion been made of either side for a new 
 trial, because either a verdict given contrary to evidence, or an improper 
 charge by the judge at Nisi Prius, is held to be a sufficient ground for 
 granting a new trial. But when a motion is made in arrest of judgment, 
 or for establishing the verdict, by entering it up according to the legal import 
 of the words, it must be on the ground of something appearing on the face 
 of the record ; and the court, in considering whether the verdict shall be 
 established or not, are so confined to the record, that they cannot take notice 
 of any thing that does not appear on the face of it ; in the legal phrase, they 
 cannot travel out of the record. The noble judge did travel out of the 
 record, and I affirm that his discourse was irregular, extrajudicial, and 
 unprecedented. His apparent motive, for doing what he knew to be wrong, 
 was, that he might have an opportunity of telling the public, extrajtiditiaUy, 
 that the other three judges concurred in the doctrine laid down in his 
 charge." AUTHOR. 
 
 It will subsequently appear (vol. ii. p. xliii. and pp. 323 and 324) that 
 this note contributed largely to identify the authorship of the Letters. 
 Junius, introducing the quotation by vouching for it being "taken with 
 exactness," and by copying it afterwards nearly verbatim into one of big 
 own letters, led to the inference that he himself had reported it, and was 
 lie same person as a distinguished living individual known to have reported
 
 96 PREFACE. 
 
 am content to oppose one lawyer tc another, especially when 
 it happens that the king's Attorney General has virtually dis- 
 claimed the doctrine by which the Chief Justice meant to 
 insure success to the prosecution. The opinion of the plain- 
 tiffs counsel (however it may be otherwise insignificant) is 
 weighty in the scale of the defendant. My Lord Chief Jus 
 tice De Grey, who filed the information ex officio, is directly 
 with me. If he had concurred in Lord Mansfield's doctrine, 
 the trial must have been a very short one. The facts were 
 either admitted by Woodfall's counsel, or easily proved to the 
 satisfaction of the jury. But Mr. De Grey, far from thinking 
 he should acquit himself of his duty by barely proving the 
 facts, entered largely, and I confess not without ability, into 
 the demerits of the paper, which he called a seditious libel, 
 He dwelt but lightly upon those points, which (according to 
 Lord Mansfield) were the only matter of consideration to the 
 jury. The criminal intent, the libellous matter, the perni- 
 cious tendency of the paper itself, were the topics on which he 
 principally insisted, and of which, for more than an hour, he 
 tortured his faculties to convince the jury. If he agreed in 
 opinion with Lord Mansfield, his discourse was impertinent, 
 ridiculous, and unseasonable. But understanding the law 
 as I do, what he said was, at least, consistent and to the 
 purpose. 
 
 If any honest man should still be inclined to leave the con- 
 struction of libels to the court, I would intreat him to con- 
 sider what a dreadfu-1 complication of hardships he imposes 
 upon his fellow subject. In the first place, the prosecution 
 commences by information of an officer of the crown, not by 
 the regular constitutional mode of indictment before a grand 
 jury. As the fact is usually admitted, or in general can easily 
 be proved, the office of the petty jury is nugatory. The court 
 then judges of the nature and extent of the offence, and de- 
 termines ad arbitrium, the quantum of the punishment, from 
 a small fine to a heavy one, to repeated whipping, to pillory, 
 and unlimited imprisonment. Cutting off ears and nosea 
 might still be inflicted by a resolute judge ; but I will be can- 
 did enough to suppose that penalties, so apparently shocking 
 
 the speeches of Lord Chatham. For the charge of Chief Justice Mansfield, 
 upon v\lch Chatham founded his strictures, see Appendix.- JZc.
 
 BY JUNTOS. 97 
 
 to humanity, would not be hazarded in these times. In all 
 other criminal prosecutions, the jury decides upon the fact 
 and the crime in one word, and the court pronounces a certain 
 sentence, which is the sentence of the law, not of the judge. 
 If Lord Mansfield's doctrine be received, the jury must either 
 find a verdict of acquittal, contrary to evidence, (which, I can 
 conceive, might be done by very conscientious men, rather 
 than trust a fellow-creature to Lord Mansfield's mercy,) or 
 they must leave to the court two offices, never but in this in- 
 stance united, of finding guilty, and awarding punishment. 
 
 But, says this honest Lord Chief Justice, " If the paper be 
 not criminal, the defendant" (though found guilty by his 
 peers) "is in no danger, for he may move the court in arrest 
 of judgment." True, my good Lord, but who is to determine 
 upon the motion ? Is not the court still to decide, whether 
 judgment shall be entered up or not ; and is not the defend- 
 ant this way as effectually deprived of judgment by his peers, 
 as if he were tried in a court of civil law, or in the chambers 
 of the inquisition ? It is you, my Lord, who then try the 
 crime, not the jury. As to the probable effect of a motion in 
 arrest of judgment, I shall only observe, that no reasonable 
 man would be so eager to possess himself of the invidious 
 power of inflicting punishment, if he were not predetermined 
 to make use of it. 
 
 Again : We are told that judge and jury have a distinct 
 office ; that the jury is to find the fact, and the judge to de- 
 liver the law. De jure respondent judices, de facto jurati. 
 The dictum is true, though not in the sense given to it by 
 Lord Mansfield. The jury are undoubtedly to determine the 
 fact, that is, whether the defendant did or did not commit the 
 crime charged against him. The judge pronounces the sen- 
 tence annexed by law to that fact so found ; and if, in the 
 course of the trial, any question of law arises, both the counsel 
 and the jury must, of necessity, appeal to the judge, and 
 *eave it to his decision. An exception, or plea in bar, may be 
 allowed by the court ; but, when issue is joined, and the jury 
 have received their charge, it is not possible, in the nature oi 
 things, for them to separate the law from the fact, unless they 
 think proper to return a special verdict. 
 
 It has also been alleged that, although a common jury are 
 sufficient to determine a plain matter of fact, they are not 
 
 VOL. 1. H
 
 98 PREFACE 
 
 qualified to comprehend the meaning, or to judge of the ten- 
 dency, of a seditious libel. In answer to this objection, (which, 
 if well founded, would prove nothing as to the strict right of 
 returning a general verdict,) I might safely deny the truth of 
 the assertion. Englishmen of that rank from which juries are 
 usually taken are not so illiterate as (to serve a particular 
 purpose) they are now represented. Or, admitting the fact, 
 let a special jury be summoned in all cases of difficulty and 
 importance, and the objection is removed. But the truth is, 
 that if a paper, supposed to be a libel upon government, be so 
 obscurely worded, that twelve common men cannot possibly 
 see the seditious meaning and tendency of it, it is in effect no 
 libel. It cannot inflame the minds of the people, nor alienate 
 their affections from government ; for they no more under- 
 stand what it means, than if it were published in a language 
 unknown to them. 
 
 Upon the whole matter, it appears to my understanding, 
 clear beyond a doubt, that if, in any future prosecution for a 
 seditious libel, the jury should bring in a verdict of acquittal 
 not warranted by the evidence, it will be owing to the false 
 and absurd doctrines laid down by Lord Mansfield. Disgusted 
 at the odious artifices made use of by the judge to mislead and 
 perplex them, guarded against his sophistry, and convinced of 
 the falsehood of his assertions, they may perhaps determine 
 to thwart his detestable purpose, and defeat him at any rate. 
 To him at least, they will do substantial justice. Whereas, if 
 the whole charge, laid in the information, be fairly and 
 honestly submitted to the jury, there is no reason whatsoever 
 to presume that twelve men, upon their oaths, will not decide 
 impartially between the king and the defendant. The nume- 
 rous instances, in our State trials, of verdicts recovered for 
 the king, sufficiently refute the false and scandalous imputa- 
 tions thrown by the abettors of Lord Mansfield upon the in- 
 tegrity of juries. But even admitting the supposition that, in 
 times of universal discontent, arising from the notorious mal- 
 administration of public affairs, a seditious writer should 
 escape punishment, it makes nothing against my general ar- 
 gument. If juries are fallible, to what other tribunal shall 
 we appeal ? If juries cannot safely be trusted, shall we unite 
 the offices of judge and jury, so wisely divided by the consti 
 tution, and trust implicitly to Lord Mansfield? Are tie
 
 sr JUMUS. 99 
 
 judges of the Court of King's Bench more likely to be un- 
 biassed and impartial, than twelve yeomen, burgesses, or 
 gentlemen taken indifferently from the county at large ? Or, 
 in short, shall there be no decision, until we have instituted a 
 tribunal, from which no possible abuse or inconvenience what- 
 soever can arise ? If I am not grossly mistaken, these ques- 
 tions carry a decisive answer along with them *. 
 
 Having cleared the freedom of the press from a restraint, 
 equally unnecessary and illegal, I return to the use which has 
 been made of it in the present publication. 
 
 National reflections, I confess, are not to be justified in 
 theory, nor upon any general principles. To know how well 
 they are deserved, and how justly they have been applied, 
 we must have the evidence of facts before us. We must be 
 conversant with the Scots in private life, and observe their 
 principles of acting to us, and to each other ; the character- 
 istic prudence, the selfish nationality, the indefatigable smile, 
 the persevering assiduity, the everlasting profession of a dis- 
 creet and moderate resentment. If the instance were not too 
 important for an experiment, it might not be amiss to con- 
 fide a little in their integrity. Without any abstract reason- 
 ing upon causes and effects, we shall soon be convinced by 
 experience, that the Scots, transplanted from their own country, 
 are always a distinct and separate body from the people who 
 receive them. In other settlements they only love them- 
 selves ; in England, they cordially love themselves, and as 
 cordially hate their neighbours. For the remainder of their 
 good qualities, I must appeal to the reader's observation, un- 
 less he will accept of my Lord Barrington's authority. In a 
 letter to the late Lord Melcombe, published by Mr. Lee, he 
 expresses himself with a truth and accuracy not very common 
 
 * The questions are so decisive, and the general train of reasoning here ad- 
 vanced so clear and convincing, that the point has been ever since settled 
 npon the authority of common sense, in the feelings and understanding of 
 every man, whether professional or unprofessional. And all that remained 
 to be done, was an interference of the legislature to prevent a revival of the 
 question by any future judge, upon any future case whatsoever; a business 
 patriotically undertaken by a statesman, whose name will ever be connected 
 with genuine patriotism, the late Mr. Fox, who in 1791 introduced a bill 
 into Parliament for this purpose, and in 1792 succeeded in carrying it 
 through both houses. See farther, on this subject, note to Junius, Letter 
 No. 41. 
 
 a a
 
 100 PKEFACE 
 
 in his lordship's lucubrations. " And Cockburn, like most of 
 his countrymen, is as abject to those above him. as he is inso- 
 lent to those below him." * I am far from meaning to im- 
 peach the articles of the Union. If the true spirit of those 
 articles were religiously adhered to, we should not see such a 
 multitude of Scotch commoners in the lower house, as repre- 
 sentatives of English boroughs, while not a single Scotch 
 borough is ever represented by an Englishman. We should 
 not see English peerages given to Scotch ladies, or to the elder 
 eons of Scotch peers, and the number of sixteen doubled and 
 trebled by a scandalous evasion of the Act of Union. If it 
 should ever be thought advisable to dissolve an act, the viola- 
 tion or observance of which is invariably directed by the ad- 
 vantage and interest of the Scots, I shall say very sincerely 
 with Sir Edward Coke, " When poor England stood alone, and 
 had not the access of another kingdom, and yet had more and 
 as potent enemies as it now hath, yet the king of England pre- 
 vailed, "f 
 
 Some opinion may now be expected from me, upon a point 
 of equal delicacy to the writer, and hazard to the printer. 
 When the character of the chief magistrate is in question, 
 more must be understood, than may safely be expressed. If 
 it be really a part of our constitution, and not a mere dictum 
 of the law, that the king can do no wrong, it is not the only 
 instance in the wisest of human institutions, where theory is at 
 variance with practice. That the sovereign of this country is 
 not amenable to any form of trial known to the laws is un- 
 questionable. But exemption from punishment is a singular 
 privilege annexed to the royal character, and no way excludes 
 the possibility of deserving it. How long, and to what extent 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 son. 
 For my own part, far from thinking that the king can do 
 no wrong, far from suffering myself to be deterred or imposed 
 upon by the language of forms, in opposition to the substantial 
 evidence of truth, if it were my misfortune to live under the 
 inauspicious reign of a prince, whose whole life was employed 
 
 * See the same passage quoted in Miscellaneous Letters, No. 111. 
 t Parliamentary Hietory, Vol. 7, p. 400
 
 BY JUNTOS 101 
 
 m one base, contemptible straggle with the free spirit of his 
 people, or in the detestable endeavour to corrupt their moral 
 principles, I would not scruple to declare to him, " Sir, you 
 alone are the author of the greatest wrong to your* subjects 
 and to yourself. Instead of reigning in the hearts of your 
 people, instead of commanding their lives and fortunes 
 through the medium of their affections, has not the strength 
 of the crown, whether influence or prerogative, been uniformly 
 exerted, for eleven years together, to support a narrow, pitiful 
 system of government, which defeats itself, and answers no 
 one purpose of real power, profit, or personal satisfaction to 
 you ? With the greatest unappropriated revenue of any prince 
 in Europe, have we not seen you reduced to such vile, and 
 sordid distresses, as would have conducted any other man to 
 a prison? With a great military, and the greatest naval 
 power in the known world, have not foreign nations re- 
 peatedly insulted you with impunity? Is it not notorious 
 that the vast revenues, extorted from the labour and industry 
 of your subjects, and given you to do honour to yourself and 
 to the nation, are dissipated in corrupting their representa- 
 tives ? Are you a prince of the House of Hanover, and do you 
 exclude all the leading Whig families from your councils ? 
 Do you profess to govern according to law, and is it consistent 
 with that profession, to impart your confidence and affection 
 to those men only, who, though now perhaps detached from 
 the desperate cause of the Pretender, are marked in this 
 country by an hereditary attachment to high and arbitrary 
 principles of government? Are you so infatuated as to take 
 the sense of your people from the representation of ministers., 
 or from the shouts of a mob, notoriously hired to surround 
 your coach, or stationed at a theatre? And if you are in 
 reality, that public man, that king, that magistrate, which 
 these questions suppose you to be, is it any answer to your 
 people, to say that among your domestics you are good 
 humoured ? that to one lady you are faithful ? that to your 
 children you are indulgent? Sir, the man who addresses you 
 in these terms is your best friend. He would willingly 
 hazard his life in defence of your title to the crown ; and if 
 power be your object, would still show you, how possible it is 
 for a king of England, by the noblest means, to be the most 
 absolute prince in Europe. You have no enemies, Sir, but
 
 102 
 
 PREFACE BY JTOIUS. 
 
 those who persuade you to aim at power without right, and 
 who think it flattery to tell you, that the character of king 
 dissolves the natural relation between guilt and punishment." 
 
 I cannot conceive that there is a heart so callous, or an 
 anderstanding so depraved as to attend to a discourse of this 
 nature, and not to feel the force of it. But where is the man, 
 among those who have access to the closet, resolute and 
 honest enough to deliver it. The liberty of the press is our 
 only resource. It will command an audience when every 
 honest man in the kingdom is excluded. This glorious pri- 
 vilege may be a security to the king, as well as a resource to 
 his people. Had there been no star-chamber, there would 
 have been no rebellion against Charles the First. The con- 
 stant censure and admonition of the press would have cor- 
 rected his conduct, prevented a civil war, and saved him from 
 an ignominious death. I am no friend to the doctrine of 
 precedents exclusive of right, though lawyers often tell us, 
 that whatever has been once done, may lawfully be done again. 
 
 I shall conclude this preface with a quotation, applicable to 
 the subject, from a foreign writer *, whose essay on the Eng- 
 lish constitution I beg leave to recommend to the public, as a 
 performance, deep, solid, and ingenious. 
 
 " In short, whoever considers what it is that constitutes 
 the moving principle of what we call great affairs, and the 
 invincible sensibility of man to the opinion of his fellow- 
 creatures, will not hesitate to affirm that, if it were possible 
 for the liberty of the press to exist in a despotic government, 
 and (what is not less difficult) for it to exist without changing 
 the constitution, this liberty of the press would alone form a 
 counterpoise to the power of the prince. If, for example, in 
 an empire of the East, a sanctuary could be found, which, 
 rendered respectable by the ancient religion of the people, 
 might insure safety to those who should bring thither their 
 observations of any kind, and that, from thence, printed 
 papers should issue, which, under a certain seal, might be 
 equally respected, and which, in their daily appearance, 
 should examine, and freely discuss, the conduct of the cadis, 
 he bashaws, the vizir, the divan, and the sultan himself, that 
 would introduce immediately some degree of liberty " 
 * Monsieur De Loline.
 
 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, January 21, 
 
 THE submission of a free people to the executive authority 
 of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which 
 they themselves have enacted. While the national honour is 
 firmly maintained abroad, and while justice is impartially ad- 
 ministered at home, the obedience of the subject will be 
 voluntary, cheerful, and I might almost say, unlimited. A 
 generous nation is grateful even for the preservation of its 
 rights, and willingly extends the respect due to the office of-a 
 good prince into an affection for his person. Loyalty, in the 
 heart and understanding of an Englishman, is a rational at- 
 tachment to the guardian of the laws. Prejudices and pas- 
 sion have sometimes carried it to a criminal length ; and, 
 whatever foreigners may imagine, we know that Englishmen 
 have erred as much in a mistaken zeal for particular persons 
 and families, as they ever did in defence of what they thought 
 most dear and interesting to themselves. 
 
 It naturally fills us with resentment, to see such a temper 
 insulted, or abused. In reading the history of a free people, 
 whose rights have been invaded, we are interested in their 
 cause. Our own feelings tell us how long they ought to have 
 submitted, and at what moment it would have been treachery 
 to themselves not to have resisted. How much warmer will 
 be our resentment, if experience should bring the fatal ex- 
 ample home to ourselves ! 
 
 The situation of this country is alarming enough to rouse 
 the attention of every man, who pretends to a concern for 
 the public welfare. Appearances justify suspicion, and, when
 
 101 LETTERS OF JITNIUS. 
 
 the safety of a nation is at stake, suspicion is a just ground of 
 inquiry. Let us enter into it with candour and decency. 
 Respect is due to the station of ministers ; and, if a resolu- 
 tion must at last be taken, there is none so likely to be sup- 
 ported with firmness, as that which has been adopted with 
 moderation. 
 
 The ruin or prosperity of a state depends so much upon 
 the administration of its government, that to be acquainted 
 with the merit of a ministry, we need only observe the con- 
 dition of the people *. If we see them obedient to the laws, 
 prosperous in their industry, united at home, and respected 
 abroad, we may reasonably presume that Cheir affairs are con- 
 ducted by men of experience, abilities and virtue. If, on the 
 contrary, we see an universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfac- 
 tion, a rapid decay of trade, dissensions in all parts of the em- 
 pire, and a total loss of respect in the eyes of foreign powers, 
 we may pronounce, without hesitation, that the government 
 of that country is weak, distracted and corrupt. The multi- 
 tude, in all countries, are patient to a certain point. Ill-usage 
 may rouse their indignation, and hurry them into excesses, 
 but the original fault is in government. Perhaps there 
 never was an instance of a change in the circumstances and 
 temper of a whole nation so sudden and extraordinary as that 
 7/hich the misconduct of ministers has, within these very few 
 years, produced in Great Britain. When our gracious Sove- 
 reign ascended the throne, we were a flourishing and a con- 
 tented people. If the personal virtues of a king could have 
 insured the happiness of his subjects, the scene could not 
 have altered so entirely as it has done. The idea of uniting 
 all parties, of trying all characters, and of distributing the 
 
 * The arrangement of the ministry at the period in question, was as fol- 
 lows : Duke of Grafton, First Lord of the Treasury ; Lord North, Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer ; Lord Camden, Lord Chancellor ; Lord Viscount Towns- 
 hend, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Earl Rochford, Minister for the Foreign De- 
 partment ; Viscount Weymouth, (afterwards Marquis of Bath,) for the Home De- 
 partment; Earl of Hillsborough, (afterwards Marquis of Downshire,) American 
 Minister ; Earl Gower, Lord President of the Council ; Earl Bristol, Lord 
 Privy Seal ; Sir Edw. Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty ; Viscount Bar- 
 rington, Secretary at War ; Marquis of Granby, Master-General of the Ord- 
 nance; Lord Howe, Treasurer of the Navy; Mr. De Grey and Mr. Dunning, 
 (subsequently Lords Walsingham and Ashburton,) Attorney and Solicitor 
 General.
 
 STATE OF THE NATION. 105 
 
 officers of state by rotation, was gracious and benevolent to 
 an extreme, though it has not yet produced the many salutary 
 effects which were intended by it. To say nothing of the 
 wisdom of such a plan, it undoubtedly arose from an unbounded 
 goodness of heart, in which folly had no share. It was not a 
 capricious partiality to new faces ; it was not a natural turn 
 for low intrigue ; nor was it the treacherous amusement of 
 double and triple negociations. No, Sir, it arose from a con- 
 tinued anxiety, in the purest of all possible hearts, for the ge- 
 neral welfare. Unfortunately for us, the event has not been 
 answerable to the design. After a rapid succession of changes, 
 we are reduced to that state which hardly any change can 
 mend. Yet there is no extremity of distress, which of itself 
 ought to reduce a great nation to despair. It is not the 
 disorder, but the physician it is not a casual concurrence of 
 calamitous circumstances, it is the pernicious hand of govern- 
 ment which alone can make a whole people desperate. 
 
 Without much political sagacity, or any extraordinary depth 
 of observation, we need only mark how the principal depart- 
 ments of the state are bestowed, and look no farther for the 
 true cause of every mischief that befalls us. 
 
 The finances of a nation, sinking under its debts and 
 expenses, are committed to a young nobleman already ruined 
 by play*. Introduced to act under the auspices of Lord 
 Chatham, and left at the head of affairs by that nobleman's 
 retreat, he became minister by accident ; but, deserting the 
 principles and professions which gave him a moment's popu- 
 larity, we see him, from every honourable engagement to the 
 public, an apostate by design. As for business, the world yet 
 knows nothing of his talents or resolution unless a wayward, 
 wavering inconsistency be a mark of genius, and caprice a 
 
 * The Duke of Grafton took the office of Secretary of State, with an en- 
 gagement to support the Marquis of Eockingham's administration. He 
 resigned, however, in a little time, under pretence that he could not act 
 without Lord Chatham, nor bear to see Mr. Wilkes abandoned ; but that 
 under Lord Chatham he would act in any office. This was the signal o{ 
 Lord Rockingham's dismission. When Lord Chatham came in, the Duke 
 got possession of the Treasury. Header, mark the consequence, J JUNIUS'. 
 
 1 Notes with thi signature are from the pen of Junius, and are those in- 
 serted by him in the collective edition he revised for Mr. Woodfall in
 
 106 LETTEBS OF JTJNIU8. 
 
 demonstration of spirit. It may be said, perhaps, that it is 
 his grace's province, as surely it is his passion, rather to dis- 
 tribute than to save the public money, and that while Lord 
 North is chancellor of the exchequer, the first lord of the 
 treasury may be as thoughtless and as extravagant as he 
 pleases. I hope, however, he will not rely too much on the 
 fertility of Lord North's genius for finance. His lordship is 
 yet to give us the first proof of his abilities. It may be 
 candid to suppose that he has hitherto voluntarily concealed 
 his talents ; intending, perhaps, to astonish the world, when 
 we least expect it, with a knowledge of trade, a choice of 
 expedients, and a depth of resources equal to the necessities, 
 and far beyond the hopes, of his country. He must now 
 exert the whole power of his capacity, if he would wish us to 
 forget, that, since he has been in office, no plan has been 
 formed, no system adhered to, nor any one important measure 
 adopted, for the relief of public credit. If his plan for the 
 service of the current year be not irrevocably fixed on, let me 
 warn him to think seriously of consequences before he 
 ventures to increase the public debt.* Outraged and op- 
 pressed as we are, this nation will not bear, after a six 
 years' peace, to see new millions borrowed, without an even- 
 tual diminution of debt, or reduction of interest. The 
 attempt might rouse a spirit of resentment, which might 
 reach beyond the sacrifice of a minister. As to the debt upon 
 the civil list, the people of England expect that it will not be 
 paid without a strict enquiry how it was incurred. If it must 
 be paid by parliament, let me advise the chancellor of the 
 exchequer to think of some better expedient than a lottery. 
 To support an expensive war, or in circumstances of absolute 
 necessity, a lottery may perhaps be allowable ; but, besides 
 that it is at all times the very worst way of raising money 
 upon the people, I think it ill becomes the royal dignity to 
 have the debts of a king provided for, like the repairs of a 
 county bridge, or a decayed hospital. The management of 
 the king's affairs in the House of Commons cannot be more 
 disgraced than it has been. A leading minister repeatedly 
 called down for absolute ignorance ridiculous motions 
 
 * The Public Debt at the conclusion of the Peace in 1763, amounted tc 
 148,377,618.
 
 CHARACTER OF THE MIMSTR7. 107 
 
 ridiculously withdrawn deliberate plans disconcerted, and 
 a week's preparation of graceful oratory lost in a moment, 
 give us some, though not an adequate idea of Lord North's 
 parliamentary abilities and influence. Yet, before he had the 
 misfortune to be chancellor of the exchequer, he was neither 
 an object of derision to his enemies, nor of melancholy pity to 
 his friends*. 
 
 A series of inconsistent measures had alienated the colonies 
 from their duty as subjects, and from their natural affection, 
 to their common country. When Mr. Grenville was placed 
 at the head of the Treasury, he felt the impossibility of Great 
 Britain's supporting such an establishment as her former 
 successes had made indispensable, and at the same time of 
 giving any sensible relief to foreign trade, and to the weight 
 of the public debt. He thought it equitable that those parts 
 of the empire, which had benefited most by the expenses of 
 the war, should contribute something to the expenses of the 
 peace, and he had no doubt of the constitutional right vested 
 in parliament to raise that contribution. But, unfortunately 
 for this country, Mr. Grenville was at any rate to be dis- 
 tressed, because he was minister, and Mr. Pittf and Lord 
 Camden were to be the patrons of America, because they were 
 in opposition. Their declarations gave spirit and argument 
 to the colonies, and while perhaps they meant no more than 
 the ruin of a minister, they in effect divided one half of the 
 empire from the other. 
 
 Under one administration the Stamp Act is made ; under 
 the second it is repealed ; under the third, in spite of all ex- 
 perience, a new mode of taxing the colonies is invented, and 
 
 * Lord North was not a man of surpassing intellectual powers, or possessed 
 of that comprehension and accuracy of knowledge, which are necessary to the 
 character of the great statesman. Yet, with talents and knowledge far from 
 despicable, he united a pleasant amenity of manners and a pliancy of spirit, 
 which are very convenient qualities in the ostensible first servant of a govern- 
 ment, or the leader of a party. We often yield to persons, whose gifts and 
 pretensions are too moderate for envy, that homage which we would perti- 
 naciously deny to him who should strive only to make us shrink into nothing 
 before the humbling superiority of his genius. Lord North was soon after 
 to rise to greater eminence of official power ; and there was, perhaps, no man 
 fitter to accomplish the gradual combination of a party sufficiently strong and 
 united to combat the attacks, equally of the turbulent part of the people, and 
 fiictious portion of the great Whig aristocracy. ED. 
 
 t Yet Junius has been called the partisan of Lord Chatham ! JUHIDS.
 
 108 LETTERS OF JDN1US. 
 
 a question revived, which ought to have been buried in ol> 
 livion. In these circumstances a new office is established 
 for the business of the plantations, and the Earl of Hills- 
 borough called forth, at a most critical season, to goveta 
 America *. The choice at least announced to us a man of su- 
 perior capacity and knowledge. Whether he be so or not, 
 let his despatches, as far they have appeared, let his measures, 
 as far as they have operated, determine for him. In the 
 former we have seen strong assertions without proof, decla- 
 mation without argument, and violent censures without dignity 
 or moderation ; but neither correctness in the composition, 
 nor judgment in the design. As for his measures, let it be 
 remembered, that he was called upon to conciliate and unite ; 
 and that, when he entered into office, the most refractory of 
 the colonies were still disposed to proceed by the constitu- 
 tional methods of petition and remonstrance. Since that period 
 they have been driven into excesses little short of rebellion. 
 Petitions have been hindered from reaching the- throne ; and 
 the continuance of one of the principal assemblies rested upon 
 an arbitrary condition f , which, considering the temper they 
 were in, it was impossible they should comply with, and 
 which would have availed nothing as to the general question 
 if it had been complied with. So violent, and I believe I 
 may call it so unconstitutional, an exertion of the prerogative, 
 to say nothing of the weak injudicious terms in which it was 
 conveyed, gives us as humble an opinion of his lordship's 
 capacity, as it does of his temper and moderation. While we 
 are at peace with other nations, our military force may perhaps 
 be spared to support the Earl of Hillbborough's measures in 
 America. Whenever that force shall be necessarily withdrawn 
 or diminished, the dismission of such a minister will neithei 
 console us for his imprudence, nor remove the settled resent- 
 ment of a people, who, complaining of an act of the legislature, 
 are outraged by an unwarrantable stretch of prerogative, and, 
 
 * Upon the death of Queen Anne a third secretaryship, antecedently un 
 known to the constitution, was created, professing to be for the superintend 
 ence of Scotland, which terminated upon the cessation of the rebellion. Iu 
 1768, for the purpose of finding a post for the Earl of Hillsborough, tha 
 office of third secretary was revived ; and Scotland having no demand for his 
 talents, he was denominated Secretary for America. 
 
 f That they should retract one of their resolutions, and erase the ectry of 
 li, Jumua.
 
 CHARACTER OF THE MINISTRY. 109 
 
 supporting their claims bj argument, are insulted with 
 declamation. 
 
 Drawing lots would be a prudent and reasonable method 
 of appointing the officers of state, compared to a late disposition 
 of the secretary's office. Lord Eochfbrd wats acquainted with 
 the affairs and temper of the southern courts Lord Weymouth 
 was equally qualified for either department *. By what un- 
 accountable caprice has it happened, that the latter, who pre- 
 tends to no experience whatsoever, is removed to the most 
 important of the two departments, and the former by pre- 
 ference placed in an office, where his experience can be of no 
 use to him ? Lord Wey mouth had distinguished himself in his 
 first employment by a spirited, if not judicious, conduct. He 
 had animated the civil magistrate beyond the tone of civil 
 authority, and had directed the operations of the army to more 
 than military execution. Recovered from the errors of his 
 youth, from the distraction of play, and the bewitching smilea 
 of Burgundy, behold him exerting the whole strength of his 
 clear, unclouded faculties, in the service of the crown. It 
 was not the heat of midnight excesses, nor ignorance of the 
 laws, nor the furious spirit of the House of Bedford. No, Sir, 
 when this respectable minister interposed his authority be- 
 tween the magistrate and the people, and signed the mandate 
 on which, for aught he knew, the lives of thousands depended, 
 he did it from the deliberate motion of his heart, supported 
 by the best of his judgment. 
 
 It has lately been a fashion to pay a compliment to the 
 bravery and generosity of the commarider-in-chief, at the ex- 
 pense of his understanding. They who love him least maite 
 no question of his courage, while his friends dwell chiefly on 
 the facility of his disposition. Admitting him to be as brave 
 as a total absence of all feeling and reflection can make him, 
 let us see what sort of merit he derives from the remainder of 
 his character. If it be generosity to accumulate in his own 
 person and family a number of lucrative employments to 
 provide, at the public expense, for every creature that 
 bears the name of Manners and, neglecting the merit 
 
 * It was pretended that the Earl of Rochford, while ambassador in France, 
 nad quarrelled with the Duke of Choiseuil, and that therefore he was ap- 
 pointed to the northern department, out of compliment tc the French 
 minister. JUKIUS.
 
 110 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 and services of the rest of the army, to neap promotions upor 
 his favourites and dependents the present commander-in-chief 
 is the most generous man alive. Nature has been sparing of 
 her gifts to this noble lord ; but, where birth and fortune are 
 united, we expect the noble pride and independence of a man 
 of spirit, not the servile, humiliating complaisance of a courtier. 
 As to the goodness of his heart, if a proof of it be taken from 
 the facility of never refusing, what conclusions shall we draw 
 from the indecency of never performing? And if the disci- 
 pline of the army be in any degree preserved, what thanks are 
 due to a man, whose cares, notoriously confined to filling up 
 vacancies, have degraded the office of commander-iu-chief into 
 a broker of commissions * ! 
 
 With respect to the navy, I shall only say, that this country 
 is so highly indebted to Sir Edward Hawke, that no expense 
 should be spared to secure to him an honourable and affluent 
 retreat. 
 
 The pure and impartial administration of justice is perhaps 
 the firmest bond to secure a cheerful submission of the people, 
 and to engage their affections to government. It is not suf- 
 ficient that questions of private right and wrong are justly de- 
 cided, nor that judges are superior to the vileness of pecuniary 
 corruption. Jefferies himself, when the court had no interest, 
 was an upright judge. A court of justice may be subject to 
 another sort of bias, more important and pernicious, as it 
 reaches beyond the interest of individuals, and affects the 
 whole community. A judge under the influence of govern- 
 ment, may be honest enough in the decision of private causes, 
 yet a traitor to the public. When a victim is marked out by 
 the ministry, this judge will offer himself to perform the 
 sacrifice. He will not scruple to prostitute his dignity, and 
 betray the sanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary point 
 is to be carried for government, or the resentments of a court 
 are to be gratified. 
 
 These principles and proceedings, odious and contemptible 
 
 * Notwithstanding the depreciatory estimate of Junius, the Marquis ol 
 Granby possessed noble qualities ; he was humane, brave, generous, and 
 the most popular of all the members of the administration. But as it was 
 the object of Junius to overthrow the Grafton ministry, he, doubtless, thought 
 it requisite to use extra pains to damage the reputation of those of whoni 
 public opinion was inclined to think most indulgently ED.
 
 CHARACTER OF THE MINISTRY. Ill 
 
 as they are, it? effect are no less injudicious. A wise and 
 generous people are roused by every appearance of oppressive, 
 unconstitutional measures, whether those measures are sup- 
 ported openly by the power of government, or masked under 
 the forms of a court of justice. Prudence and self-preservation 
 will oblige the most moderate dispositions to make common 
 cause, even with a man whose conduct they censure, if they 
 see him persecuted in a way which the real spirit of the laws 
 will not justify *. The facts, on which these remarks are 
 founded, are too notorious to require an application. 
 
 This, Sir, is the detail. In one view, behold a nation over- 
 whelmed with debt ; her revenues wasted ; her trade declining ; 
 the affections of her colonies alienated ; the duty of the 
 magistrate transferred to the soldiery ; a gallant army, which 
 never fought unwillingly but against their fellow subjects, 
 mouldering away for want of the direction of a man of com- 
 mon abilities and spirit : and, in the last instance, the ad- 
 ministration of justice become odious and suspected to the 
 whole body of the people. This deplorable scene admits but 
 of one addition that we are governed by councils, from which 
 a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief 
 but death f. 
 
 If, by the immediate interposition of Providence, it were 
 possible for us to escape a crisis so full of terror and despair, 
 posterity will not believe the history of the present times. 
 They will either conclude that our distresses were imaginary, 
 or that we had the good fortune to be governed by men of 
 acknowledged integrity and wisdom : they will not believe it 
 possible that their ancestors could have survived, or recovered 
 from so desperate a condition, while a duke of Grafton was 
 
 Mr. Wilkes. 
 
 f* At a first reading, we might regard this and some other similar figures, 
 as merely useless and extravagant. But more careful consideratin will in 
 duce us to forego this opinion. It is the master-art of these LETTERS OB 
 JCNIUS, that they are addressed equally, on the one hand, to the taste, reason, 
 and spirit of intrigue, of the great ; and, on the other, to the prejudices, and 
 the fierce abusive spirit of the vulgar. For the sake of the latter, some 
 slight occasional sacrifices were to be made by taste. Of these the present 
 extravagant figure i? one. It seems just a sally of genius and dignity ol 
 mind, descending as far as it is possible for them to descend, to the coarse- 
 ness of vulgar abuse. Never was coarseness better reconciled with dignity 
 than in these Letters. HEBON.
 
 112 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 prime minister, a Lord North chancellor of the exchequer, 
 a Weymouth and a Hillsborough secretaries of state, a Granby 
 commander-in-chief, and a Mansfield chief criminal judge of 
 the kingdom. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIK, January 26, 1769. 
 
 THE kingdom swarms with such numbers of felonious rob 
 bers of private character and virtue, that no honest or good 
 man is safe ; especially as these cowardly, base assassins, stab 
 in the dark, without having the courage to sign their real 
 names to their malevolent and wicked productions. A writer, 
 who signs himself Junius, in the Public Advertiser of the Qlst 
 instant, opens the deplorable situation of this country in a 
 very affecting manner ; with a pompous parade of his candour 
 and decency, he tells us, that we see dissensions in all parts 
 of the empire, an universal spirit of distrust and disatisfaction, 
 and a total loss of respect towards us in the eyes of foreign 
 powers. But this writer, with all his boasted candour, has 
 not told us the real cause of the evils he so pathetically enu- 
 merates. I shall take the liberty to explain the cause for him. 
 Junius, and such writers as himself, occasion all the mischiefs 
 complained of, by falsely and maliciously traducing the best 
 characters in the kingdom. For when our deluded people at 
 home, and foreigners abroad, read the poisonous and inflam- 
 matory libels that are daily published with impunity, to vilify 
 those who are in any way distinguished by their good qualities 
 and eminent virtues ; when they find no notice taken of, 01 
 reply given to these slanderous tongues and pens, their con- 
 clusion is, that both the ministers and the nation have been 
 fairly described, and they act accordingly. I think it there- 
 fore the duty of every good citizen to stand forth, and en- 
 deavour to undeceive the public, when the vilest arts are 
 made use of to defame and blacken the brightest characters 
 among us An eminent author affirms it to be almost as
 
 LETTEB OF SIB WILLIAM DBAPEB. 119 
 
 criminal to hear a worthy man traduced, without attempting 
 his justification, as to be the author of the calumny against 
 him. For my own part I think it a sort of mispiision of 
 treason against society. No man, therefore, who knows Lord 
 Granby, can possibly hear so good and great a character most 
 vilely abused, without a warm and just indignation against 
 this Junius, this high priest of envy, malice, and all un- 
 charitableness, who has endeavoured to sacrifice our beloved 
 Commander-in-chief at the altars of his horrid deities. Nor 
 is the injury done to his lordship alone, but to the whole 
 nation, which may too soon feel the contempt, and conse- 
 quently the attacks of our late enemies, if they can be in- 
 duced to believe that the person on whom the safety of these 
 kingdoms so much depends, is unequal to his high station, 
 and destitute of those qualities which form a good general. 
 One would have thought that his lordship's services in the 
 cause of his country, from the battle of Culloden to his most 
 glorious conclusion of the late war, might have entitled him 
 to common respect and decency at least; but this uncandid, 
 indecent writer, has gone so far as to turn one of the most 
 amiable men of the age, into a stupid, unfeeling, and sense- 
 less being ; possessed indeed of a personal courage, but void 
 of those essential qualities which distinguish the commander 
 from the common soldier. 
 
 A very long, uninterrupted, impartial, arid I will add, a 
 most disinterested friendship with Lord Granby, gives me the 
 right to affirm, that all Junius's assertions are false and scan- 
 dalous. Lord Granby 's courage, though of the brightest and 
 most ardent kind, is among the lowest of his numerous good 
 qualities ; he was formed to excel in war by nature's liberality 
 to his mind as well as person. Educated and instructed by 
 his most noble father, and a most spirited as well as excellent 
 scholar, the present Bishop of Bangor *, he was trained to the 
 nicest sense of honour, and to the truest and noblest sort ol 
 pride, that of never doing or suffering a mean action. A 
 sincere love and attachment to his king and conntry, and to 
 their glory, first impelled him to the field, where he never 
 gained aught but honour. He impaired, through his bounty, 
 his own fortune ; for his bounty, which this writer would in 
 
 VOL. i.
 
 114 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 vain depreciate, is founded upon the noblest of the huiran 
 affections, it flows from a heart melting to goodness from 
 the most refined humanity. Can a man, who is described as 
 unfeeling, and void of reflection, be constantly employed in 
 seeking proper objects on whom to exercise those glorious 
 virtues of compassion and generosity ? The distressed officer, 
 the soldier, the widow, the orphan, and a long list besides, 
 know that vanity has no share in his frequent donations ; he 
 gives, because he feels their distresses. Nor has he ever 
 been rapacious with one hand to be bountiful with the other ; 
 yet this uncandid Junius would insinuate, that the dignity of 
 the commandei'-in-chief is depraved into the base office of a 
 commission broker; that is, Lord Granby bargains for the 
 sale of commissions : for it must have this meaning, if it has 
 any at all. But where is the man living who can justly charge 
 his lordship with such mean practices ? Why does not Juuius 
 produce him ? Juuius knows that he has no other means 
 of wounding this hero, than from some missile weapon, shot 
 from an obscure corner : he seeks, as all such defamatory 
 writers do, 
 
 spargere voces 
 
 In vulgum ambiguas - 
 
 to raise suspicion in the minds of the people. But I hope that 
 my countrymen will be no longer imposed upon by artful and 
 designing men, or by wretches, who, bankrupts in business, in 
 fame, and in fortune, mean nothing more than to involve this 
 country in the same common ruin with themselves. Hence 
 it is that they are constantly aiming their dark, and too often 
 fatal, weapons against those who stand forth as the bulwark 
 of our national safety. Lord Granby was too conspicuous a 
 mark not to be their object. He is next attacked for being un- 
 faithful to his promises and engagements. Where are Junius 's 
 proofs ? Although I could give some instances, where a breach 
 of promise would be a virtue, especially in the case of those 
 who would pervert the open, unsuspecting moments of con- 
 vivial mirth, into sly, insidious applications for preferment, 
 or party systems, and would endeavour to surprise a good 
 man, who cannot bear to see any one leave him dissatisfied, 
 into unguarded promises. Lord Granby's attention to his 
 family and relations is called selfish. Had he not
 
 LKTTER OF SIB WILLIAM DRAPER. 115 
 
 attended to them, when fair and just opportunities presented 
 themselves, I should have thought him unfeeling, and void of 
 reflection indeed. How are any man's friends or relations t 
 be provided for, but from the influence and protection of the 
 patron? It is unfair to suppose that Lord Granby's friends 
 have not as much merit as the friends of any other great man 
 If he is generous at the public expense, as Junius invidiously 
 calls it, the public is at no more expense for his lordship's 
 friends than it would be if any other set of men possessed 
 those offices. The charge is ridiculous ! 
 
 The last charge against Lord Granby is of a most serious 
 and alarming nature indeed. Junius asserts that the army is 
 mouldering away for want of the direction of a man of common 
 abilities and spirit. The present condition of the army gives 
 the directest lie to his assertions. It was never upon a more 
 respectable footing with regard to discipline, and all the 
 essentials that can form good soldiers. Lord Ligonier de- 
 livered a firm and noble palladium of our safeties into Lord 
 Granby's hands, who has kept it in the same good order in 
 which he received it. The strictest care has been taken to 
 511 up the vacant commissions with such gentlemen as ha* r e 
 the glory of their ancestors to support, as well as their own, 
 and are doubly bound to the cause of their king and country, 
 from motives of private property as well as public spirit. The 
 adjutant-general*, who has the immediate care of the troops 
 after Lord Granby, is an officer who would do great honour to 
 any service in Europe, for his correct arrangements, good 
 sense, and discernment upon all occasions, and for a punc- 
 tuality and precision which give the most entire satisfaction 
 to all who are obliged to consult him. The reviewing generals, 
 who inspect the army twice a year, have been selected with 
 the greatest care, and have answered the important trust 
 reposed in them in the most laudable manner. Their reports 
 of the condition of the army are much more to be credited 
 than those of Junius, whom I do advise to atone for his 
 shameful aspersions, by asking pardon of Lord Granby, and 
 the whole kingdom, whom he has offended by his abominable 
 scandals. lu short, to turn Junius 's own battery against him, 
 
 * Harvej. 
 
 I 2
 
 110 LETTERS OF JTJNITJ8. 
 
 I must ass- rt, in his own words, " that he has given strong 
 assertions without proof, declamation without argument, and 
 violent censures without dignity or moderation." 
 
 WILLIAM DRAPER*. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF THE BATH. 
 
 SIR, February 7, 1769. 
 
 THE defence of Lord Granby does honour to the goodness of 
 your heart. You feel, as you ought to do, for the reputation 
 of your friend, and you express yourself in the warmest lan- 
 guage of the passions. In any other cause, I doubt not, you 
 would have cautiously weighed the consequences of committing 
 your name to the licentious discourses and malignant opinions 
 
 * As a correspondent of Junius in this and several other letters, the fol- 
 lowing short notice of Sir William Draper cannot be unacceptable to the 
 reader. It is taken from Mr. Chalmers's Appendix to the Supplemental 
 Apology for the Believers in the supposititious Shakespeare Papers, p. 80. 
 
 " Sir William, as a scholar, had been bred at Eton, and King' College, 
 Cambridge ; but he chose the sword for his profession. In India he ranked 
 with those famous warriors, Clive and Laurence. In 1761 he acted at Bell- 
 isle, as a Brigadier. In 1763 he commanded the troops who conquered 
 Manilla, which place was saved from plunder, by the promise of a ransom 
 that was never paid. His first appearance, as an able writer, was in his 
 clear refutation of the objections of the Spanish court. His services were 
 rewarded with the command of the sixteenth regiment of foot, which he re- 
 signed to Colonel Gisborne, for his half-pay of 200 Irish. This common 
 transaction furnished Junius with many a sarcasm. Sir William had scarcely 
 closed his contest with that formidable opponent, when he had the misfor- 
 tune to lose his wife, who died on the 1st of September, 1769. As he was 
 foiled, he was, no doubt, mortified ; and he set out, in October of that year, 
 to make the tour of the Northern Colonies, which had now become objects of 
 notice, and scenes of travel. He arrived at Charlestown, Seith Carolina, in 
 January, 1770 ; and travelling northward he arrived, during the summer of 
 that year, in Maryland; where he was received with that hospitality which 
 she always paid to strangers, and with the attentions that were due to the 
 merit of such a visitor. 
 
 ' From Maryland, Sir William passed on to New York, where he marned 
 Miss De Lancy, a lady of great connections there, and agreeable endowments, 
 Tvh; died in 1778, leaving him a daughter. In 1779 he was appc nted 
 Lieutenant- Governor of Minorca; a trust which, however discharged, ended 
 anhappily He died at Bath, on the 8th of Januurv, 1787."
 
 JTJNIUS TO SIR WI1.TIAM DUAPEE. 117 
 
 of the \vor\d. But here, T presume, you thought it would be 
 a breach of friendship to lose one moment in consulting jour 
 understanding; as if an appeal to the public were no more 
 than a military coup de main, where a brave man has no rules 
 to follow but the dictates of his courage. Touched with your 
 generosity, I freely forgive the excesses into which it has led 
 you ; and, far from resenting those terms of reproach, which, 
 considering that you are an advocate for decorum, you have 
 heaped upon me rather too liberally, I place them to the 
 account of an honest, unreflecting indignation, in which your 
 cooler judgment and natural politeness had no concern. I 
 approve of the spirit with which you have given your name to 
 the public ; and, if it were a proof of anything but spirit, I 
 should have thought myself bound to follow your example. I 
 should have hoped that even my name might carry some 
 authority with it*, if I had not seen how very little vveight 
 or consideration a printed paper receives even from the 
 respectable signature of Sir William Draper. 
 
 You begin with a general assertion, that writers, such as I 
 am, are the real cause of all the public evils we complain of. 
 And do you really think, Sir William, that the licentious pen 
 of a political writer is able to produce such important effects ? 
 A little calm reflection might have shown you, that national 
 calamities do not arise from the description, but from the real 
 character and conduct of ministers. To have supported your 
 assertion, you should have proved that the present ministry 
 are unquestionably the best and brightest characters of the 
 kingdom : and that, if the affections of the colonies have been 
 alienated, if Corsica f has been shamefully abandoned, if com- 
 merce languishes, if public credit is threatened with a new 
 
 * This expression will receive some farther light from a feature of him- 
 self incidentally introduced by Junius in a letter omitted in his own edition, 
 but inserted in the present, Miscellaneous Letter, No. 54, as also from 
 other views of his sentiments and conduct as casually evinced in the Private 
 Letters. 
 
 ? Corsica, in modern times, was first subjugated by the Genoese, who 
 made use of so much insolence and oppression, as to induce the natives 
 to throw off the yoke, and endeavour to recover their independence. The 
 contest was long and severe, and the Corsicans were reduced to beggary in 
 the generous struggle. Nieuhoff and Paoli chiefly figured as leaders of the 
 Cnreicans, the first of whom was actually plected king, but could not main- 
 tain his throne against the invaders. The Corsicans applied to many foreign
 
 118 LETTERS OF JULIUS. 
 
 debt, and your own Manilla ransom most dishonourably given 
 up*, it has all been owing to the malice of political writers, 
 who will not suffer the best and brightest of characters 
 (meaning still the present ministry) to take a single right 
 step for the honour or interest of the nation. But it seems 
 you were a little tender of coming to particulars. Your con- 
 science insinuated to you that it would be prudent to leave 
 the characters of Grafton, North, Hillsborough, Weymouth, 
 and Mansfield to shift for themselves ; and truly, Sir William, 
 the part you have undertaken is at least as much as you are 
 equal to. 
 
 Without disputing Lord Granby's courage, we are yet to 
 learn in what articles of military knowledge nature has been 
 so very liberal to his mind. If you have served with him, you 
 ought to have pointed out some instances of able disposition 
 and well-concerted enterprise, which might fairly be attributed 
 to his capacity as a general. It is you, Sir William, who 
 make your friend appear awkward and ridiculous, by giving 
 him a laced suit of tawdry qualifications, which nature neve' 
 intended him to wear. 
 
 courts for assistance, among the rest to Great Britain; and Lord Shel- 
 burne was one of the wannest supporters of their cause, and most de- 
 sirous when in administration to engage in it. But his colleagues opposed 
 him, and the cause of Corsica was abandoned, though the citizens of London 
 contributed largely to its support. Yet the Genoese could not totally subdue 
 it ; and in consequence they sold it to France to be subdued by the French 
 arms ; and the tyranny which was at first exercised over it by the Genoese, 
 it was now doomed to suffer from the French. Poland, Norway, Cracow, 
 and Hungary afford subsequent and ready historical parallels to this brief 
 advertence to the past history of Corsica. ED. 
 
 * In the preceding war with Spain, Sir William (then Col. Draper) had 
 commanded an expedition against the Spanish settlements in the Philippine 
 Isles. It succeeded completely ; and the capital of Manilla was taken by 
 assault. Yet the generous conquerors, instead of plundering the city, consented 
 te accept for the value of the spoil bills drawn upon the Spanish Government 
 adequate to its supposed amount. These bills the Spanish Government under- 
 took to pay, but dishonourably forfeited its word on their becoming due. Sir 
 William Draper, on his return from India, repeatedly pressed the English 
 minister to interpose upon the subject, on behalf of himself and his fellow- 
 soldiers. The English minister, however, did not interpose. Draper Tas 
 personally rewarded by an election into the order of the Bath, in conjunction 
 with certain pecuniary emoluments referred to in this correspondence ; while 
 his colleague, Admiral Cornish, together with the soldiers and sailors nndei 
 their commands, were suffered to live and die without redress.
 
 TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER. 119 
 
 You say, he has acquired nothing but honour in the field. 
 Is the Ordnance nothing? Are the Blues nothing? Is the 
 command of the army, with all the patronage annexed to it, 
 nothing? Where he got these nothings I know not; but you 
 at least ought to have told us where he deserved them. 
 
 As to his bounty, compassion, &c., it would have been but 
 little to the purpose, though you had proved all that you have 
 asserted. 1 meddle with nothing but his character as corn- 
 man der-in-chief ; and though T acquit him of the baseness of 
 selling commissions, 1 still assert that his military cares have 
 never extended beyond the disposal of vacancies ; and I am 
 justified by the complaints of the whole army, when I say 
 that, in this distribution, he consults nothing but parliamentary 
 interests, or the gratification of his immediate dependants. 
 As to his servile submission to the reigning ministry, let me 
 ask whether he did not desert the cause of the whole army 
 when he suffered Sir Jeffrey Amherst to be sacrificed, and 
 what share he had in recalling that officer to the service? 
 Did he not betray the just interests of the army, in permit- 
 ting Lord Percy to have a regiment ? And does he not at 
 this moment give up all character and dignity as a gentleman, 
 in receding from his own repeated declarations in favour of 
 Mr. Wilkes? 
 
 In the two next articles I think we are agreed. You can- 
 didly admit, that he often makes such promises as it is a 
 virtue in hirn to violate, and that no man is more assiduous to 
 provide for his relations at the public expense. I did not 
 urge the last as an absolute vice in his disposition, but 
 to prove that a careless disinterested spirit is no part of 
 his character ; and as to the other, I desire it may be remem- 
 bered, that / never descended to the indecency of inquiring 
 into his convivial hours. It is you. Sir William Draper, who 
 have taken pains to represent your friend in the character of 
 a drunken landlord, who deals out his promises as liberally 
 as his liquor, and will suffer no man to leave his table either 
 sorrowful or sober. .None but an intimate friend, who must 
 frequently have seen him in these unhappy, disgraceful mo- 
 ments, could have described him so well. 
 
 The last charge, of the neglect of the army, is indeed tha 
 most material of all. I am sorry to tell you, Sir William, that, 
 in this article, your first fact is false ; and as there is nothing 
 more painful to me than to give a direct contradiction to a
 
 120 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 gentleman of your appearance, I could wish that, in your 
 future publications, you would pay a greater attention to the 
 truth of your premises, before you suffer your genius to hurry 
 you to a conclusion. Lord Ligonier did not deliver the army 
 (which you, in classical language, are pleased to call a palla- 
 dium) into Lord Gran by 's hands. It was taken from him 
 much against his inclination, some two or three years before 
 Lord Gi'anby was commaucler-in-chief. As to the state of the 
 army, I should be glad to know where you have received your 
 intelligence. Was it in the rooms at Bath, or at your retreat 
 at Clifton? The reports of reviewing generals comprehend 
 only a few regiments in England, -which, as they are immedi- 
 ately under the royal inspection, are perhaps in some tolerable 
 order. But do you know anything of the troops in the West 
 Indies, the Mediterranean, and North America, to say nothing 
 of a whole army absolutely ruined in Ireland? Inquire a 
 little into facts, Sir William, before you publish your next 
 panegyric upon Lord Granby, and, believe me, you will find 
 there is a fault at head-quarters, which even the acknowledged 
 care and abilities of the adjutant-general cannot correct *. 
 
 Permit me now, Sir William, to address myself personally 
 to you, by way of thanks for the honour of your correspond- 
 ence. You are by no means undeserving of notice; and it 
 may be of consequence, even to Lord G ranby, to have it deter- 
 mined, whether or no the man who has praised him so lavishly, 
 be himself deserving of praise. When you returned to Europe, 
 you zealously undertook the cause of that gallant army by 
 whose bravery at Manilla your own fortune had been estab- 
 lished. You complained, you threatened, you even appealed to 
 the public in print. By what accident did it happen, that in 
 the midst of all this bustle, and all these clamours for justice 
 to your injured troops, the name of the Manilla ransom was 
 suddenly buried in a profound, and, since that time, an unin- 
 terrupted, silence ? Did the ministry suggest any motives to 
 you strong enough to tempt a man of honour to desert and 
 betray the cause of his fellow-soldiers? Was it that blushing 
 ribband, which is now the perpetual ornament of your person? 
 Or was it that regiment, which you afterwards (a thing unpre- 
 cedented among soldiers) sold to Colonel Gisborne? Or was 
 it that government, the full pay of which you are contented 
 to hold, with the half-pay of an Irish colonel? And do you 
 * Adjutant- General Harvey.
 
 SECOND LETTER OF SIB WILLIAM DRAPER. 121 
 
 now, after a retreat not very like that of Scipio, presume to 
 intrude yourself, unthought of, uncalled for, upon the patience 
 of the public ? Are your flatteries of the commander-in chief 
 directed to another regiment, which you may again dispose of 
 on the same honourable terms ? We know your prudence, 
 Sir William, and I should be sorry to stop your preferment 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER IV 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 Sir William Draper severely felt the force of the argument and invectiva 
 in the preceding letter, and was excited to make a second attempt to vindi- 
 cate as well his own honour as that of the Marquis of Granby, and to 
 evince, if possible, that his literary talents were not utterly contemptible in 
 comparison with those of Junius. His reply is of considerable merit, as a 
 piece of exculpatory eloquence. It is written more carefully than his former 
 letter, and with somewhat more of oratorical art. Yet, even liere, he deals 
 with too much of artless candour ; he affects too much the use of such orna- 
 ments as are fittest to adorn the theme of a school- boy, or the laboured essay 
 of a college pedant; he descends into detail and confession, too much in the 
 manner of a man that felt himself humbled, awed, subdued, before his ad 
 versary. 
 
 Sir William begins with remarking what advantages Junius derives from 
 the concealment of his person ; how dishonest are the motives by which he 
 must be prompted ; how bitter his malignity; how ungenerous his misrepre- 
 sentations ; how powerfully his literary talents have seconded the badness of 
 his heart. The author next renews his defence of Lord Granby, and main- 
 tains it with a degree of skill, that seems to have been sufficient to deter 
 Junius from returning upon that nobleman's character as a fit subject of poli- 
 tical satire. Of the state of the army, too, Sir William here writes with a 
 knowledge of military fitness, and of the certain principles of human action, 
 by which the force of the animadversions of Junius is in a great degree de- 
 stroyed. But, when he comes to speak of himself, he at once discovers the 
 whole extent of his humiliation. He makes confession, as if he were on the 
 rack, and, in the fulness of his heart, brings his adversary acquainted with 
 facts against him, which but for this too frank discovery might not have be- 
 come publicly known. Had he not thus furnished his opponent with a key 
 to secrets, of which the notoriety was to make him odious, perhaps he might 
 have retired from the contention without bitterness or disgrace. 
 
 SIR, February 17, 1769. 
 
 I RECEIVED Junius 's favour last night ; he is determined to 
 k^ep his advantage by the help of his mask; it is an excellent
 
 122 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 protection, it has saved many a man from an untimely >nd 
 But whenever he will be honest enough to lay it aside, avow 
 himself, and produce the face which has so long lurked behind 
 it, the world will be able to judge of his motives for writing 
 such infamous invectives. His real name will discover his 
 freedom and independency, or his servility to a faction. Dis- 
 appointed ambition, resentment for defeated hopes, and desire 
 of revenge, assume but too often the appearance of public 
 spirit ; but be his designs wicked or charitable, Junius should 
 learn that it is possible to condemn measures, without a bar- 
 barous and criminal outrage against men. Junius delights to 
 mangle carcases with a hatchet ; his language and instrument 
 have a great connection with Clare-market, and, to do him 
 justice, he handles his weapon most admirably. One would 
 imagine he had been taught to throw it by the savages of 
 America. It is therefore high time for me to step in once 
 more to shield my friend from this merciless weapon, although 
 I may be wounded in the attempt. But I must first ask 
 Junius, by what forced analogy and construction the moments 
 of convivial mirth are made to signify indecency, a violation 
 of engagements, a drunken landlord, and a desire that every 
 one in company should be drunk likewise? He must have 
 culled all the flowers of St. Giles's and Billingsgate to have 
 produced such a piece of oratory. Here the hatchet descends 
 with tenfold vengeance ; but, alas ! it hurts no one but its 
 master ! For Junius must not think to put words into my 
 mouth, that seem too foul even for his own. 
 
 My friend's political engagements I know not, so cannot, 
 pretend to explain them, or assert their consistency. I know 
 not whether Junius be considerable enough to belong to any 
 party ; if he should be so, can he affirm that he has always 
 adhered to one set of men and measures? Is he sure that he 
 has never sided with those whom he was first hired to abuse? 
 Has he never abused those he was hired to praise ? To say 
 the truth, most men's politics sit much too loosely about 
 them. But as my friend's military character was the chief 
 object that engaged me in this controversy, to that I shall 
 return. 
 
 Junius asks what instances my friend has given of his 
 military skill and capacity as a general ? When and where 
 he gained his honour? When he deserved his emoluments?
 
 SECOND Lt'TTEK OF SIR WILLIAM DEAPEE. 138 
 
 The united voice of the army which served under him, the 
 glorious testimony of Prince Ferdinand, and of vanqui&ued 
 enemies, all Germany will tell him. Junius repeats the com- 
 plaints of the army against parliamentary influence. I love 
 the army too well, not to wish that such influence were less. 
 Let Junius point out the time when it has not prevailed. It 
 was of the least force in the time of that great man, the late 
 Duke of Cumberland, who, as a prince of the blood, was able 
 as well as willing to stem a torrent which would have over- 
 borne any private subject. In time of war this influence is 
 small. In peace, when discontent and faction have the surest 
 means to operate, especially in this country, and when from a 
 scarcity of public spirit, the wheels of government are rarely 
 moved, but by the power and force of obligations, its weight is 
 always too great. Yet if this influence at present has done no 
 greater harm than the placing Earl Percy at the head of a 
 regiment, I do not think that either the rights or best in- 
 terests of the army are sacrificed and betrayed, or the nation 
 undone. Let me ask Junius, if he knows any one nobleman 
 in the army, who has had a regiment by seniority ? I feel 
 myself happy in seeing young noblemen of illustrious name 
 and great property come among us. They are an additional 
 security to the kingdom from foreign or domestic slavery. 
 Junius needs not be told, that should the time ever como 
 when this nation is to be defended only by those who have 
 nothing more to lose than their arms and their pay its danger 
 will be great indeed. A happy mixture of men of quality 
 with soldiers of fortune is always to be wished for But the 
 main point is still to be contended for I mean the discipline 
 and condition of the army ; and I still must maintain, though 
 contradicted by Junius, that it was never upon a mo re respectable 
 footing, as to ail the essentials that can form good soldiers, 
 than it is at present. Junius is forced to allow that our army 
 at home may be in some tolerable order; yet how kindly 
 does he invite our late enemies to the invasion of Ireland, 
 by assuring them that the army in that kingdom is totally 
 ruined ! (The colonels of that army are much obliged to him.) 
 I have too great an opinion of the military talents of the lord 
 lieutenant, and of their diligence and capacity, to believe it. 
 If from some strange, unaccountable fatality, the people of 
 that kingdom cannot be induced to consult their own security
 
 124 LETTERS OF JUSTUS 
 
 by srtch an effectuiJ augmentation as may enable the troops 
 there to act with power and energy, is the coramander-m 
 chief here to blame ? Or is he to blame, because the troops 
 in the Mediterranean, in the West Indies, in America, labour 
 under great difficulties from the scarcity of men, which is but 
 too visible all over these kingdoms ! Many of our forces are 
 in climates unfavourable to British constitutions: their loss 
 is in proportion. Britain must recruit all these regiments 
 from her own emaciated bosom, or, more precariously, by 
 Catholics from Ireland. We are likewise subject to the 
 fatal drains to the East Indies, to Senegal, and the alarming 
 emigrations of our people to other countries. Such depopula- 
 tion can only be repaired by a long peace, or by some sensible 
 bill of naturalization. 
 
 I must now take the liberty to talk to Junius on my own 
 account. He is pleased to tell me that he addresses himself 
 to me personally. I shall be glad to see him. It is his im- 
 personality that I complain of, and his invisible attacks ; for 
 his dagger in the air is only to be regarded, because one can- 
 not see the hand which holds it ; but had he not wounded 
 other people more deeply than myself, I should not have ob- 
 truded myself at all on the patience of (he public. 
 
 Mark how a plain tale shall put him down, and transfuse 
 the blush of my ribband into his own cheeks! Junius tells 
 me, that, at my return, I zealously undertook the cause of the 
 gallant army by whose bravery at Manilla my own fortunes 
 were established ; that I complained, that I even appealed, to 
 the public. I did so ; I glory in having done so, as I had an 
 undoubted right to vindicate my own character, attacked by a 
 Spanish memorial, and to assert the rights of my brave com- 
 panions. I glory likewise that I have never taken up my 
 pen but to vindicate the injured. Junius asks by what acci- 
 dent did it happen, that in the midst of all this bustle, and 
 all these clamours for justice to the injured troops, the Manilla 
 ransom was suddenly buried in a profound, and, since that 
 time, an uninterrupted silence ? I will explain the cause to 
 the public. The several ministers who have been employed 
 since that time have been very desirous to do us justice fronj 
 two most laudable motives, a strong inclination tc assist in- 
 jured bravery, and to acquire a well-deserved popularity tc 
 themselves. Their efforts have been in vain. Some were
 
 SECOND LETTER OF SIB WILLIAM DiiAPEB. 125 
 
 ingenuous enough to own, that they could not think of in- 
 volving this distressed nation in another war for our private 
 concerns. In short, our rights for the present are sacrificed 
 to national convenience ; and I must confess that, although I 
 may lose five -ami-twenty thousand pounds by their acquies- 
 cence to this breach of faith in the Spaniards, I think they 
 are in the right to temporize, considering the critical situation 
 of this country, convulsed in every part by poison infused by 
 anonymous, wicked, and incendiary writers. Lord Shelburne 
 will do me the justice to own that, in September last, I 
 waited upon him with a joint memorial from the admiral Sir 
 S. Cornish and myself, in behalf of our injured companions. 
 His lordship was as frank upon the occasion as other secre- 
 taries had been before him. He did not deceive us by giving 
 any immediate hopes of relief. 
 
 Junius would basely insinuate, that my silence may have 
 been purchased by my government, by my blushing ribband, 
 by my regiment, by the sale of that regiment, and by my half- 
 pay as an Irish colonel. 
 
 His Majesty was pleased to give me my government [Yar- 
 mouth], for my services at Madras. I had my first regiment 
 in 1757. Upon my return from Manilla, his Majesty, by 
 Lord Egremont, informed me that I should have the first 
 vacant red ribband, as a reward for my services in an enter- 
 prise which I had planned as well as executed. The Duke 
 of Bedford and Mr. Grenville confirmed those assurances 
 many months before the Spaniards had protested the ransom 
 bills. To accommodate Lord Clive, then going upon a most 
 important service to Bengal, I waived my claim to the vacancy 
 which then happened. As there was no other vacancy until 
 the Duke of Grafton and Lord Eockingham were joint minis- 
 ters, I was then honoured with the order ; and it is surely no 
 small honour to me, that in such a succession of ministers, 
 they were all pleased to think that I had deserved it : in my 
 favour they were all united. Upon the reduction of the 79th 
 regiment, which had served so gloriously in the East Indies, 
 his Majesty, unsolicited by me, gave me the 16th of foot as 
 an equivalent. My motives for retiring afterwards are foreign 
 to the purpose ; let it suffice, that bis Majesty was pleased to 
 approve of them ; they are such as no man can think inde- 
 cent, who knows the shocks that repeated vicissitudes of heat
 
 126 LF.TTEBS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 and cold, of dangerous and sickly climates, will give to the 
 best constitutions in a pretty long course of service. I re- 
 signed my regiment to Colonel Gisborue, a very good officer, 
 for his half-pay, and 200L Irish annuity*; so that, according 
 to Junius, I have been bribed to say nothing more of the 
 Manilla ransom, and sacrifice those brave men by the strange 
 avarice of accepting three hundred and eighty pounds per an- 
 num, and giving up eight hundred ! If this be bribery, it is 
 not the bribery of these times. As to my flattery, those who 
 know me will judge of it. By the asperity of Junius's style, 
 I cannot indeed call him a flatterer, unless it be as a cynic or 
 a mastiff; if he wags his tail, he will still growl, and long to 
 bite. The public will now judge of the credit that ought to 
 be given to Juuius's writings, from the falsities that he has 
 insinuated with respect to myself. 
 
 WILLIAM DRAPER. 
 
 LETTER V 
 
 TO SIB WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF THE BATH. 
 SlB, February 21, 1769. 
 
 1 SHOULD justly be suspected of acting upon motives of more 
 than common enmity to Lord Granby, if I continued to give 
 you fresh materials or occasion for writing in his defence. 
 
 * The letter, as it appeared in the Public Advertiser, stated, by mistake, 
 " twelve hundred pounds Irish annuity ! " and the error continued to be propa- 
 gated through every edition of Junius's Letters, without a single exception. 
 In a note addressed to the printer, however, and published in the same news- 
 paper, Feb. 22, 1769, the mistake is noticed and corrected as follows : 
 
 ' Sir, Feb. 19. 
 
 ' I beg the favour of you to correct the following error m my answer to 
 Junius. Instead of 1200/. please to put, 'and 200L Irish annuity." 
 
 ' I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Yours', &c., 
 
 <W. DRAPER.' 
 
 But it would seem that Junius preferred the error to the correction, for 
 m the edition of his letters revised by himself, the error in the amount of Sir 
 William Draper's Irish annuity is retained, and thence, doubtless, continued 
 in subsequent impressions. But it may have been an oversight, as in the 
 next letter Junias mentions correctly the amount of Drnper's Irish 
 annuity. ED.
 
 Sltt WILLIAM DRAPER 127 
 
 Individuals who hate and the public who despise, him have 
 read your letters, 5ir William, with infinitely more satisfac- 
 tiv>n than mine. Unfortunately for him, his reputation, like 
 that unhappy country to which you refer me for his last mili- 
 tary achievements, has suffered more by his friends than his 
 enemies. In mercy to him, let us drop the subject*. For 
 my own part, I willingly leave it to the public to determine 
 whether your vindication of your friend has been as able and 
 judicious, as it was certainly well intended ; and you, I think, 
 may be satisfied with the warm acknowledgments he already 
 owes you, for making him the principal figure in a piece, in 
 which, but for your amicable assistance, he might have passed 
 without particular notice or distinction. 
 
 In justice to your friends, let your future labours be con 
 fined to the care of your own reputation. Your declaration, 
 that you are happy in seeing young noblemen come among us, 
 is liable to two objections. With respect to Lord Percy, it 
 means nothing, for he was already in the army. He was aid 
 de-camp to the king, and had the rank of colonel. A regi- 
 ment, therefore, could not, make him a more military man, 
 though it made him richer, and probably at the expense of 
 some brave, deserving, friendless officer. The other concerns 
 yourself. After selling the companions of your victory in one 
 instance, and after selling your profession in the other, by 
 what authority do you presume to call yourself a soldier ? 
 The plain evidence of facts is superior to all declarations. 
 Before you were appointed to the 16th regiment, your com- 
 plaints were a distress to government ; from that moment 
 you were silent. The conclusion is inevitable. You insinuate 
 to us that your ill state of health obliged you to quit the 
 service. The retirement necessary to repair a broken consti- 
 tution would have been as good a reason for not accepting as 
 for resigning the command of a regiment. There is certainly 
 an error of the press, or an affected obscurity, in that para- 
 graph where you speak of your bargain with Colonel Gis- 
 borne. Instead of attempting to answer what I really do not 
 understand, permit me to explain to the public what I really 
 
 * This is certainly leaving a kind-hearted man, and popular idol, in very 
 humble plight : that Lord Qranby enjoyed popularity in his day, as well af 
 th;- late Duke of York, and of the same kind, may be inferred from the foc 
 that his effigy may still be occasionally descried on tbe lign-boarde of old 
 eouiitrv inns. ED<
 
 l-o LETTEBS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 know. In exchange for your regiment you accepted of & 
 colonel's half-pay (at least 2'20J. a year) and an annuity of 
 200. for your own and Lady Draper's life jointly. And is 
 this the losing bargain which you would represent to us, as 
 if you had given up an income of 800L a year for 380L ? 
 Was it decent, was it honourable, in a man who pretends to 
 love the army, and calls himself a soldier, to make a traffic of 
 the royal favour, and turn the highest honour of an active 
 profession into a sordid provision for himself and his family ? 
 It were unworthy of me to press you farther. The contempt 
 with which the whole army heard of the manner of your 
 retreat, assures me that as your conduct was not justified by 
 precedent it will never be thought an example for imitation. 
 
 The last and most important question remains. When 
 vou receive your half-pay, do you, or do you not, take a solemn 
 oath, or sign a declaration upon honour, to the following 
 effect? That you do not actually ho! d any place of profit, 
 civil or military, under his Majesty. The charge which this 
 question plainly conveys against you, is of so shocking a com- 
 plexion, that I sincerely wish you may be able to answer it 
 well, not merely for the colour of your reputation, but for 
 your own inward peace of mind. 
 
 JUNIUS.* 
 
 P.S. I had determined to leave the commander-in-chief ir 
 the quiet enjoyment of his friends and the bottle ; but Titus 
 deserves an answer, and shall have a complete one 
 
 This postscript, though accompanying the letter which appeared in the 
 Public Advertiser, was omitted by Junius in his own collected edition. ED. 
 
 * Heron is in raptures on the felicities of Junius in this brief rejoinder. 
 " Not splendour of imagination," says he, " but keen energy of sentiment, 
 forcible cogency of logic, strong propriety of at plication, business-like plainness, 
 secretly combined with all the labour of eloquence, an art concealing all art, 
 constitute the excellence of this letter of Junius. There is nothing more 
 masterly, hardly aught equally so, in the invectives of Cicero against Antony, 
 Catiline, or Verres. Compare the style of this letter with that of Johnson, 
 in his pamphlet on the subject of Falkland's Islands ; that of Gibbon, in his 
 answer to Davis ; or that of James Macpherson, in his famous pamphlet, inti- 
 tuled " A Short History of the Opposition ; " and you shall perceive how much 
 Junius here excels these great writers, by combining with happier skill than 
 they the natural tone and manner of real business, with the ornaments of 
 eloquence, and the artifices of rhetoric." The writhings of Sir William will be 
 seen, if not felt, in the subjoined reply : ho has obviously become more cau- 
 tious in hi dealings with his unknown tormentor, but the last sentence 
 shows how bitterly he feels the scniiHcation he has undergon". BD.
 
 THIBD LETTER OF BIB WILLIAM DRAPEB. 120 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, February 27, 1769. 
 
 I HAVE a very short answer for Junius's important question : 
 I do not either take an oath, or declare upon honour, that I 
 have no place of profit, civil or military, when I receive the 
 half-pay as an Irish colonel. My most gracious sovereign 
 gives it me as a pension ; he was pleased to think I deserved 
 it. The annuity of 200Z. Irish, and the equivalent for the 
 half-pay, together produce no more than 380/. per annum, 
 clear of fees and perquisites of office. I receive 167L from 
 my government of Yarmouth. Total 547/. per annum. My 
 conscience is much at ease in these particulars ; my friends 
 need not hlush for me. 
 
 Junius makes much and frequent use of interrogations : 
 they are arms that may be easily turned against himself. I 
 could, by malicious interrogations, disturb the peace of the 
 most virtuous man in the kingdom ; I could take the deca- 
 logue, and say to one man, Did you never steal? To the 
 next, Did you never commit murder? And to Junius him- 
 self, who is putting my life and conduct to the rack, Did you 
 never bear false witness against thy neighbour? Junius must 
 easily see that, unless he affirms the contrary in his real 
 name, some people who may be as ignorant of him as I am, 
 will be apt to suspect him of having deviated a little from the 
 truth : therefore let Junius ask no more questions. You bite 
 against a file : cease, viper. 
 
 W. D. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 TO SIB WILLIAM DBAPEB, KNIGHT OF THE BATH *. 
 
 SIR, March 3, 1769. 
 
 A.N academical education has given you an unlimited command 
 over the most beautiful figures of speech. Masks, hatchets, 
 
 * Mr. Heron esteems this letter the lo Triumphe of Juniui, in regard 
 ic the general result of his newspaper sorrespondence with Sir Williara 
 TOL. I. K
 
 130 LEIlliKS OF JUMTTS. 
 
 racks, and vipers dance through your letters in all the maze* 
 of metaphorical confusion. These are the gloomy companion* 
 of a disturbed imagination; the melancholy madness of poetry, 
 without the inspiration. I will not contend with you in point 
 of composition. You are a scholar, Sir William, and, if I am 
 truly informed, you write Latin with almost as much purity 
 as English. Suffer me then, for I am a plain unlettered 
 man, to continue that style of interrogation, which suits my 
 capacity, and to which, considering the readiness of your 
 answers, you ought to have no objection. Even Mr. Biugley* 
 promises to answer, if put to the torture. 
 
 l)o you then really think that, if I were to ask a most 
 virtuous man whether he ever committed theft, or murder, it 
 would disturb his peace of mind? Such a question might 
 perhaps discompose the gravity of his muscles, but I believe 
 it would little affect the tranquillity of his conscience. Ex- 
 amine your own breast, Sir William, and you will discover 
 that reproaches and inquiries have no power to afflict either 
 the man of unblemished integrity, or the abandoned profli- 
 gate. It is the middle compound character which alone is 
 
 Draper. The concluding paragraph bids adieu in a mitigated tone, but still 
 in the style of a man who looked down from an infinite distance upon his 
 antagonist prostrate at his feet, and assumed the authority of a conqueror, in 
 insulting at once the courage, the honour, and the prudence, of him whom 
 he had brought thus low. It must be owned that, as Sir William Draper's 
 open interposition in the controversy with Junius was spontaneous, with a 
 knowledge of the conditions under which he was to contend, Junius cannot 
 be, in candour blamed, as having dealt unfairly by him. Yet one would 
 rather recommend these letters to Sir William Draper as a model of contro- 
 versial address, of argumentative closeness, of skill to confound the under- 
 standing by harassing the passions, than as examples of noble liberality and 
 candour. ED. 
 
 * This man, being committed by the Court of King's Bench for a con- 
 tempt, voluntarily made oath, that he would never answer interrogatories, 
 unl'iss he should be put to the torture. JUNIUS. 
 
 JJingley was by trade a printer, and in the character here referred to, a 
 witness for the crown in a cause between government and Wilkes. It is dif- 
 ficult to say for what purpose this man was subpoenaed on either side, for his 
 obstinacy was so extreme, that he could not be induced to answer the inter- 
 rogatories addressed to him on the part either of the plaintiff or defendant. 
 It was on this account he was committed to the King's Bench Prison, whera 
 he continued as refractory as in the King's Bench Court : he was at length 
 discharged, on the motion of the Attorney-General, without any submission 
 on his own part, from the mere idea that he had suffered seveiely enough fat 
 his contumacy.
 
 TO SIB WILLIAV DRAl'ER. 181 
 
 vulnerable: the man, \vhc, without firmness enough to avoid 
 a dishonourable action, has feelitg enough to be ashamed of it. 
 
 I thank you for your hint of the decalogue, and shall take 
 nn opportunity of applying it to some of your most virtuous 
 friends in both Houses of Parliament. 
 
 You seem to have dropped the affair of your regiment; so 
 let it rest. When you are appointed to another, I dare say 
 you will not sell it either for a gross sum, or for an annuity 
 upon lives. 
 
 I am truly glad (for really, Sir William, I am not your 
 enemy, nor did I begin this contest with you,) that you have 
 been able to clear yourself of a crime, though at the expense 
 of the highest indiscretion. You say that your half-pay was 
 given you by way of pension. I will not dwell upon the 
 singularity of uniting in your own person two sorts of provi- 
 sion, which in their own nature, and in all military and parlia- 
 mentary views, are incompatible; but I call upon you to justify 
 that declaration wherein you charge your sovereign with 
 having done an act in your favour, notoriously against law. 
 The half-pay, both in Ireland and England, is appropriated 
 by Parliament; and if it be given to persons who, like you, 
 are legally incapable of holding it, it is a breach of law. It 
 would have been more decent in you to have called this dis- 
 honourable transaction by its true name a job to accommodate 
 two persons, by particular interest and management at the 
 Castle. What sense must Government have had of your 
 services, when the rewards they have given you are only a 
 disgrace to you ! 
 
 And now, Sir William, I shall take my leave of you for 
 ever. Motives very different from any apprehension of your 
 resentment, make it impossible you should ever know me. 
 Tn truth, you have some reason to hold yourself indebted to 
 me. From the lessons I have given you, you may collect a 
 profitable instruction for your future life. They will either 
 teach you so to regulate your conduct as to be able to set 
 the most malicious inquiries at defiance ; or, if that be a lost 
 hope, they will teach you prudence enough not to attract the 
 public attention to a character which will only pass without 
 censure when it passes without observation. 
 
 JUNIU3.
 
 132 LETTEBS OF JUNTOS- 
 
 It has ben said, and I believe truly, that it was signified to Sir 'William 
 Draper, as the request of Lord Granby, that he should desist from writing in 
 his Lordship's defence. Sir William Draper certainly drew Junius forward 
 to sav more of Lord Granby's character than he originally intended. He was 
 reduced to the dilemma of either being totally silenced, or of supporting hit 
 first letter. Whether Sir William had a right to reduce him to this dilemma, 
 or to call upon him for his name, after a voluntary attack on his side, are 
 questions submitted to the candour of the public. The death of Lord Granby 
 was lamented by Junius. He undoubtedly owed some compensations to the 
 public, and seemed determined to acquit himself of them. In private life, 
 he was unquestionably that good man who, for the interest of his country, 
 ought to have been a great one. JBonum viruni faciie dixeris; magnum 
 libenter. I speak of him now without partiality; I never spoke of him 
 with resentment His mistakes in public conduct did not arise either from 
 want of sentiment, or want of judgment, but in general from the difficulty ol 
 saying HO to the bad people who surrounded him. 
 
 As for the rest, the friends of Lord Granby should remember, that he him- 
 self thought proper to condemn, retract, and disavow, by a most solemn de- 
 claration in the House of Commons, that very system of political conduct 
 which Junius had held forth to the disapprobation of the public. JUNIUS. 
 
 The politics of Sir William Draper were certainly not violent, and he ap- 
 pears to have been rather a private friend of the Marquis's than a partisan on 
 either side of the question. The following letter, published by him in the 
 Public Advertiser, in the very midst of his dispute with Junius, is highly 
 creditable to his liberality, and sufficiently proves the truth of the assertion 
 of Junius, that he could not be, at least upon political principles, Sir Wil- 
 liam's enemy. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER. 
 
 SIR, Clifton, February 6, 1769. 
 
 IF the voice of a well-meaning individual could be heard amidst the clamour, 
 fury, and madness of the times, would it appear too rash and presumptuous 
 to propose to the public, that an act of indemnity and oblivion may be made 
 for all past transactions and offences, as well with respect to Mr. Wilkes as 
 to our colonies ? Such salutary expedients have been embraced by the wisest 
 of nations ; such expedients have been made nse of by our own, when the 
 public confusion had arrived to some very dangerous and alarming crisis; and 
 I believe it needs not the gift of prophecy to foretell that some such crisis is 
 now approaching. Perhaps it will be more wise and praiseworthy to make 
 such an act immediately, in order to prevent the possibility (not to say the 
 probability) of an insurrection at home and in our dependencies abroad, than 
 it will be to be obliged to have recourse to one after the mischief has been 
 done, and the kingdom has groaned under all the miseries that avarice, am- 
 bition, hypocrisy, and madness, could inflict upon it. An act of grace, in- 
 demnity, and oblivion, was passed at the restoration of King Charles the 
 Second ; but I will venture to say that had such an act been seasonably 
 passed in the reign of his unhappy father, the civil war had been prevenVd, 
 and no restoration had been necessary. Is it too late to recall all the me> 
 sengers and edicts of wrath ? Cannot the money that is now wasted in end- 
 less and mutual prosecutions, and in stopping the mouth of one person, and
 
 TO SIB WILLIAM DRAPER. 108 
 
 ipenir.g that nf another, be better employed in erecting a temple to Concord? 
 Let Mr, Wilkes lay the first stone, and juch a stone as I hope the builders 
 will not refuse. May this parliament, to use Lord Clarendon's expression, 
 be called " The healing parliament ! " May our foul wounds be cleansed 
 and then closed 1 The English have been as famous for good-natuiJ as for 
 valour let it be not said that such qualities are degenerated into savage 
 ferocity. If any of my friends in either house of legislature shall condescend 
 to listen to and improve these* hints, I shall think that I have not lived 
 in vain. 
 
 WILLIAM DRAPER. 
 
 Sir William, in return, if he ever had any personal enmity against Junius, 
 appears to have relinquished it completely a short time after the contest, if 
 we may judge from the following anecdote given by Mr. Campbell in his Lifo 
 of Hugh Boyd, p. 185. 
 
 "Some months after the Letters of Junius were published collectively, 
 Boyd met Sir William Draper at the tennis court, where their acquaint- 
 ance was originally formed in the year 1769, and where (being both great 
 tennis players) they used often to meet; the conversation turning upon 
 Junius, Sir William observed, " That though Junius had treated him with 
 extreme severity, he now looked upon him as a very honest fellow; that he 
 freely forgave him for the bitterness of his censures, and that there was no 
 man with whom he would more gladly drink a bottle of old Burgundy." 
 
 Sir W. Draper, as far as Lord Granby was implicated, dropped the sub- 
 ject, though he subsequently wrote the following letter in defence of his own 
 conduct, in which he again calls upon Junius to avow himself. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, Clifton, April 24, 1769. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN who signed himself An Half-pay Subaltern, has called upon 
 me to stand forth in the behalf of the much distressed officers now upon 
 half-pay. He was pleased to say, that I have an effectual method of being 
 rca'ly serviceable to the officers of my reduced regiment. I should have 
 been happy in receiving, by a private letter, that gentleman's idea of relief 
 for them ; could have wished he had made use of a more agreeable mode of 
 application than a public newspaper, as, unluckily, these ill-seasoned provo- 
 cative* are more apt to disgust than quicken the desire of doing good, espe- 
 cially when they are accompanied by invidious reflections, both rash and ill- 
 founded ; at present I am quite at a loss to find out by what means a person 
 out of parliament, who has long retired from the great world, and who, of 
 course, has but very little influence or interest, can be of much use to those 
 gallant and distressed gentlemen, to many of whom I have the greatest olli- 
 gations, of which I have, upon all occasions, made the most public and grate' 
 fill acknowledgments ; nor was there the smallest necessity to wake me in 
 this loud manner to a remembrance of their important services, although 
 the writer has been pleased to charge me with forgetfulness a most heavy 
 imputation, as it implies ingratitude towards those by whom I have been s 
 ssentially assisted, and to whom I am so much indebted for my good for* 
 i7t, which, however, is not so great as the gentleman imagines : he himself 
 fcrgets that the Spaniards have also forgot to pay the -ansom. If he couW
 
 134 LETTERS OF JTJNIUS. 
 
 quicken their memory, instead of mine, the officers would l>e more obliged 
 to him. 
 
 Their bravery ha* given me a competency, a golden mediocinty, but not 
 much affluence or luxury, which is a stranger to my house as well as to my 
 thoughts ; and I here most solemnly declare (notwithstanding the false asser- 
 tions of a Junius, who has told the world that I had sold the partners of my 
 victory, and then gravely asked me if I were not guilty of perjury) that my 
 income is now less than when I first went to Manilla. It is true that its 
 being so is by my own choice : I am voluntarily upon an equivalent for half- 
 pay ; and although I would most willingly stand forth in the service of my 
 king and country, should the necessity of the times demand my poor assist- 
 ance, yet I would not again accept of any regiment whatsoever, or interfere 
 with the pretensions of those officers whose good fortune has been less than 
 their merits ; and I here most solemnly declare, that I never received either 
 from the East India Company, or from the Spaniards, directly or indirectly, 
 any present or gratification or any circumstance of emolument whatsoever, to 
 the amount of five shillings, during the whole course of the expedition, or 
 afterwards, my legal prize-money excepted. The Spaniards know that I re- 
 fused the sum of fifty thousand pounds offered me by the Archbishop, to miti- 
 gate the terms of the ransom, and to reduce it to half a million, instead of a 
 whole one, so that had I been disposed to have basely sold the partners of mj 
 victory, avarice herself could not have wished for a richer opportunity. 
 
 The many base insinuations that have been of late thrown out to my dis- 
 advantage in the public papers, oblige rne to have recourse to trhe same chan- 
 nel for my vindication, and flatter myself that the public will be candid 
 enough not to impute it to arrogance, vanity, or the impertinence of egotism; 
 and hope that as much credit will be given to the assertions of a man who is 
 ready to seal his testimony with his blood, as to a writer, who, when re- 
 peatedly called upon to avow himself, and personally maintain his accusation, 
 atill skulks in the dark, or in the mean subterfuge of a mask. 
 
 W. D. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 
 
 WHEN Junius closed hi correspondence with Sir William Draper, he WM 
 impatient to aim at a nobler quarry. The Duke of Grafton was now princi- 
 pal minister, or First Lord of the Treasury. He stood at the head of those 
 whom this writer wished to frighten from the helm of affairs. But for the 
 interposition of Sir William Draper, and the discussion of the character of 
 Lord Granby, the duke would probably have been singled out the first for 
 a particular attack. Although writing these letters, evidently, upon a pre- 
 conceived and regular plan, yet Junius had so settled this plan with himsi If, 
 that he could seize, towards its accomplishment in any part, whatever nevr 
 events should rise upon the public notice while he was proceeding in the 
 eeries of his epistolary invectives. He, in this letter, took occasion to open 
 his attack on the Duke of Graf ion, by joining in the a atcry of pop^^ar rt>
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 135 
 
 9f iitinet t. oji account of a pardon granted to a chairman who had been con- 
 demned for murder, and whom the populace of London wished rather to have 
 *een hanged. The circumstances of the case are worthy of being here men- 
 tioned somewhat in detail. 
 
 The resignation of Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple, upon the rejection of the 
 former's advice to declare war against Spain, was, perhaps, fully justified by 
 the information and the views on which that advice was founded. But the 
 resignation of those ministers was made the signal for raising the outrageous 
 clamour of unpopularity against the government of the sovereign, whose coun- 
 cils they had forsaken. When the Duke of Newcastle, and his dependants, 
 at length reluctantly followed their example, a new agency was added to in- 
 crease the bluster of t'.ie storm. The populace of London and Westminster 
 would not, of themselves, have easily become prompt to seditious tumults, 
 against the sway of a young monarch of an interesting person, and the fairest 
 private character. But the discontented great openly encouraged, to a certain 
 length, the murmurs and tumults of the people ; and what they themselves would 
 not openly do to provoke those tumults and murmurs, that they contrived to 
 have done more secretly by busy agitators, and anonymous writings. The 
 North Briton, the work of John Wilkes, assisted by Charles Churchill and Lord 
 Temple, was admirably addressed to every popular prejudice and passion, 
 and contibuted, therefore, in an extraordinary degree, to inflame both high 
 and low, especially about the metropolis, with mingled rage and contempt 
 against the government. When the famous Forty-fifth number of that paper 
 appeared, the ministry thought they saw the occasion which they desired to 
 have arrived. They began their proceedings against its author by a measure 
 which, though its use had been exemplified by the Whigs at the height ot 
 their power, was a violation of the fundamental laws of the constitution* 
 This measure was the issuing of a general warrant, in the trial of the 
 validity of which the courts of law gave the triumph to Wilkes. Nothing 
 animates vulgar ferocity and turbulence more than success. The government 
 became, therefore, doubly unpopular, after the courts of law had, in one in- 
 stance, declared against it. The Whigs in opposition saw with joy the un- 
 popularity of the ministry, for they naturally believed that a young king, 
 desirous of the love of his people, and personally deserving it, would not 
 fail to dismiss his present ministers and favourites, if he should be once con- 
 vinced that they, and they alone, made him odious to his subjects. Wilkes's 
 imprudence soon reversed his triumph. He was expelHd the House of Com- 
 mons, and prosecuted to outlawry before a court of justice. Yet the popular 
 ferment did not subside, nor could the tumultuous spirit of the people be 
 easily reduced under the proper restraints. There had been irregularities in 
 the renewed proceedings against the author of the North Briton, which, 
 arisicg from nothing but imprudence and want of address in the ministers, 
 were by the art of opposition represented to the people as indications of a 
 settled design to overthrow the national liberties. By various acts, almost 
 all the Whigs in the opposition, directly or indirectly, engaged never to take 
 a part in the administration, without procuring a reversal of what had been 
 done against Wilkes, and without compensating him for his sufferings ia 
 what was esteemed to be a public cause. On the other hand, for a while, 
 no party would be admitted into tdministration, without embracing the j>riu-
 
 ISO 1ETTKRS OP JUNIUS. 
 
 ciples and the consequences of the prosecution of Wilkes. The Marquis 
 of Rockingham's administration of 1765 were reduced to the humiliation cf 
 pensioning Wilkes abroad, that they might not lose, by his return upon them, 
 either the king or people. When the Duke of Grafton rose into greater au- 
 thority, under the ministry of Lord Chatham, he taught his friend Wilkes to 
 expect, from his good offices, all that either Wilkes himself or the public 
 could demand in his favour. Wilkes returned, submitted himself to the laws 
 of his country, had his outlawry annulled, and was condemned to suffer 
 punishment under the effect of his former prosecution. The Duke of Grafton 
 could not fulfil what he had promised, yet the vigilance and the energies of 
 government were somehow unaccountably relaxed in favour of the daring 
 agitator. The people were glad to see him brave the government and the 
 parliament to the teeth. They espoused his cause with eagerness infinitely 
 greater than they had before discovered towards him. It seemed as if the 
 populace of London and Middlesex were the plels of ancient Rome, and 
 Wilkes a tribune. Even while he was an outlaw they would choose him at 
 the general election, to represent the county of Middlesex in parliament. 
 The rival candidates, whom government favoured, had a hired mob to con- 
 tend with the mob of Wilkes's partisans. In a fray a man of the name of 
 Clarke was killed by persons belonging to that which was called the hired 
 mob of the court. Those persons were brought to trial. In the exaspera- 
 tion of the people against the court, M'Quirk was found guilty by the jury. 
 The crown might have freely pardoned him, without publicly assigning any 
 reason for this act of mercy. But administration was, at this time, so timid 
 and feeble, in consequence of its former irregularities in the exercise of yower, 
 that even pardon to a condemned criminal might not be granted without 
 rendering an account to the people. By the advice of Lord Camden, at that 
 time Lord Chancellor, witnesses were again examined concerning the imme- 
 diate cause of Clarke's death. It was rendered probable that the jury who 
 found M'Quirk guilty might have been hastily mistaken. M'Quirk was par- 
 doned. The reasons for the pardon were made public, perhaps not more to 
 justify the sovereign, than to throw out an insinuation of partiality in the jury. 
 The clamour of the public was raised high against this act of mercy. Junius 
 marked their humour, and would not miss so fair an occasion of becoming 
 the apologist of their prejudices, and of inflaming their passions, in order the 
 more effectually to promote his own primary views. The contest between 
 the ministry and the people of the metropolis was on this occasion the fiercer, 
 because while the people complained, on the one hand, that the government 
 was disposed to support and strengthen itself by infractions of the law, and 
 an irregular exercise of the prerogative, the friends of government, on the 
 other hand, alleged that juries were eager to acquit every person tried before 
 them, however strong the evidence against him, if it were a public crime of 
 which he was accused, and that crime some attempt to thwart and embarrass 
 the executive power. 
 
 In this letter Junius introduces his animadversions on the pardon to 
 M'Quirk, with accusing the Duke of Grafton of making his sovereign odious 
 to the English nation, by exhibiting him, contrary to the design of the Eng- 
 lish constitution, as the author rather of acts of unpopular severity than of 
 Such as could be alone adopted to conciliate the favour of the people, and by
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTOJT 137 
 
 milking he exercise even of the royal prerogative of mercy to indi riduals. 
 appear to be sullen cruelty to the public at large. These insinuations were 
 intended both to reach the sovereign himself, in the estimation of the public, 
 and to excite, if the letter should fall into their hinds, mutual suspicions i. 
 the minis of the king and of his minister. 
 
 Junius next enters directly upon the subject which his letter was meant 
 to discuss. He suggests that government had employed every possible ex- 
 ertion of L ilue influence to save M'Quirk at his trial. He affirms that, 
 when his guilt had appeared too flagrant and too notorious to be by any arts 
 saved from the justice of an English jury, then, with singular wickedness 
 and folly, had the minister advised his sovereign to insult that jury, and en- 
 courage seditious riots, by pardoning, upon frivolous pretexts, a cTiniinal 
 whose profligacy mercy could not be expected to reclaim, and whose punish- 
 ment would have been a highly salutary example, to command due respect 
 for the king's peace, and due reverence for the laws. 
 
 He insinuates, as was then very industriously alleged by the demagogues 
 and agitators of the opposition, that the ministers were not unwilling to en- 
 courage riots, and every species of tumultuous licence, in order to procure a 
 pretence for superseding the legal functions of the civil magistracy, by the 
 ordinary employment of a military force to keep the peace. He next ex- 
 amines the reasons alleged for the pardon of M'Quirk, and pronounces them 
 absurdly frivolous. In the close of his letter he makes an eloquent transition 
 to the case of Mr. Wilkes, by which the minds of the public had been 
 deeply interested, and violently agitated. He strives to make the unpopular 
 pardon to M'Quirk still more odious, by contrasting it with the obstinacy 
 with which Government denied the only pardon which the people were 
 greatly solicitous to obtain, and concludes with a fierce accusation of the 
 Duke's private morals and public conduct. HERON. 
 
 MY LORD, March 18, 1769. 
 
 BEFORE you were placed at the head of affairs, it had been a 
 maxim of the English Government, not unwillingly admitted 
 by the people, that every ungracious or severe exertion of the 
 prerogative should be placed to the account of the minister ; 
 but that whenever an act of grace or benevolence was to be 
 performed, the whole merit of it should be attributed to the 
 Sovereign himself*. It was a wise doctrine, my lord, and 
 equally advantageous to the king and to his subjects; for while 
 it preserved that suspicious attention with which the people 
 ought always to examine the conduct of ministers, it tended 
 at the same time rather to increase than to diminish their 
 attachment to the person of their Sovereign. If there be not 
 a fatality attending every measure you are concerned in, by 
 what treachery or by what excess of folly has it happened, 
 
 * Les rois ne se sont reserve qne les graces. Us invoient les condamnp- 
 ti(H rer* leur c flickers. Montesquieu. -Jvmvs.
 
 138 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 thai thosrt ungracious acts which have distinguished your 
 administration, and which I doubt not were entirely y:mr own, 
 should carry with them a strong appearance of personal 
 interest, and even of personal enmity, in a quarter where no 
 such interest or enmity can he supposed to exist without the 
 highest injustice and the highest dishonour? On the other 
 hand, by what judicious management have you contrived it 
 that the only act of mercy to which you ever advised youi 
 Sovereign, far from adding to the lustre of a character truly 
 gracious and benevolent, should be received with universal 
 disapprobation and disgust ? I shall consider it as a minis- 
 terial measure, because it is an odious one, and as your mea- 
 sure, my Lord Duke, because you are the minister. 
 
 As long as the trial of this chairman was depending, it was 
 natural enough that Government should give him every pos- 
 sible encouragement and support. The honourable service for 
 which he was hired, and the spirit with which he performed it, 
 made common cause between your Grace and him. The minister 
 who by secret corruption invades the freedom of elections, and 
 the ruffian who by open violence destroys that freedom, are 
 embarked in the same bottom. They have the same interests, 
 and mutually feel for each other. To do justice to your 
 Grace's humanity, you felt for M 'Quirk as you ought to do, 
 and if you had been contented to assist him indirectly, with- 
 out a notorious denial of justice, or openly insulting the sense 
 of the nation, you might have satisfied every duty of political 
 friendship, without committing the honour of your Sovereign, 
 or hazarding the reputation of his government. But when 
 this unhappy man had been solemnly tried, convicted and 
 condemned; when it appeared that he had been frequently 
 employed in the same services, and that no excuse for him 
 could be drawn either from the innocence of his former life, 
 or the simplicity of his character, was it not hazarding too 
 much to interpose the strength of the prerogative between 
 this felon and the justice of his country*? You ought to 
 
 * WliiteluM, March 11, 1769. His Majesty has been graciously pleased 
 to extend his royal mercy to Edward M'Quirk, found guilty of the murdei 
 of George Clarke, as appears by his royal warrant, to the teuor following : 
 
 GEORGE R. 
 
 WHERF.AS a doubt hail arisen in Our Royal breast concerning the evident* 
 of the Death of George Clarke, from the representations of William Bromfieldi
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GBAFTON. 139 
 
 have known that an example of this sort was never so neces 
 sary as at present; and certainly you must have known that 
 the lot could not have fallen upon a more guilty object 
 What system of government is this? You are perpetually 
 complaining of the riotous disposition of the lower class of 
 people, yet, when the laws have given you the means of making 
 an example, in every sense unexceptionable, and by far the 
 most likely to awe the multitude, you pardon the offenre, and 
 are not ashamed to give the sanction of Government to the 
 riots you complain of, and even to future murders. You are 
 
 Esq., surgeon, and Solomon Starling, apothecary ; both of whom, as has beea 
 represented to Us, attended the deceased before his death, and expressed 
 their opinions that he did not die of the blow he received at Brentford : 
 And whereas it appears to Us, that neither of the said persons were produced 
 as witnesses upon the trial, though the said Solomon Starling had been ex- 
 amined before the coroner, and the only person called to prove that the death 
 of the said George Clarke was occasioned by the said blow was John Foot, 
 surgeon, who never saw the deceased till after his death : We thought fit, 
 thereupon, to refer the said representations, together with the report of the 
 Recorder of Our City of London, of the evidence given by Richard and 
 William Beale, and the said John Foot, on the trial of Edward Quirk, other- 
 wise called Edward Kirk, otherwise called Edward M'Quirk, for the murder 
 of the said Clarke, to the masters, wardens, and the rest of the court of ex- 
 aminers of the Surgeons' Company, commanding them likewise to take such 
 further examination of the said persons so representing, and of the said John 
 Foot, as they might think necessary, together with the premises above- 
 mentioned, to form and report to Us their opinion, " Whether it did or 
 did not appear to them that the said George Clarke died in consequence of 
 the blow he received in the riot at Brentford on the 8th of December last." 
 And the said court of examiners of the Surgeons' Company having thereupon 
 reported to us their opinion, " That it did not appear to them that he did;" 
 We have thought proper to extend Our royal mercy to him the said Edward 
 Quirk, otherwise Edward Kirk, otherwise called Edward M'Quirk, and to 
 grant him Our free pardon for the murder of the said George Clarke, of which 
 he has been found guilty : Our will and pleasure therefore is, That he, the 
 said Edward Quirk, otherwise called Edward Kirk, otherwise called Edward 
 M'Quirk, be inserted, for the said murder, in our first and next general 
 pardon that shall come out for the poor convicts of Newgate, without any 
 condition whatsoever,' and that in the mean time you take bail for hi 
 appearance in order to plead Our said pardon. And for so doing this shall 
 be your warrant. 
 
 Given at Our court of St. James's, the 10th day of Marcn, 1769, in tha 
 ninth yt'ar of our reign. By his Majesty's coretnand, 
 
 ROCHFOEft 
 
 To Our trusty and well-beloved James Eyre, Esq., Recorder 
 of Our city of London, the Sheriffs of Our said city and 
 county of Middlesex, and all others whom it may conceim.
 
 140 LETTERS OF JTTNIUS. 
 
 partial, perhaps, to the military mode of execution, and had 
 rather see a score of these wretches butchered by the guards, 
 than one of them suffer death by regular course of law *. How 
 does it happen, my Lord, that, in your hands, even the mercy 
 of the prerogative is cruelty and oppression to the subject? 
 
 The measure, it seems, was so extraordinary that you thought 
 it necessary to give some reasons for it to the public. Let 
 them be fairly examined. 
 
 1. You say that Messrs. Bromfield and Starling were not 
 examined at M'Quirk's trial. I will tell your Grace why they 
 were not. They must have been examined upon oath ; and it 
 was foreseen, that their evidence would either not benefit, 
 or might be prejudicial to the prisoner. Otherwise, is it con- 
 ceivable that his counsel should neglect to call in such material 
 
 evidence? 
 
 2. You say that Mr. Foot did not see the deceased until after 
 his death. A surgeon, my Lord, must know very little of his 
 profession, if, upon examining a wound or a contusion, he 
 cannot determine whether it was mortal or not. While the 
 party is alive, a surgeon will be cautious of pronouncing; 
 whereas, by the death of the patient, he is enabled to consider 
 both cause and effect in one view, and to speak with a certainty 
 confirmed by experience. 
 
 Yet we are to thank your Grace for the establishment of a 
 new tribunal. Your inquisitio post mortem is unknown to the 
 laws of England, and does honour to your invention f. The 
 
 * This subject is farther touched upon in Miscellaneous Letters, No. 24. 
 
 + This sentence, in a note to one of the editions of the Letters of Junius, ia 
 said to have no correct meaning. "Junius," says the commentator, " thought 
 that he had hit upon a forcible and quaintly allusive expression, hastily used 
 it, and blundered into nonsense in the use." The reader, however, shall now 
 determine whether it is the author or the commentator who has blundered 
 into nonsense. 
 
 The expression is, in fact, perfectly correct, though liable to be misunder- 
 stood without some attention. Every coroner's inquest, indeed, except in 
 the cases of shipwreck and treasure-trove ; is, when exercised judicially, an 
 inquisitio post mortem; but it can only legally take place, super vis tint 
 corporis, " on the sight of the corpse or dead body," on the spot where the 
 death was produced, and by a jury summoned from the neighbourhood. In 
 the instance before us none of these constitutional requisites were attended 
 to; and Junius might hence remark, with the strictest accuracy, as well ai 
 with the keenest irony, " Your inquisttio post mortem is unknowE U the 
 laws of England."
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 141 
 
 only material objection to it is, that if Mr. Foot's evidence 
 was insufficient because he dii not examine the wound till 
 after the death of the party, much less can a negative opinion, 
 given by gentlemen who never saw the body of Mr. Clarke, 
 either before or after his decease, authorize you to supersede 
 the verdict of a jury, and the sentence of the law. 
 
 Now, my Lord, let me ask you, has it never occurred to 
 your Grace, while you were withdrawing this desperate wretch 
 from that justice which the laws had awarded, and which the 
 whole people of England demanded, against him, that there is 
 another man, who is the favourite of his country, whose pardon 
 would have been accepted with gratitude, whose pardon would 
 have healed all our divisions? Have you quite forgotten 
 that this man was once your Grace's friend? Or is it to 
 murderers only that you will extend the mercy of the crown? 
 
 These are questions you will not answer. Nor L it neces- 
 sary. The character of your private life, and the uniform 
 tenor of your public conduct, is an answer to them all. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 
 
 It is easy to see that this letter, like the former, was written chiefly on 
 account of Wilkes. The Duke of Grafton had even lately invited Mr. Wilkes 
 from France, and encouraged him with the hopes of pardon, preferment, and 
 emolument. But Wilkes's demands were so high, and so fixed was still the 
 resentment of the court against him. that the Duke could not fulfil his pro- 
 mise, nor gratify his own wishes. Wilkes believed that he had the public 
 on his side, and would not be made a dupe. He chose rather to encounter 
 the Duke's resentment, than to risk the loss of the public favour. That 
 favour made him representative in parliament for the county of Middlesex. 
 The Ministry procured him to be again expelled from the House of Commons. 
 Again and again he was re-elected. Government had not, when this letter 
 was written, taken the last steps against Wilkes in regard to the Middlesex 
 election. Junius might perhaps hope that his threats and invectives would 
 deter the Duke of Grafton from the contest, and give the victory to "the minion 
 of the multitude." HERON. 
 
 MY LOHD, April 10, 1769. 
 
 I HAVE so good an opinion of your Grace's discernment, that 
 when the author of the vindication of your conduct assures us 
 that he writes from his owu mere motion, without the least
 
 142 LETTERS OF JUMUS. 
 
 authority from your Grace*, I should be iady enough to 
 believe him, but for one fatal mark, which seems to be fixed 
 upon every measure, in which either your personal or your 
 political character is concerned. Your first attempt to support 
 Sir William Proctor ended in the election of Mr. Wilkes ; the 
 second ensured success to Mr. Glynn. The extraordinary 
 stop you took to make Sir James Lowther lord paramount of 
 Cumberland has ruined his interest in that county for everf. 
 The House List of Directors was cursed with the concurrence 
 of government t; and even the miserable Dingley could not 
 escape the misfortune of your Grace's protection . With 
 this uniform experience before us, we are authorized to sus- 
 pect that when a pretended vindication of your principles and 
 conduct in reality contains the bitterest reflections upon both, 
 it could not have been written without your immediate direc- 
 tion and assistance. The author, indeed, calls God to witness 
 for him, with all the sincerity, and in the very terms of an 
 Irish evidence, to the best of his knowledge and belief. My 
 Lord, you should not encourage these appeals to heaven. 
 The pious prince, from whom you are supposed to descend, 
 made such frequent use of them in his public declarations, that 
 at last the people also found it necessary to appeal to heaven 
 in their turn. Your administration has driven us into cir- 
 cumstances of equal distress ; beware at least how you 
 
 remind us of the remedy. 
 
 You hare already much to answer for. You have provoked 
 this unhappy gentleman to play the fool once more in public 
 life, in spite of his years and infirmities, and to show us that, 
 
 * He alludes to a pamphlet containing a long and laboured vindication of 
 the Duke of Grafton, attributed to the pen of Mr. Edward Weston, writer of 
 the Gazette. 
 
 f See note upon the Nullum Tempus bill, Junius, No. 5, in which the 
 contest between Sir James Lowther and the Duke of Portland is detailed at 
 large. 
 
 J At this period the whole four and twenty directors were annually 
 chosen, and ten gentlemen, whose names were not inserted in the house list, 
 were elected, notwithstanding the influence of government was exerted in its 
 support. 
 
 This unfortunate person had been persuaded by the Duke of Grafton to 
 del up for Middlesex, his Grace being determined to seat him in the House 
 of Commons if he had but a single vote. It happened unluckily that he 
 could not prevail upon any one freeholder to put him in nomination, and U 
 was with difficulty he escaped out of the hands of the populace. JUHIUS.
 
 TO THE L'UKE OF GRAFTON. 14:3 
 
 us you yourself are a singular instance of youth without spirit, 
 the man who defends you is a no less remarkable example of 
 age without the benefit of experience. To follow such a 
 writer minutely would, like his own periods, be a labour with- 
 out end. The subject too has been already discussed, and is 
 sufficiently understood. I cannot help observing, however, 
 that, when the pardon of Mac Quirk was the principal charge 
 against you, it would have been but a decent compliment to 
 your Grace's understanding to have defended you upon your 
 own principles. What credit does a man deserve, who tells 
 us plainly that the facts set forth in the king's proclamation 
 were not the true motives on which the pardon was granted, 
 and that he wishes that those chirurgical reports, which first 
 gave occasion to certain doubts in the royal breast, had not 
 been laid before his majesty? You see, my Lord, that even 
 your friends cannot defend your actions without changing 
 your principles, nor justify a deliberate measure of govern- 
 ment without contradicting the main assertion on which it 
 was founded. 
 
 The conviction of Mac Quirk had reduced you to a dilemma 
 in which it was hardly possible for you to reconcile your 
 political interest with your duty. You were obliged either to 
 abandon an active useful partisan, or to protect a felon from 
 public justice. With your usual spirit, you preferred your 
 interest to every other consideration ; and, with your usual 
 judgment, you founded your determination upon the only mo- 
 tives which should not have been given to the public. 
 
 I have frequently censured Mr. Wilkes's conduct, yet your 
 advocate reproaches me with having devoted myself to the 
 service of sedition. Your Grace can best inform us for which 
 of Mr. Wilkes's good qualities you first honoured him with 
 your friendship, or how long it was before you discovered 
 those bad ones in him at which, it seems, your delicacy was 
 offended. Remember, my Lord, that you continued your 
 connection with Mr. Wilkes long after he had been convicted 
 of those crimes which you have since taken pains to represent 
 in the blackest colours of blasphemy and treason. How un- 
 lucky is it that the first instance you have given us of a 
 scrupulous regard to decorum is united with the breach of a 
 moral obligation ! For my own part, my Lord, I am prouci to 
 affirm that, if T had been weak enough to form such a friend- 
 ship, I would never have been base enough to betray it. But,
 
 144 LETTERS OF JUNI0S. 
 
 let Mr. Wilkes's character be what it may, ttis at least is 
 certain, that, circumstanced as he is with regard to the public, 
 even his vices plead for him. The people of England have 
 too much discernment to suffer your Grace to take advantage 
 of the failings of a private character, to establish a precedent 
 by which the public liberty is affected, and which you may 
 hereafter, with equal ease and satisfaction, employ to the 
 ruin of the best of men in the kingdom. Content yourself, 
 my Lord, with the many advantages which the unsullied purity 
 of your own character has given you over your unhappy, de- 
 serted friend. Avail yourself of all the unforgiving piety of 
 the court you live in, and bless God that "you are not as 
 other men are ; extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as 
 this publican." * In a heart void of feeling, the laws of honour 
 and good faith may be violated with impunity, and there you 
 may safely indulge your genius. But the laws of England 
 shall not be violated, even by your holy zeal to oppress a sin- 
 ner, and though you have succeeded in making him the 
 tool, you shall not make him the victim, of your ambition. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 TO ME. EDWARD WESTON 
 
 SIR, April 21, 1769. 
 
 I SAID you were an old man without the benefit of experience. 
 It seems you are also a volunteer with a stipend of twenty 
 commissions f; and at a period when all prospects are at an 
 
 * This is one of those frequent occasions on which Junius discovers his 
 intimate acquaintance with the Bible, and his want of reverence for the Holy 
 Scriptures. ED. 
 
 f 4 Under the presumption that the pamphlet alluded to in the preceding 
 letter, entitled a " Vindication of the Duke of Grafton," was written by Mr, 
 Weston, and which was avowedly defended by the author, whoever he was, 
 in the Public Advertiser under the signature of a " Volunteer in the Govern- 
 ment's Service," the following short letter, addressed to that gentleman, 06- 
 viouslv from Ike pen of Junius, appeared in the same paper. 
 
 TO THE EIGHT HON. EDWARD WESTON. 
 
 SIB, April 20, 1769. 
 
 YOUR age, though oppressed with bodily and mental infirmities, which, for 
 the world's edification, you have published to it, demands some respect, 07, 
 the cause you have embarked in would entitle yoa to none. The last (jlirj' 
 taerings of your expiring taper, however, do your hero no honour ; and I
 
 TO ME, WESTON. 145 
 
 end, you are stil\ looking forward to rewards which you can- 
 not enjoy. No man is better acquainted with the bounty of 
 government than you are 
 
 "ton impudence, 
 
 Temeraire vieillard, aura sa recompense."* 
 
 fear the principle that has kindled it obtains you no credit. You are a privy 
 counsellor in Ireland, writer of the Gazette, comptroller of the salt-office, a 
 ilerk of the signet, and a pensioner on the Irish establishment : such is the 
 Volunteer I And you may remember, when you were under secretary of 
 state, the division of 50CM. among ten people, left to your discretion, of which 
 you modestly claimed 400. for yourself. So honest, so upright, and so dis- 
 interested, is the man! Let Junius be the dirty rascal you call him, I 
 know, you know, and all the world knows, what YOU are. CRITO. 
 
 This letter produced a short reply from the Volunteer, in which he denies 
 that Mr. Weston is the author of the pamphlet, or of the letter under that 
 signature ; and one from Poetikastos, who attacks Junius in the following 
 words : 
 
 " You conclude your despicable vindication of an honour which you do not 
 possess, by asserting ' that you are a master in the art of representing the 
 
 treachery of the minister, and the abused simplicity of a .' Villain .' 
 
 of whom] You, who write under the name of Junius, are a base scoundrel. 
 You lie; and you may find out who gives you the lie." 
 
 These letters occasioned the under-written answer: 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD WESTON. 
 
 April 27, 1769. 
 
 THE old fox has been unkennelled, but is ashamed of his stinking tail. Either 
 several people of intelligence and consideration have been grossly deceived, 
 or our doughty Volunteer declares upon his honour an untruth. I cannot 
 believe a misinformation, unless the world should have thought that no 
 impertinent, expectant old fellow could have been found to despatch so lame 
 an errand but you. 
 
 You seem ashamed of your generous distribution : I applaud your modesty I 
 but it shall not be at the expense of truth. You did claim 400/. out of 5001. 
 for your own self; and there are, I suppose, at least half a dozen people who 
 can attest it. And you shall find that I dare say something else to your 
 mortification, if you suppose the world is not heartily tired of you, your petu- 
 lance, and your crudities. 
 
 I don't believe the governors of Bedlam indulge their patients with news- 
 papers, or I should have supposed that Poetikaslos had obtained his genteel 
 residence there. The poor raving creature bawls aloud for swords and 
 pistols, and requires the last argument instead of the best. The public has 
 pronounced upon his reason the judgment of Felo de se, from his own pen ; 
 I am so impressed with humanity as to wish the coroner may not have th- 
 trouble of passing the same sentence upon his person from his sword. I 
 hould, however, pity the elegant Junius, who well deserves the thanks of 
 the independent public, if he was obliged to take notice of every fool, 
 sycophant, and bully. CRITO. 
 
 * A quotation from Corncillo. aptly introduced. ED. 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 
 
 LETTERS OF JUNTOS 
 
 But I will not descend to an altercation either with the im- 
 potence of your age, or the peevishness of your diseases. Your 
 pamphletf, ingenious as it is, has been so little read, that the 
 public cannot know how far you have a right to give me the 
 lie, without the following citation of your own words. 
 
 Page 6 ' 1. That he is persuaded that the motives which 
 he (Mr. Weston) has alleged must appear fully sufficient, 
 with or without the opinions of the surgeons. 
 
 ' 2. That those very motives MUSI HAVE BEEN the founda- 
 tion on which the Earl of Rochford thought proper, &c. 
 
 ' 3. That he CANNOT BUT REGBET that the Earl of Rochford 
 seems to have thought proper to lay the chirurgical reports 
 before the king in preference to all the other sufficient mo- 
 tives,' &c. 
 
 Let the public determine whether this be defending govern- 
 ment on their principles or your own. 
 
 The style and language you have adopted are, I confess, 
 not ill suited to the elegance of your own manners, or to the 
 dignity of the cause you have undertaken. Every common 
 dauber writes rascal and villain under his pictures, because 
 the pictures themselves have neither character nor resem- 
 blance. But the works of a master require no index. His 
 features and colouring are taken from nature. The impres- 
 sion they make is immediate and uniform; nor is it possible 
 to mistake his characters, whether they represent the treachery 
 of a minister, or the abused simplicity of a king. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 f It is possible Junius, though his information was generally accurate, was 
 incorrect in attributing this pamphlet to Mr. Weston. For, iu a letter in- 
 serted by Mr. Weston in the Public Advertiser, a few months afterwards, 
 October 14, he solemnly denies his having written this and a variety of 
 pamphlets and letters attributed to him 1 . 
 
 1 The letter of Junius to Mr. Weston, and the letters of Crito, which 
 the editor of Woodfall's edition, on not very conclusive testimony, has 
 ascribed to him, with their rejoinders, are curious specimens of the unlicensed 
 range of virulence and insinuation then allowed in political controversy. In 
 the " Works of Peter Porcupine " effusions may be met with, equalling in 
 abuse, bitterness, and unwarranted assumptions, those of the time of 
 Junius ; but such communications, with rare exceptions, would be promptly 
 Wjected by the present newspaper press. BD.
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 147 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GBAFTON *. 
 
 MY LORD, April 24, 1769. 
 
 THE system you seemed to have adopted when Lord Chatham 
 unexpectedly left you at the head of affairs gave us no pro- 
 mise of that uncommon exertion of vigour, which has since 
 illustrated your character, and distinguished your administia- 
 tion. Far from discovering a spirit bold enough to invade the 
 first rights of the people, and the first principles of the con- 
 stitution, you were scrupulous of exercising even those powers, 
 with which the executive branch of the legislature is legally 
 invested. We have not yet forgotten how long Mr. Wilkes 
 was suffered to appear at large, nor how long he was at liberty 
 to canvass for the city t and county, with all the terrors of an 
 outlawry hanging over him J. Our gracious sovereign has 
 not yet forgotten the extraordinary care you took of his 
 dignity and of the safety of his person, when at a crisis which 
 courtiers affected to call alarming, you left the metropolis 
 exposed for two nights together to every species of riot and dis- 
 order. The security of the royal residence from insult was then 
 
 * Upon the whole, this letter is a skilful and eloquent composition. Its 
 main object is to alarm and confound the minister, to rouse the indignation 
 of the people, and to open the batteries of argument against the decision of 
 the House of Commons in favour of Luttrell's election for Middlesex. ED. 
 
 f Prior to his offering himself for the county of Middlesex, Wilkes had 
 become a candidate for the metropolis, and it was in consequence of his 
 failure in the city that he pressed forward to the county. The populace, in 
 both cases, were so numerously and so violently attached to him that many 
 serious riots were the consequence ; and so outrageous were they in two or 
 three instances, that the court party strenuously asserted that the city, and 
 even the palace itself, were not free from danger. Of these riots, the two 
 most serious that occurred were on the meeting of parliament, when the 
 populace surrounded the King's Bench prison from an expectation of seeing 
 Wilkes, who had then been elected member for Middlesex, liberated in order 
 to take his seat in the senate, in the course of which several persons were 
 killed by the firing of the military ; and on the counter-address to that of the 
 city being carried to St. James's by those who were deputed for this purpose ; 
 on which last occasion the riot act was read at the palace gate, and Lord 
 Talbot ; the lord-steward, had his staff of office broken in his hand. 
 
 $ See APPENDIX, p. 478, for Lord Mansfield's admirable address on the 
 reversal ot the outlawry of Wilkes. Bo.
 
 148 LETTERS OF JUNID8, 
 
 sufficiently provided for in Mr. Conway's firmness * and Lord 
 Weymouth's discretion; while the prime minister of Great 
 Britain, in a rural retirement, and in the arms of faded leauty\, 
 liad lost all memory of his sovereign, his country and himself. 
 In these instances you might have acted with vigour, for you 
 would have had the sanction of the laws to support you. The 
 friends of government might have defended you without 
 shame, and moderate men, who wish well to the peace and 
 good order of society, might have had a pretence for applaud- 
 ing your conduct. But these, it seems, were not occasions 
 worthy of your Grace's interposition. You reserved the proofs 
 of your intrepid spirit for trials of greater hazard and import- 
 ance ; and now, as if the most disgraceful relaxation of the 
 executive authority had given you a claim of credit to indulge 
 in excesses still more dangerous, you seem determined to 
 compensate amply for your former negligence, and to balance 
 the non-execution of the laws with a breach of the consti- 
 tution. From one extreme you suddenly start to the other, 
 without leaving, between the weakness and the fury of the 
 passions, one moment's interval for the firmness of the under- 
 standing. 
 
 These observations, general as they are, might easily be 
 extended into a faithful history of your Grace's administration, 
 and perhaps may be the employment of a future hour. But 
 
 * The Hon. Henry Seymour Conway was brother to Lord Hertford, and 
 father of the late Mrs. Darner, who constituted, indeed, his only issue. He 
 had enjoyed several places of high rank and confidence at court during the 
 beginning of his Majesty's reign. After the prorogation of parliament, in the 
 year 1764, G. Grenville, then first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the 
 exchequer, in conjunction with the Duke of Bedford, lord president, took 
 from him his regiment, and dismissed him from his office as groom of the 
 bed-chamber to the King, in consequence of having voted, in the lower house, 
 in opposition to government, upon the question of general wairants. Mr. 
 Conway was made a secretary of state in the Rockingham administration of 
 1765, and retained that post till Lord Chatham, who succeeded Lord llock- 
 in^ham, quitted office in October 1768. Mr. Conway was a man of an 
 independent mind, but often wavering in opinions, and, like his favourite 
 cousin, Horace Walpole, much attached to literature and the fine arts. 
 
 f The celebrated Nancy Parsons, afterwards Lady Maynard. Unfortunate 
 in his first marriage, the Duke was now living in celibacy, and kept n 
 mistress, who, it appears, had been lovelier in the eyes of Junius when 
 younger ; but this could be no heinous political crime in his Grace, rather hit 
 private misfortune. ED.
 
 TO THE DOKE OF GRAFTOH 149 
 
 the business of the present moment will not suffer me to look 
 back to a series of events, which cease to be interesting or 
 important, because they are succeeded by a measure so singu 
 larly daring that it excites all our attention, and engrosses 
 all our resentment. 
 
 Your patronage of Mr Luttrell has been crowned with suc- 
 cess *. With this precedent before you, with the principles 
 cn which it was established, and with a future House of 
 
 * In the contest for the county of Middlesex, the House of Commons, on 
 the 3rd of Fi-bruary, 1769, had proceeded to the severe step of expelling 
 Mr. Wilkes for, among other offences, republishing in the St. James's 
 Chronicle Lord Weymouth's letter to Mr. Justice Ponton, one of the magis- 
 trates for Surrey, with the ensuing prefatory remarks : " I send you the fol- 
 lowing authentic state paper, the date of which, prior by more than three 
 weeks to the fatal 10th of May, 1768, shows how long the horrid massacre 
 in St. George's Fields had been planned and determined upon before it was 
 carried into execution, and how long a hellish project can be brooded over by 
 some infernal spirits without one moment's remorse." Mr. Wilkes having 
 admitted the publication, the house resolved " That John Wilkes, Esq., a 
 member of this house, who hath, at the bar of this house, confessed himself 
 to be the author and publisher of what this house has resolved to be an 
 insolent, scandalous, and seditious libel ; and who has been convicted in the 
 Court of King's Bench of having printed and published a seditious libel, and 
 three obscene and impious libels ; and, by the judgment of the said court, 
 has been sentenced to undergo twenty-two months' imprisonment, and is now 
 in execution under the said judgment, be expelled this house;" which was 
 carried in the affirmative by 219 against 137. On the 16th of February, 
 1769, he was a second time returned for Middlesex without opposition. On 
 the day following the election was vacated, and he was declared by a majority 
 of the house incapable of being elected into that parliament. Notwith- 
 standing this resolution of the house he was a third time, March 10, elected 
 without opposition ; for Dingley, as before observed, had not been able to 
 obtain even a nomination. This election, however, was also declared void 
 the next day. The great mass of Middlesex freeholders were, in conse- 
 quence, thrown into a more violent commotion than ever, and insisted upon 
 their right to return whomsoever they pleased, let parliament expel him as 
 often as it pleased. Wilkes was a third time expelled ; and, to oppose him 
 with a certainty of success, another device was now contrived; and, under 
 the promise that he should certainly be seated for the county in opposition 
 to Wilkes, Colonel Luttrell was prevailed upon to relinquish the seat he 
 then held, and to oppose him with all the force that could be mustered up 
 on the occasion. With every possible effort exerted in his favour, however, 
 Luttrell was incapable of obtaining more than two hundred and ninety-six 
 Totes, and Wilkes was again returned almost unanimously. The ministry 
 were intimidated ; but still resolved to carry their new device into effect. 
 Wilkes was not now, therefore, to be openly re-expelled ; but, which 
 amounted to the same thing, to be declared incapable of sitting in parliament 
 in consequence of his previous expulsion, and Luttreii was of course declared
 
 150 LETTERS OF JtJMUS 
 
 Commons, perhaps less virtuous than the present, every 
 county in England, under the auspices of the treasury, may 
 be represented as completely as the county of Middlesex. 
 Posterity will be indebted to your Grace for not contenting 
 yourself with a temporary expedient, but entailing upon them 
 the immediate blessings of your administration. Boroughs 
 were already too much at the mercy of government. Counties 
 could neither be purchased nor intimidated. But their solemn 
 determined election may be rejected, and the man they detest 
 may be appointed, by another choice, to represent them in 
 parliament. Yet it is admitted, that the sheriffs obeyed the 
 laws and performed their duty *. The return they made must 
 have been legal and valid, or undoubtedly they would have 
 been censured for making it. With every good-natured allow- 
 ance for your Grace's youth and inexperience, there are some 
 things which you cannot but know. You cannot but know 
 that the right of the freeholders to adhere to their choice 
 (even supposing it improperly exerted) was as clear and indis- 
 putable as that of the House of Commons to exclude one of 
 their own members : nor is it possible for you not to see the 
 wide distance there is between the negative power of rejecting 
 one man, and the positive power of appointing another. The 
 right of expulsion, in the most favourable sense, is no more 
 than the custom of parliament. The right of election is the 
 very essence of the constitution. To violate that right, and 
 much more to transfer it to any other set of men, is a step 
 leading immediately to the dissolution of all government. So 
 far forth as it operates, it constitutes a House of Commons 
 which does not represent the people. A House of Commons 
 
 the sitting member. Yet, with an incongruity not often to be paralleled, 
 the sheriffs, instead of being punished, were admitted to have done their duty 
 in allowing Wilkes to have become a candidate, and in returning him aa 
 fairly elected. 
 
 The nation at large now joined in the cause of the Middlesex freeholders ; 
 the parliament from exercising the unconstitutional act of rejecting one per- 
 son who was a real member of its body, without an adequate cause, and in 
 admitting another person to be a member who had never been returned by a 
 majority of votes, was declared to have passed into a state of political inca- 
 pacity, CTery vote and act of which must necessarily be incompetent and il- 
 legislative and the throne was thronged with petitions and remonstrances 
 from every part of the kingdom, beseeching his Majesty to dissolve it. 
 
 * Sir Fletcher Norton, when it was proposed to punish the sheriffs, de- 
 clared in the House of Commons, that they, in returi^ag Mr. Wilkes, had 
 done no more than their duty.- -Jusius.
 
 TO THE DTTKE OF (JBAFTON. 151 
 
 so formed would involve a contradiction and the grossest con- 
 fusion of ideas ; but there are some ministers, my Lord, whose 
 views can only be answered by reconciling absurdities, and 
 making the same proposition which is false and absurd in 
 argument, true in fact. 
 
 This measure, my Lord, is, however attended with one conse- 
 quence favourable to the people which I am persuaded you 
 did not foresee *. While the contest lay between the ministry 
 and Mr. Wilkes, his situation and private character gave you 
 advantages over him, which common candour, if not the 
 memory of your former friendship, should have forbidden you 
 to make use of. To religious men you had an opportunity 
 of exaggerating the irregularities of his past life ; to mode- 
 rate men you held forth the pernicious consequences of 
 faction. Men who, with this character, looked no farther 
 than to the object before them, were not dissatisfied at seeing 
 Mr. Wilkes excluded from parliament. You have now taken 
 care to shift the question ; or, rather, you have created a new 
 one, in which Mr. Wilkes is no more concerned than any 
 other English gentleman. You have united this country 
 against you on one grand constitutional point, on the decision 
 of which our existence as a free people absolutely depends. 
 You have asserted, not in words but in fact, that representation 
 in parliament does not depend upon the choice of the free- 
 holders. If such a case can possibly happen once, it may 
 happen frequently; it may happen always; and if three 
 hundred votes, by any mode of reasoning whatsoever, can 
 prevail against twelve hundred, the same reasoning would 
 equally have given Mr. Luttrell his seat with ten votes, or 
 even with one. The consequences of this attack upon the 
 constitution are too plain and palpable not to alarm the dullest 
 apprehension. I trust you will find that the people of Eng- 
 land are neither deficient in spirit nor understanding, though 
 you have treated them as if they had neither sense to feel, nor 
 spirit to resent. We have reason to thank God and our an 
 cestors, that there never yet was a minister in this country 
 who could stand the issue of such a conflict ; and, with every 
 prejudice in favour of your intentions, I see no such abilities 
 in your Grace as should entitle you to succeed in an enter- 
 prise, in which the ablest and basest of your predecessors havo 
 found their destruction. You may continue to deceive you! 
 * The reader j's desired to mark this prophecy. Jumus.
 
 152 WITTERS OF JTJNIU8. 
 
 gracious master with false representations of the temper and 
 condition of his subjects you may command a venal vote, 
 because it is the common established appendage of your office 
 but never hope that the freeholders will make a tame sur 
 render of their rights, or that an English army will join with 
 you in overturning the liberties of their country. They know 
 that their first duty as citizens is paramount to all subse- 
 quent engagements, nor will they prefer the discipline, not 
 even the honours, of their profession to those sacred original 
 rights which belonged to them before they were soldiers, 
 and which they claim and possess as the birthright of Eng- 
 lishmen. 
 
 Return, my Lord, before it be too late, to that easy insipid 
 system which you first set out with. Take back your mistress *; 
 the name of friend may be fatal to her, for it leads to 
 
 * The Duke, about this time, had separated himself from Ann Parsons, 
 but proposed to continue united with heron some Platonic terms of friendship, 
 which she rejected with contempt. His baseness to this woman is beyond 
 description or belief. JUNTOS '. 
 
 1 It was the avowed principle of the writer of these letters never to spars 
 the man whose measures were to be condemned ; but ever to mingle the 
 abuse of private character with the vehement disapprobation of public con- 
 duct. When a minister or adversary of any sort was to be icritten do^cn, 
 Junius thought that uo sort of opprobrium against him ought to be spared 
 that could contribute to this effect. While the morality of this principle is 
 to be condemned, its policy, in the present state of society, may be approved. 
 An opposition that affects too much candour towards its adversaries must 
 always be feeble and inefficient. But the use of opprobria against a political 
 opponent may be carried to excess; if harsh epithets or malicious hints 
 be repeated till they lose their first lively effect on the mind, the intended 
 result is then directly counteracted, and the abase is not less injudicious than 
 unjust. Junius, vehement in spirit, and proud of his talents for obloquy and 
 invective, appears to have occasionally run into this error; and, perhaps, in 
 no instance more strikingly than in his frequent allusions, both in this and 
 his next address, to the liaison between the minister and Miss Parsons. We 
 have before us in MS. some verses on the subject, which show that the elegant 
 Junius could even descend to gross ribaldry, in the pursuit of his object 
 The verses are headed " Harry and Nan, an Elegy in Vie 'manner of 
 Tibullus." Excepting the first verse, which we subjoin, they are unfit for pul> 
 licntion. 
 
 " Can Apollo resist, or a Poet rerbse, 
 
 When Harry and Nancy solicit the Muse ; 
 A statesman who makes the whole nation his caw, 
 Arid a nymph who is almost as chaste as she's fair." 
 The hand-writiiiff is undoubtedly that of Junius. ED.
 
 tO THE mjKK OF GRAFTON. 158 
 
 treachery and persecution. Indulge the people Attend New- 
 market. Mr. Luttrell may again vacate his seat; and Mr. 
 Wilkes, if not persecuted, will soon be forgotten. To be weak 
 and inactive is safer than to be daring and criminal ; and wide 
 is the distance between a riot of the populace and a convulsion 
 of the whole kingdom. You may live to make the experiment, 
 but no honest man can wish you should survive it. 
 
 JUNIU& 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 
 
 The former letters from Junius to the Duke of Grafton, whatever pain 
 they might have given his Grace, had produced no alteration in his public 
 conduct. Mr. Luttrell still sat in the House of Commons, as one of the re- 
 presentatives for the county of Middlesex. Mr. Wilkes was not freed from 
 the effects of the prosecution against him ; those vigorous measures were not 
 relaxed which government had, at length, resolutely adopted for the suppres- 
 sion of the riots which had long triumphed in the metropolis. Neither did 
 it appear that the duke had either lost the confidence of his sovereign, or 
 himself wavered as to his intention of remaining in office. He was even 
 strengthened in power by an alliance of marriage which might seem to unite 
 him with the family and the party of the Duke of Bedford. Yet the power of 
 Junius over public opinion was, in the mean time, greatly increased, and he 
 was already regarded as the most formidable of the foes of the Ministry, the 
 ablest of the allies of the opposition. He determined, therefore, to try what 
 might be done by one general letter of satire upon the whole conduct and 
 character of the first minister, both in public and in private life. To command 
 new admiration of his inculpatory eloquence, to render the Duke of Grafton, 
 if possible, odious and contemptible in the judgment of all parties, and make 
 him shrink from the responsibility of ministerial office, were evidently the 
 objects at which Junius, in this letter, aimed. The boldness of his address, the 
 art with which the intermixture of truth in it is made to lend new credibility 
 to falsehood, its wit, its elegance, its vehemence, the secret anecdotes which 
 it brought into light, and the able discernment of political expediencies which 
 it exhibits, gave it an influence inconceivably great on the minds of those to 
 whom it was addressed. Political letters in newspapers, it is essential to 
 observe, were far more attentively read when Junius wrote than at present, 
 because the proceedings of Parliament had not yet begun to be regularly pub- 
 lished ; nor had the public journals so generally a regular and paid body of 
 contributors, to whom is exclusively entrusted their leading commentaries on 
 public men and measures. 
 
 MY LORD, May 30, 1769. 
 
 IF the measures in which you ha^-e been most successful had 
 been supported by any tolerable appearance of argument, 1
 
 154 LETTERS OF JUNIOR- 
 
 should havs thought my time not ill employed in continuing 
 to examine your conduct as a minister,' and stating it fairly to 
 the public. But when I see questions, of the highest national 
 importance, carried as they have been, and the first principles 
 of the constitution openly violated without argument or 
 decency, I confess I give up the cause in despair. The 
 meanest of your predecessors had abilities sufficient to give a 
 colour to their measures. If they invaded the rights of the 
 people, they did not dare to offer a direct insult to their un- 
 derstanding ; and, in former times, the most venal parlia- 
 ments made it a condition, in their bargain with the minister, 
 that he should furnish them with some plausible pretences 
 for selling their country and themselves. You have had the 
 merit of introducing a more compendious system of govern- 
 ment and logic. You neither address yourself to the passions 
 nor to the understanding, but simply to the touch. You 
 apply yourself immediately to the feelings of your friends 
 who, contrary to the forms of parliament, never enter heartily 
 into a debate until they have divided. 
 
 Relinquishing, therefore, all idle views of amendment to 
 your Grace, or of benefit to the public, let me be permitted 
 to consider your character and conduct merely as a subject of 
 curious speculation. There is something in both, which dis- 
 tinguishes you not only from all other ministers, but all other 
 men. It is not that you do wrong by design, but that you 
 should never do right by mistake. It is not that your indo 
 lence and your activity have been equally misapplied, but 
 that the first uniform principle, or, if I may so call it, the 
 genius of your life, should have carried you through every 
 possible change and contradiction of conduct without the 
 momentary imputation or colour of a virtue, and that the 
 wildest spirit of inconsistency should never once have be- 
 trayed you into a wise or honourable action. This, I own, 
 gives an air of singularity to your fortune, as well as to your 
 disposition. Let us look back together to a scene in which 
 a mind like yours will find nothing to repent of. Let us try, 
 my Lord, how well you have supported the various relations 
 in which you stood, to your sovereign, your country, your 
 friends, and yourself. Give us, if it be possible, some excuse 
 to posterity, and to ourselves, for submitting to your adminis- 
 tration. If not the abilities of a great minister, if not the
 
 TO TEE DUKE OF GKAFTON. 155 
 
 integrity of a patriot, or the fidelity of a friend, show us, at 
 least, the firmness of a man. For the sake of your mistress, 
 the lover shall be spared. I will not lead her into public as 
 you have done, nor will I insult the memory of departed 
 beauty. Her sex, which alone made her amiable in your 
 eyes, makes her respectable in mine. 
 
 The character of the reputed ancestors of some men has 
 made it possible for their descendants to be vicious in the 
 extreme without being degenerate. Those of your Grace, 
 for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue even to 
 their legitimate posterity, and you may look back with plea- 
 sure to an illustrious pedigree in which heraldry has not left 
 a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you *. 
 You have better proofs of your descent, my Lord, than the 
 register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheritance of 
 reputation. There are some hereditary strokes of character 
 by which a family may be as clearly distinguished as by the 
 blackest features of the human face. Charles the First lived 
 and died a hypocrite. Charles the Second was a hypocrite of 
 another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. 
 At the distance of a century we see their different characters 
 happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and 
 severe without religion, profligate without gaiety, you live 
 like Charles II. without being an amiable companion, and, 
 for aught I know, may die as his father did without the 
 reputation of a martyr. 
 
 You had already taken your degrees with credit in those 
 schools in which the English nobility are formed to virtue 
 when you were introduced to Lord Chatham's protection f. 
 
 * The first Duke of Grafton, as most persons know, was a natural son of 
 Charles II. During the progress of the revolution he abandoned the Stuarts 
 for King William, and his descendants had hitherto generally ranked them- 
 selves among the party of the Whigs. 
 
 f To understand these passages, Junius, in a note, refers the reader to 
 a Defence of the late Minority. This pamphlet was written by Charles 
 Townsend, a grandson of Lord Townsend, and brother-in-law of Sir Robert 
 Walpole, the famous minister. Mr. Hume, in a letter to Adam Smith, 
 speaks of Townsend as " the cleverest fellow in England." He was so charmed 
 with the perusal of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments that he immediately 
 resolved to honour himself by the'patronage of the author. Having married 
 the Countess Dowager of Dalkeith, mother to a former Duke of Buccleugh, 
 he had, by consequence, considerable authority in the direction of that young 
 nobleman's education. He invited Mr. Smith from the University of Gla
 
 153 LETTKB8 OP JTTNIU8. 
 
 From Newmarket, White's, and the Opposition, he gave you 
 to the world with an air of popularity which young men 
 usually set out with and seldom preserve grave and plausi- 
 ble enough to be thought fit for business, too young for 
 treachery, and, in short, a patriot of no unpromising expecta 
 tions. Lord Chatham was the earliest object of your political 
 wonder and attachment*. Yet you deserted him upon the 
 first hopes that offered of an equal share of power with Lord 
 Rockingham. When the Duke of Cumberland's first nego- 
 tiation failed, and when the favourite was pushed to the last 
 extremity, you saved him, by joining with an administration 
 in which Lord Chatham had refused to engage. Still, how- 
 ever, he was your friend, and you are yet to explain to the 
 world, why you consented to act without him, or why, after 
 uniting with Lord Rockingham, you deserted and betrayed 
 him. You complained that no measures were taken to satisfy 
 your patron, and that your friend, Mr. Wilkes, who had suf- 
 fered so much for the party, had been abandoned to his fate. 
 They have since contributed not a little to your present 
 plenitude of power ; yet I think Lord Chatham has less 
 
 gow to accompany the Duke on liis travels, upon conditions which assured 
 to the author of the Wealth of Nations an ample independence for his future 
 life. Townsend was honoured with a noble encomium by Burke, and his 
 premature death appears to have been as much regretted as that of the late 
 lamented Charles Butler, whom he seems to have resembled. ED. 
 
 * The Duke of Grafton was first introduced into the political world at an 
 early period of life, under the auspices and protection of Mr. Pitt, as a deter- 
 mined Whig. To the administration of Lord Bute succeeded that of G. 
 Grenville and the Duke of Bedford, who soon became obnoxious to Lord Bate, 
 the guardian of his Majesty's non age, and confidential adviser. The Duke 
 of Cumberland, uncle to the king, was deputed to propose another administra- 
 tion conjointly to Mr. Pitt, Lord Temple, and Lord Lyttleton. They, how- 
 ever, objected to the undue influence of the noble favourite, and the proposal 
 was declined. Lord Rockingham was now applied to, and prevailed upon to take 
 the lead, and form an administration of his own ; Mr. Pitt refused to unite 
 in it, but the Duke of Grafton deserted him, and accepted the office of secre- 
 tary of state. With this administration, however, he soon became chagrined, 
 and resigned his office. Lord Chatham again received him into communion, 
 and in the ministry, shortly after planned and carried into effect by himself, 
 in which he held the privy seal, he nominated the Duke of Grafton First 
 Lord of the Treasury. At the head of this new system, however, Lord 
 Chatham did not long continue ae withdrew in disgust ; but the noble duke, 
 instead of following him, took the lead upon himself, and commenced an ad 
 ministration of his own.
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTOH. 157 
 
 reason than ever to ue satisfied ; and as for Mr. Wilkes, it is. 
 perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should 
 have so many compensations to make in the closet for your 
 former friendship with him. Your gracious master under- 
 stands your character, and makes you a persecutor, because 
 you have been a friend. 
 
 Lord Chatham formed his last administration upon princi- 
 ples which you certainly concurred in, or you could never 
 have been placed at the head of the treasury. By deserting 
 those principles, and by acting in direct contradiction to 
 them, in which he found you were secretly supported in the 
 closet, you soon forced him to leave you to yourself, and to 
 withdraw his name from an administration which had been 
 formed on the credit of it. You had then a prospect of 
 friendships better suited to your genius and more likely to 
 fix your disposition. Marriage is the point on which every 
 rake is stationary at last ; and truly, my Lord, you may well 
 be weary of the circuit you have taken, for you have now fairly 
 travelled through every sign in the political zodiac, from the 
 Scorpion, in which you stung Lord Chatham, to the hopes of 
 a Virgin * in the house of Bloomsbury. One would think 
 that you had had sufficient experience of the frailty of nuptial 
 engagements, or, at least, that such a friendship as the Duke 
 of Bedford's might have been secured to you by the auspi- 
 cious marriage of your late Duchess withf his nephew. 
 But ties of this tender nature cannot be drawn too close ; 
 and it may, possibly, be a part of the Duke of Bedford's am- 
 bition, after making Tier an honest woman, to work a miracle 
 of the same sort upon your Grace. This worthy nobleman 
 has long dealt in virtue. There has been a large consump- 
 tion of it in his own family; and, in the way of traffic, I dare 
 say he has bought and sold more than half the representa- 
 tive integrity of the nation. 
 
 In a political view this union is not imprudent. The 
 favour of princes is a perishable commodity. You have now 
 a strength sufficient to command the closet ; and, if it be 
 necessary to betray one friendship more, you may set even 
 Lord Bute at defiance Mr. Stuart Mackenzie may possibly 
 
 * His Grace had lately married Miss Wrottesley, niece of the Good Ger 
 trude, Duchess of Bedford. JUNIUS. 
 
 t Miss Liddel, after her divorce from the Duke, married Lord Upp 
 Query. JUNIUS.
 
 158 LETTEBS OF JTTN1TJS. 
 
 remember what use the Duke of Bedford usually makes of 
 his power * ; and our gracious sovereign, I doubt not, rejoices 
 at this first appearance of union among his servants. His 
 late majesty, under the happy influence of a family connec- 
 tion between his ministers, was relieved from the cares of 
 government. A more active prince may perhaps observe 
 with suspicion by what degrees an artful servant grows upon 
 his master, from the first unlimited professions of duty and 
 attachment to the painful representation of the necessity of the 
 royal service, and soon, in regular progression, to the humble 
 insolence of dictating in all the obsequious forms of peremp- 
 tory submission. The interval is carefully employed in form- 
 ing connections, creating interests, collecting a party, and 
 laying the foundation of double marriages f ; until the de- 
 luded prince who thought he had found a creature prostituted 
 to his service, and insignificant enough to be always depend- 
 ent upon his pleasure, finds him at last too strong to be com- 
 manded and too formidable to be removed. 
 
 Your Grace's public conduct as a minister is but the 
 counterpart of your private history; the same inconsistency, 
 the same contradictious. In America we trace you from the 
 first opposition to the Stamp Act J on principles of conveni- 
 ence, to Mr. Pitt's surrender of the right ; then forward to 
 
 * Mr. Stuart Mackenzie was brother to the Earl of Bute. The Duke of 
 Bedford's abuse of power here referred to is again noticed in Junius, Letter 
 No. 36, and consisted in compelling the king to displace Mr. Mackenzie frora 
 the office of lord privy seal of Scotland, shortly after his appointment, in 
 favour of Lord Frederick Campbell. In this act of coercion Mr. Grenvilla 
 bore an equal part with the noble duke. Upon the resignation of these 
 ministers, Mr. Stuart Mackenzie was reinstated in his former post 
 
 f These double marriages, which Junius gloats over with remorseless 
 satire, have been partly explained already; they were the marriages of 
 the Duke of Grafton with the niece of the Duchess of Bedford, and of the 
 lady whom he had divorced for infidelity, with her paramour, the nephew 
 of the Duke. The last has not been without imitations in high circles in 
 more recent times, and, if not adequate compensation in such unfortunate con- 
 nexions, is the best proof that can be afforded by the transgressors of the sin- 
 cerity of their preferences. ED. 
 
 J At the period here referred to, the American colonies had acquired such 
 a population and proportion of public wealth, as to render it necessary to in- 
 quire more critically than had hitherto been done into the peculiar mode of 
 its political connection with the mother country, and to bind it to the latter 
 in a more definite bond. It was found that most of the provincial depart- 
 ments were chartered by the crown and expressly exempted from legislative 
 taxation, but that otheia were not chartered in any way, and of course pos-
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 159 
 
 Lord Rockingham's surrender of the fact ; then back again to 
 Lord Roekingham's declaration of the right ; then forward to 
 taxation with Mr. Townshend ; and, in the last instance, from 
 the gentle Conway's undetermined discretion to blood and 
 compulsion with the Duke of Bedford *. Yet, if we may 
 believe the simplicity of Lord North's eloquence, at the open 
 ing of next session you are once more to be the patron of 
 America. Is this the wisdom of a great. minister ? or is it 
 the ominous vibration of a pendulum ? Had you no opinion 
 of your own, my Lord ? or was it the gratification of betray- 
 ing every party with which you have been united, and of 
 deserting every political principle in which you had concurred ? 
 Your enemies may turn their eyes without regret from this 
 admirable system of provincial government. They will find 
 
 eessed no such privilege. From the capacity of their being now able to con- 
 tribute to the exigencies of the state, from a desire to equalize the entire 
 colonisation, and from a professed belief that charters granted by the crown 
 with such an exemption as above, displayed an undue stretch of the preroga- 
 tive, it was determined upon, by Mr. Grenville's administration, to bring the 
 matter boldly to an issue, and for the legislature to claim an authority over 
 the colonies by passing -an act which should immediately affect them. The 
 statute enacted for this purpose was the Stamp Act, which imposed a duty 
 upon many of the articles most current through the colonies. The colonies 
 were thrown into a general commotion by this measure, the duty could not 
 be collected, and almost every province became ripe for rebellion. 
 
 At home the members of opposition doubted, or affected to doubt, both the 
 propriety and legality of the conduct of administration. Mr. Pitt denied 
 the riyht, the Marquis of Buckingham admitted the right, but denied the 
 expediency, while many politicians, perplexed by the sophistry advanced by 
 the pleaders on all sides, vacillated in their opinion, and sometimes united 
 with one party and sometimes with another. Of this last description was the 
 Duke of Grafton, who occasionally favoured Mr. Pitt's (pinion, occasionally the 
 Marquis of Rockinghara's, and at last sided with Mr. Charles Townshend in a 
 determined resolution to carry the sytsem of taxation into effect at all hazards. 
 
 * Mr. Knox, in his " Extra Official State Papers," narrates the following 
 anecdote as having happened to himself on the repeal of the Stamp Act : 
 " The morning after the resolution passed in the Ilfcuse of Commons to re- 
 peal the Stamp Act and to bring in the declaratory bill, I was sent for to a 
 meeting of the Opposition at Mr. Rigby's in Parliament Street; when I came 
 there Mr. Grenville and Mr. Rigby came out to me, and told me the Dake 
 of Bedford and several others desired to know my opinion of the effects which 
 those resolutions would produce in America. My answer was in a few words 
 addresses of buin/kt and measures of rebellion. Mr. Grenville smiled and 
 shook his head, and Mr. Rigby swore by G be thought so, and both 
 wished me a good morning,"
 
 160 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 gratification enough in the survey of your domestic and 
 foreign policy. 
 
 If, instead of disowning Lord Shelburne, the British court 
 had interposed with dignity and firmness, you know, my 
 Lord, that Corsica would never have been invaded *. The 
 French saw the weakness of a distracted ministry, and were 
 justified in treating you with contempt. They would pro- 
 bably have yielded in the first instance, rather than hazard a 
 rupture with this country ; but, being once engaged, they 
 cannot retreat without dishonour. Common sense foresees 
 consequences which have escaped your Grace's penetration. 
 Either we suffer the French to make an acquisition, the im- 
 portance of which you have probably no conception of, or we 
 oppose them by an underhand management, which only dis- 
 graces us in the eyes of Europe, without answering any pur- 
 pose of policy or prudence. From secret, indirect assistance, 
 a transition to some more open decisive measures becomes 
 unavoidable ; till at last we find ourselres principals in the 
 war, and are obliged to hazard everything for an object 
 which might have originally been obtained without expense 
 or danger. I am not versed in the politics of the north ; but 
 this, I believe, is certain, that half the money you have dis- 
 tributed to carry the expulsion of Mr. "Wilkes, or even your 
 secretary's share in the last subscription, would have kept the 
 Turks at your devotion f. Was it economy, my Lord ? or 
 did the coy resistance you have constantly met with in the 
 British senate, make you despair of corrupting the Divan? 
 Your friends, indeed, have the first claim upon your 
 
 * Lord Shelburne, father to the present Marquis of Lansdowne, while 
 Secretary of State, instructed our Ambassador at the Court of Versailles t 
 remonstrate in very spirited terms on the intended invasion of Corsica by 
 the French. His Lordship's conduct, however, was disavowed by his col- 
 leagues, and he resigned his situation, Oct. 21, 1768. 
 
 f The Ottoman Porte was at this time in the hands of French influence; 
 the Court of Tuilleries supplying it with French officers, and instructing it, 
 through their means, in modern tactics, so as to enable it to support more 
 successfully the war in which it was engaged with Russia. The growing 
 extent of French influence over the continent might, in this instance perhaps, 
 nave easily been curtailed by a little address, and even transferred to the 
 court of St. James's. The parallel between Corsica and Hungary has beea 
 adverted to in a previous note, the chief discrepancies being that, in the first 
 instance, Genoa and France were the aggressive powers; in the latter, Austria 
 tnd Russia. ED.
 
 TO THE DUKE OF 3RAFTON. 161 
 
 bounty, but if five hundred pounds a year can be gpared in 
 pension to Sir John Moore*, it would not have disgraced 
 you to have allowed something to the secret service of the 
 public. 
 
 You will say perhaps that the situation of affairs at home 
 demanded and engrossed the whole of your attention. Here, 
 I confess, you have been active. An amiable, accomplished 
 prince ascends the throne under the happiest of all auspices 
 the acclamations and united affections of his subjects. The 
 first measures of his reign, and even the odium of a favourite, 
 were not able to shake their attachment. Your services, my 
 Lord, have been more successful. Since you were permitted 
 to take the lead we have seen the natural effects of a system 
 of government at once both odious and contemptible. We 
 have seen the laws sometimes scandalously relaxed, some- 
 times violently stretched beyond their tone. We have seen 
 the sacred person of the sovereign insulted ; and, in profound 
 peace, and with an undisputed title, the fidelity of his sub- 
 jects brought by his own servants into public question f. 
 Without abilities, resolution, or interest, you have done more 
 than Lord Bute could accomplish with all Scotland at his 
 heels. 
 
 Your Grace, little anxious perhaps either for present or 
 future reputation, will not desire to be handed down in these 
 colours to posterity. You have reason to flatter yourself that 
 the memory of your administration will survive even the forms 
 of a constitution which our ancestors vainly hoped would be 
 immortal ; and as for your personal character I will not, for 
 the honour of human nature, suppose that you can wish to 
 have it remembered. The condition of the present times is 
 desperate indeed ; but there is a debt due to those who come 
 after us, and it is the historian's office to punish though he 
 cannot correct. I do not give you to posterity as a pattern to 
 imitate, but as an example to deter ; and, as your conduct 
 
 * Sir John Moore was an old Newmarket acquaintance of his Grace's, 
 where he succeeded in completely squandering away his private fortune. 
 The Duke of Grafton, out of compassion, obtained for him the pension in 
 question. 
 
 + The wise Duke, about this time, exerted all the influence of government 
 to procure addresses to satisfy the King of the fidelity of his subjects. They 
 came in very thick from Scotland; but, after the appearance of this Kittp^. 
 we heard no more of them.- -JuNius. 
 
 ?OI* I. M
 
 162 LETTERS OF JUNIU8. 
 
 comprehends every thing that a wise or honest minister should 
 avoid, I mean to make you a negative instruction to your suc- 
 cessors for ever. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 TO THZ PR1NTEK OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, June 12, 1769. 
 
 THE Duke of Grafton's friends, not finding it convenient to 
 enter into a contest with Junius, are now reduced to the last 
 melancholy resource of defeated argument, the flat general 
 charge of scurrility and falsehood. As for his style, j shall 
 leave it to the critics. The truth of his facts is of more im- 
 portance to the public. They are of such a nature that I 
 think a bare contradiction will have no weight with any man 
 who judges for himself. Let us take them in the order in 
 which they appear in his last letter. 
 
 1. Have not the first rights of the people, and the first 
 principles of the constitution been openly invaded, and the 
 very name of an election made ridiculous, by the arbitrary ap- 
 pointment of Mr. Luttrell '? 
 
 2. Did not the Duke of Grafton frequently lead his mistress 
 into public, and even place her at the head of his table, as if 
 he had pulled down an ancient temple of Venus, and could 
 bury all decency and shame under the ruins ? Is this the 
 man who dares to talk of Mr. Wilkes's morals ? 
 
 3. Is not the character of his presumptive ancestors as 
 strongly marked in him as if he had descended from them in 
 a direct legitimate line ? The idea of his death is only pro- 
 phetic ; and what is prophecy but a narrative preceding the 
 fact? 
 
 4. Was not Lord Chatham the first who raised him to the 
 rank and post of a minister, and the first whom he aban- 
 doned ? 
 
 5. Did he not join with Lord Rockinghatn and betray him ? 
 
 6. Was he not the bosom friend of Mr. Wilkes, whom he 
 now pursues to destruction ?
 
 PHTLO-JUNIOS TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISES. 163 
 
 7. Did he not take his degrees with credit at Newmarket, 
 White's, and the Opposition ? 
 
 8. After deserting Lord Chatham's principles and sacri- 
 ficing his friendship, is he not now closely united with a set 
 of men, who, though they have occasionally joined with all 
 parties, have, in every different situation, and at all times, 
 been equally and constantly detested bj this country? 
 
 9. Has not Sir John Moore a pension of five hundred 
 pounds a year? This may probably be an acquittance of 
 favours upon the turf ; but is it possible for a minister to offer 
 a grosser outrage to a nation which has so very lately cleared 
 away the beggary of the civil list at the expense of more 
 than half a million ? 
 
 10. Is there any one mode of thinking or acting with re- 
 spect to America, which the Duke of Grafton has not suo- 
 cessively adopted and abandoned ? 
 
 11. Is there not a singular mark of shame set upon this 
 man, who has so little delicacy and feeling as to submit to the 
 opprobrium of marrying a near relation of one who had de- 
 bauched his wife ? In the name of decency how are these 
 amiable cousins to meet at their uncle's table ? It will be a 
 scene in GEdipus, without the distress. Is it wealth, or wit, 
 or beauty ? or is the amorous youth in love ? 
 
 The rest is notorious. That Corsica has been sacrificed to 
 the French ; that in some instances the laws have been scan- 
 dalously relaxed, and in others daringly violated; and that 
 the king's subjects have been called upon to assure him of 
 their fidelity in spite of the measures of his servants. 
 
 A writer, who builds his arguments upon facts such as these, 
 is not easily to be confuted. He is not to be answered by 
 general assertions or general reproaches. He may want 
 eloquence to amuse or persuade, but, speaking truth, he must 
 always convince. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS *. 
 
 * This is the first letter of Philo-Junius. In his Preface Junius admits 
 the authorship of letters under this signature, and that it was a subordinate 
 port he started as needful to explain and support the principal ; not, ha 
 says, to " praise him," but to appear ingenuously convinced by his facts and 
 itisoning a puff oblique, if not direct, from the author himself. E. 
 
 x 3
 
 164 LETTERS OF JUMU8 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER 
 
 SIR, June 22, 179 
 
 THE name of Old Noll is destined to be the ruin of the house 
 of Stuart. There is an ominous fatality in it which even the 
 spurious descendants of the family cannot escape. Oliver 
 Cromwell had the merit of conducting Charles the First 
 to the block. Your correspondent Old Noll* appears 
 to have the same design upon the Duke of Grafton. His 
 arguments consist better with the title he has assumed, than 
 with the principles he professes ; for though he pretends to 
 be an advocate for the Duke, he takes care to give us the best 
 reasons why his patron should regularly follow the fate of his 
 presumptive ancestor. Through the whole course of the 
 Duke of Grafton's life I see a strange endeavour to unite con- 
 tradictions which cannot be reconciled. He marries to be 
 divorced, he keeps a mistress to remind him of conjugal en- 
 dearments, and he chooses such friends as it is a virtue in 
 him to desert. If it were possible for the genius of that ac- 
 complished president who pronounced sentence upon Charles 
 the First to be revived in some modern sycophant f, his 
 
 * A correspondent under this signature replied to the preceding letter of 
 Philo-Junius, in the Public Advertiser, dated June 19, introducing his 
 observations with the following paragraph : " Though Philo-Junius is, in 
 every sense, unworthy of an answer as a writer, yet, as he has compressed 
 into small compass what he calls the facts advanced by Junius, I will answer 
 them briefly one by one, and for ever drop a subject that could only acquire 
 consequence by discussing it in a serious manner." ED. 
 
 j- It is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the name of Brad- 
 shaw. JUKICS. And as little so that Old Noll was the nickname of Oliver 
 Cromwell. There is a peculiar severity in the comparison of the two periods 
 and the two families. The Duke of Grafton was a Stuart, and Bradshaw, 
 the president of the regicide court, was the name of the Duke's private secre- 
 tary ; and Junius here insinuates that he was also the author of the letter 
 signed Old Noll, which had a chance of proving as fatal to his Grace's cause 
 as ever the name of Bradshaw or Old Noll had proved fatal to his Grace's 
 ancestor. Before his present appointment, Bradshaw had been an under- 
 clerk in the war-office, and was raised to the rank of private secretary for hia 
 despatch in business. In 1772 he was appointed a lord of the admiralty, 
 and on the Duke retiring from the premiership he was rewarded with a 
 pension of 1500/. Considering this provision unequal to his deserts or iis 
 rants, he committed suicide. ED.
 
 THILO-JUNIUS TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 165 
 
 Grace, I doubt not, wou d, by sympathy, discover him among 
 the dregs of mankind, and take him for a guide in those 
 paths, which naturally conduct a minister to the scaffold. 
 
 The assertion that two thirds of the nation approve 0f the 
 acceptance of Mr. Luttrell (for even Old Noll is too modest to 
 call it an election\ can neither be maintained nor confuted by 
 argument. It is a point of fact on which every English gen- 
 tleman will determine for himself. As to lawyers, their pro- 
 fession is supported by the indiscriminate defence of right and 
 wrong, and I confess 1 have not that opinion of their know- 
 ledge or integrity, to think it necessary that they should de- 
 cide for me upon a plain constitutional question. With re- 
 spect to the appointment of Mr. Luttrell, the Chancellor* has 
 never yet given any authentic opinion. Sir Fletcher Norton | 
 is indeed an honest, a very honest, man ; and the Attorney 
 General J is ex officio the guardian of liberty, to take care, I 
 presume, that it shall never break out into a criminal excess. 
 Doctor Blackstone is solicitor to the queen. The Doctor re- 
 collected that he had a place to preserve, though he forgot 
 that he had a reputation to lose. We have now the good for- 
 tune to understand the Doctor's principles as well as his 
 writings. For the defence of truth, of law, and reason, the 
 Doctor's book may be safely consulted ; but whoever wishes 
 to cheat a neighbour of his estate , or to rob a country of its 
 rights ||, need make no scruple of consulting the Doctor him- 
 self. 
 
 The example of the English nobility may, for aught I 
 know, sufficiently justify the Duke of Grafton, when he in- 
 dulges his genius in all the fashionable excesses of the age ; 
 yet, considering his rank and station, I think it would do him 
 more honour to be able to deny the fact than to defend it by 
 such authority. But if vice itself could be excused, there is 
 
 * Lord Camden. 
 
 + At this time Chief Justice in Eyre, with, a sakry of 300(M., ni.d just 
 appointed a privy counsellor. 
 
 + Mr. De Grey, afterwards Lord Walsinghain. 
 
 Doctor, bettei known as Sir William, Blackstone, and a distinguished 
 name : he had been, unfortunately for himself, an adviser of Sir Jamea 
 Lowther against the Duke of Portland, in the dispute concerning the Cum- 
 berland crown lands, upon the obsolete law of nulluni tempus. ED. 
 
 II Blackstone had also supported government in its rejection of Mr. \Vilkei 
 U member for the county of Middlesex.
 
 166 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 yet a certain display of it, a certain outrage to decency, and 
 violation of public decorum which, for the benefit of society, 
 should never be forgiven. It is not that he kept a mistress 
 at home, but that he constantly attended her abroad. It is not 
 the private indulgence but the public insult of which I com- 
 plain. The name of Miss Parsons would hardly have been, 
 known, if the First Lord of the Treasury had not led her in 
 triumph through the Opera House, even in the presence of 
 the queen. When we see a man act in this manner we may 
 admit the shameless depravity of his heart, but what are we 
 to think of his understanding ? 
 
 His Grace, it seems, is now to be a regular domestic man, 
 and, as an omen of the future delicacy and correctness of his 
 conduct, he marries a first cousin of the man who had fixed 
 that mark and title of infamy upon him which, at the same 
 moment, makes a husband unhappy and ridiculous. The ties 
 of consanguinity may possibly preserve him from the same 
 fate a second time, and as to the distress of meeting, I take 
 for granted the venerable uncle of these common cousins has 
 settled the etiquette in such a manner that, if a mistake 
 should happen, it may reach no farther than from Madame ma 
 femme to Madame ma cousine. 
 
 The Duke of Grafton has always some excellent reasons for 
 deserting his friends. The age and incapacity of Lord Chat- 
 ham * ; the debility of Lord Buckingham ; or the infamy of 
 Mr. Wilkes. There was a time indeed when he did not ap- 
 pear to be quite so well acquainted or so violently offended 
 with the infirmities of his friends. But now I confess they 
 are not ill exchanged for the youthful, vigorous virtue of the 
 Duke of Bedford, the firmness of General Conway, the 
 blunt, or if I may call it, the aukward integrity of Mr. Rigby f, 
 and the spotless morality of Lord Sandwich J. 
 
 * Lord Chatham, it is well known, laboured under a premature decrepitude 
 of body, from frequent and violent attacks of the gout. 
 
 f Mr. Rigby was introduced into political life by the Duke of Bedford, to 
 whom he had chiefly recommended himself by his convivial talents. He at 
 length attained the lucrative post of paymaster of the British forces. His 
 pretensions to integrity are well known, even to the present moment, to have 
 been rather equivocal. 
 
 It was Lord Sandwich who, in conjunction with Dr. "Warburton, com- 
 plained to the House of Lords, of Wilkes's Essay on Woman, and induced 
 their lordships' interference, in consequence of which the writer was proeo-
 
 PHILO-JUNIU8 TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 16? 
 
 Tf a large pension to a broken gambler * be an act worthy 
 of commendation, the Duke of Grafton's connections will fur- 
 nish him with many opportunities of doing praiseworthy 
 actions ; and, as he himself bears no part of the expense, the 
 generosity of distributing the public money for the support of 
 virtuous families in distress will be an unquestionable proof 
 of his Grace's humanity. 
 
 As to public affairs, Old Noll is a little tender of descend- 
 ing to particulars. He does not deny that Corsica has been 
 sacrificed to France, and he confesses that, with regard to 
 America, his patron's measures have been subject to some 
 variation ; but then he promises wonders of stability and 
 firmness for the future. These are mysteries of which we 
 must not pretend to judge by experience ; and truly, I fear 
 we shall perish in the Desert before we arrive at the Land of 
 Promise. In the regular course of things, the period of the 
 Duke of Grafton's ministerial manhood should now be ap- 
 proaching. The imbecility of his infant state was committed 
 to Lord Chatham. Charles Towushend took some care of his 
 education at that ambiguous age which lies between the fol- 
 lies of political childhood and the vices of puberty. The 
 empire of the passions soon succeeded. His earliest princi- 
 ples and connections were of course forgotten or despised. 
 The company he has lately kept has been of no service to his 
 morals; and, in the conduct of public affairs, we see the cha- 
 racter of his time of life strongly distinguished. An obstinate 
 ungovernable self-sufficiency plainly points out to us that state 
 of imperfect maturity at which the graceful levity of youth is 
 lost, and the solidity of experience not yet acquired. It is 
 possible the young man may in time grow wiser and reform; 
 but, if I understand his disposition, it is not of such corrigible 
 stuff that we should -hope for any amendment in him before 
 he has accomplished the destruction of this country. Like 
 other rakes, he may perhaps live to see his error, but not 
 until he has ruined his estate. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS- 
 
 euted by the crown. The irony of the expression here adopted proceeds 
 from the well known fact that Lord Sandwich was at this very time ths most 
 profligate of all the Bedford party. 
 * Sir John Moore.
 
 1C8 LETTERS OF JUSTUS. 
 
 LETTER XV* 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF OBAFTOS. 
 
 MY LORD, July 8, 17C9. 
 
 IF iiature had given you an understanding qualified to keep 
 pace with the wishes and principles of your heart, she would 
 have made you, perhaps, the most formidable minister that 
 
 * In this Letter Junius with unabated severity, but less of personal crimina- 
 tion, renews in closer array of fact and argument his general attack on the 
 Duke of Grafton. His eloquence, however, and political sagacity, did not suc- 
 ceed any more than the petition of the livery of London, in obliging the 
 king to alter his plan of government, or the ministry to retire. That the 
 reader may better understand the position of the belligerents of the sove- 
 reign and his ministry on one side, and the opposition on the other, consist- 
 ing of the now united Whig phalanx, Junius, Wilkes and the populace, with 
 the agitators of the City and that he may be the better instructed by the 
 truths in these Letters, without being misled by their prejudices and errors, 
 it is essential in the perusal of them to hold the following facts steadily in 
 his mind : 
 
 1. The plan of the breaking down of the great Whig aristocracy, by 
 selecting ability and loyalty from among both Whigs and Tories, did not 
 begin with Lord Bute, but was conceived and arranged by Bolingbroke j 
 was imperfectly carried into effect in the opposition guided by Mr. Pulteney, 
 Sir William Wyndham, and Lord Carteret ; occasioned, in the struggle 
 between its supporters and opposers, all that uncertainty and weakness of 
 government which prevailed from the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole till 
 the Pelhams were fully established in ministerial power ; and was renewed 
 by Mr. Pitt in 1758, after the Whig aristocracy had made themselves odious 
 by corruption, tyranny, and failures. 
 
 2. The Earl of Bute, in his attempt to carry this plan into effect, erred in 
 nothing so much as in not gaining Mr. Pitt for his confidential ally. Pitt hated 
 the great Whig aristocracy which had scowled on his talents, and thwarted, 
 by every artifice, his attempts to rise by ability and patriotism above the 
 native humility of his fortune. He courted the Tories of Leicester House ; 
 and desired nothing better than to set himself at the head of a body cf 
 mingled Whigs and Tories, by which the aristocracy that had oppressed 
 him might be overthrown. Having gained the entire confidence of George 
 II., who had previously regarded him with aversion, Pitt learned to value 
 himself on cultivating the personal favour of his sovereign, not less than on 
 commanding the admiration of the multitude. Had the king and Lord Bute 
 treated him with free unbounded confidence, he would, without doubt, have 
 entered cordially into their new plan of combining and balancing parties, tnd 
 it might have been accomplished without occasioning that long prostration 
 f government which ensued in the prosecution of it without Pitt's aid. It 
 was the conceit of ability which he possessed not, it was a jealoisy i
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 169 
 
 ever was employed under a limited monarch to accomplish 
 the ruin of a free people. When neither the feelings of 
 shame, the reproaches of conscience, nor the dread of punish- 
 
 patible with true greatness of soul, it was a servitude to sordid interests 
 and petty prejudices, that made Bute irritate Pitt to resignation, instead of 
 courting, in happy hour, his confidential friendship. This was the capital error 
 of the king's elect. Ho meant well ; when too late, he strove to regain for his 
 sovereign the cordial service of Pitt. Even then, however, there were in his 
 advances a hesitation and duplicity which Pitt's penetration could not fail to 
 detect, and which his generous nature must of necessity abhor. 
 
 3. In the first dissociation of the Whigs from the Tories, in the counter- 
 poise of those two parties in the reign of William, in their alternate suc- 
 cess under Anne, in the triumph of the Whigs, during the two first reigns 
 of the House of Hanover, in the efforts of St. John, of Pitt, of Bute, to 
 displace them, and in the consummation of Tory ascendancy under the 
 ministry of the son of Chatham, the operation of general and permanent 
 causes is conspicuously remarkable causes originating in the first principles 
 of human nature, and, in the fundamental composition of society, predomi- 
 nating over all those secondary causes to which narrow-minded courtiers, 
 patriots, politicians, party-writers, and historians, have attributed all the fluc- 
 tuation and changes in the government and policy of Britain. 
 
 4. During the long supremacy of the Whigs, both the Extcvtiee and the 
 Legislative Powers had made encroachments upon the rights of the people, 
 and the first principles of the constitution. These had, indeed, been in part 
 counterbalanced by the growing ascendancy of public opinion, the voice of 
 which had begun to be generally listened to, and obeyed, by both the crown 
 and the parliament. It was time, however, both for the safety of the crown 
 and the constitution, that such encroachments should be checked. They 
 could not have been effectually checked if it had not been for that opposi- 
 tion, both in parliament and among the people, in support of which the 
 Letters of Junius were written. 
 
 5. It does not appear, that any one of the parties in the opposition, from 
 the year 1760 to the year 1770, had thoroughly, studied anything but their 
 private and party interests and caprices of all that was in dispute. They 
 had no principles thoroughly understood ; and, because thoroughly under- 
 stood, therefore not to be abandoned. The great utilities of government and 
 society impelled them along in a course in which Whigs and Tories might 
 cordially move on together. But here they were, in some sort unconscious 
 agents; as to all else, what they called their principles continually yielded to 
 their interests and passions. The peace of 1763, hastily concluded, was at 
 first almost unanimously approved by all but Mr. Pitt. Even of the perse- 
 cution of Wilkes, almost all, in their turn, approved, at least so far as not to 
 make his acquittal a condition without which they would not act with 
 government. In regard to the taxation of the Americans, it is evident from 
 the whole conduct of all parties, that there was, in truth, no real dispute, 
 except as to the possibility of carrying it into easy execution. Wilkes had 
 his merits and his uses, but patriotism with him was merely a game of calcu- 
 lation. His sjxrit delighted in bold contention, and he desired to mako hii 
 fortune. This -yas the sum of his impulses : and yet he happened to ex-
 
 170 LETTERS OF OUNIUS. 
 
 roent, form any bar to the designs of a minister, the people 
 would have too much reason to lament their condition, if they 
 did not find some resource in the weakness of his understand- 
 ing. We owe it to the bounty of Providence, that the com- 
 pletest depravity of the heart is sometimes strangely united 
 with a confusion of the mind which counteracts the most 
 favourite principles, and makes the same man treacherous 
 without art, and a hypocrite without deceiving. The mea- 
 sures, for instance, in which your Grace's activity has been 
 chiefly exerted, as they were adopted without skill, should 
 have been conducted with more than common dexterity. But 
 truly, my Lord, the execution has been as gross as the design. 
 
 hibit more remarkable steadiness, and to be the instrument of greater good 
 to the constitution, than was effected by all the cabals, and all the parlia- 
 mentary eloquence, of the higher members of the opposition. The patriot 
 citizens of London, had as little of virtue and intelligence in their opposition 
 as the parliamentary leaders. The agitators who stirred them into action 
 were mostly men actuated by base or absurd motives. The mob were inspired 
 by prejudice, ignorance, and low insolence. 
 
 6. There was much of weakness, of narrowness, of mean artifice, and oc 
 blundering rashness, in the system of the court itself. In principle, and in 
 its first leading views, it was considerably in the right : in almost all else, 
 it was in the wrong. The virtue and ability of the sovereign himself, toge- 
 ther with the insuperable necessities of government, seem to have contributed, 
 much more than the skill or honesty of any of his secret counsellors, to avert 
 that ruin which the weakness of the government, and the strength of the 
 opposition, too long threatened. 
 
 7. What the Whigs, who complained of a secret influence at court, which, 
 after the public retirement of Lord Bute, had no existence, continually de- 
 manded, was, in fact, that the king should never presume to think or speak 
 of any one concern of his government, except in their presence, and in im- 
 plicit submission to their control. These were the conditions to which they 
 strove to reduce their sovereign, and which were chiefly thwarted by their 
 own mutual treachery. 
 
 8. At the time when these Letters were written, Lord Chatham, Lord 
 Temple, the Marquis of Rockingham, and Mr. George Grenville, acted in 
 union. They believed it impossible that their strength should not prevail, 
 and they were using every possible effort to take by storm the strong-holds 
 of the administration. They had mutually vowed never more to suffer 
 themselves to be disunited by the practices of their adversaries. But tbeir 
 engagements and resolutions were, happily, not of a nature to resist the first 
 splendid temptations of avarice or ambition. 
 
 9. From all this it follows, that the Duke of Grafton was not, in politici 
 and patriotism, a worse man than the other conspicuous leaders, whether of 
 the ministry or of the opposition, despite of the revolting exhibition of him 
 fcy Junius. HERO*..
 
 TO THE CURE OF GKAPTON. 171 
 
 By one decisive step you have defeated all the arts of writing. 
 You have fairly confounded the intrigues of opposition, and 
 silenced the clamours of faction. A dark, ambiguous system 
 might require and furnish the materials of ingenious illustra- 
 tion ; and, in doubtful measures, the virulent exaggeration of 
 party must be employed to rouse and engage the passions of 
 the people. You have now brought the merits of your ad- 
 ministration to an issue on which every Englishman of the 
 narrowest capacity may determine for himself. It is not an 
 alarm to the passions, but a calm appeal to the judgment of 
 the people upon their own most essential interests. A more 
 experienced minister would not have hazarded a direct inva- 
 sion of the first principles of the constitution before he had 
 made some progress in subduing the spirit of the people 
 With such a cause as yours, my Lord, it is not sufficient that 
 you have the court at your devotion unless you can find 
 means to corrupt or intimidate the jury. The collective body 
 of the people form that jury, and from their decision there is 
 is but one appeal. 
 
 Whether you have talents to support you at a crisis of such 
 difficulty and danger should long since have been considered. 
 Judging truly of your disposition, you have, perhaps, mistaken 
 the extent of your capacity. Good faith and folly have so 
 long been received for synonymous terms, that the reverse of 
 the proposition has grown into credit, and every villain 
 fancies himself a man of abilities. It is the apprehension of 
 your friends, my Lord, that you have drawn some hasty con- 
 clusion of this sort, and that a partial reliance upon your 
 moral character has betrayed you beyond the depth of your 
 understanding, You have now carried things too far to re- 
 treat. You have plainly declared to the people what they are 
 to expect from the continuance of your administration. It is 
 time for your G race to consider what you also may expect in 
 return from their spirit and their resentment. 
 
 Since the accession of our most gracious sovereign to the 
 throne we have seen a system of government which may well 
 be called a reign of experiments. Parties of all denomina- 
 tions have been employed and dismissed. The advice of the 
 ablest men in this country has been repeatedly called for and 
 rejected ; and when the royal displeasure has been signified 
 to a minister, the marks of it have usually been proportioned
 
 178 LETTERS OF JUN10S 
 
 to his abilities and integrity. The spirit of the FAVOUKITE 
 had some apparent influence upon every administration ; and 
 every set of ministers preserved an appearance of duration, as 
 long as they submitted to that influence. But there were cer- 
 tain services to be performed for the favourite's security, or to 
 gratify his resentments, which your predecessors in office had 
 the wisdom or the virtue not to undertake. The moment this 
 refractory spirit was discovered their disgrace was determined. 
 Lord Chatham, Mr. Grenville, and Lord Rocldngham have 
 successively had the honour to be dismissed for preferring 
 their duty as servants of the public to those compliances 
 which were expected from their station. A submissive ad- 
 ministration was at last gradually collected from the deserters 
 of all parties, interests, and connections; and nothing re- 
 mained but to find a leader for these gallant well-disciplined 
 troops. Stand forth, my Lord, for thou art the man. Lord Bute 
 found no resource of dependence or security in the proud, 
 imposing superiority of Lord Chatham's abilities, the shrewd, 
 inflexible judgment of Mr. Grenville *, nor in the mild but 
 determined integrity of Lord Rockingham. His views and 
 situation required a creature void of all these properties ; and 
 he was forced to go through every division, resolution, compo- 
 sition, and refinement of political chemistry, before he happily 
 arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your Grace. Flat 
 and insipid in your retired state, but, brought into action, you 
 become vitriol again. Such are the extremes of alternate 
 indolence or fury which have governed your whole adminis- 
 tration. Your circumstances with regard to the people soon 
 becoming desperate, like other honest servants you determined 
 to involve the best of masters in the same difficulties with 
 yourself. We owe it to your Grace's well-directed labours, 
 
 * Mr. Q. Grenville, younger brother of Lord Temple, and brother-in-law 
 to Lord Chatham, was a political eleve of his maternal uncle, Lord Cobham. 
 He first attached himself to the Tory party in consequence of marrying the' 
 daughter of Sir W. Wyndham, the confidential friend of Bolingbroke, and 
 ikther of Lord Egremont; and was made one of the secretaries of state when 
 Lord Bute, in 1762, was appointed first lord of the treasury. He planned 
 the American Stamp Act, and commenced the opposition to Wilkes. Ha 
 afterwards, however, became disgusted with Lord Bute, and, upon hi' 
 resignation, firmly attached himself to the party of Lord Rockinghara, th 
 mos* pure and unmixed Whig leader of his day, with whom also Lord Templa 
 and the Earl of Chatham had now united themselves.
 
 tO THE DUKE CF GRAFTOH. 173 
 
 that your sovereign has been persuaded to doubt of the affec- 
 tions of his subjects, and the people to suspect the virtues of 
 their sovereign, at a time when both were unquestionable. 
 You have degraded the royal dignity into a base, dishonourable 
 competition with Mr. Wilkes, nor had you abilities to carry 
 even this last contemptible triumph over a private man, with- 
 out the grossest violation of the fundamental laws of the con- 
 stitution and rights of the people. But these are rights, my 
 Lord, which you can no more annihilate than you can the soil 
 to which they are annexed. The question no longer turns 
 upon points of national honour and security abroad, or on 
 the degrees of expedience and propriety of measures at home 
 It was not inconsistent that you should abandon the cause 
 of liberty in another country *, which you had persecuted in 
 your own; and in the common arts of domestic corruption, 
 we miss no part of Sir Robert Walpole's system except his 
 abilities. la this humble imitative line you might long have 
 proceeded, safe and contemptible. You might, probably, nevef 
 have risen to the dignity of being hated, and even have been 
 despised with moderation. But it seems you meant to be 
 distinguished, and, to a mind like yours, there was no other 
 road to fame but by the destruction of a noble fabric, which 
 you thought had been too long the admiration of mankind. 
 The use you have made of the military force introduced an 
 alarming change in the mode of executing the laws. The 
 arbitrary appointment of Mr. Luttrell invades the foundation 
 of the laws themselves, as it manifestly transfers the right of 
 legislation from those whom the people have chosen to those 
 whom they have rejected. With a succession of such appoint 
 ments we may soon see a House of Commons collected, in 
 the choice of which the other towns and counties of England 
 will have as little share as the devoted county of Middlesex 
 
 Yet, I trust, your Grace will find that the people of this 
 country are neither to be intimidated by violent measures, nor 
 deceived by refinements. When they see Mr Luttrell seated 
 in the House of Commons by mere dint of power, and in di- 
 rect opposition to the choice of a whole county, they will not 
 listen to those subtleties by which every arbitrary exertion of 
 authority is explained into the law and privilege of parliament, 
 
 * Corsica.
 
 174 LETTERS OF JTJNIC8. 
 
 It requires no persuasion of argument, but simply the evidence 
 of the senses, to convince them that to transfer the right of 
 election from the collective to the representative body of the 
 people contradicts all those ideas of a House of Commons 
 which they have received from their forefathers, and which 
 they have already, though vainly perhaps, delivered to their 
 children. The principles on which this violent measure has 
 been defended, have added scorn to injury, and forced us to 
 feel that we are not only opprassed but insulted. 
 
 With what force, my Lord, -with what protection, are you 
 prepared to meet the united detestation of the people of Eng- 
 land ? The city of London has given a generous example to 
 the kingdom in what manner a king of this country ought to 
 be addressed * ; and I fancy, my Lord, it is not yet in your 
 courage to stand between your sovereign and the addresses of 
 his subjects. The injuries you have done this country are 
 such as demand not only redress but vengeance. In vain 
 shall you look for protection to that venal vote which you 
 have already paid for another must be purchased ; and to 
 save a minister, the House of Commons must declare them- 
 selves not only independent of their constituents, but the 
 determined enemies of the constitution. Consider, my Lord, 
 whether this be an extremity to which their fears will permit 
 them to advance, or, if their protection should fail you, how 
 far you are authorized to rely upon the sincerity of those 
 smiles which a pious court lavishes without reluctance upon 
 a libertine by profession. It is not, indeed, the least of the 
 thousand contradictions which attend you, that a man, marked 
 to the world by the grossest violation of all ceremony and de- 
 corum, should be the first servant of a court in which prayers 
 are morality and kneeling is religion. Trust not too far to 
 appearances by which your predecessors have been deceived, 
 though they have not been injured. Even the best of princes 
 may at last discover that this is a contention in which every, 
 thing may be lost but nothing can be gained ; and, as yov 
 became minister by accident, were adopted without choice v 
 trusted without confidence, and continued without favour, 
 be assured that, whenever an occasion presses, you will be 
 discarded without even the forms of regret. You will thea 
 
 * See this subject farther noticed in Juniug'g Letter zzzviL
 
 TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 175 
 
 have reason to be thankful if you are permitted to retire to that 
 seat of learning which, in contemplation of the system of 
 your life, the comparative purity of your manners with those 
 of their high steward, and a thousand other recommending 
 circumstances, has chosen you to encourage the growing virtue 
 of their youth, and to preside over their education *. When- 
 ever the spirit of distributing prebends and bishopricks shall 
 Lave departed from you, you will find that learned seminary 
 perfectly recovered from the delirium of an installation, and, 
 what in truth it ought to be, once more a peaceful scene of 
 slumber and thoughtless meditation. The venerable tutors of 
 the university will no longer distress your modesty by pro- 
 posing you for a pattern to their pupils. The learned dulness 
 of declamation will be silent f; and even the venal musef, 
 though happiest in fiction, will forget your virtues. Yet, for 
 the benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your re- 
 treat might be deferred until your morals shall happily be 
 ripened to that maturity of corruption at which the worst 
 examples cease to be contagious. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, July 19, 1769. 
 
 A GREAT deal of useless argument might have been saved in 
 the political contest which has arisen upon the expulsion of 
 
 * The Duke of Grafton was chancellor, and Lord Sandwich high steward, 
 of the University of Cambridge. 
 
 f Dr. Hinchliffe, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, in his official situation 
 as vice-chancellor of Cambridge, made an oration in praise of the Duke of 
 Grafton on introducing him to the senate-house ou the morning of his in- 
 stallation to the chancellorship of that university. 
 
 J Alluding to Gray's celebrated Ode to Music, composed and performed 
 on the installation of his Grace as chancellor of the university, beginning 
 Hjnce! avaunt! 'tis holy ground 
 Comus and his midnight crew, &c. 
 
 This letter is perhaps the best specimen the whole collection affords of 
 clear and cogent reasoning. It cannot be too often read by those who would 
 )earn to reason with precision, yet without elaborate refinement, who would 
 join force and brevity with lucid clearness, whether in writing or in d 
 in the ardour of real business, or in the coolness of speculation. l>.
 
 1 LETTERS OF 
 
 Mr. Wilkes, and the subsequent appointment of Mr. Luttrell, 
 if the question had been once stated with precision, to the 
 satisfaction of each party, and clearly understood by them 
 both. But in this, as in almost every other dispute, it usually 
 happens that much time is lost in referring to a multitude of 
 cases and precedents which prove nothing to the purpose, or 
 in maintaining propositions which are either not disputed, or, 
 whether they be admitted or denied, are entirely indifferent 
 as to the matter in debate, until, at last, the mind, perplexed 
 and confounded with the endless subtleties of controversy, 
 loses sight of the main question, and never arrives at truth. 
 Both parties in the dispute are apt enough to practise these 
 dishonest artifices. The man who is conscious of the weak- 
 ness of his cause is interested in concealing it ; and, on the 
 other side, it is not uncommon to see a good cause mangled 
 by advocates who do not know the real strength of it. 
 
 I should be glad to know, for instance, to what purpose, in 
 the present case, so many precedents have been produced to 
 prove that the House of Commons have a right to expel one 
 of their own members ; that it belongs to them to judge of 
 the validity of elections ; or that the law of parliament is 
 part of the law of the land * ? After all these propositions 
 are admitted, Mr. Luttrell's right to his seat will continue to 
 be just as disputable as it was before. Not one of them is at 
 present in agitation. Let it be admitted that the House of 
 Commons were authorized to expel Mr. Wilkes ; that they 
 are the proper court to judge of elections, and that the law 
 of parliament is binding upon the people ; still it remains to 
 be inquired whether the House, by their resolution in favour 
 of Mr. Luttrell, have, or have not, truly declared that law. 
 To facilitate this inquiry, I would have the question cleared 
 of all foreign or indifferent matter. The following state of 
 it will probably be thought a fair one by both parties ; and 
 then, I imagine, there is no gentleman in this country who 
 will not be capable of forming a judicious and true opinion 
 upon it. I take the question to be strictly this : " Whether 
 or no it be the known established law of parliament, that 
 the expulsion of a member of the House of Commons of 
 
 * The reader will observe that these admissions are made, not as of tmthj 
 Unquestionable, but for the sake of argument, and in order to bring the real 
 question to issue Jufiina.
 
 TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 177 
 
 itself creates in him such an incapacity to ba re-elected, that, 
 at a subsequent election, any votes given to him are null and 
 void, and that any other candidate, who, except the person 
 erpelled, has the greatest number of votes, ought to be the 
 sitting member." 
 
 To prove that the affirmative is the law of parliament, I 
 apprehend it is not sufficient for the present House of Com- 
 mons to declare it to be so. We may shut our eyes indeed 
 f jO the dangerous consequences of suffering one branch of the 
 legislature to declare new laws, without argument or example, 
 and it may perhaps be prudent enough to submit to authority; 
 but a mere assertion will never convince, much less will it be 
 thought reasonable to prove the right by the fact itself. The 
 ministiy have not yet pretended to such a tyranny over our 
 minds. To support the affirmative fairly, it will either be neces- 
 sary to produce some statute in which that positive provision 
 shall have been made, that specific disability clearly created, 
 and the consequence of it declared, or, if there be no such 
 statute, the custom of parliament must then be referred to, 
 and some case or cases * strictly in point must be produced, 
 with the decision of the court upon them ; for I readily 
 admit that the custom of parliament, once clearly proved, is 
 equally binding with the common and statute law, 
 
 The consideration of what may be reasonable or unreason 
 able makes no part of this question. We are inquiring what 
 the law is, not what it ought to be. Reason may be applied 
 to show the impropriety or expedience of a law, but we must 
 have either statute or precedent to prove the existence of it. 
 At the same time I do not mean to admit that the late reso- 
 lution of the House of Commons is defensible on general 
 principles of reason, any more than in law. This is not the 
 hinge on which the debate turns. 
 
 Supposing, therefore, that I have laid down an accurate 
 state of the question, I will venture to affirm, 1st, That there 
 is no statute existing by which that specific disability which 
 we speak of is created. If there be, let it be produced. 
 The argument will then be at an end. 
 
 Sndly, That there is no precedent in all the proceedings of 
 
 * Precedents, in opposition to principles, have little weight with Juniu* ; 
 but he thought it necessary to meet the ministry upon their own ground. 
 JUNTOS. 
 
 VOL. I X
 
 178 LETTERS OF JUNIU8. 
 
 the House of Commons which comes entirely home to tLo 
 present case, viz., " where an expelled member has been 
 returned again, and another candidate, with an inferior num- 
 ber of votes, has been declared the sitting member." Jf 
 there bs such a precedent, let it be given to us plainly, and J 
 am sure it will nave more weight than all the cunning argu 
 ments which have been drawn from inferences and proba- 
 bilities. 
 
 The ministry, in that laborious pamphlet which, I pre- 
 sume, contains the whole strength of the party, have de- 
 clared *, "That Mr. Walpole'sf was the first and only in- 
 stance, in which the electors of any county or borough had 
 returned a person expelled to serve in the same parliament." 
 It is not possible to conceive a case more exactly in point. 
 Mr. Walpole was expelled and, having a majority of votes at 
 the next election, was returned again. The friends of Mr. 
 Taylor, a candidate set up by the ministry, petitioned the 
 house that he might be the sitting member J. Thus far the 
 
 * Case of the Middlesex Election Considered, page 38. JUNIUS. 
 
 f This fact occurred while Mr. Walpole was in an inferior rapacity to 
 that in which he afterwards appeared so conspicuously as prime minister of 
 George I. and George II. At the period in question, the Tories having ob- 
 tained a majority in parliament, expelled him for the crime of having accepted 
 profits upon a military contract, while secretary at war, and at the same 
 time possessed influence enough to have him committed to the Tower. He 
 was member for Lynn Regis, the burgesses of which borough were warmly 
 attached to him. It was for this borough he had been returned at an early 
 period of his life, by which he was enabled, while a young politician, to 
 head the Whig party against St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, who 
 took a leading part in the Tory administration of Harley. 
 
 From the disgrace into which he was hereby for a long time plunged, he 
 was at length relieved by *,he failure of the minister's favourite expedient of 
 the South Sea incorporation, and the extreme unpopularity in which he was 
 consequently involved. Walpole now triumphed upon the ruin of his rival, 
 became prime minister, retained the post through the whole of the existing 
 and part of the next reign, and for his services was created Earl of Orford. 
 
 \ The following are the particulars of this case as extracted from the 
 journals of the House of Commons : 
 
 " On the 23rd of February, 1711, a petition of the freemen and free- 
 burghers of the borough of King's Lynn, in the county of Norfolk, was 
 presented to the house, ind read ; setting forth, that Monday the eleventh 
 of February last, being appointed for choosing a member to serve in parlia- 
 ment for this borough, n the room of Robert Walpole, Esq., expelled thin 
 house, Samuel Taylor, Esq., was elected their burgess; but John Bagg, 
 present mayor of the said borough, refused to return the said Samuel Taylor,
 
 TO THE PUBLIC ADVEBTISEB 179 
 
 rircTinistences tally exactly, except that our House of Cora 
 mons saved Mr. Luttrell the trouble of petitioning. The 
 point of laff, however, was the same. It came regularly 
 before the house, ind it was their business to determine upon 
 it. They did determine it, for they declared Mr. Taylor not 
 duly elected. If it be said that they meant this resolution as 
 matter of favour and indulgence to the borough which had 
 retorted Mr. Walpole upon them, in order that the burgesses, 
 knowing what the law was, might correct their error, I 
 answer, 
 
 I. That it is a strange way of arguing, to oppose a sup- 
 position, which no man can prove, to a fact which proves 
 itself. 
 
 II. That if this were the intention of the House of Com 
 mons, it must have defeated itself. The burgesses of Lynn 
 could never have known their error, much less could they 
 have corrected it, by any instruction they received from the 
 proceedings of the House of Commons. They might per- 
 haps have foreseen that, if they returned Mr. Walpole again, 
 he would again be rejected; but they never could infer from 
 a resolution by which the candidate with the fewest votes was 
 declared not duly elected that, at a future election, and in 
 similar circumstances, the House of Commons would reverse 
 
 though required so to do; and returned the said Robert Walpole, though 
 expelled this house, and then a prisoner in the Tower, and praying the con 
 sideration of the house. 
 
 " March 6th. The order of the day being read of taking into considera- 
 tion the merits of the petition of the freemen and freeburghers of the 
 borough of King's Lynn, in the county of Norfolk, and a motion being madn 
 that counsel be called in, upon a division, it was resolved in the negative. 
 Tellers for the yeas, Sir Charles Turner, Mr. Pulteney, 127. Tellers for th 
 noes, Sir Simeon Stuart, Mr. Foster, 212. A motion being made, and the 
 question put, that Robert Walpole, Esq., having been this session of parlia- 
 ment committed a prisoner to the Tower of London, and expelled this house 
 for an high breach of trust in the execution of his office, and notorious cor- 
 ruption, when secretary at war, was, and is, incapable of being elected a 
 member to serve in this present parliament, it was resolved, upon a division, 
 in the affirmative. Then a motion being made, and the question put, that 
 Samuel Taylor, Esq., is duly elected a burgess to serve in the present parlia- 
 ment for the borough of King's Lynn in the county of Norfolk, it passed in 
 the negative. Resolved, t':at the late election of a burgess to serve in the 
 present parliament for thi said borough of King's Lynn, in the county of 
 Norfolk, is a void election ' 
 
 N 2
 
 180 LETTERS OP JUNTOS. 
 
 their resolution, and receive the same candidate as duly 
 elected whom they had before rejected. 
 
 This indeed would have been a most extraordinary way cf 
 declaring the law of parliament, and what I presume no man, 
 whose understanding is not at cross-purposes with itself, could 
 possibly understand. 
 
 If, in a case of this importance, I thought myself at 
 liberty to argue from suppositions rather than from facts, I 
 think the probability in this instance is directly the reverse 
 of what the ministry affirm ; and that it is much more likely 
 that the House of Commons at that time would rather have 
 strained a point in favour of Mr. Taylor than that they would 
 have violated the law of parliament, and robbed Mr. Taylor 
 of a right legally vested in him, to gratify a refractory 
 borough which, in defiance of them, had returned a person 
 branded with the strongest mark of the displeasure of the 
 House. 
 
 But really, Sir, this way of talking, for I cannot call it 
 argument, is a mockery of the common understanding of the 
 nation too gross to be endured. Our dearest interests are at 
 stake. An attempt has been made, not merely to rob a 
 single county of its rights, but, by inevitable consequence, 
 to alter the constitution of the House of Commons. This 
 fatal attempt has succeeded, and stands as a precedent re- 
 corded for ever. If the ministry are unable to defend their 
 cause by fair argument founded on facts, let them spare us 
 at least the mortification of being amused and deluded like 
 children. I believe there is yet a spirit of resistance in this 
 country, which will not submit to be oppressed ; but I am 
 sure there is a fund of good sense in this country, which 
 cannot be deceived. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, August 1, 1769. 
 
 IT will not be necessary for JONIUS to take the trouble 
 of answering your correspondent G. A. or the quotation from
 
 PHILO-JUNITS TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 181 
 
 a speech without doors, published in your paper of the 28th 
 of last month *. The speech appeared before JDNIUS'S letter, 
 
 * The " speech without doors" was from the pen of Sir William Black- 
 stone, and, from the legal eminence of the writer, may not be unacceptable to 
 the reader. 
 
 A speech without doors upon the subject of a vote given on the 9th day <J 
 May, 1769. 
 
 " Your question I will answer, having first premised that if you ar 
 satisfied we did right in setting aside Mr. Wilkes's election, I cannot believe 
 it will be a very difficult task to convince you that the admitting of Mr. 
 Luttrell was the unavoidable consequence. ' No (say you) : for surely you 
 might have declared it a void election. Why go greater lengths than in 
 former times, even the most heated and violent, it was ever thought proper 
 to go 1 Or upon what ground, either of reason or authority, can you justify 
 the vote you gave, that Mr. Luttrell, who certainly had not the majority, 
 was duly elected?' The question you have a right to put to me, and I mean 
 to give it a direct answer. 
 
 " Now the principle upon which I voted was this, that in all cases of 
 election by a majority of votes, wherever the candidate for whom the most 
 votes are given, appears to have been, at the time of the election, under a 
 known Legal incapacity, the person who had the next greatest number of 
 votes ought to be considered as the person duly elected. And this, as a 
 general principle, I take to be altogether uncontrovertible. We may differ 
 in our ways of expressing the principle, or of explaining the grounds of it: 
 some choosing to state it, that the electors voting for such incapable person, 
 do for that time forfeit their right of voting; others, that their votes are 
 thrown away; and others, that votes for a person not legally capable, are 
 not legal votes. But in whatever way we assign the ground of the rule, the 
 result and conclusion is stiil the same, that, in every such case, the election 
 of the capable person by the inferior number of votes, is a good and valid 
 election. 
 
 " Nor is this rule, founded as it is in sound sense and public necessity, t* 
 be put out of countenance by a little ingenious sophistry, playing upon t'ntj 
 ambiguity of certain undefined terms, taunting us with the reproach of 
 elections by a minority, of inverting the rules of arithmetic, and the like. 
 Not even the sacredness of the rights of the electors can stand against its 
 authority ; for sacred as those rights ought ever to be held, the exercise of 
 them, as well as of all the other rights of individuals, must ever be confined 
 within such bounds, and governed by such rules, as are consistent with the 
 attainment of the great public ends for which they were established. But 
 could any thing be more preposterous than if, while you are securing to indi- 
 viduals the right they have to take part in determining who shall be appointed 
 to discharge the several public offices and trusts, no care should be taken that 
 the public, in all events, may be secure of having any persons appointed at 
 all ? Yet to this inconvenience the public must be perpetually exposed, if 
 the rule were to be strictly and invariably followed, that nothing but a 
 majority of the electors could ever make a good election. That a majority 
 of the whole number entitled to have voice in the election is not necessary
 
 162 LKTTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 and, as the author seems to consider the great proposition on 
 which all his argument depends, namely, that Mr. Wilkes wot 
 under that known legal incapacity of which JONIUS speaks, as 
 
 will be readily admitted ; for, at that rate, the absence of one-half of th 
 electors might defeat the possibility of any election at all. Neither is it 
 necessary, in order to a candidate's being duly elected, that he should have 
 the votes of more than one-half of the electors present ; since, if it were, 
 diversity of inclinations among the electors, and the putting up of three can- 
 didates, might as completely frustrate all possibility of supplying the vacancy, 
 as the absence of one-half of the electors would in the former case. Accord- 
 ingly, therefore, we constantly see, that wherever there are more than two 
 candidates for one vacancy, the election is determined, not so properly by a 
 ynajority, as by a plurality of voices ; and the candidate who has more voices 
 than any one of his competitors, although fewer than one-half of the electors 
 present, is always determined to be well and duly elected; there being, 
 indei-d, no other method allowed by the constitution of voting against one 
 candidate, but by voting for another ; nor any liberty of declaring whom I 
 would prefer in the second place, in case my first vote should prove in- 
 effectu.il , either of which allowances might prevent any election being made. 
 
 " Thus far then we are guarded against the public service being dis- 
 appointed, either by the remissness of the electors in absenting themselves 
 from the election, or by such a diversity of opinions among the electors pre- 
 sent as, though innocent in itself, would yet be of fatal consequence to the 
 public should it be suffered to operate so far as to prevent any effectual elec- 
 tion from taking place. But much in vain have these rules been established, 
 if it is still to be in the power of the same number of electors, by a little 
 management, to effect the same purpose, and put an effectual bar to all pos- 
 sibility of a valid election. Had the}', by staying away, declared that they 
 would take no part in supplying the vacancy, their fellow electors who chose 
 to exercise their franchise, and upon whom, in that case, the complete right 
 would have devolved, might have exercised their right accordingly, and the 
 public service would have been provided for. But shall they be allowed to 
 come, and by declaring that they wiH vote against one candidate, but for no 
 other, or by voting for a person whom they know to be incapable of holding 
 the office, as truly, to all intents and purposes, deprive their fellows of their 
 right, and the public of its due, as if, instead of coming, they had only sent 
 a prohibition of proceeding to any election till it should be their good pleasure 
 to suffer one? Against such a mockery of the public authority common 
 sense reclaims ; and has, therefore, provided against this abuse by pointing 
 out this farther qualification of the rule by which elections are to be decided! 
 That as the electors who give no vote at all have no power of excluding 
 any candidate for whom other electors do vote, so those who give their votes 
 for a person whom they know to be by law incapable, are to be considered 
 exactly on the same footing as if they gave no votes at all. Not to give 
 any vote, to declare I vote for nobody, or to vote for the Great Mogul, must 
 undoubtedly have the same effect. 
 
 " Thus then it appeared to me, that the general rule, that in cage of a 
 known legal incapacity in the person having the majority of voice*, tht
 
 PHILO-OUNIUS TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 183 
 
 a point granted, his speech is, in no shape, an answer to 
 JUNITJS, for tins is the very question in debate. 
 
 As to G. A. I observe first, that if he did not admit of 
 JCNIUS'S state of the question, he should have shown the 
 fallacy of it, or given us a more exact one: secondly, that 
 considering the many hours and days which the ministry and 
 their advocates have wasted in public debate, in compiling 
 large quartos, and collecting innumerable precedents, ex- 
 pressly to prove that the late proceedings of the House of 
 Commons are warranted by the law, custom, and practice of 
 parliament, it is rather an extraordinary supposition to be 
 made by one of their own party, even for the sake of argu- 
 ment, that no such statute, no such custom of parliament, no 
 such case in point can be produced. G. A. may, however, 
 make the supposition with safety. It contains nothing but 
 literally the fact, except that there is a case exactly in point, 
 with a decision of the house, diametrically opposite to that 
 which the present House of Commons came to in favour of 
 Mr. Luttrell. 
 
 The ministry now hegin to be ashamed of the weakness of 
 their cause, and, as it usually happens with falsehood, are 
 driven to the necessity of shifting their ground, and changing 
 their whole defence. At first we were told that nothing 
 could be clearer th n that the proceedings of the House of 
 
 capable person next upon the poll, although chosen by a minority, is duly 
 elected, is consonant to reason, is the dictate of common sense. 
 
 " That it had also the sanction of authority, I was as clearly convinced. 
 The practice of the courts of law in such cases seems not to be disputed ; 
 they have, by repeated decisions, established the principle. 
 
 " Upon these grounds, therefore, both of reason and authority, I not only 
 thought myself fully justified in giving my vote, that Mr. Luttrell was duly 
 elected, but in truth I could not think myself at liberty to vote otherwise, 
 being convinced, that as, on the one hand, by so voting I should do no 
 wrong to the 1143 freeholders of Middlesex, who, for the chance of being 
 able to overbear the authority of the House of Commons, which had adjudged 
 Mr. Wilkej to be incapable, had chosen to forego their right of taking part 
 in the nomination of a capable person in his room ; so, by a contrary deci- 
 sion, I should hare done a most manifest injustice to Mr. Luttrell, and to the 
 296 freeholders who voted for him; and who, in failure of a nomination by 
 an equal number of freeholders of any other capable candidate, had, upon 
 every principle of reason, and every rule of law, as well as according to the 
 unifrrm usage of parliament, conferred upon him a clear titie to sit as cne ot 
 the representatives for the county of Middlesex."
 
 184 LETTEBS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 Commons vere justified by tl.e known law and uniform cus- 
 tom of parliament. But now it seems, if there be no law, 
 the House of Commons have a right to make one, and if 
 there be no precedent, they have a right to create the first ; 
 for this, I presume, is the amount of the questions pro 
 posed to JUNIUS. If your correspondent had been at all 
 versed in the law of parliament, or generally in the laws of 
 this country, he would have seen that this defence is as weak 
 and ftlsi) as the former. 
 
 The privileges of either House of Parliament, it is true, 
 are indefinite ; that is, they have not been described or laid 
 down in any one code or declaration whatsoever ; but when- 
 ever a question of privilege has arisen, it has invariably been 
 disputed or maintained upon the footing of precedents alone * 
 In the course of the proceedings upon the Aylesbury election 
 the House of Lords resolved, " That neither House of Par- 
 liament had any power, by any vote or declaration, to create 
 to themselves any new privilege that was not warranted by 
 the known laws and customs of parliament." And to this 
 rule the House of Commons, though otherwise they had acted 
 in a very arbitrary manner, gave their assent, for they affirmed 
 that they had guided themselves by it in asserting their 
 privileges. Now, Sir, if this be true with respect to matters 
 of privilege in which the House of Commons, individually 
 and as a body, are principally concerned, how much more 
 strongly will it hold against any pretended power in that 
 House to create or declare a new law by which not only the 
 rights of the House over their own member, and those of the 
 member himself are concluded, but also those of a third and 
 separate party I mean the freeholders of the kingdom. To 
 do justice to the ministry, they have not yet pretended that 
 any one or any two of the three estates have power to make 
 a new law without the concurrence of the third. They know 
 that a man who maintains such a doctrine is liable, by sta 
 tute, to the heaviest penalties. They do not acknowledge 
 that the House of Commons have assumed a neiv privilege, or 
 declared a new law. On the contrary, they affirm that their 
 proceedings have been strictly conformable to and founded 
 
 * This is still meeting the ministry upon their own ground ; for, in truth, 
 DO precedents will support either natural injustice, or violation f 
 right. JUNIUS.
 
 TO DR. WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. 185 
 
 upon tl.e ancient law and custom of parliament. Thus, 
 therefore, ;he question returns to the point, at which Juxitrs 
 had fixed it, namely, Whether or no this be the law of parlia- 
 ment. If it be not, the House of Commons had no legal 
 authority to establish a precedent, and the precedent itself 
 is a mere fact, without any proof of right whatsoever. 
 
 Your correspondent concludes with a question of the sim- 
 plest nature ; Must a thing be wrong, because it has never been 
 done before? No. But admitting it were proper to be done, 
 that alone does not convey an authority to do it. As to the 
 present case, I hope I shall never see the time when not 
 only a single person, but a whole county, and, in effect, the 
 entire collective body of the people, may again be robbed of 
 their birthright by a vote of the House of Commons. But 
 if, for reasons which I am unable to comprehend, it be neces- 
 sary to trust that House with a power so exorbitant and so 
 unconstitutional, at least let it be given to them by an act of 
 the legislature. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 TO DB. WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, SOLICITOR GENERAL TO HER 
 MAJESTY. 
 
 SIR, July 29, 1769. 
 
 I SHALL make you no apology for considering a certain 
 pamphlet, in which your late conduct is defended, as written 
 by yourself *. The personal interest, the personal resent 
 
 This was at last admitted by the friends of the Solicitor-General. Th.- 
 pamphlet was entitled, "An Answer to the Question stated;" and was a 
 reply to a pamphlet from Sir William Meredith, one of the most acthe 
 members of parliament of the Whig party, entitled, " The Question stated," 
 in reference to the adjudication of Wilkes's incapacity to sit in parliament 
 after his last election ; in the course of which also, the inconsistency ol 
 opinion betwoen that delivered by the Solicitor-General in his Commentaries, 
 and that on the point in quetion, was severely animadverted upon. 
 
 The press was overwhelmed with tracts on this dispute from both, sides. 
 Of these, the chief, independently of Sir William Meredith's, and the reply 
 to it by Sir William Blackstoue, were " The Case of the last Election for the 
 County of Middlesex considered," attributed to Mr. Dyson, who was nick- 
 named, by his opponents, Mungo : "Serious considerations ;"" M ungo on
 
 186 LETTERS DF JUNTOS. 
 
 ments, and above all, that wounded spirit, unaccustomed to 
 reproach, and I hope not frequently conscious of deserving 
 it, are signals which betray the author to us as plainly as if 
 your name were in the title-page. You appeal to the public 
 in defence cf your reputation. We hold it, Sir, that an in- 
 jury offered to an individual is interesting to society. On 
 this principle the people of England made common cause 
 with Mr. Wilkes. On this principle, if you are injured, they 
 will join in your resentment. I shall not follow you through 
 the insipid form of a third person, but address myself to you 
 directly. 
 
 You seem to think the channel of a pamphlet more re- 
 spectable and better suited to the dignity of your cause than 
 that of a newspaper. Be it so. Yet if newspapers are 
 scurrilous, you must confess they are impartial. They give 
 us, without any apparent preference, the wit and argument of 
 the ministry, as well as the abusive dulness of the opposition. 
 The scales are equally poised. It is not the printer's fault if 
 the greater weight inclines the balance. 
 
 Your pamphlet, then, is divided into an attack upon Mr. 
 Grenville's character, and a defence of your own. It would 
 would have been more consistent, perhaps, with your professed 
 intentions, to have confined yourself to the last. But anger 
 has some claim to indulgence, and railing is usually a relief 
 to the mind. I hope you have found benefit from the ex- 
 periment. It is not my design to enter into a formal vindi- 
 cation of Mr. Grenville upon his own principles. I havp 
 neither the honour of being personally known to him *, nor 
 do I pretend to be completely master of all the facts. I 
 need not run the risk of doing an injustice to his opinions, or 
 to his conduct, when your pamphlet alone carries, upon the 
 face of it, a full vindication of both 
 
 the use of Quotations;" " Mnngo's case considered;" "Letter to Junius;" 
 " Postscript to Junius," published in a subsequent edition to Sir William 
 Blackstone's reply, and " The False Alarm," written by Doctor Johnson. 
 Of all these some incidental notice is taken in the course of the volume* 
 before us. 
 
 * This, as already observed in the Preliminary Essay, is a truly singular 
 assertion when taken in connection with the fact, that Mr. Grenville. of all 
 the political characters of the day, appears to have been our author's favourite, 
 He voluntarily omits every opportunity of censuring him, and readily em 
 braces every occasion of defending and extolling his conduct and principle*.
 
 TO DR. WILLIAM BLACKSTOKE. 187 
 
 Your first reflection is, that Mr. Grenville * was, of all 
 men, the person who should not have complained of incon- 
 sistence with regard to Mr. Wilkes f. This, Sir, is either an 
 unmeaning sneer, a peevish expression of resentment, or, if 
 it means anything, you plainly beg the question ; for whether 
 his parliamentary conduct with regard to Mr. Wilkes has or 
 has not been inconsistent, remains yet to be proved. But it 
 seems he received upon the spot a sufficient chastisement for 
 exercising so unfairly J his talent of misrepresentation. You 
 are a lawyer, Sir, and know better than I do upon what par- 
 ticular occasions a talent for misrepresentation may be fairly 
 exerted ; but to punish a man a second time, when he has 
 been once sufficiently chastised, is rather too severe. It is 
 not in the laws of England, it is not in your own. Commenta- 
 ries, nor is it yet, I believe, in the new law you have revealed 
 to the House of Commons. I hope this doctrine has no 
 existence but in your own heart. After all, Sir, if you had 
 consulted that sober discretion which you seem to oppose 
 with triumph to the honest jollity of a tavern, it might have 
 occurred to you that, although you could have succeeded in 
 fixing a charge of inconsistence upon Mr. Grenville, it would 
 not have tended in any shape to exculpate yourself. 
 
 Your next insinuation, that Sir William Meredith had 
 hastily adopted the false glosses of his new ally, is of the 
 
 * Mr. Grenville had quoted a passage from the Doctor's excellent Com- 
 mentaries, which directly contradicted the principles maintained by the 
 Doctor in the House of Commons. JTJNIUS. 
 
 f It has been already observed that the opposition to Wilkes commenced 
 with Mr. George Grenville, who advised the issue of the General Warrant. 
 It is observed also in the same note, that Grenville afterwards deserted the 
 ministry, and attached himself strenuously to the Whig party. See note, 
 ante, p. 172. Upon this apparent inconsistency Junius shrewdly remarks, 
 that whatever propriety or impropriety there might have been in Mr. Gren- 
 ville's opposing Wilkes personally the present question has nothing to do 
 with it as he now supports him not on account of his personal character, 
 but as the instrument of the people at large, whose rights and privileges the 
 ministry have grossly violated by their conduct towards him. ED. 
 
 An inaccurate expression in the pamphlet alluded to. The chastise- 
 ment that ensued is related, post, p. 191. Blackstone was thunderstruck at 
 the contradiction pointed out by Grenville, and was incapable of uttering a 
 word in his defence a pause ensued, and Mr. Grenville insultingly shook 
 his head. For the rest see the page just referred to. ED.
 
 189 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 name s ,rt with the first. It conveys a sneer as little worthy 
 of the gravity of your character as it is useless to your de- 
 fence. It is of little moment to the public to inquire by 
 whom the charge was conceived, or by whom it was adopted. 
 The only question we ask is, whether or no it be true. The 
 remainder of your reflections upon Mr. Grenville's conduct 
 destroy themselves. He could not possibly come prepared to 
 traduce your integrity to the House. He could not foresee 
 that you would even speak upon the question, much less could 
 he foresee that you would maintain a direct contradiction of 
 that doctrine which you had solemnly, disinterestedly, and 
 upon soberest reflection delivered to the public. He camo 
 armed indeed with what he thought a respectable authority, 
 to support what he was convinced was the cause of truth, and 
 I doubt not he intended to give you, in the course of the 
 debate, an honourable and public testimony of his esteem. 
 Thinking highly of his abilities, I cannot however allow him 
 the gift of divination. As to what you are pleased to call a 
 plan coolly formed to impose upon the House of Commons, 
 and his producing it without provocation at midnight, I con- 
 sider it as the language of pique and invective, therefore 
 unworthy of regard. But, Sir, I am sensible I have followed 
 your example too long, and wandered from the point. 
 
 The quotation from your Commentaries is matter of record. 
 It can neither be altered by your friends, nor misrepresented 
 by your enemies ; and I am willing to take your own word for 
 what you have said in the House of Commons. If there bo 
 a real difference between what you have written and what 
 you have spoken you confess that your book ought to be the 
 standard. Now, Sir, if words mean anything, I apprehend 
 that when a long enumeration of disqualifications (whether 
 by statute or the custom of parliament) concludes with these 
 general comprehensive words, " but subject to these restric- 
 tions and disqualifications, every subject of the realm is eligi- 
 ble of common right," a reader of plain understanding must 
 of course rest, satisfied that no species of disqualification 
 whatsoever had been omitted. The known character of the 
 author, and the apparent accuracy with which the whole work 
 is compiled, would confirm him in his opinion ; nor could he 
 possibly form any other judgment without looking upon you!
 
 TO DR. WILLIAM ULACKSTONE. 139 
 
 Commentaries in the same light in which you consider those 
 penal laws which, though not repealed, are fallen into disuse, 
 and are now in effect A SNARE TO THE UNWARY *. 
 
 You tell us indeed, that it was not part of your plan to 
 specify any temporary incapacity, and that you could not, 
 without a spirit of prophecy, have specified the disability of 
 a private individual subsequent to the period at which you 
 wrote. What your plan was I know not ; but what it should 
 /iave been, in order to complete the work you have given us, 
 is by no means difficult to determine. The incapacity, which 
 you call temporary, may continue seven years , and though 
 you might not have foreseen the particular case of Mr. 
 Wilkes, you might and should have foreseen the possibility 
 of such a case, and told us how far the House of Commons 
 were authorised to proceed in it by the law and custom of 
 parliament. The freeholders of Middlesex would then have 
 known what they had to trust to, and would never have 
 returned Mr. Wilkes, when Colonel Luttrell was a candidate 
 against him. They would have chosen some indifferent per- 
 son, rather than submit to be represented by the object of 
 their contempt and detestation. 
 
 Your attempt to distinguish between disabilities which 
 affect whole classes of men, and those which affect individuals 
 only, is really unworthy of your understanding. Your Commen- 
 taries had taught me that, although the instance in which a 
 a penal law is exerted be particular, the laws themselves are 
 general. They are made for the benefit and instruction of the 
 public, though the penalty falls only upon an individual. You 
 cannot but know, Sir, that what was Mr. Wilkes's case yester- 
 day, may be yours or mine to-morrow, and that consequently the 
 common right of eveiy subject of the realm is invaded by it. 
 Professing therefore to treat of the constitution of the House 
 of Commons, and of the laws and customs relative to that 
 constitution, you certainly were guilty of a most unpardon- 
 able omission in taking no notice of a right and privilege of 
 the House, more extraordinary and more arbitrary than all 
 
 * If, in stating the law upon any point, a judge deliberately affirms that 
 he has included every case, and it should appear that he has purposely 
 omitted a material case, he does in effect lay a snare f<v the unwary. 
 JWNIUS. This last part of the sentence is a quotation artfully selected from 
 Blackstone's own works, and turned against himself. ED.
 
 190 LETTERS OF JUXIUS 
 
 the others they possess put together. If the expulsion of a 
 member, not under any other legal disability, of itself creates 
 in him an incapacity to be re-elected, 1 see a ready way 
 marked out, by which the majority may at any time remove 
 the honestest and ablest men who happen to be in opposition 
 to them. To say that thej will not make this extravagant 
 use of their power, would be a language unfit for a man so 
 learned in the laws as you are. By your doctrine, Sir, they 
 have the power, and laws you know are intended to guard 
 against what men may do, not to trust what they will do. 
 
 Upon the whole, Sir, the charge against you is of a plain, 
 simple nature it appears even upon the face of your own 
 pamphlet. On the contrary, your justification of yourself is 
 full of subtlety and refinement, and in some places not very 
 intelligible. If I were personally your enemy, I should 
 dwell with a malignant pleasure upon those great and useful 
 qualifications which you certainly possess, and by which you 
 once acquired, though they could not preserve to you, the 
 respect and esteem of your country I should enumerate 
 the honours you have lost, and the virtues you have dis 
 graced ; but having no private resentments to gratify, I think 
 it sufficient to have given my opinion of your public conduct, 
 leaving the punishment it deserves to your closet and to 
 yourself. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XIX 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, August 14, 1769. 
 
 A CORRESPONDENT of the St. James's Chronicle first wilfullj 
 misunderstands JUNIUS, then censures him for a bad rea- 
 Boner. JUNIUS does not say that it was incumbent upon 
 Doctor Blackstone to foresee and state the crimes for which 
 Mr. Wilkes was expelled. If, by a spirit of prophecy, he 
 had even done so, it would have been nothing to the pur- 
 pose. The question is, not for what particular offences a 
 person may be expelled, but generally, whether by the law of
 
 DR. BLA3KSTONE S REPLY. 19J 
 
 parliatrent expulsion alone creates a disqualification ? If the 
 affirmative be the law of parliament, Doctor Blackstone 
 might and should have told us so. The question is not con- 
 fined to this or that particular person, but forms one great 
 general branch of disqualification, too important in itself, 
 and too extensive in its consequences, to be omitted in an 
 accurate work expressly treating of the law of parliament. 
 
 The truth of the matter is evidently this. Doctor Black- 
 stone, while he was speaking in the House of Commons, 
 never once thought of his Commentaries until the contradic- 
 tion was unexpectedly urged and stared him in the face. In- 
 stead of defending himself upon the spot he sunk under the 
 charge in an agony of confusion and despair. It is well 
 known that there was a pause of some minutes in the House, 
 from a general expectation that the Doctor would say some- 
 thing in his own defence ; but, it seems, his faculties were too 
 much overpowered to think of those subtleties and refine- 
 ments which have since occurred to him. It was then Mr. 
 Grenville received that severe chastisement which the Doctor 
 mentions with so much triumph I wish the honourable gen- 
 tleman, instead of shaking his head, would shake a good argu- 
 ment out of it. If to the elegance, novelty, and bitterness of 
 this ingenious sarcasm, we add the natural melody of the 
 amiable Sir Fletcher Norton's pipe, we shall not be surprised 
 that Mr. Grenville was unable to make him any reply. 
 
 As to the Doctor, I would recommend it to him to be quiet 
 If not, he may perhaps hear again from Junius himself. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT* TO A PAMPHLET 
 
 "AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION STATED." 
 
 Supposed to be written by Dr. Blackstone, Solicitor to the Queen, in 
 answer to Junius's Letter. 
 
 SINCE these papers were sent to the press, a writer in the 
 public papers, who subscribes himself JUNIUS, has made a 
 
 * This is the Postscript, added in a subsequent edition, to Sir William 
 Blackstone's reply to Sir William Meredith's pamphlet, as noticed, ante, 
 p. 185, note. See also a further extract on this subject from a " Speech 
 without doors," by Sir W. B., ante, p. 181.
 
 192 LETTERS OF JUNIU8. 
 
 feint of bringing this question to a short issue. Though iho 
 foregoing observations contain, in my opinion at least, a ful? 
 refutation of all that this writer has offered, I shall, however, 
 bestow a very few words upon him. It will cost me very 
 little trouble to unravel and expose the sophistry of his argu- 
 ment. 
 
 " I take the question," says he, " to be strictly this : 
 Whether or no it be the known established law of Parliament, 
 that the expulsion of a member of the House of Commons, of 
 itself, creates in him such an incapacity to be re-elected, that, 
 at a subsequent election, any votes given to him are null and 
 void, and that any other candidate who, except the person 
 expelled, has the greatest number of votes, ought to be the 
 sitting member." 
 
 Waiving for the present any objection I may have to this 
 state of the question, I shall venture to meet our champion 
 upon his own ground ; and attempt to support the affirmative 
 of it in one of the two ways by which he says it can be alone 
 fairly supported. " If there be no statute," says he, " in 
 which the specific disability is clearly created, &c. (and we 
 acknowledge there is none), the custom of parliament must 
 then be referred to, and some case or cases strictly in point 
 must be produced, with the decision of the court upon them." 
 Now I assert, that this has been done. Mr. Walpole's case 
 is strictly in point, to prove that expulsion creates absolute 
 incapacity of being re-elected. This was the clear decision of 
 the House upon it, and was a full declaration that incapacity 
 was the necessary consequence of expulsion. The law was as 
 clearly and firmly fixed by this resolution, and is as binding 
 in every subsequent case of expulsion, as if it had been de- 
 clared by an express statute, " That a member expelled by a 
 resolution of the House of Commons shall be deemed inca- 
 pable of being re-elected." Whatever doubt, then, there might 
 have been of the law before Mr. Walpole's case, with respect 
 to the full operation of a vote of expulsion, there can be none 
 now. The decision of the House upon this case is strictly in 
 point to prove that expulsion creates absolute incapacity in 
 law of being re-elected. 
 
 But incapacity in law in this instance must have the same 
 operation and effect with incapacity in law in every other in- 
 stance. Now, incapacity of being re-elected implies in its
 
 D3. BLACKSTONE'S REPLY 193 
 
 very terms, that anj votes given to the incapable person, at a 
 subsequent election, are null and void. This is its necessary 
 operation, or it has no operation at all. It is vox et praterea 
 nihil. We can no more be called upon to prove this propo- 
 sition than we can to prove that a dead man is not alive, or 
 that twice two are four. When the terms are understood the 
 proposition is self-evident. 
 
 ; Lastly, it is in all cases of election the known and esta- 
 blished law of the land, grounded upon the clearest principles 
 of reason and common sense, that if the votes given to one 
 candidate are null and void, they cannot be opposed to the 
 votes given to another candidate. They cannot affect the 
 votes of such candidate at all. As they have, on the one 
 hand, no positive quality to add or establish, so have they, on 
 the other hand, no negative one to subtract or destroy. They 
 are, in a word, a mere nonentity. Such was the determina- 
 tion of the House of Commons in the Maiden and Bedford 
 elections cases strictly in point to the present question as 
 far as they are meant to be in point. And to say that they 
 are not in point in all circumstances, in those particularly 
 which are independent of the proposition which they are 
 quoted to prove, is to say no more than that Maiden is not 
 Middlesex, nor Serjeant Comyns Mr. Wilkes. 
 
 Let us see then how our proof stands. Expulsion creates 
 incapacity ; incapacity annihilates any votes given to the in- 
 capable person. The votes given to the qualified candidate 
 stand upon their own bottom, firm and untouched, and ca r 
 alone have effect. This", one would think, would be sufficient: \ 
 but we are stopped short and told that none of our precedents 
 come home to the present case, and are challenged to pro 1 ' 
 duce "a precedent in all the proceedings of the House -of 
 Commons that does come home to it, viz., where an expelled 
 member has been returned again, and another candidate, with 
 an inferior number of votes, has been declared the sitting 
 member." 
 
 Instead of a precedent, I will beg leave to put a case 
 which, I fancy, will be quite as decisive to the present poirt 
 Suppose another Sacheverel (and every party must have its 
 Sacheverel) should, at some future election, take it into his 
 head to offer himself a candidate for the county of Middlesex. 
 He is opposed by a sandidate whose coat is of a different 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 colour ; but, however, of a very good colour. The divine h&s 
 an indisputable majority ; nay, the poor layman is absolutely 
 distanced. The sheriff, after having had his conscience well 
 informed by the reverend casuist, returns him, as he supposes, 
 duly elected. The whole House is in an uproar, at the appre- 
 hension of so strange an appearance amongst them. A motion, 
 however, is at length made, that the person was incapable of 
 being elected, that his election therefore is null and void, and 
 that his competitor ought to have been returned. No, says a 
 great orator; first show me your law for this proceeding 
 " Either produce me a statute, in which the specific disability 
 of a clergyman is created ; or produce me a precedent where a 
 clergyman has been returned, and another candidate, with an 
 inferior number of votes, has been declared the sitting member." 
 No such statute, no such precedent is to be found. What an- 
 swer then is to be given to this demand? The very same 
 answer which I will give to that of Junius : That there is 
 more than one precedent in the proceedings of the House 
 
 " where an incapable person has been returned, and 
 
 another candidate, with an inferior number of votes, has been 
 declared the sitting member; and that this is the known and 
 established law, in all cases of incapacity, from whatever cause 
 it may arise." 
 
 I shall now therefore beg leave to make a slight amend- 
 ment to Junius 's state of the question, the affirmative of which 
 will then stand thus : 
 
 " It is the known and established law of Parliament, that 
 the expulsion of any member of the House of Commons 
 creates in him an incapacity of being re-elected ; that any 
 votes given to him at a subsequent election are, in consequence 
 of such incapacity, null and void; and that any other candi- 
 date, vfho, except the person rendered incapable, has the 
 greatest number of votes, ought to be the sitting member." 
 
 But our business is not yet quite finished. Mr. Walpole's 
 case must have a re-hearing. " It is not possible," says this 
 writer, " to conceive a case more exactly in point. Mr. Wai- 
 pole wag expelled, and having a majority of votes at the next 
 election, was returned again. The friends of Mr. Taylor, a 
 candidate set up by the ministry, petitioned the House that 
 he might be the sitting member. Thus far the circumstances 
 tally exactly, except that our House of Commons saved Mr.
 
 DR. BTACKSTOXK'S REPLY. 195 
 
 LuHrell the trouble of petitioning. The point of law, how 
 ever, was the same. It came regularly before the Hoase 
 ud it was their business to determine upon it. They did de 
 termine it ; for they declared Mr. Taylor not duly elected." 
 
 Instead of examining the justness of this representation, I 
 shall beg leave to oppose against it my own view of this case, 
 in as plain a manner and as few words as I am able. 
 
 It was the known and established law of Parliament, when 
 the charge against Mr. Walpole came before the House of 
 Commons, that they had power to expel, to disable, and to 
 render incapable for offences. In virtue of this power th^v 
 expelled him. 
 
 Had they, in the very vote of expulsion, adjudged him, in 
 terms, to be incapable of being re elected, there must have 
 been at once an end with him. But though the right of the 
 House, both to expel and adjudge incapable, was clear and 
 indubitable, it does not appear to me, that the full operation 
 and effect of a vote of expulsion singly was so. The law in 
 this case had never been expressly declared. There had been 
 no event to call up such a declaration. I trouble not myself 
 with the grammatical meaning of the word expulsion. I re- 
 gard only its legal meaning. This was not, as I think, pre- 
 cisely fixed. The House thought proper to fix it, and 
 explicitly to declare the full consequences of their former vote, 
 before they suffered these consequences to take effect. And 
 in this proceeding they acted upon the most liberal and solid 
 principles of equity, justice, and law. What then did the 
 burgesses of Lynn collect from the second vote ? Their sub 
 sequent conduct will tell us ; it will with certainty tell u*, 
 that they considered it as decisive against Mr. Walpole ; it 
 will also, with equal certainty, tell us, that, upon supposition 
 that the law of election stood then as it does now, and that 
 they knew it to stand thus, they inferred, " that, at a future 
 election, and in case of a similar return, the House would re- 
 ceive the same candidate, as duly elected, whom they had 
 before rejected." They could infer nothing but this. 
 
 It is needless to repeat the circumstance of dissimilarity in 
 the present case. It will be sufficient to observe, that as the 
 law of Parliament, upon which the House of Commons 
 grounded every step of their proceedings, was clear beyond 
 the reach of doubt, so neither could the freeholders of Mid 
 
 o 2
 
 196 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 dieses be at a loss to foresee what must be the inevitable con- 
 sequence of their proceedings in opposition to it. For, upon 
 every return of Mr. Wilkes, the House made inquiry whether 
 any votes were given to any other candidate ? 
 
 But I could venture, for the experiment's sake, even to give 
 this writer the utmost he asks ; to allow the most perfect 
 similarity throughout in these two cases ; to allow, that the 
 law of expulsion was quite as clear to the burgesses of Lynn, 
 as to the freeholders of Middlesex. It will, I am confident, 
 avail his cause but little. It will only prove that the law of 
 election at that time was different from the present law. It 
 will prove, that, in all cases of an incapable candidate re- 
 turned, the law then was, that the whole election should be 
 void. But now we know that this is not law. The cases of 
 Maiden and Bedford were, as has been seen, determined upon 
 other and more just principles. And these determinations 
 are, I imagine, admitted on all sides to be law. 
 
 J would willingly draw a veil over the remaining part of 
 this paper. It is astonishing, it is painful, to see men of 
 parts and ability giving into the most unworthy artifices, and 
 descending so much below their true line of character. But 
 if they are not the dupes of their sophistry (which is hardly 
 to be conceived), let them consider that they are something 
 much worse. 
 
 The clearest interests of this country are its laws and its 
 constitution. Against every attack upon these, there will, I 
 hope, be always found amongst us the firmest spirit of resist- 
 ance ; superior to the united efforts of faction and ambition ; 
 for ambition, though it does not always take the lead of fac- 
 tion, will be sure in the end to make the most fatal advantage 
 of it, and draw it to its own purposes. But, I trust, our day 
 of trial is yet far off; and there is a fund of good sense in thit 
 country which cannot long be deceived by the arts either of 
 false reasoning, or false patriotism.
 
 TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 197 
 
 LETTER XX*. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, August 8, 1769. 
 
 THE gentleman who has published an answer to Sir William 
 Meredith's pamphlet, having honoured me with a postscript 
 of six quarto pages, which he moderately calls bestowing a very 
 few words upon me, I cannot, in common politeness, refuse 
 him a reply. The form and magnitude of a quarto imposes 
 upon the mind ; and men who are unequal to the labour of 
 discussing an intricate argument, or wish to avoid it, are 
 willing enough to suppose, that much has been proved, be- 
 cause much has been said. Mine, I confess, are humble 
 labours. I do not presume to instruct the leamed, but simply 
 to inform the body of the people ; and I prefer that channel 
 of conveyance which is likely to spread farthest among them. 
 The advocates of the ministry seem to me to write for fame, 
 and to flatter themselves that the size of their works will 
 make them immortal. They pile up reluctant quarto upon 
 solid folio, as if their labours, because they are gigantic, could 
 contend with truth and heaven. 
 
 The writer of the volume in question meets me upon my 
 own ground. He acknowledges there is no statute by which 
 the specific disability we speak of is created, but he affirms, 
 that the custom of parliament has been referred to, and that 
 a case strictly in point has been produced, with the decision of 
 the court upon it. I thank him for coming so fairly to the 
 point. He asserts that the case of Mr. Wai pole is strictly in 
 point to prove that expulsion creates an absolute incapacity of 
 being re-elected ; and for this purpose he refers generally to 
 the first vote of the House upon that occasion, without ven- 
 turing to recite the vote itself. The unfair, disingenuous ar- 
 tifice of adopting that part of a precedent which seems to 
 suit his purpose and omitting the remainder, deserves some 
 pity, but cannot excite my resentment. He takes advantage 
 eagerly of the first resolution, by which Mr. Walpole's in- 
 
 * " I wish the inclosed to be announced to-morrow conspicuously. I an 
 not capable of writing anything more finished." Private Letter, No. ^
 
 198 LETTKBS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 capacity is declared ; but as to the following, by which the 
 candidate with the fewest votes was declared " not duly 
 elected," and the election itself vacated, I dare say he would 
 be well satisfied, if they were for ever blotted out of the 
 journals of the House of Commons. In fair argument, no part 
 of a precedent should be admitted unless the whole of it be 
 given to us together. The author has divided his precedent, 
 for he knew that, taken together, it produced a consequence 
 directly the reverse of that which he endeavours to draw 
 from a vote of expulsion. But what will this honest person 
 say if I take him at his word, and demonstrate to him that 
 the House of Commons never meant to found Mr. Walpole's 
 incapacity upon his expulsion only ? What subterfuge will 
 then remain? 
 
 Let it be remembered that we are speaking of the intention 
 of men, who lived more than half a century ago, and that such 
 intention can only be collected from their words and actions, 
 as they are delivered to us upon record. To prove their de- 
 signs by a supposition of what they would have done, opposed 
 to what they actually did, is mere trifling and impertinence. 
 The vote, by which Mr. Walpole's incapacity was declared, is 
 thus expressed : " That Robert Walpole, Esq., having been 
 this session of parliament committed a prisoner to the Tower, 
 and expelled this House for a high breach of trust in the exe- 
 cution of his office, and notorious corruption when secretary 
 at war, was, and is, incapable of being elected a member to 
 serve in this present parliament."* Now, Sir, to my under- 
 standing, no proposition of this kind can be more evident 
 than that the House of Commons, by this very vote, them- 
 selves understood, and meant to declare, that Mr. Walpole's 
 incapacity arose from the crimes he had committed, not from 
 
 * It is well worth remarking, that the compiler of a certain quarto, called 
 The Case of the Election for tlte County of Middlesex considered, has the im- 
 pudence to recite this very vote, in the following terms, vide page 11 : " He- 
 eolved, that Robert Walpole, Esq., having been that session of parliament ex- 
 pelled the House, was and is incapable of being elected a member to serve in 
 that present parliament." There cannot be a stronger positive proof of the 
 treachery of the compiler, nor a stronger presumptive proof that he was con- 
 vinced that the vote, if truly recited, would overturn his whole argument. 
 JUKIUS. 
 
 It has been already remarked that the pamphlet alluded to in the above 
 note of the author, was from thi pen of Mr. Dyson. (See ante, p. 185.)
 
 TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISES. 199 
 
 the punishment of the House annexed to them. The high 
 breach of trust, thn notorious corruption, are stated in the 
 strongest terms. They do not tell us he was incapable be- 
 cause he was expelled, hut because he had been guilty of such 
 offences as justly rendered him unworthy of a seat in parlia- 
 ment. If they had intended to fix the disability upon his 
 expulsion alone, the mention of his crimes in the same vote 
 would have been highly improper. It could only perplex the 
 minds of the electers, who, if they collected anything from 
 so confused a declaration of the law of parliament, must have 
 concluded that their representative had been declared inca- 
 pable because he was highly guilty, not because he had been 
 punished. But even admitting them to have understood it in 
 the other sense, they must then, from the very terms of the 
 vote, have united the idea of his being sent to the Tower with 
 that of his expulsion, and considered his incapacity as the joint 
 effect of both. 
 
 I do not mean to give an opinion upon the justice of the 
 proceedings of the House of Commons with regard to Mr. 
 Walpole ; but certainly, if I admitted their censure to be well 
 founded, I could no way avoid agreeing with them in the con- 
 sequence they drew from it. I could never have a doubt, in 
 law or reason, that a man, convicted of a high breach of trust, 
 and of a notorious corruption in the execution of a public 
 office was and ought to be incapable of sitting in the same 
 parliament. Far from attempting to invalidate that vote, I 
 should have wished that the incapacity declared by it could 
 legally have been continued for ever. 
 
 Now, Sir, observe hosv forcibly the argument returns. The 
 House of Commons, upon the face of their proceedings, had 
 the strongest motives to declare Mr. Walpole incapable of be- 
 ing re-elected. They thought such a man unworthy to sit 
 among them. To that point they proceeded no farther; 
 for they respected the rights of the people, while they asserted 
 their own. They did not infer from Mr. Walpole's incapacity 
 that his opponent was duly elected ; on the contrary, they 
 declared Mr. Taylor " not duly elected," and the election 
 itself void. 
 
 Such, however, is the precedent which ray honest friend 
 assures us is strictly in point to prove, that expulsion of itself 
 creates an incapacity of being elected. If it had been so, the pie- 
 gent House of Commons sbouU at least have followed strictly
 
 200 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 the fexair.ple before them, and should have stated to us, in tho 
 same vote, the crimes for which they expelled Mr. Wilkes; 
 whereas they resolve simply that, " having been expelled, 
 he was and is incapable." In this proceeding I am authorized 
 to aflirin they have neither statute, nor custom, nor reason, 
 nor one single precedent to support them. On the other side, 
 there is indeed a precedent so strongly in point that all the 
 enchanted castles of ministerial magic fall before it. In the 
 year 1698 (a period which the rankest Tory dare not except 
 against) Mr. Wollastou was expelled, re-elected, and admitted 
 to take his seat in the same parliament. The ministry have 
 precluded themselves from all objections drawn from the cause 
 of his expulsion, for they affirm absolutely, that expulsion of 
 itself creates the disability. Now, Sir, let sophistry evade, let 
 falsehood assert, and impudence deny here stands the prece- 
 dent, a landmark to direct us through a troubled sea of con- 
 troversy, conspicuous and unremoved. 
 
 I have dwelt the longer upon the discussion of this point, 
 because, in my opinion, it comprehends the whole question. 
 The rest is unworthy of notice. We are enquiring whether in- 
 capacity be or be not created by expulsion. In the cases of Bed- 
 ford and Maiden the incapacity of the persons returned was 
 matter of public notoriety, for it was created by act of parlia- 
 ment. But really, Sir, my honest friend's suppositions are 
 as unfavourable to him as his facts. He well knows that the 
 clergy, besides that they are represented in common with their 
 fellow-subjects, have also a separate parliament of their own ; 
 that their incapacity to sit in the House of Commons has 
 been confirmed by repeated decisions of the House, and that the 
 law of parliament declared by those decisions, has been, for 
 above two centuries, notorious and undisputed. The author 
 is certainly at liberty to fancy cases, and make whatever compa- 
 risons he thinks proper ; his suppositions still continue as dis- 
 tant from fact as his wild discourses are from solid argument. 
 
 The conclusion of his book is candid to an extreme. He 
 offers to grant me all I desire. He thinks he may safely admit 
 that the case of Mr. Walpole makes directly against him, for it 
 seems he has one grand solution in petto for all difficulties. 
 If, says he, I were to allow all this, it will only prove that the 
 law of election was different in Queen Anne's time from u-hat 
 it is at present. 
 
 This, indeed, is more than I expected. The principle, 1
 
 TO THE Pt'BLir ADVERTISER. 901 
 
 know, has been maintained in fact, but I never expected to 
 see it so formally declared. What can he mean ? Does he as- 
 sume this language to satisfy the doubts of the people, or does 
 he mean to rouse their indignation ? Are the ministry daring 
 enough to affirm, that the House of Commons have a right to 
 make and unmake the law of parliament at their pleasure ? 
 Does the law of parliament which we are so often told is the 
 law of the land does the common right of every subject of 
 the realm depend upon an arbitrary, capricious vote of one 
 branch of the legislature? The voice of truth and reason 
 must be silent. 
 
 The ministry tell us plainly that this is no longer a ques- 
 tion of right, but of power and force alone. What was law 
 yesterday is not law to-day ; and now, it seems, we have no 
 better rule to live by than the temporary discretion and fluc- 
 tuating integrity of the House of Commons. 
 
 Professions of patriotism are become stale and ridiculous. 
 For my own part, I claim no merit from endeavouring to do a 
 service to my fellow-subjects. I have done it to the best of 
 my understanding; and, without looking for the approbation 
 of other men, my conscience is satisfied. What remains to be 
 done concerns the collective body of the people. They are 
 now to determine for themselves, whether they will firmly 
 and constitutionally assert their rights, or make an humble, 
 slavish surrender of them at the feet of the ministry. To a 
 generous mind there cannot be a doubt. We owe it to our 
 ancestors to preserve entire those rights which they have de- 
 livered to our care we owe it to our posterity not to suffer 
 their dearest inheritance to be destroyed. But if it were pos- 
 sible for us to be insensible of these sacred claims, there is 
 yet an obligation binding upon ourselves, from which nothing 
 can acquit us, a personal interest, which we cannot sur- 
 render. To alienate even our own rights woxild be a crime 
 as much more enormous than suicide as a life of civil security 
 and freedom is superior to a bare existence ; and, if life be 
 the bounty of heaven, we scornfully reject the noblest part oi 
 the gift if we consent to surrender that certain rule of living 
 without which the condition of human nature is not only 
 miserable, but contemptible. 
 
 JUNIUS.
 
 202 LETTEBS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER OF PHILO-JUNIUS 
 
 (In reference to the preceding.) 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER*. 
 
 SIR, May 22, 1771, 
 
 VERY early in the debate upon the decision of the Middlesex 
 election, it was observed by Junius that the House of Commong 
 had not only exceeded their boasted precedent of the expulsion 
 and subsequent incapacitation of Mr. Walpole, but that they 
 had not even adhered to it strictly as far as it went. After 
 convicting Mr. Dyson of giving a false quotation from the 
 Journals, and having explained the purpose which that con- 
 temptible fraud was intended to answer, he proceeds to state 
 the vote itself by which Mr. Walpole's supposed incapacity 
 was declared, viz., " Resolved, that Robert Walpole, Esq., 
 having been this session of parliament committed a prisoner 
 to the Tower, and expelled this House for a high breach of 
 trust in the execution of his office, and notorious corruption 
 when secretary at war, was and is incapable of being elected a 
 member to serve in this present parliament : " and then ob- 
 serves that, from the terms of the vote, we have no right to 
 annex the incapacitation to the expulsion only, for that, as 
 the proposition stands, it must arise equally from the expul- 
 sion and the commitment to the Tower. I believe, Sir, no 
 man who knows anything of dialectics, or who understands 
 English, will dispute the truth and fairness of this construc- 
 tion. But Junius has a great authority to support him, which, 
 to speak with the Duke of Grafton, I accidentally met with 
 this morning in the course of my reading. It contains an 
 admonition which caimot be repeated too often. Lord Somers, 
 in his excellent tract upon the rights of the people, after ro 
 
 * This letter, published long subsequent to that which here immediately 
 precedes it, was intended chiefly to adduce, in defence of Junius's expla* 
 nation of the Commons resolution, which declared Mr. Walpole incapable of 
 immediate re-election, no less authority than that of Lord Somers, as clearly 
 expressed in his interpretation of the famous convenrion at the rerolution, by 
 which King James was declared to have abdicated the throne. The letter in 
 inserted here, because Junius, from the place he has given it in hig own 
 edition, appears to have intended that it should accompany that of August 8, 
 1769, to which it especially refers. E.
 
 PHILO-JDNIUS TO T1IE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 203 
 
 citing the vote of the convention of the 28th of January, 1689, 
 viz., " That King James the Second, having endeavoured to 
 subvert the constitution of this kingdom by breaking the ori- 
 ginal contract between king and people, and by the advice 
 of Jesuits and other wicked persons having violated the fun- 
 damental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of this 
 kingdom, hath abdicated the government, &c." makes this 
 observation upon it : " The word abdicated relates to all the 
 clauses aforegoing, as well as to his deserting the kingdom, or 
 else they would have been wholly in vain." And that there 
 might be no pretence for confining the abdication merely to 
 the withdrawing, Lord Somers farther observes, that King 
 James, by refusing to govern us according to that law by which 
 lie held the crown, implicitly renounced his title to it. 
 
 If Junius's construction of the vote against Mr. Walpole be 
 now admitted (and indeed I cannot comprehend how it can 
 honestly be disputed), the advocates of the House of Commons 
 must either give up their precedent entirely, or be reduced to 
 the necessity of maintaining one of the grossest absurdities 
 imaginable, viz., " That a commitment to the Tower is a con- 
 stituent part of, and contributes half at least to, the incapacity 
 tion of the person who suffers it." 
 
 I need not make you any excuse for endeavouring to keep 
 alive the attention of the public to the decision of the Middle- 
 sex election. The more I consider it, the more I am con- 
 vinced that, as a, fact, it is indeed highly injurious to the rights 
 of the people ; but that, as a precedent, it is one of the most 
 dangerous that ever was established against those who are to 
 come after us. Yet I am so far a moderate man that I verily 
 believe the majority of the House of Commons, when they 
 passed this dangerous vote, neither understood the question, 
 nor knew the consequence of what they were doing. Their 
 motives were rather despicable, than criminal, in the extreme. 
 One effect they certainly did not foresee. They are now re 
 duced to such a situation that, if a member of the present 
 House of Commons were to conduct himself ever so improperly, 
 and in reality deserve to be sent back to his constituents with a 
 mark of disgrace, they would not dare to expel him, because 
 they know that the people, in order to try again the great 
 question of right, or to thwart an odious House of Commons, 
 would probably overlook his immediate unworthiness, and r
 
 234 LETTERS OF JUNIITS 
 
 turn the same person to parliament. But, in time, the pre- 
 cedent \\iil gain strength. A future House of Commons will 
 have no buch apprehensions, consequently will not scruple tc 
 follow a precedent which they did not establish. The miser 
 himself seldom lives to enjoy the fruit of his extortion ; but 
 his heir succeeds to him of course, and takes possession with- 
 out censure. No man expects him to make restitution, an I, 
 no matter for his title, he lives quietly upon the estate 
 
 THILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, August 22, 1769. 
 
 I MUST beg of you to print a few lines, in explanation of some 
 passages in my last letter, which I see have been misunder 
 .stood. 
 
 1. When I said that the House of Commons never meant 
 to found Mr. Walpole's incapacity on his expulsion only, I 
 meant no more than to deny the general proposition that 
 expulsion alone creates the incapacity. If there be anything 
 ambiguous in the expression, I beg leave to explain it by 
 saying that, in my opinion, expulsion neither creates, nor in 
 any part contributes to create, the incapacity in question. 
 
 2. I carefully avoided entering into the merits of Mr. 
 Walpole's case. I did not inquire whether the House of 
 Commons acted justly, or whether they truly declared the law 
 of parliament. My remarks went only to their apparent 
 meaning and intention, as it stands declared in their own 
 resolution 
 
 3. I never meant to affirm that a commitment to the 
 Tower created a disqualification. On the contrary, I con- 
 sidered that idea as an absurdity into which the ministry 
 must inevitably fall if they reasoned right upon their own 
 principles. 
 
 The case of Mr. Wollaston speaks for itself. The ministry 
 assert that expulsion alone creates an absolute, complete in- 
 capacity to be re-elected to sit in the same parliament. This
 
 PHILO-JUNIDS TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 205 
 
 proposition tuey have uniformly maintained, without any con- 
 dition or modification whatsoever. Mr. Wollaston was ex- 
 pelled, re-elected, and admitted to take his seat in the same 
 parliament. I leave it to the public to determine whether 
 this be a plain matter of fact, or mere nonsense and declama- 
 tion. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 TO THE PBINTEB OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, September 4, 1769. 
 
 ARGUMENT AGAINST FACT ; or, A new System of political 
 Logic, by which the ministry have demonstrated, to the 
 satisfaction of their friends, that expulsion alone creates a 
 complete incapacity to be re-elected ; alias, that a subject 
 of this realm may be robbed of his common right by a vote 
 of the House of Commons. 
 
 FIRST FACT. 
 
 Mr. Wollaston, in 1698, icas expelled, re-elected, and ad- 
 mitted to take his seat. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 As this cannot conveniently be reconciled with our general 
 proposition, it may be necessary to shift our ground and look 
 back to the cause of Mr. Wollaston's expulsion. From 
 thence it will appear clearly that, " although he was expelled, 
 he had not rendered himself a culprit too ignominious to sit 
 in parliament, and that, having resigned his employment, he 
 was no longer incapacitated by law." Vide Serious Consider- 
 ations, page 23. Or thus, " The House, somewhat inaccu- 
 rately, used the word EXPELLED ; they should have called it 
 A MOTION." Vide Mungo's Case considered, page 11. Or, in 
 short, if these arguments should be thought insufficient, we 
 may fairly deny the fact. For example; " I affirm that he 
 was nDt re-elected. The same Mr. Wollaston who was ex- 
 pelled was not again elected. The same individual, if you 
 please, walked into the House, and tock his seat there ; but
 
 208 LETTERS OF 
 
 the same person in law was not admitted a member of that 
 parliament, from which he had been discarded.' Vide Lettei 
 to Junius, page 12. 
 
 SECOND FACT. 
 
 Mr. Walpole having been committed to the Tower, and 
 expelled for a high breach of trust, and notorious corruption 
 in a public office, was declared incapable, dc. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 From the terms of this vote, nothing can be more evident 
 than that the House of Commons meant to fix the incapacity 
 upon the punishment, and not upon the crime ; but lest it 
 should appear in a different light to weak, uninformed per- 
 sons, it may be advisable to put the resolution, and give it to 
 the public, with all possible solemnity, in the following terms, 
 namely, " Resolved, that Kobert Walpole, Esq., having been 
 that session of parliament expelled the House, was and is 
 incapable of being elected a member to serve in that present 
 parliament." Vide Mungo, on the Use of Quotations, page 1 1. 
 
 N.B. The author of the answer to Sir William Meredith* 
 seems to have made use of Mungo 's quotation, for in page 18 
 he assures us, "That the declaratory vote of the 17th of 
 February, 1769, was indeed a literal copy of the resolution of 
 the House in Mr. Walpole's case." 
 
 THIRD FACT. 
 
 His opponent, Mr. Taylor, having the smallest number of 
 votes at the next election, was declared NOT DULY ELECTED. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This fact we consider as directly in point to prove that Mr. 
 Luttrell ought to be the sitting member, for the following 
 reasons, " The burgesses of Lynn could draw no other infer- 
 ence from this resolution, but this, that, at a future election, 
 and in case of a similar return, the House would receive the 
 same candidate as duly elected whom they had before re- 
 jected." Vide Postscript to Junius, p. 37. Or thus: "This 
 their resolution leaves no room to doubt what part they would 
 
 ir W. Blackstone.
 
 PHILO-JUNIU8 TO THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 201 
 
 have taken if, upon a subsequent re-election of Mr. Walpolu 
 there had been any other candidate in competition with him. 
 For, by their vote, they could have no other intention than to 
 admit such other candidate." Vide Mungo's Case considered 
 p. 39. Or take it in this light: the burgesses of Lynn, 
 having, in defiance of the House, retorted upon them a per- 
 son whom they had branded with the most ignominious marks 
 of their displeasure, were thereby so well entitled to favour 
 and indulgence, that the House could do no less than rob Mr. 
 Taylor of a right legally vested in him, in order that the 
 burgesses might be apprized of the law of parliament, 
 which law the House took a very direct way of explaining to 
 them by resolving that the candidate with the fewest votes 
 was not duly elected : " And was not this much more equit- 
 able, more in the spirit of that equal and substantial justice, 
 which is the end of all law, than if they had violently ad- 
 hered to the strict maxims of law?" Vide Serious Consider- 
 ations, pp. 3fl and 34. " And if the present House of Com- 
 mons had chosen to follow the spirit of this resolution, they 
 would have received and established the candidate with the 
 fewest votes." Vide Answer to Sir W. M., p. 18. 
 
 Permit me now, Sir, to show you that the worthy Dr. 
 Blackstoue sometimes contradicts tho ministry as well as 
 himself. The speech without doors asserts *, p. 9, " That 
 the legal effect of an incapacity founded on a judicial deter- 
 mination of a competent court is precisely the same as that 
 of an incapacity created by act of parliament." Now for the 
 Doctor. The law and the opinion of the judge are not always 
 convertible terms, or one and the same thing ; tince it some- 
 times may happen that the judge may mistake the law. Com- 
 mentaries, vol. i. p. 71. 
 
 The answer to Sir W. M. asserts, page 23, " That the 
 returning officer is not a judicial, but a purely ministerial 
 officer. His return is no judicial act." At 'em again, Doc- 
 tor. The Sheriff, in his judicial capacity, is to hear and 
 determine causes of forty shillings value and under in his 
 county court. He has also a judicial power in divers other 
 civil cases. He is likewise to decide the election* of knights oj 
 the shire (subject to the control of the House of Commons),, to 
 
 Letter 17.
 
 208 LETTERS OF JUXIUS. 
 
 judge of tJie qualification of voters, and to return such as ht 
 shall DETERMINE to be duly elected. Vide Commentaries, page 
 332, vol. i. 
 
 What conclusion shall we draw from such facts, such argu- 
 ments, and such contradictions ? I cannot express my opinion 
 of the present ministry more exactly than in the words of 
 Sir R. Steele, " that we are governed by a set of drivellers, 
 whose folly takes away all dignity from distress, and makes 
 even calamity ridiculous."* 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 * In a pamphlet written by Steele upon the issue of the South-Sea Com 
 pany, at the period when Walpole was beginning to take a higher and more 
 decided part in the management of public aflairs. It was supposed to have 
 been written by Walpole and Steele conjointly. But Steele seems to have 
 been as much superior to \Yalpole in the knowledge of matters of trade 
 and national revenue as in the art of elegant writing. 
 
 Before entering with Junius on a new theme, it may not be amiss to con- 
 trast the whole strength of the ministerial arguments in favour of the decision 
 of the House of Commons, in the case of the Middlesex election, with those 
 which have been urged by Junius to prove the illegality of that decision. 
 The ministerial cause was argued by Dr. Johnson, hi his pamphlet of Tlte 
 False Alarm, much better than by any one else who undertook to plead it. 
 
 The following is a summary of Johnson's arguments. 
 
 1. Wilkes was so very worthless a fellow, that the electors disgraced them- 
 selves, and offered an insult to the electors in all the burghs and counties of 
 Great Britain, to the House of Commons, and even to the other two branches 
 of the Legislature, by sending him to be their representative in parlia- 
 ment 
 
 2. By natural expediency, and by custom expressed in a long series of 
 precedents, the House of Commons have collectively an unlimited authority 
 over their own members, in the exercise of which they cannot be controlled, 
 as even for its abuse they cannot be called to account 
 
 3. A man attainted of felony cannot sit in parliament. The House of 
 Commons must have considered the crimes of Wilkes as little less heinous 
 than felony. They, justly, therefore, assumed the liberty of treating him as 
 a felon. 
 
 4. From the time of his expulsion, "Wilkes could not be a legal candidate 
 for the representation of any county or burgh. Votes given for one incapable 
 of being legally a candidate, could have no legal effect. Having no legal 
 effect, were they not, of course, null ] 
 
 5. Selden has maintained that the House of Commons have even power 
 to impose perpetual disability upon any one of their members. 
 
 6. Only tbat power which cannot be exercised without the agency of 
 others terminates to the Commons at the end of a Session. But that of 
 which the exercise is in thenuelves alone, and only while they sit, endures 
 from one general election to another. 
 
 7. It appears to have always been the law, that no Member of the Hou*
 
 PHILO-JUHIUS TO THE PUBLIC ADVEBTTSEB 209 
 
 ftf Commons, once expelled, for whatever cause, could again obtain a seat iu 
 the same parliament, if there were not some statutory exception in his 
 favour. 
 
 8. If a county or burgh were left free to return, by continually repeated 
 election, any obnoxious member, as often as the House should think fit to 
 expel him, the business of Parliament might be entirely interrupted by a 
 mischievous concert between that member and his electors; and the whole 
 attention of the Commons might be confined, even at any crisis, however 
 important, to this ridiculous contest ; therefore, to protect the order of iti 
 proceedings, the House of Commons must necessarily possess authority to 
 prevent the re-election of any member whom they have expelled. 
 
 9. Were it even true that the decision in favour of Mr. Luttrell, and in 
 opposition to the claims of Mr. Wilkes and the majority of the Middlesex 
 electors, were unjust and unconstitutional, yet how happy, in comparisa.1, 
 that nation which suffers from its government no wrongs heavier than this ! 
 
 These are the arguments of Johnson. Let us oppose to them a summary 
 of those of Junius. 
 
 1. It was not his immorality that recommended Wilkes to the choice of 
 the electors of Middlesex; but his zeal and firmness in opposing wicked 
 ministers and irregular acts of power; his sufferings in the cause he had 
 espoused, sufferings by which he was certainly recommended to the esteem and 
 favour of his country ; and the consideration that the man, whoever he might lie, 
 in respect to whom any great principle of the constitution had been violated, 
 ought to be firmly supported by all who thought that constitution worthy of 
 defence, till his wrongs should be redressed, and the laws, in the violation of 
 which he was injured, should be effectually vindicated. 
 
 2. Unless there be statute or precedent to the contrary, the House of 
 Commons can possess no other authority over either their own members or 
 any one else, save what, in addition to the effect of the common and statute 
 law, and to the care of the King to maintain the peace in favour of his 
 Commons, may be necessary to support the freedom and order of their 
 proceedings. Having it so much in their power to discover and promote 
 whatever new laws may be wanted, they can easily procure an act of th 
 legislature whenever new and more effectual protection to their legislativ 
 agency may become necessary. And it cannot be supposed that they shoult. 
 choose to retain aught in uncertainty which they may procure to be 
 decisively settled, if that were requisite, by a law of unquestionable validity. 
 
 3. But the power of excluding an expelled member is not indispensably 
 necessary to maintain the order and dignity of the proceedings of the House 
 of Commons. Or, if it be necessary, it is at least of such a nature that it 
 might be defined by law without inconvenience either to the public in 
 general or to the House of Commons. Or it may be at least rendered 
 effectual by the Commons alone, without depriving those electors of the right 
 cf voting who may incline to send back the expelled member into the bosom 
 of the House. 
 
 4. The power of excluding an expelled member on account simply of An 
 expulsion, has not been bestowed on the House of Commons by any statute, 
 nd does cot appear in any precedent, to have been ever exercised by them. 
 Neither do they appear to have ever on any former occasion supposed thai 
 
 VOL. I Tf
 
 210 LETTERS OP JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXIII*. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 
 
 Mr LORD, September 19, 1769. 
 
 You are so little accustomed to receive any marks :f respect 
 or esteem from the public f, that if in the following lines a 
 
 they had power to annul the votes which were given in favour of candidate* 
 who had been previously disqualified by expulsion from the House. 
 
 5. All the precedents which have been quoted in defence of the decision 
 of the House upon the Middlesex election have been found to be in this 
 ease inaccurately applied, and of course to contradict the very position which 
 they have been quoted to maintain. 
 
 6. Consequences the most fatal to the British Constitution would ensue if the 
 House of Commons were suffered to annul at pleasure, by their sole authority, 
 the votes of their electors. Every burgh, every county, might be forced to 
 forego its first choice in order to escape the danger of being deprived of the 
 liberty to make a second. 
 
 These are the chief arguments on both sides. It is easy to see that those 
 of Junius exceedingly preponderate. And happily, at the time when, at the 
 close of the American War, the Whigs of the school of Charles Fox Charles 
 Fox, the true political representative of Temple and of Chatham came for a 
 short time into power, the precedent of the decision in the case of the Mid- 
 dlesex election was erased from the records of the House of Commons. 
 
 * In requesting the announcement of this letter, Junius says, " I mean to 
 make it worth printing." Private Letter, No. 9, vol. ii. 
 
 f The unpopular peace of 1763 was negotiated by the Duke of Bedford, 
 and gave rise to a variety of public commotions, which at length broke out 
 into acts of open insurrection among the Spitalfield weavers, who exclaimed 
 that their trade was ruined by its commercial stipulations. The rumour 
 became current that the French Court had purchased this peace by bribes to 
 the Princess Dowager of Wales, Lord Bute, the Duke of Bedford, and Mr. 
 Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland ; and such was its general belief that 
 the House of Commons thought proper to appoint a committee to examine 
 into its truth; who traced it chiefly to a Dr. Musgrave, who, nevertheless, 
 does not appear to have suffered from this libellous report, which, as he 
 affirmed, he had brought home with him from Paris. The public disfavour 
 with which the terms of the peace were received, produced a fresh disagree- 
 ment between Lord Bute and the Duke of Bedford on his return home, and 
 he resigned the office of lord privy seal. Upon the death of Lord Egremont, 
 however, Lord Bute found himself compelled once more to applj to the Duke 
 of Bedford for his interest, who, conscious of his importance, exacted not only 
 from Lord Bute but from the King himself a submission to whatever termi 
 he chose to impose. After the Regency Bill, which had been recommended 
 in a speech from the throne in April, 1765, had passed both Houses, an 
 attempt was made to change the administration, i-om a belief that this bill
 
 TO THE DUKE OF BKDFORD. 2U 
 
 compliment or expression of applause should escape me, I 
 fear you would consider it as a mockery of your established 
 character, and perhaps an insult to your understanding. 
 You have nice feelings, my Lord, if we may judge from your 
 resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving offence where 
 you have so little deserved it, I shall leave the illustration of 
 your virtues to other hands. Your friends have a privilege 
 to play upon the easiness of your temper, or possibly they 
 are better acquainted with your good qualities than I am. 
 You have done good by stealth. The rest is upon record. 
 You have still left ample room for speculation when panegyric 
 is exhausted. 
 
 You are indeed a very considerable man. The highest 
 rank, a splendid fortune, and a name, glorious till it was 
 yours, were sufficient to have supported you with meaner 
 abilities than I think you possess. From the first, you derived 
 a constitutional claim to respect ; from the second, a natural 
 extensive authority ; the last created a partial expectation of 
 hereditary virtues. The use you have made of these uncom 
 mon advantages might have been more honourable to your- 
 self, but could not be more instructive to mankind. We may 
 trace it in the veneration of your country, the choice of your 
 friends, and in the accomplishment of every sanguine hope 
 which the public might have conceived from the illustrious 
 name of Russell. 
 
 had not received their cordial support during its progress through Parliament, 
 but without success. It was upon this occasion that the Duke of Bedford 
 insisted upon the dismissal of Lord Bute's brother, Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, 
 from his office, although Mackenzie had received his Majesty's solemi, 
 promise that he should preserve it for life ; that he recalled Lord Northuis 
 berland from the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, and removed Lord Holland 
 from the pay office. 
 
 Incapable of submitting to such severe treatment, his Majesty soon after- 
 wards entreated the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Rockingham to rescue him 
 from the Bedford party. They consented, and the duke was again dismissed 
 with contumely. When his Majesty became disgusted, as he soon did, 
 with this ministry also, Lord Bute applied in the King's name to George 
 Grenville for support, and the Duke of Bedford, who was on terms of the 
 closest friendship with him, once more strove to enter into the cabinet; but on 
 this occasion Lord Bute had spirit enough tc treat his offer with the utmost 
 contempt. Lord Chatham was next applied to, who consented to take the 
 lead, and on his resignation the Duke of Grafton was made prime minister, 
 who, to strengthen his own hands, re-introduced the Duke of Bedford int 
 the cabinet, without, h.frever, appointing him to any particular office. 
 
 F 8
 
 812 LETTERS OF JtTNIUS 
 
 The eminence of your station gave you a commanding pro 
 spect of your duty. The road which led to honour was open 
 to your view. You could not lose it by mistake, and you had 
 no temptation to depart from it by design. Compare the 
 natural dignity and importance of the richest peer of Eng- 
 land the noble independence which he might have main- 
 tained in parliament, and the real interest and respect which 
 he might have acquired, not only in parliament, but through 
 the whole kingdom compare these glorious distinctions with 
 the ambition of holding a share in government, the emolu- 
 ments of a place, the sale of a borough, or the purchase of a 
 corporation, and though you may not regret the virtues which 
 create respect, you may see with anguish how much real im- 
 portance and authority you have lost. Consider the character 
 of an independent, virtuous Duke of Bedford ; imagine what 
 he might be in this country, then reflect one moment upon 
 what you are. If it be possible for me to withdraw my at- 
 tention from the fact, I will tell you in theory what such a 
 man might be. 
 
 Conscious of his own weight and importance, his conduct 
 in parliament would be directed by nothing but the constitu- 
 tional duty of a peer. He would consider himself as a guar- 
 dian of the laws. Willing to support the just measures of 
 government, but determined to observe the conduct of the 
 minister with suspicion, he would oppose the violence of fac 
 tion with as much firmness as the encroachments of preroga- 
 tive. He would be as little capable of bargaining with the 
 minister for places for himself or his dependents as of de- 
 scending to mix himself in the intrigues of opposition. 
 Whenever an important question called for his opinion in 
 parliament, he would be heard by the most profligate minister 
 with deference and respect. His authority would either 
 sanctify or disgrace the measures of government. The peo- 
 ple would look up to him as their protector, and a virtuous 
 prince would have one honest man in his dominions in whose 
 integrity and judgment he might safely confide. If it should 
 be the will of Providence to afflict him with a domestic mis- 
 fortune *, he would submit to the stroke with feeling, but not 
 
 * The duke had lately lost his onUr son, by a fall from his horje. 
 Junes.
 
 TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 213 
 
 without dignity. He would consider the people as his chil 
 dren, and receive a generous heart-felt consolation in the 
 sympathising tears and blessings of his country. 
 
 Your Grace may probably discover something more intel- 
 ligible in the negative part of this illustrious character. The 
 man I have described would never prostitute his dignity in 
 parliament by an indecent violence either in opposing or de- 
 fending a minister. He would not at one moment rancor- 
 ously persecute, at another basely cringe to, the favourite of 
 his sovereign. After outraging the royal dignity with pe- 
 remptory conditions little short of menace and hostility, he 
 would never descend to the humility of soliciting an inter- 
 view * with the favourite, and of offering to recover, at any 
 price, the honour of his friendship. Though deceived, per- 
 haps, in his youth, he would not, through the course of a long 
 life, have invariably chosen his friends from among the most 
 profligate of mankind. His own honour would have forbid- 
 den him from mixing his private pleasures or conversation 
 with jockeys, gamesters, blasphemers, gladiators, or buffoons. 
 He would then have never felt, much less would he have sub- 
 mitted to, the humiliating, dishonest necessity of engaging in 
 the interest and intrigues of his dependents, of supplying their 
 vices, or relieving their beggary, at the expense of his country. 
 He would not have betrayed such ignorance or such contempt 
 of the constitution as openly to avow, in a court of justice, 
 the purchase and sale f of a borough. He would not have 
 thought it consistent with his rank in the state, or even with 
 his personal importance, to be the little tyrant of a little cor 
 poration J. He would never have been insulted with virtues 
 which he had laboured to extinguish, nor suffered the disgrace 
 
 * At this interview, which passed at the house of the late Lord Eglir.toun, 
 Lord Bute told the duke that he was determined never to have any connec- 
 tion with a man who had so basely betrayed him. JDNIUS. 
 
 f 1 In an answer in Chancery, in a suit against him to recover a large sum 
 paid him by a person whom he had undertaken to return to Parliament for 
 one of his Grace's boroughs. He was compelled to repay the money. 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 J Of Bedford, where the tyrant was held in such contempt and detesta- 
 tion, that, in order to deliver themselves from him, they admitted a great 
 number of strangers to the freedom. To make his defeat truly ridiculous, 
 he tried his whole strength against Mr. Home, and was beaten upon nil 
 0ii ground. JCNIUS.
 
 314 LETTERS OF JUXIUS. 
 
 of a mortifying defeat which has made him ridiculous and 
 contemptible even to the few by whom he was not detested. 
 1 reverence the afflictions of a good man his sorrows are 
 sacred. But how can we take part in the distresses of a man 
 whom we can neither love nor jsteem ; or feel for a calamity 
 of which he himself is insensible ? Where was the father's 
 heart when he could look for, or find an immediate consola- 
 tion for the loss of an only son, in consultations and bargains 
 for a place at court, and even in the misery of balloting at 
 the India House ! 
 
 Admitting, then, that you have mistaken or deserted those 
 honourable principles which ought to have directed your conduct, 
 admitting that you have as little claim to private affection as 
 to public esteem, let us see with what abilities, with what 
 degree of judgment, you have carried your own system into 
 execution. A great man in the success, and even in the mag- 
 nitude, of his crimes finds a rescue from contempt. Your 
 Grace is every way unfortunate. Yet I will not look back to 
 those ridiculous scenes by which, in your earlier days, you 
 thought it an honour to be distinguished the recorded 
 stripes *, the public infamy, your own sufferings, or Mr. 
 Rigby's fortitude. These events undoubtedly left an impres- 
 sion, though not upon your mind. To such a mind it may, 
 perhaps, be a pleasure to reflect that there is hardly a corner 
 of any of His Majesty's kingdoms, except France, in which, 
 at one time or other, your valuable life has not been in 
 danger. Amiable man ! we see and acknowledge the protec 
 tion of Providence, by which you have so often escaped the 
 personal detestation of your fellow-subjects, and are still 
 reserved for the public justice of your country. 
 
 Your history begins to be important at that auspicious 
 period at which you were deputed to represent the Earl of 
 Bute at the court of Versailles. It was an honourable office, 
 
 * Mr. Heston Homphrey, a country attorney, horsewhipped the duke with 
 equal justice, severity, and perseverance, on the course at Litchfield. Rigby 
 and Lord Trent/Mm were also cudgelled in a most exemplary manner. Thi 
 gave rise to the following story : " When the late king heard that Sir Ed- 
 ward Hawke had given the French a drubbing, his Majesty, who had neve* 
 received that kind of chastisement, was pleased to ask Lord Chesterfield the 
 meaning of the word. " Sir," says Lord Chesterfield " the me* ring of the 
 word but here comes the Duke of Bedford, who is better able to explai i it 
 to your Majesty than I am." Jtnaus.
 
 TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD 215 
 
 aud executed with the same spirit -with which it was ac- 
 cepted. Your patrons wanted an ambassador who would sub- 
 mit to make concessions without daring to insist upon any 
 honourable condition for his sovereign. Their business re- 
 quired a man who had as little feeling for his own dignity as 
 for the welfare of his country ; and they found him in the 
 first rank of the nobility. Belleisle, Goree, Guadaloupe, St. 
 Louis, Martinique, the Fishery, and the Havanna, are glorious 
 monuments of your Grace's talents for negotiation*. My Lord, 
 we a.*e too well acquainted with your pecuniary character to 
 think it possible that so many public sacrifices should be made 
 without some private compensations. Your conduct carries 
 with it an internal evidence beyond all the legal proofs of a 
 court of justice. Even the callous pride of Lord Egremont 
 was alarmed f. He saw and felt his own dishonour in corre- 
 sponding with you; and there certainly was a moment at 
 which he meant to have resisted, had not a fatal lethargy pre- 
 vailed over his faculties, and carried all sense and memory 
 away with it. 
 
 I will not pretend to specify the secret terms on which you 
 were invited to support an administration J which Lord Bute 
 pretended to leave in full possession of their ministerial au- 
 thority, and perfectly masters of themselves. He was not of 
 a temper to relinquish power, though he retired from employ- 
 ment. Stipulations were certainly made between your Grace 
 and him, and certainly violated. After two years submission, 
 you thought you had collected a strength sufficient to controul 
 his influence, and that it was your turn to be a tyrant, because 
 you had been a slave. When you found yourself mistaken ia 
 your opinion of your gracious master's firmness, disappoint- 
 ment got the better of all your humble discretion, and car- 
 ried you to an excess of outrage to his person, as distant from 
 
 * The peace of 1763, negotiated by the duke ; the conquests specified 
 were relinquished by its conditions, and the rumour, as already observed, 
 was in general circulation that the duke and his friends had been bribed into 
 go prodigal a surrender. 
 
 + This man, notwithstanding his pride and Tory principles, had some Eng- 
 lish stuff in him. Dpon an official letter he wrote to the Duke of Bedford, 
 the duke desired to be recalled, and it was with the utmost difficulty thai 
 Lord Bute could appease him. JUNIDS. 
 
 Mr. (irenville, Lord Halifax, and Lord Egremont.- JUIUUB.
 
 LETTERS OF JCNIUS. 
 
 true spirit, as from all decency and respect* After robbing 
 him of the rights of a king, you would not permit him to pre- 
 serve the honour of a gentleman. It was then Lord Wey- 
 mouth was nominated to Ireland, and dispatched (we well re- 
 member with what indecent hurry) to plunder the treasury of 
 the first fruits of an employment which you well knew he was 
 never to executef. 
 
 This sudden declaration of war against the favourite might 
 have given you a momentary merit with the public, if it had 
 either been adopted upon principle, or maintained with reso- 
 lution. Without looking back to all your former servility, we 
 need only observe your subsequent conduct to see upon what 
 motives you acted. Apparently united with Mr. Grenville, 
 you waited until Lord Rockingham's feeble administration 
 should dissolve in its own weakness. The moment their dis- 
 mission was suspected, the moment you perceived that another 
 system was adopted in the closet, you thought it no disgrace 
 to return to your former dependence, and solicit once more 
 the friendship of Lord Bute. You begged an interview, at 
 which he had spirit enough to treat you with contempt. 
 
 It would now be of little use to point out by what a train 
 of weak, injudicious measures, it became necessary, or was 
 thought so, to call you back to a share in the administration J. 
 The friends, whom you did not in the last instance desert, 
 were not of a character to add strength or credit to govern- 
 ment, and at that time your alliance with the Duke of 
 Grafton was, I presume, hardly fDreseen. We must look for 
 other stipulations to account for that sudden resolution of the 
 closet, by which three of your dependants! (whose characters, 
 I think, cannot be less respected than they are) were advanced 
 
 * The ministry having endeavoured to exclude the Dowager out of the 
 fegency bill, the Earl of Bute determined to dismiss them. Upon this the 
 Duke of Bedford demanded an audience of the King, reproached him in plain 
 terms with his duplicity, baseness, falsehood, treachery, and hypocrisy 
 repeatedly gave him the lie, and left him in convulsions. JUNIUS. 
 
 f He received three thousand pounds for plate and equipage money. 
 JCNIUS. 
 
 When Earl Gower was appointed president of the council, the Kin?, 
 with his usual sincerity, assured him that he had not had one happy moment 
 ince the Duke of Bedford left him. JUNIUS. 
 
 Lords Gower, Weymouth, and Sandwich. JUNKS.
 
 TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 917 
 
 to offices through which you might again controul the 
 minister, and probably engross the whole direction of affairs. 
 
 The possession of absolute power is now once more within 
 your reach. The measures you have taken to obtain and con- 
 firm it, are too gross to escape the eyes of a discerning, judi- 
 cious prince. His palace is besieged ; the lines of circutnval 
 lation are drawing round him ; and, unless he finds a resource 
 in his own activity, or in the attachment of the real friends 
 of his family, the best of princes must submit to the confine- 
 ment of a state prisoner until your Grace's death or some less 
 fortunate event shall raise the siege. For the present, you 
 may safely resume that style of insult and menace which 
 even a private gentleman cannot submit to hear without being 
 contemptible. Mr. Mackenzie's history is not yet forgotten, 
 and you may find precedents enough of the mode in which an 
 imperious subject may signify his pleasure to his sovereign. 
 Where will this gracious monarch look for assistance, when 
 the wretched Graf ton could forget his obligations to his 
 master, and desert him for a hollow alliance with such a man 
 as the Duke of Bedford ! 
 
 Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of 
 worldly greatness ; let us suppose that all your plans of 
 avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most san- 
 guine wishes gratified in the fear as well as the hatred of the 
 people. Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act 
 of life ? Can grey hairs make folly venerable ? and is there 
 no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement ? For 
 shame ! my Lord : let it not be recorded of you, that the latest 
 moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy 
 pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and 
 manhood were exhausted. Consider that, although you can- 
 not disgrace your former life, you are violating the character 
 of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have 
 lost the vigour, of the passions. 
 
 Your friends will ask, perhaps, Whither shall this unhappy 
 old man retire '? Can he remain in the metropolis, where hia 
 life has been so often threatened, and his palace so often at- 
 tacked? If he returns to Woburn, scorn and mockery await 
 him. He must create a solitude round his estate, if he would 
 avoid the face of reproach and derision. At Plymouth, his 
 destruction would be mere than probable : at Exeter, incvita-
 
 218 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 He. No honest Englishman will ever forget his attachment, 
 nor any honest Scotchman forgive his treachery, to Lord 
 Bute. At every town he enters he must change his liveries 
 and his name. Which ever way he flies, the Hue and Cry of 
 the country pursues him. 
 
 In another kingdom, indeed, the hlessings of his adminis- 
 tration have been more sensibly felt ; his virtues better un- 
 derstood ; or at worst, they will n_>t, for him alone, forget 
 their hospitality. As well might Verres have returned to 
 Sicily. You have twice escaped, my Lord ; beware of a third 
 experiment. The indignation of a whole people, plundered, 
 insulted, and oppressed as they have been, will not always be 
 disappointed. 
 
 It is in vain therefore to shift the scene. You can no more 
 fly from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, 
 you look into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing 
 but reproaches and despair. But, my Lord, you may quit the 
 field of business, though not the field of danger ; and though 
 you cannot be safe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear 
 you have listened too long to the advice of those pernicious 
 friends with whose interests you have sordidly united your 
 own, and for whom you have sacrificed everything that ought 
 to be dear to a man of honour. They are still base enough to 
 encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices 
 of your youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum 
 as with the laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit 
 by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad cha- 
 racter. Even now they tell you, that life is no more than a 
 dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his con- 
 sistency to the last, and that, as you lived without virtue, you 
 should die without repentance*. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 * As some apprehension was entertained by the printer, that he might b 
 brought before the House of Lords for inserting this letter in his paper, 
 Junius wrote to him in Private Letter, No. 10, as follows : " As to you, it 
 is clearly my opinion that you have nothing to fear from the Duke of Bed- 
 ford. I reserve some things expressly to awe him, in case he ghould think of 
 bringing you before the House of Lords. I am sure I can threaten him pri- 
 vately with such a storm as would make him tremble even in his graTe." 
 
 This letter, viewed as an effort of personal satire, is one of the ablest 
 specimens of the peculiar eloquence of Junius. The contrast of a fancied 
 good character with the assumed bad one of the Duke of Bedford ; the artful
 
 BIB WILLIAM DRAPES TO JUNIUS. 219 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM DRAPER TO JUNIUS 
 
 SIB, September 14, 1769. 
 
 HAVING accidentally seen a republication * of your letters, 
 wherein you have been pleased to assert, that I had sold the 
 companions of my success ; I am again obliged to declare 
 the said assertion to be a most infamous and malicious false- 
 hood; and I again call upon you to stand forth, avow yourself, 
 and prove the charge. If you can make it out to the satisfac- 
 tion of any one man in the kingdom, I will be content to be 
 thought the worst man in it ; if you do not, what must the 
 nation think of you ? Party has nothing to do in this affair : 
 you have made a personal attack upon my honour, defamed 
 me by a most vile calumny, which might possibly have sunk 
 into oblivion, had not such uncommon pains been taken to 
 renew and perpetuate this scandal, chiefly because it has been 
 told in good language; for I give you full credit for your 
 elegant diction, well-turned periods, and Attic witf; but wit 
 
 imputation of treachery won by bribes in the negotiating of the peace ; the 
 hinted coarseness and vulgarity of the object of his disparagement in his pri- 
 vate pleasures; the recalling of that outrage to recollection with which the 
 duke had, on a former occasion, treated his sovereign ; the suggestion that the 
 duke might now fancy all his plans of ambition consummated, and himself 
 indisputable master of the cabinet ; above all, the alarming earnestness with 
 which, in the concluding paragraphs, the duke is taught to believe the whole 
 empire to be, as it were, in arms against him ; compose, together, an assem- 
 blage of splendid parts, forming one of the most powerful and elaborate compo- 
 sitions of the author. The general excellence of the letter, however, is in 
 some measure impaired by a quaintness inconsistent with that chaste delicacy 
 of writing which can alone deserve the approbation of true taste. By qua.intn.ess 
 is meant the use of that cast of thought, and that mould of style, which in 
 propriety belong only to true wit, upon occasions when there is no genuine wit 
 produced, and when indeed the use of such wit would be unseasonable. ED. 
 
 * The italics are in the Juriius edition of 1772, and are in consequence 
 retained both in this and the other letters of the work. ED. 
 
 f This is a palpable misnomer. No two things of the same species can 
 be more unlike than the wit of Junius and that which both the ancients and 
 well-informed moderns have distinguished by the appellation of Attic wit. 
 A delicate propriety that pollutes itself with no grossness, hazards none of 
 those experiments in which the distinctions between true and false wit seem 
 to become uncertain, an ease that seems to aim at nothing striking, a sim- 
 plicity that wears the air of expressing the first thought) 'hat can arise to aa
 
 220 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 is oftentimes false, though it may appear bri'jliant ; which if 
 exactly the case of your whole performance. But, Sir, I am 
 obliged in the most serious manner to accuse you of being 
 guilty of falsities. You have said the thing that is not. To 
 support your story, you have recourse to the following irre- 
 sistible argument : " You sold the companions of your victory 
 because, when the 16th regiment was given to you, you was 
 silent. The conclusion is inevitable." I believe that such 
 deep and acute reasoning could only come from such an extra- 
 ordinary writer as Junius. But, unfortunately for you, the 
 premises as well as the conclusion are absolutely false. Many 
 applications have been made to the ministry on the subject of 
 the Manilla ransom, since the time of my being colonel of that 
 regiment. As I have for some years quitted London, I was 
 obliged to have recourse to the honourable Colonel Monson 
 and Sir Samuel Cornish *, to negotiate for me ; in the last 
 autumn, I personally delivered a memorial to the Earl of 
 Shelburne at his seat in Wiltshire. As you have told us of 
 your importance, that you are a person of rank and fortune, 
 and above a common bribe f, you may in all probability be not 
 unknown to his lordship, who can satisfy you of the truth of 
 what I say. But I shall now take the liberty, Sir, to seize 
 your battery, and turn it against yourself. If your puerile and 
 tinsel logic could carry the least weight or conviction with it, 
 how must you stand affected by the inevitable conclusion, as 
 you are pleased to term it ? According to Junius, silence is 
 guilt. In many of the public papers, you have been called in 
 the most direct and offensive terms a liar and a coward. 
 When did you reply to these foul accusations ? you have been 
 quite silent quite chopfallen therefore, because you was 
 silent, the nation has a right to pronounce you to be both a 
 liar and a coward from your own argument ; but, Sir, I will 
 give you fairer play Fill afford you an opportunity to wipe off 
 
 inartificial mind, in the most natural, unstudied language, an archness that, 
 under all this disguise, misses no occasion of presenting the happiest combina- 
 tions of ideas which, though never before associated, yet refuse not to meet 
 together, faultless purity of phrase, correctness of syntax, and an absence of 
 everything, whether in style or in thought, that might strike the ear as 
 affected or unfamiliar, are the characteristic qualities of Attic wit. HEEON. 
 
 * These gentlemen accompanied Sir William as brother officers ia his ex- 
 pedition against the Philippines. 
 
 f See Miscellaneous Letter of the author, No. 54, vol. ii.
 
 TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER. 391 
 
 the first appellation by desiring the proofs of your cnarge 
 Against me. Produce them ! To wipe off the last, produce 
 yourself. People cannot bear any longer your lions skin, and 
 the despicable imposture of the old Roman name which you 
 have affected. For the future assume the name of some 
 modern* bravo and dark assassin: let your appellation have 
 some affinity to your practice. But if I must perish, Junius, 
 let me perish in the face of day ; be for once a generous and 
 open enemy. I allow that Gothic appeals to cold iron are no 
 better proofs of a man's honesty and veracity, than hot iron 
 and burning ploughshares are of female chastity; but a sol- 
 dier's honour is as delicate as a woman's ; it must not be sus- 
 pected ; you have dared to throw more than a suspicion upon 
 mine you cannot but know the consequences, which even the 
 meekness of Christianity would pardon me for, after the injury 
 you have done me. 
 
 WILLIAM DRAPER. 
 
 LETTER XXV 
 
 Hceret lateri lethalis arundo. 
 
 JUNIUS TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, K.B. 
 
 SIR, September 25, 1769. 
 
 AFTER so long an interval, I did not expect to see the debate 
 revived between us. My answer to your last letter shall be 
 short ; for I write to you with reluctance, and I hope we shall 
 now conclude our correspondence for ever. 
 
 * Was Brutus an ancient bravo and dark assassin ? or does Sir W. D. 
 think it criminal to stab a tyrant to the heart! JUNIUS. 
 
 Sir William was certainly unfortunate in throwing out a contemptuous 
 phrase against the character of the illustrious Roman. He beside commits 
 an egregious error, unpardonable in an ostentatious pretender to classical 
 learning, by confounding Lucius Junius Brutus, the expeller of the Tarquins 
 and founder of the Roman republic, with Marcus Junius Brutus, who can- 
 spired against Julius Caesar to restore the Commonwealth after its subversion. 
 T. was from the former, doubtless, that JUNIUS assumed his name, and hu 
 was unquestionably no " bravo and dark assassin," as Sir William insinuate^ 
 but the open and courageous foe of tyrants. ED.
 
 222 LETTERS OF JUNTOS 
 
 Had you been originally and without provocation attacked 
 by an anonymous writer, you would have some right to demand 
 his name. But in this cause you are a volunteer. You engaged 
 in it with the unpremeditated gallantry of a soldier. You were 
 content to set your name in opposition to a man who would 
 probably continue in concealment. You understood the terms 
 upon which we were to correspond, and gave at least a tacit 
 assent to them. After voluntarily attacking me under the 
 character of Junius, what possible right have you to know me 
 under any other ? Will you forgive me if I insinuate to you, 
 that you foresaw some honour in the apparent spirit of coming 
 forward in person, and that you were not quite indifferent to 
 the display of your literary qualifications ? 
 
 You cannot but know that the republication of my letters was 
 no more than a catchpenny contrivance of a printer, in which 
 it was impossible I should be concerned, and for which I am 
 no way answerable. At the same time I wish you to under- 
 stand that, if I do not take the trouble of reprinting these 
 papers, it is not from any fear of giving offence to Sir Wil- 
 liam Draper. 
 
 Your remarks upon a signature * adopted merely for distinc- 
 tion, are unworthy of notice ; but when you tell me I have 
 submitted to be called a liar and a coward, I must ask you in 
 my turn, whether you seriously think it any way incumbent 
 upon me to take notice of the silly invectives of every simple- 
 ton who writes in a newspaper? and what opinion would you 
 have conceived of my discretion, if I had suffered myself to be 
 the dupe of so shallow an artifice ? 
 
 Your appeal to the sword, though consistent enough with 
 your late profession, will neither prove your innocence nor 
 clear you from suspicion. Your complaints with regard to the 
 Manilla ransom were, for a considerable time, a distress to 
 government. You were appointed (greatly out of your turn) to 
 the command of a regiment, and during that administration 
 we heard no more of Sir William Draper. The facts, of which 
 I speak, may indeed be variously accounted for, but they are 
 
 * Despite of his vigilance, Junius does not appear to have detected Sir 
 William's error, remarked on in a previous note, in regard to the two Brutii, 
 and the true derivation of his own nom de guerre. His reasoning in regard 
 to the propriety of concealing his name, t spite of provocation, is howsvei 
 ufficiently coocluire. Bi>.
 
 TO SIB WILLIAM DRAPER. 223 
 
 too notorious to be denied; and I think you might have learnt 
 at the university that a false conclusion is an error in argu- 
 ment, not a breach of veracity. Your solicitations, I doubt 
 not, were renewed under another administration. Admitting 
 the fact, I fear an indifferent person would only infer from 
 it, that experience had made you acquainted with the benefits 
 of complaining. Remember, Sir, that you have yourself con- 
 fessed that, considering the critical situation of this country, 
 the ministry are in the right to temporize with Spain. This 
 confession reduces you to an unfortunate dilemma. By 
 renewing your solicitations, you must either mean to force 
 your country into a war at a most unseasonable juncture ; or, 
 having no view or expectation of that kind, that you look for 
 nothing but a private compensation to yourself. 
 
 As to me, it is by no means necessary that I should be ex- 
 posed to the resentment of the worst and the most powerful 
 men in this country, though I may be indifferent about yours. 
 Though you would fight, there are others who would assas- 
 sinate. 
 
 But after all, Sir, where is the injury? You assure me 
 that my logic is puerile and tinsel; that it carries not the 
 least weight or conviction ; that my premises are false and my 
 conclusions absurd. If this be a just description of me, how 
 is it possible for such a writer to disturb your peace of mind, 
 or to injure a character so well established as yours? Take 
 care, Sir William, how you indulge this unruly temper, lest 
 the world should suspect that conscience has some share in 
 your resentments. You have more to fear from the treachery 
 of your own passions than from any malevolence of mine. 
 
 I believe, Sir, you will never know me. A considerable 
 time must certainly elapse before we are personally ac- 
 quainted. You need not, however, regret the delay, or suffer 
 toi apprehension that any length of time can restore you to 
 the Christian meekness of your temper and disappoint your 
 present indignation. If I understand your character, there is 
 in your own breast a repository in which your resentments 
 may be safely laid up for future occasions, and preserved with 
 out the hazard of diminution. The Odia in longum jacitns, 
 qua reconderet, auctaque promeret *, I thought, had only be- 
 
 * Written of Tiberius by Tacitus, a favourite author, it wou'd teem, and 
 i likely, of Junius. 0.
 
 224: LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 longed to the worst character of antiquity. The text is in 
 Tacitus ; you know best where to look for the commentary 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 A WORD AT PARTING TO JUNIUS. 
 
 This is, on the whole, a well-written letter. The tone of sentiment in 
 which Sir William Draper bids adieu to the hope of direct personal exjJaaa- 
 tion from Junius, is that of a man who feels himself humbled, yet takes com- 
 fort from the thought that he has been harshly dealt with, and that scarcely 
 any other man would have stood the same trial better than himself. His in- 
 terposition in favour of the Duke of Bedford, is artfully contrived to excite 
 the public indignation against the barbarous cruelty of Junius's attacks. His 
 account of the dissensions, the mutual treacheries, and the unsettling changes 
 of the ministers, and other great political leaders, is in all respects happy, save 
 that it produces ludicrous ideas where it was meant to give serious ones. ED. 
 
 SIR *, October 7, 1769. 
 
 As you have not favoured me with either of the explanations 
 demanded of you, I can have nothing more to say to you upon 
 my own account. Your mercy to me, or tenderness for your- 
 self, has been very great. The public will judge of your 
 motives. If your excess of modesty forbids you to produce 
 either the proofs or yourself, I will excuse it. Take courage ; 
 I have not the temper of Tiberius any more than the rank or 
 
 * Measures and not men, is the common cant of affected moderation ; a base, 
 counterfeit language, fabricated by knaves, and made current among fools. Such 
 gentle censure is not fitted to the present degenerate state of society. What 
 does it avail to expose the absurd contrivance or pernicious tendency of mea- 
 sures, if the man who advises or executes shall be suffered not only to escape 
 with impunity, but even to preserve his power, and insult us with the favour 
 of his sovereign 1 ! I would recommend to the reader the whole of Mr. Pope's 
 letter to Doctor Arbuthnot, dated 26th July, 1734, from which the following is 
 an extract : " To reform and not to chastise, I am afraid is impossible ; and tkat 
 the best precepts, as well as the best laws, would prove of small use if there 
 were no examples to enforce them. To attack vices in the abstract, without 
 touching persons, maybe safe fighting indeed, but it is fighting with shadows. 
 My greatest comfort and encouragement to proceed has been to see that those 
 vho have no shame, and no fear of anything else, have appeared touched by 
 y Kitires." JUNIUS.
 
 SIB WILLIAM DRAPER'S PARTING LETTER. 225 
 
 power. You, indeed, are a tyrant of another sort, and upon 
 your political bed of torture can excruciate any subject, from 
 a first minister down to such a grub or butterfly as myself; 
 like another detested tyrant of antiquity, can make the 
 wretched sufferer fit the bed if the bed will not fit the suf- 
 ferer, by disjointing or tearing the trembling limbs until they 
 are stretched to its extremity. But courage, constancy, and 
 patience, under torments, have sometimes caused the most 
 hardened monsters to relent, and forgive the object of their 
 cruelty. You, Sir, are determined to try all that human 
 nature can endure until she expires ; else, was it possible 
 that you could be the author of that most inhuman letter to 
 the Duke of Bedford ? I have read it with astonishment and 
 horror. Where, Sir, where were the feelings of your own 
 heart when you could upbraid a most affectionate father with 
 the loss of his only and most amiable son ? Read over again 
 those cruel lines of yours, and let them wring your very soul ! 
 Cannot political questions be discussed without descending to 
 the most odious personalities ? Must you go wantonly out of 
 your way to torment declining age, because the Duke of 
 Bedford may have quarrelled with those whose cause and 
 politics you espouse ? For shame ! for shame ! As you have 
 spoke daggers to him you may justly dread the use of them 
 against your own breast, did a want of courage or of nobla 
 sentiments stimulate him to such mean revenge. He is 
 above it ; he is brave. Do you fancy that your own base arts 
 have infected our whole island ? But your own reflections, 
 your own conscience must and will, if you have any spark of 
 humanity remaining, give him most ample vengeance. Not 
 all the power of words with which you are so graced will ever 
 wash out, or even palliate, this foul blot in your character. I 
 have not time at present to dissect your letter so minutely 
 as I could wish, but I will be bold enough to say, that it is 
 (as to reason and argument) the most extraordinary piece of 
 florid impotence * that was ever imposed upon the eyes and 
 ears of the too credulous and deluded mob. It accuses the 
 Duke of Bedford of high treason. Upon what foundation ? 
 You tell us " that the duke's pecuniary character makes it 
 
 * Sir William errs as much in imputing florid impotence to the writir.g of 
 J mius, as in praising it for Attic wH. BKBON. 
 
 TPL I l
 
 226 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 more than probable that he could not have made such sacri- 
 fices at the peace without some private compensations ; that 
 his conduct carried with it an interior evidence beyond all 
 the legal proofs of a court of justice." 
 
 My academical education, Sir, bids me tell you that it is 
 necessary to establish the truth of your first pi'oposition be- 
 fore you presume to draw inferences from it. First prove the 
 avarice before you make the rash, hasty, and most wicked 
 conclusion. This father, Junius, whom you call avaricious, 
 allowed that son eight thousand pounds a year. Upon his 
 most unfortunate death, which your usual good nature took 
 care to remind him of, he greatly increased the jointure of 
 the afflicted lady, his widow. Is this avarice ? Is this doing 
 good by stealth ? It is upon record. 
 
 If exact order, method, and true economy as a master of 
 a family, if splendour and just magnificence, without wild 
 waste and thoughtless extravagance, may constitute the cha- 
 racter of an avaricious man, the duke is guilty. But for a 
 moment let us admit that an ambassador may love money too 
 much ; what proof do you give that he has taken any to 
 betray his country ? Is it hearsay ; or the evidence of letters, 
 or ocular ; or the evidence of those concerned in this black 
 affair ? Produce your authorities to the public. It is a most 
 impudent kind of sorcery to attempt to blind us with the 
 smoke without convincing us that the fire has existed. You 
 first brand him with a vice that he is free from to render him 
 odious and suspected. Suspicion is the foul weapon with 
 which you make all your chief attacks with that you stab. 
 But shall one of the first subjects of the realm be ruined in 
 his fame ; shall even his life be in constant danger from a 
 charge built upon such sandy foundations ? Must his house be 
 besieged by lawless ruffians, his journeys impeded, and even 
 the asylum of an altar be insecure from assertions so base 
 and false ? Potent as he is, the duke is amenable to justice ; 
 if guilty, punishable. The parliament is the high and solemn 
 tribunal for matters of such great moment. To that be they 
 submitted. But I hope, also, that some notice will be taken 
 of, and some punishment inflicted upon, false accusers, espe- 
 cially upon such, Junius, who are icil/ully false. In any 
 truth I will agree even with Junius ; will agree with him 
 that it is highly unbecoming the dignity of Peers to tampei
 
 BIB WIIJJAM DRAPER'S PARTING LETTER. 227 
 
 with boroughs. Aristocracy is as fatal as democracy. Our 
 constitution admits of neither. It loves a King, Lords, and 
 Commons really chosen by the unbought suffrages of a free 
 people But if corruption only shifts hands, if the wealthy 
 commoner gives the bribe instead of the potent peer, is the 
 state better served by this exchange ? Is the real emancipa- 
 tion of the borough effected because new parchment bonds 
 may possibly supersede the old ? To say the truth, wherever 
 such practices prevail, they are equally criminal to and de- 
 structive of our freedsVn. 
 
 The rest of your declamation is scarce worth considering, 
 excepting for the elegance of the language. Like Hamlet in 
 the play, you produce two pictures. You tell us that one is 
 not like the Duke of Bedford ; then you bring a most hideous 
 caricatura, and tell us of the resemblance ; but multum ablu- 
 dit imago. 
 
 All your long tedious accounts of the ministerial quarrels 
 and the intrigues of the cabinet are reducible to a few short 
 lines ; and to convince you, Sir, that I do not mean to flatter 
 any minister, either past or present, these are my thoughts : 
 they seem to have acted like lovers or children ; have pouted, 
 quarrelled, cried, kissed, and been friends again * ; as the 
 objects of desire, the ministerial rattles have been put into 
 their hands. But such proceedings are very unworthy of the 
 gravity and dignity of a great nation. We do not want men 
 of abilities but we have wanted steadiness we want unani- 
 mity ; your letters, Junius, will not contribute thereto. You 
 may one day expire by a flame of your own kindling. But it 
 is my humble opinion that lenity and moderation, pardon and 
 oblivion, will disappoint the efforts of all the seditious in the 
 land, and extinguish their wide-spreading fires. I have lived 
 with this sentiment ; with this I shall die. 
 
 WILLIAM DRAPER +. 
 
 Sir William gives us a pleasant account of men who, in his opinion at 
 least, are the best qualified to govern an empire. JUNTOS. 
 
 t Sir William Draper appears to have been a generous and accomplished 
 rnn, with too great a susceptibility to newspaper strictures. He married a 
 daughter of the second son of the Duke of St. Albans ; her ladyship died in 
 1778, leaving him no issue. Sir William died in January, 1787. In the 
 year 1768 he erected a magnificent cenotaph in his garden, at Clifton, near 
 Bristol, in honour of the 79th regiment, of which he had been colonel in the 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 TO THE PBINTfiB OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER 
 
 SIR, Octobei 13, 1769. 
 
 IF Sir William Draper's bed be a bed of torture, be has 
 made it for himself. I shall never interrupt his repose. 
 Having changed the subject, there are parts of his last letter 
 not undeserving of a reply. Leaving his private character 
 and conduct out of the question, I shall consider him merely 
 in the capacity of an author, whose labours certainly do no 
 discredit to a newspaper. 
 
 We say, in common discourse, that a man may be his own 
 enemy, and the frequency of the fact makes the expression 
 intelligible. But that a man should be the bitterest enemy 
 of his friends, implies a contradiction of a peculiar nature ! 
 There is something in it which cannot be conceived without a 
 confusion of ideas, nor expressed without a solecism in lan- 
 guage. Sir William Draper is still that fatal friend Lord 
 Granby found him. Yet I am ready to do justice to his 
 generosity ; if, indeed, it be not something more than gene- 
 rous to be the voluntary advocate of men who think them- 
 selves injured by his assistance, and to consider nothing in 
 the cause he adopts but the difficulty of defending it. I 
 thought, however, he had been better read in the history of 
 the human heart than to compare or confound the tortures of 
 the body with those of the mind. He ought to have known, 
 though perhaps it might not be his interest to confess that 
 iio outward tyranny can reach the mind. Jf conscience plays 
 the tyrant, it would be greatly for the benefit of the world 
 that she were more arbitrary, and far less placable than some 
 men find her. 
 
 But it seems I have outraged the feelings of a father's 
 heart. Am 1 indeed so injudicious ? Does Sir William 
 Draper think I would have hazarded my credit with a gene- 
 rous nation by so gross a violation of the laws of humanity ? 
 
 preceding war, and whose bravery had been conspicuous against the French, 
 and in laying the foundation of our Indian empire. Three field-officers, ten 
 captains, thirteen lieutenants, five ensigns, three surgeons, and one thousand 
 private men, belonging to that regiment, fell in the course of the war. E.
 
 HKPIY TO SIR WILLIAM DBAPER. 229 
 
 Does he think I am so little acquainted with tho first and 
 noblest characteristic of Englishmen ? Or how will he recon- 
 cile such folly with an understanding so full of artifice as 
 mine? Had he been a father he would have been but little 
 offended with the severity of the reproach, for his mind would 
 have been filled with the justice of it. He would have seen 
 that I did not insult the feelings of a father, but the father 
 who felt nothing. He would have trusted to the evidence 
 of his own paternal heart, and boldly denied the possibility 
 of the fact, instead of defending it. Against whom, then, 
 will this honest indignation be directed, when I assure him, 
 that this whole town beheld the Duke of Bedford's conduct, 
 upon the death of his son, with horror and astonishment. 
 Sir William Draper does himself but little honour in oppos- 
 ing the general sense of his country. The people are seldom 
 wrong in their opinions ; in their sentiments they are nevei 
 mistaken. There may be a vanity, perhaps, in a singular 
 way of thinking ; but when a man professes a want of those 
 feelings which do honour to the multitude, he hazards some- 
 thing infinitely more important than the character of his 
 understanding. After all, as Sir William may possibly be in 
 earnest in his anxiety for the Duke of Bedford, I should be 
 glad to relieve him from it. He may rest assured that this 
 worthy nobleman laughs, with equal indifference, at my re- 
 proaches, and Sir William's distress about him. But here 
 let it stop. Even the Duke of Bedford, insensible as he is, 
 will consult the tranquillity of his life, in not provoking the 
 moderation of my temper. If from the profoundest con- 
 tempt I should ever rise into anger, he should soon find that 
 all I have already said of him was lenity and compassion *. 
 
 Out of a long catalogue Sir William Draper has confined 
 himself to the refutation of two charges only. The rest he 
 had not time to discuss ; and, indeed, it would have been a 
 laborious andertaking. To draw up a defence of such a 
 series of enormities would have required a life at least as 
 long as that which has been uniformly employed in the prac- 
 tice of them. The public opinion of the Duke of Bedford's 
 extreme economy is, it seems, entirely without foundation. 
 Though not very prodigal abroad, in his own family, at least, 
 
 Private Letter, No. 10.
 
 230 LETTERS OF JUNICS. 
 
 he is regular and magnificent. He pays his debts, abhors a 
 beggar, and makes a handsome provision for his son. His 
 charity has improved upon the proverb, and ended where it 
 began. Admitting the whole force of this single instance of 
 his domestic generosity (wonderful, indeed, considering the 
 narrowness of his fortune and the little merit of his only 
 son) the public may still, perhaps, be dissatisfied, and demand 
 some other less equivocal proofs of his munificence. Sir 
 William Draper should have entered boldly into the detail 
 of indigence relieved of arts encouraged of science patron- 
 ized men of learning protected and works of genius re- 
 warded ; in short, had there been a single instance, besides 
 Mr. Rigby*, of blushing merit brought forward by the 
 duke, foi the service of the public, it should not have been 
 omitted f. 
 
 I wish it were possible to establish my inference with the 
 same certainty on which I believe the principle is founded 
 My conclusion, however, was not drawn from the principle 
 alone. I am not so unjust as to reason from one crime to 
 another, though I think, that of all the vices, avarice is 
 most apt to taint and corrupt the heart. I combined the 
 known temper of the man with the extravagant conces- 
 sions made by the ambassador ; and, though I doubt not suf- 
 ficient care was taken to leave no document of any treason- 
 able negotiation, I still maintain that the conduct J of this 
 minister carries with it an internal and a convincing evidence 
 
 * This gentleman is supposed to have the same idea of Hushing that a 
 man blind from his birth has of scarlet or skyblue. JUNIUS. 
 
 f" In answer to this heary charge, two instances of the noble duke's be- 
 nevolence were brought forward in two separate letters in the Public Adver- 
 tiser. The one dated Oct. 17, and signed Frances, which states that his 
 Grace had relieved with & patent employment, the husband of the writer of a 
 series of sentimental letters of " Henry and Frances," in which the author, a 
 Mrs. Griffiths, fictitiously depicted their own real distress. The other dated 
 Oct. 20, and signed Jere. Mears, lieut. of the 29th regiment, relates the 
 duke's generous and unsolicited bestowal upon him of a pair of colours, upon 
 being informed, when lord-lieutenant of Ireland, of the writer's destitute 
 situation. 
 
 J If Sir "W. D. will take the trouble of looking into Torcy's Memoirs, he 
 will see with what little ceremony a bribe may be offered to a duke, and 
 with what little ceremony it was only not accepted. JVKIUS. 
 
 The first Duke of Marlborough is the nobleman referred to ; but the brib* 
 ro not refused, according to Philo-Janius, post, Letter 2f. Bs.
 
 BEPLY TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER. 931 
 
 against him. Sir William Draper seems not to know the 
 value or force of such a proof. He will not permit us to 
 judge of the motives of men by the manifest tendency of 
 their actions, nor by the notorious character of their minds. 
 He calls for papers and witnesses with a sort of triumphant 
 security, as if nothing could be true but what could be proved 
 in a court of justice. Yet a religious man might have re 
 membered upon what foundation some truths, most interest- 
 ing to mankind, have been received and established. If it 
 were not for the internal evidence, which the purest of reli- 
 gions carries with it, what would have become of his once 
 well-quoted decalogue, and of the meekness of his Chris- 
 tianity ? 
 
 The generous warmth of his resentment makes him con- 
 found the order of events. He forgets that the insults and 
 distresses which the Duke of Bedford has suffered, and which 
 Sir William has lamented with many delicate touches of the 
 true pathetic, were only recorded in my letter to his Grace, 
 not occasioned by it. It was a simple candid narrative of 
 facts ; though, for aught I know, it may carry with it some- 
 thing prophetic. His Grace undoubtedly has received several 
 ominous hints ; and I think, in certain circumstances, a wise 
 man would do well to prepare himself for the event. 
 
 But I have a charge of a heavier nature against Sir William 
 Draper. He tells us that the Duke of Bedford is amenable 
 to justice ; that parliament is a high and solemn tribunal ; 
 and that, if guilty, he may be punished by due course of law; 
 and all this he says with as much gravity as if he believed 
 every word of the matter. I hope indeed, the day of im- 
 peachments will arrive, before this nobleman escapes out of 
 life ; but to refer us to that mode of proceeding now, with 
 such a ministry and such a House of Commons as the pre- 
 sent, what is it, but an indecent mockery of the common sense 
 of the nation? I think he might have contented himself 
 with defending the greatest enemy, without insulting the dis- 
 tresses, of his country. 
 
 His concluding declaration of his opinion, with respect to 
 the present condition of affairs, is too loose and undetermined 
 to be of any service to the public. How strange it is that this 
 gentleman should dedicate so much time and argument to the 
 defence of worthless or indifferent characters, while he givei
 
 288 LETTERS OF JUN1US. 
 
 but seven solitary lines to the only subject which can deserve 
 his attention, or do credit to his abilities. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 The Duke of Bedford, so mercilessly arraigned by Junius, had, as is 
 usually the fortune of public men, his defenders as well as assailants, and 
 it seems to have been the practice of the Public Advertiser fairly to open 
 its columns to both sides. Examples of this impartiality have been refesred 
 to in the preceding note, and the subjoined is an extract from an able reply 
 to the several attacks of Junius on his Grace, subscribed M. Tullius, dated 
 Dec. 8. 
 
 " In these strictures I have principally in view the treatment which 
 Junius, in two publications, has thought proper to offer to the Duke of Bed- 
 ford. His animadversions on this illustrious nobleman are intended to re- 
 flect both on his public and private character. With regard to the first ot 
 these, nothing of consequence is urged besides his Grace's conduct as ambas- 
 bassador at the court of Versailles in the making of the late peace. I mean 
 not to enter here into the merits or demerits of that important transaction. 
 Thus much is known to all : the riches of the nation were at that time well 
 nigh exhausted, public credit was on the brink of ruin, the national debt in- 
 creased to such an enormous height as to threaten us with a sudden and uni- 
 versal crash ; and whatever be said of the concessions that were made to 
 bring that memorable event to bear, Canada, among other instances, will 
 ever remain a glorious monument ; the interests of this kingdom were not 
 forgotten in that negociation. But Junius, hackneyed in the tricks of contro- 
 versy, where a man's open and avowed actions are innocent, has the art to 
 hint at secret terms and private compensations ; and though he is compelled 
 by the force of truth to own ' no document of any treasonable practice is to 
 be found,' we are given plainly to understand, so many public sacrifices were 
 not made at that period without a valuable consideration, and that in practice 
 there is very little difference in the ceremony of offering a bribe, and of that 
 duke's accepting it. To a charge that is aiieged, not only without proof, but 
 even with a confession that no proof is to be expected, no answer is to be re- 
 turned but that of a contemptuous silence. When a writer takes upon him 
 to attack the character of a nobleman of the highest rank, and in a matter of 
 so capital a nature as that of selling his country for a bribe, common policy, 
 as well as prudenco, require that an accusation of such importance be sup- 
 ported with at least some show of evidence, and that even this be not done 
 but with the utmost moderation of temper and expression ; but so sober a 
 conduct would have been beside the purpose of Junius, whose business it 
 was not to reason, but rail. The lloman rhetorician, among the other arts 
 of oratory, mentions one which he dignifies under the title of a ' Canine 
 eloquence,' that of filling up the empty places of an argument with railings, 
 eonvitiis implere vacua causarum. In the knowledge of this rule Junius is 
 without a rival, and the present instance, among a thousand others, is a con- 
 vincing testimony of his dexterity in the application of it. 
 
 " But here it will be said, it is not from circumstance and conjecture alone 
 that this charge '.gainst the Duke of Bedford is founded; the general chaiactei
 
 REPLY TO SIR WILLIAM DHAPEB. Q83 
 
 f every one takes its colour and complexion from that quality in him whic't 
 predominates, and the allowed avarice of the man affords an evidence not to 
 be resisted of the rapacity of the ambassador; and is it then so incontestable 
 a point that the duke is indeed the sordid man which Junius has delineated? 
 are there no instances to be produced that denote a contrary disposition ] one 
 would think if a vicious thirst of gain had borne so large a share as is pre- 
 tended, in his Grace's composition, this would have discovered itself in the 
 pecuniary emoluments he had secured for himself when he engaged in a share 
 of Government. But what advantages of this kind has he obtained, or to -what 
 bargains with the minister does Junius allude, when he knows that his 
 Grace, though willing to assist the friends of administration with his interest 
 and weight, has not accepted any department either of power or profit 1 Had 
 Junius and candour not shaken hands, this circumstance alone would Live 
 afforded him an evidence beyond all the legal proofs of a court of justice, of 
 the iniquity of his own insinuations. But we are not at a loss for other in- 
 stances, and those no ordinary ones, of the duke's munificence. To what 
 principle shall we attribute the payment of the elder brother's debts to the 
 amount of not much less than one hundred thousand pounds ! the splendid 
 provision he made for his unfortunate son, and afterwards for that son's more 
 unfortunate widow ? what shall we say to his known attachments to the in.- 
 terests ol his friends, his kindness to his domestics, and annual bounty to 
 those who have served him faithfully] his indulgence to his dependants! or 
 what are, if these be not, unequivocal proofs of genuine liberality and bene- 
 volence 1 
 
 " When to these symptoms of an enlarged and generous mind we add 
 what are equally constituent parts of his Grace's character, the decency and 
 decorum of his conduct in private life, his regularity in his family, and wh-at 
 is now so rare a virtue among the great, his constant attendance on all the 
 public offices of Divine worship, we shall hardly find, in the whole circle of 
 the nobility, a man that has a juster and much more a constitutional 
 claim to respect, or one that less deserved the censures of a satirist such as 
 Junius, than his Grace of Bedford. But in the reflections of Junius there is 
 a more surprising piece of profligacy yet behind. As if all the former in- 
 stances of his malignity had been too little, he has filled up the measure of 
 his crimes by calling back to our remembrance the loss, which not the father 
 alone, but the kingdom, sustained in the death of his only son, and to re- 
 proach him for the insensibility he supposes him to have discovered on that 
 affecting occasion. The cruelty of this accusation is only to be paralleled by 
 the falsehood of it, and, in a better age than the present, would have been 
 deemed a prodigy. To one who possessed the proper sentiments of a man, the 
 dwelling at all on a calamity which is still BO recent, which in all its circum- 
 stances was so truly pitiable, would have appeared in the highest degree un- 
 generous and mean ; but to represent the principal sufferer in this scene of 
 woe as the only one not sensible of his misfortune, to paint a father desti- 
 tute of n father's love, and even professing a want of those feelings which 
 do honour to the multitude, is an instance of barbarity of which a savage 
 would have been ashamed, and which no prettiness of style, no powers of 
 language, no literary merit, can ever excuse or expiate : and indeed, corrupt 
 as the times are said to be, I have the satisfaction to observe Junius, for once, 
 had reckoned without his host, and mistaken the taste and temper of hil 
 tountrynsen : we can aiiow tor the petulance which want and hunger extort
 
 Q34 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 from an opposition ; we can pity the wretch who is obliged to draw his vena, 
 quill, and say and ursay as is dictated to him by his superiors ; but we are 
 not yet so far gone in the road to ruin, or dead to all the movements of com- 
 passion, as to behold without abhorrence the man who can so totally resign 
 all pretences to humanity, or regard him in any other light than as the object 
 of general detestation. 
 
 " Junius, in his letter to the Duke of Bedford, amuses himself with de- 
 scribing, in theory, the dignity and importance of an independent nobleman; 
 by way of conclusion to these remarks, I shall delineate for him, in return, 
 what I conceive should be character of one who sets up for a political writer, 
 and this in imitation of his own method, both by the positive and negative 
 marks which may be given of it. A writer, then, of this class, though he 
 will ever be suspicious of the conduct of those in power, will be sure to 
 watch with equal jealousy over himself, lest, in his zeal for exciting a reason- 
 able love of liberty, he encourage a dangerous spirit of licentiousness; he 
 will be as cautious of weakening the constitutional powers of the prince, as 
 he will be careful of supporting the undoubted rights of the people; and 
 will erpose with the same freedom, in their turns, the excesses of preroga- 
 tive and the lawless efforts of a faction. In the negative parts of his 
 character he will not give occasion to the most distant suspicion that hia 
 opposition to government proceeds not so much from a dislike to measures 
 as to men ; in times of real security he will not inflame the minds of the 
 populace with affected apprehensions ; before he complains of grievances ho 
 will be sure they exist ; in his freest writings he will never violate, know- 
 ingly, the laws of truth and justice ; he will not causelessly expose the follies 
 of youth, the infirmities of age, or the irregularities of private life, in which 
 the public interests are not concerned ; he will be restrained by a sense of 
 honour from calumniating the innocent or satirizing the unhappy : in a word, 
 he will not take advantage of his own security to stab in the dark, or with 
 Solomon's fool, divert himself v.-ith holding out the most respectable characters 
 as objects of contempt and ridicule, and say, am not I in sport." M. TULLIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, October 20, 1769. 
 
 I VERY sincerely applaud the spirit -with which a lady has 
 paid the deht of gratitude to her benefactor*. Though I 
 think she has mistaken the point, she shows a virtue which 
 makes her respectable The question turned upon the per 
 
 * The letter of Mrs. Griffiths, signed Frances, already referred to (p. 230.) 
 Junius had demanded to hear of but a single instance of indigence relievedj 
 and works of genius rewarded, by the Duke of Bedford. Mrs. Griffiths pro- 
 duced that instance ; and no small impression was made by it on the mind 
 Of the public in favour of the duke. HKKOH.
 
 PHILO-JCNIUS TO 1IODEST8 885 
 
 sonal generosity or avarice of a man whose private fortune is 
 immense. The proofs of his munificence must be drawn from 
 the uses to which he has applied that fortune. I was not 
 speaking of a lord-lieutenant of Ireland, but of a rich 
 English duke, whose wealth gave him the means of doing as 
 much good in this country, as he derived from his power in 
 another. I am far from wishing to lessen the merit of this 
 single benevolent action ; perhaps it is the more conspicuous 
 from standing alone. All I mean to say is, that it proves 
 nothing in the present argument. 
 
 JUNIUS*, 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, October 19, 1769. 
 
 I AM we 1 ! assured that Junius will never descend to a dispute 
 with such a writer as Modestus (whoae letter appeared in the 
 Gazetteer of Monday f), especially as the dispute must be 
 chiefly about words. Notwithstanding the partiality of the 
 public, it does not appear that Junius values himself upon any 
 superior skill in composition, and I hope his time will always 
 be more usefully employed than in the trifling refinements of 
 verbal criticism. Modestus, however, shall have no reason to 
 triumph in the silence and moderation of Junius. If he knew 
 as much of the propriety of language as I believe he does of 
 the facts in question, he would have been as cautious of attack- 
 ing Junius upon his composition as he seems to be of entering 
 
 * This letter, to a lady who had distinguished herself by some clever 
 writings, is smart and polite, but not satisfactory. It is an after-thought of 
 Junius to distinguish between what the duke did as lord lieutenant of Ire- 
 land, and what he should have done as Duke of Bedford. This is a distinc- 
 tion which he had not thought of making when he boldly asserted that 
 no one instance of discriminating generosity by the duke could be mentioned. 
 But it is the interest of a disputant, and Junius was a well-trained one, to 
 grant nothing to his adversary unless he can gain more than he loses by the 
 concession. ED. 
 
 + The gentleman who wrote several letters under this signature in th 
 Gazetteer, and subsequently in the Public Advertiser, was a Mr. Dalrymple, 
 ft Scotch advocate. For a specimen of his style, see Miscellaneous Letter^ 
 No. 67, vol. ii. KD.
 
 S38 LETTERS OK JTOITJB. 
 
 into the subject of it ; yet, after all, the last ia the only articla 
 of any importance to the public. 
 
 I do not wonder at the unremitted rancour \vith which the 
 Duke of Bedford and his adherents invariably speak of a na- 
 tion which we well know has been too much injured to be 
 easily forgiven. But why must Junius be an Irishman ? The 
 absurdity of his writings betrays him Waiving all considera- 
 tion of the insult offered by Modestus to the declared judg- 
 ment of the people (they may well bear this among the rest), 
 let us follow the several instances, and try whether the charge 
 be fairly supported. 
 
 First then the leaving a man to enjoy such repose as he 
 can find upon a bed of torture, is severe indeed ; perhaps too 
 much so, when applied to such a trifler as Sir William Draper; 
 but there is nothing absurd either in the idea or expression. 
 Modestus cannot distinguish between a sarcasm and a contra- 
 diction. 
 
 2. I affirm with Juuius, that it is the frequency of the fact 
 which alone can make us comprehend how a man can be his 
 own enemy. We should never arrive at the complex idea 
 conveyed by those words if we had only seen one or two in- 
 stances of a man acting to his own prejudice. Offer the pro- 
 position to a child, or a man unused to compound his ideas, 
 and you will soon see how little either of them understand 
 you. It is not a simple idea arising from a single fact, but a 
 very complex idea arising from many facts well observed and 
 accurately compared. 
 
 3. Modestus could not, without great affectation, mistake 
 the meaning of Junius when he speaks of a man who is the 
 bitterest enemy of his friends. He could not but know, that 
 Junius spoke, not of a false or hollow friendship, but of a real 
 intention to serve, and that intention producing the worst 
 effects of enmity. Whether the description be strictly appli- 
 cable to Sir William Draper, is another question. Junius 
 does not say that it is more criminal for a man to be the 
 enemy of his friends than his own, though he might have 
 affirmed it with truth. In a moral light a man may certainly 
 take greater liberties with himself than with another. To 
 sacrifice ourselves merely, is a weakness we may indulge iu 
 if we think proper, for we do it at our own hazard and ex- 
 pense ; but, under the pretence of friendship, to sport
 
 PUILO-JUNIUS TO MOPESTCS, 287 
 
 with the reputation, or sacrifice the honour, of another, is 
 something worse than weakness ; and if, in favour of the 
 foolish intention, we do not call it a crime, we must allow at 
 least that it arises from an overweening, busy, meddling im- 
 pudence. Junius says only, and he says truly, that it is more 
 extraordinary, that it involves a greater contradiction, than the 
 other ; and is it not a maxim received in life, that in general 
 we can determine more wisely for others than for ourselves ? 
 The reason of it is so clear in argument that it hardly wants 
 the confirmation of experience. Sir William Draper, I con- 
 fess, is an exception to the general rule, though not much to 
 his credit. 
 
 4. If this gentleman will go back to his ethics, he may 
 perhaps discover the truth of what Junius says, that no out- 
 ward tyranny can reach the mind. The tortures of the bodj 
 may be introduced by way of ornament or illustration to repre- 
 sent those of the mind, but strictly there is no similitude be- 
 tween them. They are totally different both in their cause 
 and operation. The wretch who suffers upon the rack is 
 merely passive ; but when the mind is tortured, it is not at 
 the command of any outward power. It is the sense of guilt 
 which constitutes the punishment, and creates that torture 
 with which the guilty mind acts upon itself. 
 
 5. He misquotes what Junius says of conscience, and makes 
 the sentence ridiculous by making it his own. 
 
 So much for composition. Now for fact. Junius it seems 
 has mistaken the Duke of Bedford. His Grace had all the 
 proper feelings of a father, though he took care to suppress 
 the appearance of them. Yet it was an occasion, one would 
 think, on which he need not have been ashamed of his grief; 
 on which less fortitude would have done him more honour. I 
 can conceive indeed a benevolent motive for his endeavouring 
 to assume an air of tranquillity in his own family, and I wish 
 I could discover anything in the rest of his character to jus- 
 tify my assigning that motive to his behaviour. But is there 
 no medium ? Was it necessary to appear abroad, to ballot at 
 the India House, and make a public display, though it were 
 only of an apparent insensibility ? I know we are treading on 
 tender ground, and Junius, I am convinced, does not wish to 
 urge this question farther. Let the friends of the Duke oi 
 Bedford observe that humble silence which becomes iheil
 
 S38 LETTERS OF JUSTUS. 
 
 situation. They should recollect that there are sotr.e facts ic 
 store at which human nature would shudder. I shall be un 
 derstood by those whom it concerns when I say that the&a 
 facts go farther than to the duke *. 
 
 It is not inconsistent to suppose that a man may be quite 
 indifferent about one part of a charge, yet severely stung 
 with another, and though he feels no remorse that he may 
 wish to be revenged. The charge of insensibility carries a 
 reproach indeed, but no danger with it. Junius had said, 
 there are others w'to would assassinate. Modestus, knowing 
 his man, will not suffer the insinuation to be divided, but 
 fixes it all upon the Duke of Bedford. 
 
 Without determining upon what evidence Junius would 
 choose to be condemned, I will venture to maintain, in opposi 
 tion to Modestus, or to Mr. Rigby (who is certainly not Mo 
 destus), or any other of the Bloomsbury gang, that the evi 
 dence against the Duke of Bedford is as strong as any pre- 
 sumptive evidence can be. It depends upon a combination of 
 facts and reasoning which require no confirmation from the 
 anecdote of the Duke of Marlborough. This anecdote was 
 referred to merely to show how ready a great man may be to 
 receive a great bribe ; and if Modestus could read the original, 
 he would see that the expression, only not accepted, was pro- 
 bably the only one in our language that exactly fitted the 
 case. The bribe offered to the Duke of Marlborough was 
 not refused. 
 
 I cannot conclude without taking notice of this honest 
 gentleman's learning, and wishing he had given us a little 
 more of it. When he accidentally found himself so near 
 speaking truth, it was rather unfair of him to leave out the 
 
 * Within a fortnight after Lord Tavistock's death, the venerable Gertrude 
 had a rout at Bedford House. The good duke (who had only sixty thousand 
 pounds a year) ordered an inventory to be taken of his son's wearing apparel, 
 down to his slippers, sold them all, and put the money in his pocket. The 
 amiable marchioness, shocked at such brutal, unfeeling avarice, gave the 
 value of the clothes to the Marquis's servant out of her own purse. That 
 incomparable woman did not long survive her husband. When she died, the 
 Duchess of Bedford treated her as the duke had treated his only son. She 
 ordered every gown and trinket to be sold, and pocketed the money. These 
 are the monsters whom Sir William Draper comes forward to defend. May 
 God protect me from doing anything that may require such defence 01 
 deserve inch friendship. Jusius.
 
 RESCUE OK GENERAL GANSEL. 233 
 
 non potuisse refelli. As it stands, the pudct hac of.probria 
 may be divided equally between Mr. Rigby and the Duke 
 of Bedford. Mr. Rigby, I take for granted, will assert his 
 natural right to the modesty of the quotation, and leave all 
 the opprobrium to his Grace. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS*. 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, October 17, 1769, 
 
 IT is not wonderful that the great cause in which this country 
 is engaged should have roused and engrossed the whole atten- 
 tion of the people. I rather admire the generous spirit with 
 which they feel and assert their interest in this important 
 question than blame them for their indifference about any 
 other. When the constitution is openly invaded, when the 
 first original right of the people, from which all laws derive 
 their authority, is directly attacked, inferior grievances natu- 
 rally lose their force, and are suffered to pass by without 
 punishment or observation. The present ministry are as sin- 
 gularly marked by their fortune as by their crimes. Instead 
 of atoning for their former conduct by any wise or popular 
 measure, they have found, in the enormity of one fact, a 
 cover and defence for a series of measures which must have 
 been fatal to any other administration. I fear we are too 
 remiss in observing the whole of their proceedings. Struck 
 with the principal figure, we do not sufficiently mark in what 
 
 * In the preceding letter, Junius employs his wonted artifice and force of 
 argumentation. He begins with disclaiming all pretensions to eloquence and 
 fine writing; then, in every instance in which he had seemed to be success- 
 fully harassed by the strictures of Modestus, either brings forward a satisfac- 
 tory refutation, or turns his adversary so effectually into ridicule, that the 
 reader entirely loses sight of the truth of the criticism. Nor is even his 
 Grace of Bedford suffered to escape without having the severity of the former 
 invective against him increased, on account of the officious interposition of hU 
 defender. According to Heron, this letter is a "model for any man to study 
 who may, in like manner, wish to vindicate himself against the attack of bold, 
 malignant criticism." Lj>.
 
 240 LETTERS OF 
 
 manner the canvass is filled up. Yet surely it is not a less 
 crime, nor less fatal in its consequences, to encourage a 
 flagrant breach of the law by a military force, than to make 
 use of the forms of parliament to destroy the constitution. 
 The ministry seem determined to give us a choice of difficul- 
 ties, and, if possible, to perplex us with the multitude of 
 their offences. The expedient is -well worthy of the Duke 
 of Grafton. But though he has preserved a gradation and 
 variety in his measures, we should remember that the prin- 
 ciple is uniform. Dictated by the same spirit, they deserve 
 the same attention. The following fact, though of the most 
 alarming nature, has not yet been clearly stated to the public, 
 nor have the consequences of it been sufficiently understood. 
 Had I taken it up at an earlier period I should have been 
 accused of an uucaudid, malignant precipitation, as if I 
 watched for an unfair advantage against the ministry, and 
 would not allow them a reasonable time to do their duty. 
 They now stand without excuse. Instead of employing the 
 leisure they have had in a strict examination of the offence 
 and punishing the offenders, they seem to have considered 
 that indulgence as a security to them, that, with a little time 
 and management, the whole affair might be buried in silence 
 and utterly forgotten. 
 
 A major-general of the army is arrested by the sheriffs' 
 officers for a considerable debt*. He persuades them to 
 
 * Major-General Gansel, who forms the subject of this letter, was arrested 
 September 21, 1769, in Piccadilly, for two thousand pounds. He told the 
 bailiff if he would go down with him to the Tilt Yard he should there find a 
 friend, and would, on his not giving bail, go with him to a spunging-house. 
 When they came to the Horse Guards, the officer sent for a Serjeant and file 
 of inusqueteers to secure the bailiff, on a pretence that he had been insulted 
 by him, which they did, while the prisoner escaped. Adjutant-General 
 Harvey having heard of the affair, ordered the Serjeant and his men close 
 prisoners to the Savoy, and sent Captain Cox to notify to the Sheriffs the 
 steps he had taken in consequence of the proceedings of General Gansel, who 
 had, in the meanwhile, surrendered himself into custody. In consequence 
 of the above circumstance, on the 21st of April following, was issued to the 
 brigade of guards the Order as under : 
 
 "Parole Hounslow, 
 
 " B. 0. His Majesty has signified to the field officer in waiting, that he 
 has been acquainted that Serjeant Bacon of the first regiment, and Ser- 
 jeant Parke of the Coldstream regiment, William Powell, William Hart, 
 Junes Porter, and Joseph Collins, private soldiers in the first regiment ol
 
 RESCUE OF GENERAL GAKSEL. 241 
 
 oonduct hilt to the Tilt-yard in St. James's Park, under some 
 pretence of business, which it imported him to settle before 
 he was confined. He applies to a serjeant, not immediately 
 on duty, to assist with some of his companions in favouring 
 his escape. He attempts it. A bustle ensues. The bailiffs 
 claim their prisoner. An officer of the guards not then on 
 duty takes part in the affair, applies to the lieutenant com 
 manding the Tilt-yard guard, and urges him to turn out his 
 guard to relieve a general officer. The lieutenant declines 
 interfering in person, but stands at a distance and suffers the 
 business to be done. The other officer takes upon himself 
 to order out the guard. In a moment they are in arms, quit 
 their guard, march, rescue the general, and drive away the 
 sheriffs' officers, who in vain represent their right to the 
 prisoner, and the nature of the arrest. The soldiers first 
 conduct the general into their guard-room, then escort him 
 to a place of safety with bayonets fixed, and in all the forms 
 of military triumph. I will not enlarge upon the various 
 circumstances which attended this atrocious proceeding. The 
 
 foot-guards, were more or less concerned in the rescue of Major- General 
 Gansel in September last; the King hopes, and is willing to believe, they 
 did not know the major-general was arrested, and only thought they were 
 delivering an officer in distress: however his Majesty commands, that they 
 should be severely reprimanded for acting in this business as they have done; 
 and strictly orders for the future, that no commissioned officer or soldier do 
 presume to interfere with bailiffs, or arrests, on any account or pretence 
 whatsoever, the crime being of a very atrocious nature ; and if any are found 
 guilty of disobeying this order, they will be most severely punished. This 
 order to be read immediately at the head of every company in the brigade of 
 guards, that no man may plead ignorance for the future." 
 
 It would appear from this brigade order that the ministry were not in- 
 different but partial in their cognizance of the military outrages, and it 
 evinces considerable alacrity of inculpation to impute as a crime to them the 
 unauthorized act of a few individuals of the guards. But their approbation 
 of the conduct of the soldiers upon occasions when riots had been suppressed 
 with bloodshed, was supposed to have encouraged the soldiers to dare almost 
 any act f wanton audacity against the civil power. Hence, though not 
 directly and immediately guilty of the rescue of General Gansel, the ministers 
 were regarded as being primarily the authors of that, and of whatever other 
 like irregularity the soldiery might proceed to commit. HERON. 
 
 The General appears to have been of a violent temper. A'mon mentinna 
 tliAt, on a subsequent arrest for debt, in 1773, he tired at the bailiffs, and 
 w.is tried for it ; and. though the fact was clearly proved, vet. under the 
 direction of Judge Nares, he was acquitted. But he was detained upon 
 the arrest, *nd committed to the Fleet, where he died suddenly in Juij 
 17T4.-Ki>. 
 
 VOL. 1. B
 
 242 LETTERS OF JDJOTJ8. 
 
 personal injury received by the officers of the law in the 
 execution of their duty may, perhaps, be atoned for by some 
 private compensation. I consider nothing but the wound 
 which has been given to the law itself, to which no remedy 
 lias been applied, no satisfaction made. Neither is it my 
 design to dwell upon the misconduct of the parties concerned 
 any farther than is necessary to show the behaviour of the 
 ministry in its true light. I would make every compassionate 
 allowance for the infatuation of the prisoner, the false and 
 criminal discretion of one officer, and the madness of another. 
 I would leave the ignorant soldiers entirely out of the ques- 
 tion. They are certainly the least guilty, though they are 
 the only persons who have yet suffered, even in the appear- 
 ance of punishment. The fact itself, however atrocious, is 
 not the principal point to be considered. It might have hap- 
 pened under a more regular government, and with guards 
 better disciplined than ours. The main question is, in what 
 manner have the ministry acted on this extraordinary occa- 
 sion. A general officer calls upon the king's own guard, 
 then actually on duty, to rescue him from the laws of his 
 country ; yet, at this moment, he is in a situation no worse 
 than if he had not committed an offeuce equally enormous in 
 a civil and military view. A lieutenant upon duty designedly 
 quits his guard, and suffers it to be drawn out by another 
 officer, for a purpose which he well knew (as we may collect 
 from an appearance of caution which only makes his beha- 
 viour the more criminal) to be in the highest degree illegal. 
 Has this gentleman been called to a court-martial to answer 
 his conduct? No. Has it been censured? No. Has it 
 been in any shape inquired into ? No. Another lieutenant, 
 not upon duty, nor even in his regimentals, is daring enough 
 to order out the king's guard, over which he had properly no 
 command, and engages them in a violation of the laws of his 
 country, perhaps the most singular and extravagant that ever 
 was attempted. What punishment has he suffered ? Lite 
 rally none. Supposing lie should be prosecuted at common 
 law for the rescue, will that circumstance from which the 
 ministry can derive no merit, excuse or justify their suffer- 
 ing so flagrant a breach of military discipline to pass by 
 unpunished and unnoticed ? Are they aware of the outrage 
 offered to their sovereign when his own proper guard is
 
 RESCUE OF GENERAL OANSEL. 243 
 
 ordered o it to stop, by main force, the execution of his laws ? 
 What are we to conclude from so scandalous a neglect o* 
 their duty, hut that they have other views which can only be 
 answered by securing the attachment of the guards ? The 
 minister would hardly be so cautious of offending them if he 
 did not mean, in due time, to call for their assistance. 
 
 With respect to the parties themselves, let it be observed, 
 that these gentlemen are neither young officers nor very 
 young men. Had they belonged to the unfledged race of 
 ensigns who infest our streets and dishonour our public 
 places, it might, perhaps, be sufficient to send them back to 
 that discipline from which their parents, judging lightly from 
 the maturity of their vices, had removed them too soon. In 
 this case, I am sorry to see not so much the folly of youth as 
 the spirit of the corps and the connivance of government. I 
 do not question that there are many brave and worthy officers 
 in the regiment of guards. But, considering them as a corps, 
 I fear it will be found that they are neither good soldiers 
 nor good subjects. Far be it from me to insinuate the most 
 distant reflection upon the army. On the contrary, I honour 
 and esteem the profession ; and if these gentlemen were 
 better soldiers, I am sure they would be better subjects. It 
 is not that there is any internal vice or defect in the profes- 
 sion itself, as regulated in this country, but that it is the 
 spirit of this particular corps to despise their profession, and 
 that, while they vainly assume the lead of the army, they 
 make it a matter of impertinent comparison and triumph over 
 the bravest troops in the world (I mean our marching regi- 
 ments) that they indeed stand upon higher ground, and are 
 privileged to neglect the laborious forms of military disci- 
 pline and duty. Without dwelling longer upon a most in- 
 vidious subject, I shall leave it to military men who have 
 seen a service more active than the parade to determine 
 whether or no I speak truth. 
 
 How far this dangerous spirit has been encouraged by 
 government, and to what pernicious purposes it may be ap- 
 plied hereafter, well deserves our most serious consideration. 
 I know, indeed, that '.vhen this affair happened, an affectation . 
 of alarm ran through the ministry . Something must lie done 
 to save appearances. The case was too flagrant to be passed 
 by absolutely without notice. But how have they acted? 
 
 3
 
 244 LETTKRS OF JUXITTS. 
 
 Instead of ordering the officers concerned (and who, strictly 
 speaking, are alone guilty) to be put under arrest and brought 
 to trial, they would have it understood that they did their 
 duty completely in confining a serjeant and four private 
 soldiers until they should be demanded by the civil power ; 
 so that, while the officers who ordered or permitted the thing 
 to be done escape without censure, the poor men who obeyed 
 those orders, who in a military view are in no way responsible 
 for what they did, and who for that reason have been dis- 
 charged by the civil magistrates, are the only objects whom 
 the ministry have thought proper to expose to punishment. 
 They did not venture to bring even these men to a court- 
 martial, because they knew their evidence would be fatal to 
 some persons whom they were determined to protect. Other- 
 wise, I doubt not, the lives of these unhappy, friendless 
 soldiers would long since have been sacrificed, without scru- 
 ple, to the security of their guilty officers. 
 
 I have been accused of endeavouring to inflame the pas 
 sions of the people. Let me now appeal to their under 
 standing. If there be any tool of administration daring 
 enough to deny these facts, or shameless enough to defend 
 the conduct of the ministry, let him come forward. I care 
 not under what title he appears. He shall find ine ready to 
 maintain the truth of my narrative and the justice of my 
 observations upon it at the hazard of my utmost credit with 
 the public. 
 
 Under the most arbitrary governments the common admi- 
 nistration of justice is suffered to take its course. The sub- 
 ject, though robbed of his share in the legislature, is still 
 protected by the laws. The political freedom of the English 
 constitution was once the pride and honour of an English 
 man. The civil equality of the laws preserved the property 
 and defended the safety of the subject. Are these glorious 
 privileges the birthright of the people, or are we only tenants 
 at the will of the ministry ? But that 1 know there is a 
 spirit of resistance in the hearts of my countrymen, that they 
 value life, not by its conveniences, but by the independence 
 and dignity of their condition, I should, at this moment, 
 appeal only to their discretion. 1 should persuade them to 
 banish from their minds all memory of what we were ; I 
 should tell them this ; & uot a time to remember that we werfl
 
 FHII/> JTTNITJS ON GANSEI/S CASE. 245 
 
 Englishmen ; and give it as my last advice, to mal\e some 
 early agreement with the minister that, since it has pleased 
 him to rob us of those political rights which once distin- 
 guished the inhabitants of a country where honour was hap- 
 piness, he would leave us at least the humble, obedient secu- 
 rity of citizens, and graciously condescend to protect us in 
 our submission. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, November 14, 1769. 
 
 THE variety of remarks which have been made upon the last 
 letter of Junius, and my own opinion of the writer, who, 
 whatever may be his faults, is certainly not a weak man, have 
 induced me to examine with some attention the subject of 
 that letter. I could not persuade myself that, while he had 
 plenty of important materials, he would have taken up a light 
 or trifling occasion to attack the ministry ; much less could I 
 conceive that it was his intention to ruin the officers concerned 
 in the rescue of General Gansel, or to injure the general him- 
 self. These are little objects, and can no way contribute to 
 the great purposes he seems to have in view by addressing 
 himself to the public. Without considering the ornamented 
 style he has adopted, I determined to look farther into the 
 matter before I decided upon the merits of his letter. The 
 first step I took was to inquire into the truth of the facts; 
 for if these were either false or misrepresented, the most 
 artful exertion of his understanding in reasoning upon them 
 would only be a disgrace to him. Now, Sir, I have found 
 every circumstance stated by Junius to be literally true. 
 General Gansel persuaded the bailiffs to conduct him to the 
 parade, and certainly solicited a corporal and other soldiers to 
 assist him in making his escape. Captain Dodd did certainly 
 apply to Captain Garth for the assistance of his guard. Cap 
 tain Garth declined appearing himself, but stood aloof, while 
 the other took upon him to order out the king's guard, and by 
 main force rescued the general. It is also strictly true, that
 
 246 LETTERS OF JTTN1US. 
 
 the general was escorted by a file of musqueteers to a place of 
 security. These are facts, Mr. Woodfall, which I promise you 
 nc gentleman in the guards will deny. If all or any of them 
 are false, why are they not contradicted by the parties them- 
 selves? However secure against military censure, they have 
 yet a character to lose, and surely, if they are innocent, it fc 
 not beneath them to pay some attention to the opinion of the 
 public. 
 
 The force of Junius's observations upon these facts cannot 
 be better marked than by stating and refuting the objections 
 which have been made to them. One writer says, " Admitting 
 the officers have offended, they are punishable at common law, 
 and will you have a British subject punished twice for the 
 same offence?" I answer that they have committed two 
 offences, both very enormous, and violated two laws. The 
 rescue is one offence, the flagrant breach of discipline another, 
 and hitherto it does not appear that they have been punished, 
 or even censured for either. Another gentleman lays much 
 stress upon the calamity of the case, and, instead of disproving 
 facts, appeals at once to the compassion of the public. This 
 idea, as well as the insinuation that depriving the parties of 
 their commissions would be an injury to their creditors, can 
 only refer to General Gansel. The other officers are in no 
 distress, therefore have no claim to compassion, nor does it 
 appear that their creditors, if they have any, are more likely 
 to be satisfied by their continuing in the guards. But this 
 sort of plea will not hold in any shape. Compassion to an 
 offender who has grossly violated the laws, is in effect a 
 cruelty to the peaceable subject who has observed them ; and, 
 even admitting the force of any alleviating circumstances, it 
 is nevertheless true that, in this instance, the royal compas- 
 sion has interposed too soon. The legal and proper mercy of 
 a king of England may remit the punishment, but ought not 
 to stop the trial. 
 
 Besides these particular objections, there has been a cry 
 raised against Junius for his malice and injustice in attacking 
 the ministry upon an event which they could neither hinder 
 nor foresee. This, I must affirm, is a false representation of 
 his argument. He lays no stress upon the event itself as a 
 ground of accusation against the ministry, but dwells entirely 
 upon their subsequent conduct. He docs not say that thej
 
 S ON GANSEL'S CASE Q47 
 
 trc answerable for the offence, but for the scandalous neglect 
 of their duty in suffering an offence so flagrant to pass by 
 without notice or inquiry. Supposing them ever so regardless 
 of what they owe to the public, and as indifferent about the 
 opinion as they are about the interests of their country, what 
 answer, as officers of the crown, will they give to Junius. 
 when he asks them, Are they aware of the outrage offered to 
 their sovereign, when his own proper guard is ordered out to 
 stop, by main force, the execution of his laws ? And when we 
 see a ministry giving such a strange unaccountable protection 
 to the officers of the guards, is it unfair to suspect that they 
 have some secret and unwarrantable motives for their conduct ? 
 If they feel themselves injured by such a suspicion, why do 
 they not immediately clear themselves from it by doing their 
 duty '? For the honour of the guards I cannot help express 
 ing another suspicion, that if the commanding officer had not 
 received a secret injunction to the contrary, he would, in the 
 ordinary course of his business, have applied for a court- 
 martial to try the two subalterns ; the one for quitting his 
 guard, the other for taking upon him the command of the 
 guard, and employing it in the manner he did. I do not 
 mean to enter into or defend the severity with which Junius 
 treats the guards. On the contrary 1 will suppose for a mo 
 merit that they deserve a very different character. If this be 
 true, in what light will they consider the conduct of the two 
 subalterns, but as a general reproach and disgrace to the 
 whole corps ? And will they not wish to see them censured 
 in a military way, if it were only for the credit and discipline 
 of the regiment? 
 
 Upon the whole, Sir, the ministry seem to me to have 
 taken a very improper advantage of the good-nature of the 
 public, whose humanity they found considered nothing in 
 this affair but the distress of General Gansel. They would 
 persuade us that it was only a common rescue by a few dis 
 orderly soldiers, and not the formal deliberate act of the 
 king's guard, headed by an officer, and the public has fallen 
 into the deception. I think, therefore, we are obliged to 
 Junius for the care he has taken to inquire into the facts, 
 and for the just commentary with which he has given them 
 to the world. For my own part, I am as unwilling as any 
 man to load the unfortunate; tit really, Sir, the prece
 
 2-t8 LETTERS OF 
 
 dent, with respect to the guards, is of a most important 
 nature, and alarming enough (considering the consequences 
 ivith which it may be attended) to deserve a parliamentary 
 inquiry : when the guards are daring enough, not only to 
 violate their own discipline, but publicly and with the most 
 atrocious violence to stop the execution of the laws, arid when 
 such extraordinary offences pass with impunity, believe me, 
 Sir, the precedent strikes deep. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIU2* 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, November 15, 1769. 
 
 I ADMIT the claim of a gentleman, who publishes in the Ga- 
 zetteer under the name of'Modestus^. He has some right to 
 expect an answer from me : though I think not so much from 
 the merit or importance of his objections as from my own 
 voluntary engagement. I had a reason for not taking notice 
 of him sooner, which, as he is a candid person, I believe he 
 will think sufficient. In my first letter, I took for granted, 
 from the time which had elapsed, that there was no intention 
 to censure, nor even to try the persons concerned in the 
 rescue of General Gansel ; but Modestus having since either 
 affirmed, or strongly insinuated, that the offenders might still 
 be brought to a legal trial, any attempt to prejudge the cause, 
 or to prejudice the minds of a jury, or a court-martial, would 
 be highly improper. 
 
 A man more hostile to the ministry than I am would not 
 so often remind them of their duty. If the Duke of Grafton 
 will not perform the duty of his station, why is he minister ? 
 I will not descend to a scurrilous altercation with any man " 
 
 * This letter was originally printed in the Public Advertiser, with the 
 signature of Moderatus. It shows that Junius himself was pleased with 
 this composition, or he would not have raised it in his own edition to the 
 rank of those letters which were published under the signature of his chief 
 auxiliary, Philo-Junius. 
 
 + In the copy corrected by the author, and from which the original edition 
 of these letters was printed, Junius gives directions to omit the letters under 
 this signature in the following words: " Modeslus is too stupid, and muM 
 ftot be inserted."
 
 TO THE DUKI. OF ORAKTO1T. 249 
 
 but this is a subject too important to be passed over with 
 silent indifference. If the gentlemen whose conduct is in 
 question are not brought to a trial, the Duke of Grafton shall 
 hear from me again. 
 
 The motives on which I am supposed to have taken up this 
 cause are of little importance compared with the facts them- 
 selves, and the observations I have made upon them. With- 
 out a vain profession of integrity, which, in these times, might 
 justly be suspected, I shall show myself in effect a friend to 
 the interests of my countrymen, and leave it to them to deter- 
 mine whether I am moved by a personal malevolence to 
 three private gentlemen, or merely by a hope of perplexing 
 the ministry, or whether I am animated by a just and honour- 
 able purpose of obtaining a satisfaction to the laws of this 
 country, equal, if possible, to the violation they have suffei-ed 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 TO HIS GKACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 
 
 M-? LORD, November 29, 1769. 
 
 THOUGH my opinion of your Grace's integrity was but little 
 affected by the coyness with which you received Mr. Vaughan's 
 proposals *, I confess I gave you some credit for your discre- 
 tion. You had a fair opportunity of displaying a certain deli- 
 cacy of which you had not been suspected ; and you were in 
 the right to make use of it. By laying in a moderate stock of 
 reputation, you undoubtedly meant to provide for the future 
 
 * The facts are detailed by Junius in a note, and in Letter 36. Mr. Samuel 
 Vaughan was a merchant in the City, of hitherto unblemished character, and 
 strongly attached to the popular cause. The office he attempted to procure 
 had at times been previously disposed of for a pecuniary consideration, and 
 had on one particular occasion been sold by an order of the Court of Chancery, 
 and consisted in the reversion of the clerkship to the Supreme Court in the 
 Island of Jamaica. A Mr. Howell was, in fact, at this very time in treaty 
 with the patentee for the purchase of his resignation, which clearly disproved 
 any criminal intention in Mr. V, He was however prosecuted, obviously from 
 politi?al motives, but which was dropped, as subsequently stated by Jnniu^ 
 after the affair of Hine' patent was brought before the public.
 
 250 
 
 LETTERS OF JTNIUS. 
 
 necessities of your character, that, with an honourable resist- 
 ance upon record, you might safely indulge your genius, and 
 yield to a favourite inclination with security But you have 
 discovered your purposes too soon ; and, instead of the modest 
 reserve of virtue, have shown us the termagant chastity of a 
 prude who gratifies her passions with distinction, and prose- 
 cutes one lover for a rape, while she solicits the lewd em 
 braces of another. 
 
 Your cheek turns pale ; for a guilty conscience tells you 
 you are undone Come forward, thou vii'tuous minister, and 
 tell the world by what interest Mr. Hine has been recom- 
 mended to so extraordinary a mark of his Majesty's favour ; 
 what was the price of the patent he has bought, and to what 
 honourable purpose the purchase-money has been applied. 
 Nothing less than many thousands could pay Colonel Bur- 
 goyne's expenses at Preston*. Do you dare to prosecute 
 such a creature as Vaughan while you are basely setting up 
 the royal patronage to auction ? Do you dare to complain of 
 an attack upon your own honour, while you are selling the 
 favours of the crown to raise a fund for corrupting the morals 
 of the people ? And do you think it possible such enormities 
 should escape without impeachment? It is indeed highly 
 your interest to maintain the present House of Commons. 
 Having sold the nation to you in gross, they will undoubtedly 
 protect you in the detail ; for while they patronize youi 
 crimes they feel for their own. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GKAFTON 
 
 MY LORD, December 12, 1769. 
 
 I FIND with some surprise that you are not supported as you 
 deserve. Your most determined advocates have scruples 
 about them which you are unacquainted with ; and, though 
 there be nothing too hazardous for your Grace to engage in, 
 there- are some things too infamous for the vilest prostitute cf 
 
 * See the ensuing letter, as ai8o i'riTate Letter, No. 15, rol. ii.
 
 SALE OF PLACES. 251 
 
 a newspaper to defend *. In what other manner shall we ac- 
 count for the profound, submissive silence which you and your 
 friends have ohserved upon a charge which called imme 
 diately for the clearest refutation, and would have justified 
 the severest measures of resentment ? I did not attempt to 
 blast your character by an indirect, ambiguous insinuation, 
 but candidly stated to you a plain fact, which struck directly 
 at the integrity of a privy counsellor, of a first commissioner 
 of the treasury, and of a leading minister who is supposed to 
 enjoy the first share in his Majesty's confidence f. In every 
 one of these capacities I employed the most moderate terms 
 to charge you with treachery to your sovereign and breach of 
 trust in your office. I accused you of having sold, or per- 
 mitted to be so j d, a patent place in the collection of the cus- 
 toms at Exeter, to one Mr. Hine, who, unable or unwilling to 
 deposit the whole purchase-money himself, raised part of it by 
 contribution, and has now a certain Doctor Brooke quartered 
 upon the salary for one hundred pounds a year. No sale by 
 the candle was ever conducted with greater formality. I 
 affirm that the price at which the place was knocked down 
 (and which, I have good reason to think, was not less than 
 three thousand five hundred pounds) was, with your con- 
 nivance and consent J, paid to Colonel Burgoyne, to reward 
 
 * From the publication of the preceding to this date, not one word was 
 said in defence of the infamous Duke of Grafton. But vice and impudence 
 soon recovered themselves, and the sale of the royal favour was openly 
 avowed and defended. We acknowledge the piety of St. James's; but what 
 is become of his morality 1 ? JUNIUS. 
 
 + And by the same means preserves it to this hour JUNIUS. 
 
 J The following is the answer to the charge of Junius : 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OP THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIB, Dec. 14, 1769. 
 
 THB infamous traduction of that libeller Junius, his daring falsehoods and 
 gross misrepresentations, excite in me the utmost abhorrence and contempt, 
 and I hope all his deadly poisons will be sheathed in the natural antidote 
 every good mind has to malevolent and bitter invective. What act of delin- 
 quency has the Duke of Grafton committed by Colonel Burgoyne disposing 
 of a patent obtained of his Grace? Will Junius dare to assert it was with 
 the duke's privity, or tor his emolument] Let us state the fact, and disarm 
 the assassin at once. A place in the Custom House at Exeter become* 
 vacant C-ilonel Burgoyne asks it of the Duke of Grafton he give* it The
 
 252 LETTERS CF JCMUS. 
 
 him. I presume, for the decency of his deportmont at Pres 
 von * ; or to reimburse him, perhaps, for the fine of one thou- 
 sand pounds which, for that very deportment, the Court of 
 King's Bench thought proper to set upon him. It is not 
 often that the Chief Justice and the Prime Minister are so 
 strangely at variance in their opinions of men and things. 
 
 I thank God there is not in human nature a degree of im- 
 pudence daring enough to deny the charge I have fixed upon 
 you. Your courteous secretary f, 3 T our confidential architect J, 
 are silent as the grave. Even Mr. Rigby's countenance fails 
 him. He violates his second nature, and blushes whenever 
 he speaks of you. Perhaps the noble colonel himself will 
 relieve you. No man is more tender of his reputation. He 
 is not only nice, but perfectly sore in everything that touches 
 his honour. If any man, for example, were to accuse him of 
 taking his stand at a gaming-table, and watching with the 
 
 colonel says, I cannot hold it myself; will you give it my friend] The 
 duke consents the colonel nominates the duke appoints; but, says 
 Junius, the colonel set it up to sale, and actually received a sum of money 
 for it. Be it so he took a gross sum for what was given him as an annual 
 income ; and who is injured by this? If the Duke of Grafton sold it, he is 
 impeachable; if he gave it to be sold, he is blameable ; but if his Grace did 
 neither, which is the fact, he is basely belied, and most impudently and 
 wickedly vilified. JUSTICE. 
 
 * Colonel, afterwards General, Burgoyne, was a candidate, together with 
 Sir Harry Houghton, for Preston, at the general election in 1768, on the in- 
 terest of the Earl of Derby, who had a house in the town in which he occa- 
 sionally resided, who was accustomed to return one, if not both the members, 
 and whose daughter the colonel had run away with. The corporation sup- 
 ported Sir Frank Standish and Sir Peter Leicester, who were returned. 
 Burgoyne and Houghton petitioned the House of Commons, and set up the 
 right of the inhabitants at large to vote, which was so decided by the housa 
 The corporation endeavoured to controvert this decision in 1784, and sup- 
 ported Mr. M. A. Taylor and Mr. Clayton ; a double return ensued. Mr, 
 Fox was nominee of Burgoyne and his colleague, when the committee, aftei 
 a very long hearing, confirmed the decision of 1768. It was during the 
 former contest that Colonel Burgoyne suffered his partisans to commit the 
 most disgraceful excesses, and for which he was, upon the close of the elec- 
 tion, prosecuted and fined, as stated in the text. 
 
 f- Tommy Bradshaw. 
 
 I Mr. Taylor. He and George Ross (the Scotch agent and worthy con- 
 fidant of Lord Mansfield) managed the business. Justus. 
 
 Mr. Rigby was proverbia'ly remarked for a countenance not easilj 
 abashed by any occurrence.
 
 COLONEL BURGOYNE'S GOVERNORSHIP. 258 
 
 sobeiest attention for a fair opportunity of engaging a drunken 
 young nobleman at piquet, he would undoubtedly consider it 
 as an infamous aspersion upon his character, and resent it 
 like a man of honour. Acquitting him therefore of drawing a 
 regular and splendid subsistence from any unworthy practices, 
 either in his own house or elsewhere, let me ask your Gracfi 
 for what military merits you have been pleased to reward him 
 with a military government*? He had a regiment of dra- 
 goons, which one would imagine was at least an equivalent for 
 any services he ever performed. Besides he is but a young 
 officer, considering his preferment, and, except in his activity 
 at Preston, not very conspicuous in his profession. But it 
 seems the sale of a civil employment was not sufficient, and 
 military governments which were intended for the support of 
 worn out veterans must be thrown into the scale to defray the 
 extensive bribery of a contested election. Are these the steps 
 you take to secure to your sovereign the attachment of his 
 army ? With what countenance dare you appear in the royal 
 presence branded as you are with the infamy of a notorious 
 breach of trust ? With what countenance can you take your 
 seat at the treasury-board or in council when you feel that 
 every circulating whisper is at your expense alone, and stabs 
 you to the heart ? Have you a single friend in parliament so 
 shameless, so thoroughly abandoned, as to undertake your de- 
 fence ? You know, my Lord, that there is not a man in either 
 house whose character, however flagitious, would not be 
 ruined by mixing his reputation with yours ; and does not 
 your heart inform you that you are degraded below the con- 
 dition of a man when you are obliged to hear these insults 
 with submission, and even to thank me for my moderation ? 
 
 We are told by the highest judicial authority, that Mr 
 Vaughan's offer f to purchase the reversion of a patent ir. 
 
 * Col. Burgoyne, only a few days before the date of this letter, had beer 
 promoted to the government of Fort William. 
 
 f A little before the publication of this and the preceding letter the chaste 
 Duke of Grrafton had commenced a prosecution against Mr. Samuel Vaughan, 
 for endeavouring to corrupt his integrity, by an offer of five thousand pounds 
 for a patent place in Jamaica. A rule to show cause why an information 
 should not be exhibited against Vaughan for certain misdemeanours, being 
 granted by the Court of King's Bench, the matter was solemnly aruued on 
 the 27th of November, 1769, and, by the unanimous opinion of the foul 
 judges, the rule was made absolute. The pleadings and speeches were acco-
 
 254, LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 Jamaica (which he was otherwise sufficiently entitled loi 
 amounted to a high misdemeanour. Be it so ; and, if lie de- 
 serves it, let him be punished. But the learned judge might 
 have had a fairer opportunity of displaying the powers of his 
 eloquence. Having delivered himself with so much energy 
 upon the criminal nature and dangerous consequences of any 
 attempt to corrupt a man in your Grace's station, what would 
 be have said to the minister himself, to that very privy coun- 
 sellor, to that first commissioner of the treasury who does not 
 wait for, but impatiently solicits, the touch of corruption, who 
 employs the meanest of his creatures in these honourable 
 services, and, forgetting the genius and fidelity of his secre- 
 tary, descends to apply to his house-builder for assistance ? 
 
 This affair, my Lord, will do infinite credit to government, 
 if to clear your character, you should think proper to bring it 
 into the House of Lords, or into the Court of King's Bench. 
 But, my Lord, you dare not do either. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 rately taken in short-hand and published. The whole of Lord Mansfield's 
 speech, and particularly the following extracts from it, deserve the reader's 
 attention. " A practice of the kind complained of here is certainly dishonour- 
 able and scandalous. If a man, standing under the relation of an officer 
 under the king, or of a person in whom the king puts confidence, or of a 
 minister, takes money for the use of that confidence the king puts in him, he 
 basely betrays the king he basely betra}^ his trust. If the king sold the 
 office, it would be acting contrary to the trust the constitution hath reposed 
 in him. The constitution does not intend the crown should sell those offices 
 to raise the revenue out of them. Is it possible to hesitate whether this would 
 not be criminal in the Duke of Grafton contrary to his duty as a privy 
 counsellor contrary to his duty as a minister contrary to his duty as a sub- 
 ject. His advice should be free according to his judgment it is the duty of 
 his office ; he has sworn to it." Notwithstanding all this, the chaste Duke 
 of Gr.ifton certainly sold a patent place to Mr. Hine for three thou.-and 
 fire hnndred pounds, and, for so doing, is now lord privy seal to the chaste 
 George, with whose piety we are perpetually deafened. If :he House of Com- 
 mons had done their duty, and impeached the black duke for this most in- 
 famous breach of trust, how woefully must poor honest Mansfield have been 
 puzzled ! His embarrassment would have afforded the most ridiculous scene 
 that ever was exhibited. To save the worthy judge from this perplexity, anr] 
 the no less worthy duke from impeachment, the prosecution against \~auyhan 
 was immediately dropped upon my discovery and publication of the duke's 
 treachery. The suffeiing this charge to pass without any inquiry, nxes 
 shameless prostitution upon the face of the House of Commons, more strongly 
 than even the Middlesex election. Yet the licentiousness of the press is 
 complained of! Jcmus.
 
 ABDKKSS TO THE KING 255 
 
 Of the Colonel Buigoyne of the above letter, a few additions, particular! 
 nay not be out of place; he was a conspicuous figure in his time, and ac- 
 ouired many distinctions as soldier, man of fashion, dramatist, and member 
 of parli.iment. Respectab.e by descent, he entered the army at an early age, 
 and displayed superior abilities in the Portuguese war of 1756. After the 
 peace his services were rewarded as Junius has related. In London hig 
 military fame, added to taste, wit, intelligence, and proficiency in fashionable 
 amusements, made him a leader in the gay world. He was an adept in 
 gaming-, and is understood to have used his proficiency in the way Junius in- 
 sinuates. He possessed parliamentary talents, and it was requisite to his 
 advancement in the army that he should have a seat in parliament. Hence 
 the struggle and the corruption, in which he unsuccessfully expended 
 not less than ten thousand pounds to obtain the representation of Preston 
 in the Parliament which met in 1768. He possessed talents for eh-gant lite- 
 rature, and successfully distinguished these in that happy and fantastic trifle, 
 the Maid of the Oaks, which Horace Walpole has peevishly branded with 
 the charge of dulness, and in the Heiress, one of the standard comedies of 
 the stage. When the American war broke out, General Burgoyne was ap- 
 pointed to a command in it under Sir William Howe. His service was able, 
 but finally unfortunate, terminating in the surrender of himself and army to 
 the Americans. He returned home a prisoner upon parole; was ungraciously 
 received by the ministers ; was refused admission to his sovereign's pre- 
 sence; threw himself into the arms of Opposition; aided their efforts by hig 
 complaints and information ; took up his pen to vindicate his military cha- 
 racter ; and succeeded in showing, at least, that for what had happened he was 
 not solely to blame. He died some years afterwards, not indeed dishonoured, 
 but without that splendour of fortune, or of military character, which his 
 earlier services in Portugal had seemed to promise. ED. 
 
 LETTER XXXV*. 
 
 FOB THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 December 19, 1769. 
 
 WHEN the complaints of a brave and powerful people are ob- 
 served to increase in proportion to the wrongs they have 
 
 * The address to the king through the medium of this letter, made a very 
 great impression upon the public mind at the moment of its appearance, and 
 though 1750 copies of the P. A. were printed in addition to the usual number 
 circulated, not a single copy was to be procured a few hours after its publica- 
 tion. The author himself, indeed, seemed to entertain a very favourable 
 opinion of it, as in Private Letter, No. 15, speaking of this letter, he says, 
 " I am now meditating a capital and, I hope, a final piece." It was for thu 
 production that the printer was prosecuted, and obtained the celel'iated ver- 
 dict of " guilty of printing and publishing culy," tb consequence of which.
 
 256 LETTERS OF JUNIU8. 
 
 suffered ??hen, instead of sicking into submission, they ar 
 roused tc resistance, the time will soon arrive at which every 
 inferior consideration must yield to the security of the sove- 
 reign, and to the general safety of the state. There is a 
 moment of difficulty and danger at which flattery and false 
 hood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer 
 be misled. Let us suppose it arrived. Let us suppose a 
 gracious, well-intentioned prince, made sensible at last of the 
 great duty he owes to his people, and of his own disgraceful 
 situation that he looks round him for assistance, and asks 
 for no advice but how to gratify the wishes and secure the 
 happiness of his subjects. In these circumstances, it may be 
 matter of curious SPECULATION to consider if an honest man 
 were permitted to approach a king, in what terms he would ad- 
 dress himself to his sovereign. Let it be imagined, no matter 
 how improbable, that the first prejudice against his character 
 is removed, that the ceremonious difficulties of an audience are 
 surmounted, that he feels himself animated by the purest and 
 most honourable affections to his king and country, and that 
 the great person whom he addresses has spirit enough to bid 
 him speak freely, and understanding enough to listen to him 
 with attention. Unacquainted with the vain impertinence of 
 forms, he would deliver his sentiments with dignity and firm- 
 ness, but not without respect. 
 
 as appears from Woodfall's trial (see APPENDIX), was that two distinct motions 
 were made in court; one by the counsel for the defendant in arrest of judgment, 
 grounded on its ambiguity, and another by the counsel for the crown, to 
 compel the defendant to show cause why the yerdict should not be entered 
 up according to the legal import. The case being argued, the Court of King'i 
 Bench ultimately decided that a new trial should be granted. This accord 
 ingly commenced, when the Attorney-General observing to the Chief Justice 
 that he had not the original newspaper by which he could prove the publi- 
 cation, his lordship laconically replied, " that's not my fault, Mr. At 
 torney," and in this manner terminated the second trial. The fact is, that 
 the foreman of the jury upon the first trial had pocketed the paper upon its 
 being handed to the jury box for inspection, and had afterwards destroyed it. 
 The expense the defendant was put to in this prosecution, as stated in Pri- 
 vate Letter, No. 19, amounted to about 120/. Mr. Alnion, with others, were 
 also prosecuted for selling a reprint of this letter ; and in a note w sis edi- 
 tion of Junius (vol. i. 327) the former states, that the Attorney-General (Mr. 
 De Grey, afterwards Lord Walsingham) copied the whole of the addreaf 
 into the information, which he filed ex qfficio, thereby extending the instrument 
 toaboTe 11) sheets, and considerably increasing the law expenses, which h 
 assert* amounted in his case to between fi"e and six hundred pounds: fi.
 
 ADDBESS TO THE KINO 267 
 
 " SIH, It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the 
 cause of every reproach and distress -which has attended your 
 government, that you should never have been acquainted with 
 the language of truth until you heard it in the complaints of 
 your people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error 
 of your education. We are still inclined to make an indul- 
 gent allowance for the pernicious lessons you received in yonr 
 youth, and to form the most sanguine hopes from the natural 
 benevolence of your disposition*. We are far from thinking 
 you capable of a direct, deliberate purpose to invade those 
 original rights of your subjects on which all their civil and 
 political liberties depend. Had it been possible for us to 
 entertain a suspicion so dishonourable to your character, we 
 should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance very 
 distant from the humility of complaint. The doctrine incul- 
 cated by our laws, That the king can do no wrong, is admitted 
 without reluctance. We separate the amiable, good-natured 
 prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, arid the 
 private virtues of tho man from the vices of his government. 
 Were it not for this just distinction, I knov/ not whether your 
 Majesty's condition or that of the English nation would 
 deserve most to be lamented. I would prepare your mind for 
 a favourable reception of truth by removing every painful, 
 offensive idea of personal reproach. Your subjects, Sir, wish 
 
 * The plan of tutelage and future dominion over the heir apparent, hiid 
 many years ago at Carlton House, between the Princess Dowager :md 
 her favourite the Earl of Bute, was as gross and palpable as that which 
 was concerted between Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin, to govern 
 Lewis the Fourteenth, and in effect to prolong his minority until the end of 
 their lives. That prince had strong natural parts, and used frequently to 
 blush for his own ignorance and want of education which had been wilfully 
 neglected by her mother and her minion. A little experience, however, soon 
 showed him how shamefully he had been treated, and for what infamous 
 purposes he had been kept in ignorance. Our great Edward too, at an early 
 period, had sense enough to understand the nature of the connection between 
 his abandoned mother and the detested Mortimer. But since that time 
 human nature, we may observe, is greatly altered for the better. Dowagers 
 may be chaste, and minions may be honest. When it was proposed to settle 
 the present king's household as Prince of Wales, it is well known tht the 
 Earl of .Cute was forced into it in direct contradiction to the late king's in- 
 clination. Tliat was the salient point from which all the mischiefs and dis- 
 graces of the present reign took life and motion. From that moment Lord 
 Bute never suffered the Prince of Wales to be an instant out of his sight. 
 We need not look farther. Jujcius. 
 
 I.
 
 268 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 for nothing but Inat, as they are reasonable and affectionate 
 enough to separate your person from your government, so you, 
 in your turn, should distinguish between the conduct which 
 becomes the permanent dignity of a king and that which 
 serves only to promote the temporary interest and miserable 
 ambition of a minister. 
 
 " You ascended the throne with a declared and, I doubt 
 not, a sincere resalution of giving universal satisfaction to 
 your subjects *. You found them pleased with the novelty of 
 a young prince whose countenance promised even more than 
 his words, and loyal to you not only from principle but passion. 
 It was not a cold profession of allegiance to the first magis- 
 trate, but a partial, animated attachment to a favourite prince, 
 the native of their country. They did not wait to examine 
 your conduct, nor to be determined by experience, Imt gave 
 you a generous credit for the future blessings of your reign, 
 and paid you in advance the dearest tribute of their affections. 
 Such, Sir, was once the disposition of a people who now sur- 
 round your throne with reproaches and complaints. Do justice 
 to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy opinions 
 with which some interested persons have laboured to possess 
 you. Distrust the men who tell you that the English are 
 naturally light and inconstant that they complain without a 
 cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from all parties 
 from ministers, favourites, and relations ; and let there be 
 one moment in your life in which you have consulted your own 
 understanding. 
 
 " When you affectedly renounced the name of Englishman!, 
 believe me, Sir, you were persuaded to pay a very ill-judged 
 compliment to one part of your subjects at the expense of 
 another. While the natives of Scotland are not in actual 
 rebellion, they are undoubtedly entitled to protection, r.or do 
 I mean to condemn the policy of giving some encouragement 
 to the novelty of their affections for the house of Hanover. 
 I am ready to hope for everything from their new-born zeal, 
 
 * " Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Br'rton. and 
 the peculiar happiness of my life will erer consist in promoting the wel- 
 fare of a people whose loyalty and warm affection to me I consider as th 
 greatest ami most permanent security of my throne." Sjieech of the King 
 Snv. 18, 1760. 
 
 + Alluding to the king's substitution of the word Briton.
 
 ADDRESS TO THE KINO. 2o9 
 
 anJ from the future steadiness of their allegiance. But hitherto 
 they have no claim to your favour. To honour them with a 
 determined predilection and confidence, in exclusion of your 
 English subjects who placed your family, and in spite of 
 treachery and rebellion have supported it, upon the throne, is 
 a mistake too gross even for the unsuspecting generosity of 
 youth. In this error we see a capital violation of the most 
 obvious rules of policy and prudence. We trace it, however, to 
 an original bias in your education, and are ready to allow for 
 your inexperience. 
 
 " To the same early influence we attribute it that you have 
 descended to take a share not only in the narrow views and 
 interests of particular persons, but in the fatal malignity of 
 their passions. At your accession to the throne the whole 
 system of government was altered, not from wisdom or deli- 
 beration, but because it had been adopted by your prede- 
 cessor. A little personal motive -of pique and resentment was 
 sufficient to remove the ablest servants of the crown * ; but it 
 is not in this country, Sir, that such men can be dishonoured 
 by the frowns of a king. They were dismissed, but could not 
 be disgraced. Without entering into a minuter discussion of 
 the merits of the peace, we may observe, in the imprudent 
 hurry with which the first overtures from France were ac- 
 cepted, in the conduct of the negociation, and terms of the 
 treaty, the strongest marks of that precipitate spirit of con 
 cession with which a certain part of your subjects have been 
 at all times ready to purchase a peace with the natural ene 
 mies of this country. On your part we are satisfied that 
 everything was honourable and sincere, and if England was 
 sold to France, we doubt not that your Majesty was equally 
 betrayed. The conditions of the peace were matter of grief 
 and surprise to your subjects, but not the immediate cause ef 
 their present discontent. 
 
 " Hitherto, Sir, you had been sacrificed to the prejudices 
 and passions of others. With what firmness will you bear the 
 mention of your own ? 
 
 * Oae of the first acts of the present reign was to dismiss Mr. Legre, 
 because he had some ye;irs before refused to yield his interest in Hampshire 
 to Scotchman recommended by Lord Bute. This was the reason publicly/ 
 signed by his lordship. JUNIUS. 
 
 The Scotchman alluded to was Sir Simeon Stuart. 
 
 S 2
 
 200 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 " A man, not very honourably distinguished in the world, 
 commences a formal attack upon your favourite, considering 
 nothing but how he might best expose his person and prin- 
 ciples to detestation, and the national character of his country- 
 men to contempt. The natives of that country, Sir, are as 
 much distinguished by a peculiar character as by youi 
 Majesty's favour. Like another chosen people, they have been 
 conducted into the land of plenty, where they find themselves 
 effectually marked, and divided from mankind. There is 
 hardly a period at which the most irregular character may not 
 be redeemed. The mistakes of one sex find a retreat in 
 patriotism; those of the other in devotion. Mr. Wilkes 
 brought with him into politics the same liberal sentiments by 
 which his private conduct had been directed, and seemed to 
 think, that as there are few excesses in which an English 
 gentlemen may not be permitted to indulge, the same latitude 
 was allowed him in the choice of his political principles, and 
 in the spirit of maintaining them. 1 mean to state, not en- 
 tirely to defend, his conduct. In the earnestness of his zeal 
 he suffered some unwarrantable insinuations to escape him. 
 He said more than moderate men \\ould justify, but not 
 enough to entitle him to the honour of your Majesty's per- 
 sonal resentment. The rays of royal indignation collected 
 upon him served only to illuminate, and could not consume. 
 Animated by the favour of the people on one side, and heated 
 by persecution on the other, his views and sentiments changed 
 with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an en- 
 thusiast. The coldest bodies warm with opposition, the hardest 
 sparkle in collision. There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics 
 as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince 
 ourselves. The passions are engaged, and create a maternal 
 affection in the mind, which forces us to love the cause for 
 which we suffer. Is this a contention worthy of a king? 
 Are you not sensible how much the meanness of the cause 
 gives an air of ridicule to the serious difficulties into which 
 you have been betrayed ? the destruction of one man has been 
 now for many years the sole object of your government ; and if 
 there can be anything still more disgraceful, we have seen for 
 such an object the utmost influence of the executive power and 
 every ministerial artifice exerted, without success. Nor can you 
 ever succeed, unless he should be imprudent enough to forfeit
 
 ADDRESS TO THE KING. 261 
 
 the protection of those laws to which you owe your crown, or 
 unless your ministers should persuade you to make it a ques- 
 tion of force alone, and try the whole strength of government 
 in opposition to the people. The lessons he has received from 
 experience, will probably guard him from such excess of folly, 
 and in your Majesty's virtues we find an unquestionable 
 assurance that no illegal violence will be attempted. 
 
 " Far from suspecting you of so horrible a design, we 
 would attribute the continued violation of the laws, and 
 even this last enormous attack upon the vital principles of the 
 constitution, to an ill-advised, unworthy personal resentment. 
 From one false step you have been betrayed into another, and 
 as the cause was unworthy of you, your ministers were deter- 
 mined that the prudence of the execution should correspond 
 with the wisdom and dignity of the design. They have re- 
 duced you to the necessity of choosing out of a variety of diffi- 
 culties to a situation so unhappy, that you can neither do 
 wrong without ruin, nor right without affliction. These worthy 
 servants have undoubtedly given you many singular proofs of 
 their abilities. Not contented with making Mr. Wilkes a 
 man of importance, they have judiciously transferred the ques- 
 tion from the rights and interests of one man to the most 
 important rights and interests of the people, and forced your 
 subjects from wishing well to the cause of an individual, to 
 unite with him in their own. Let them proceed as they have 
 begun, and your Majesty need riot doubt that the catastrophe 
 will do no dishonour to the conduct of the piece. 
 
 " The circumstances to which you are reduced will not 
 admit of a compromise with the English nation. Undecisive, 
 qualifying measures will disgrace your government still more 
 than open violence, and without satisfying the people will ex 
 cite their contempt. They have too much understanding and 
 spirit to accept of an indirect satisfaction for a direct injury. 
 Nothing less than a repeal, as formal as the resolution itself, 
 can heal the wound which has been given to the constitution, 
 nor will anything less be accepted. I can readily believe 
 that there is an influence sufficient to recall that pernicious 
 vote. The House of Commons undoubtedly consider their 
 duty to the crown as paramount to all other obligations. To 
 us they are only indebted for an accidental existence, and 
 have justly transferred their gratitude from their parents to
 
 262 LETTERS OF 
 
 their bemjfkctors from those who gave them birth to the 
 minister from whose ;enevolence they derive the comforts 
 and pleasures of their political life, who has taken the ten 
 derest care of their infancy, and relieves their necessities 
 without offending their delicacy. But, if it were possible for 
 Iheir integrity to be degraded to a condition so vile and abject 
 that, compared with it, the present estimation they stand in is 
 a state of honour and respect, consider, Sir, in what manner 
 you will afterwards proceed. Can you conceive that the 
 people of this country will long submit to be governed by so 
 flexible a House of Commons? It is not in the nature of 
 human society that any form of government, in such circum- 
 stances, can long be preserved? In ours, the general con- 
 tempt of the people is as fatal as their detestation. Such, I 
 am persuaded, would be the necessary effect of any base con- 
 cession made by the present House of Commons, and, as a 
 qualifying measure would not be accepted, it remains for you 
 to decide whether you will, at any hazard, support a set of 
 men who have reduced you to this unhappy dilemma, or whe- 
 ther you will gratify the united wishes of the whole people of 
 England by dissolving the parliament. 
 
 " Taking it for granted, as I do very sincerely, that you 
 have personally no design against the constitution, nor any 
 views inconsistent with the good of your subjects, I think you 
 cannot hesitate long upon the choice, which it equally con- 
 cerns your interest and your honour to adopt. On one side 
 you hazard the affections of all your English subjects you 
 relinquish every hope of repose to yourself, and you endanger 
 the establishment of your family for ever. All this you ven- 
 ture for no object whatsoever, or for such an object as it would 
 be an affront to you to name. Men of sense will examine 
 your conduct with suspicion, while those who are incapable of 
 comprehending to what degree they are injured, afflict you 
 with clamours equally insolent and unmeaning. Supposing 
 it possible that no fatal struggle should ensue, you determine 
 at once to be unhappy, without the hope of a compensation 
 either from interest or ambition. If an English king be 
 \iated or despised, he must be unhappy ; and this, perhaps, is 
 the only political truth which he ought to be convinced of 
 without experiment. But if the English people should no 
 longer confine their resentment to a submissive representation
 
 ADDRESS TO THE KINO. 263 
 
 of their wrongs if, following the glorious example of their 
 ancestors, they should no longer appeal to the creature of the 
 constitution, but to that high Being who gave them the rights 
 of humanity, whose gifts it were sacrilege to surrender let 
 me ask you, Sir, upon what part of your subjects would you 
 rely for assistance ? 
 
 " The people of Ireland have been uniformly plundered and 
 oppressed. In return, they give you every day fresh marks 
 of their resentment. They despise the miserable governor 
 you have sent them *, because he is the creature of Lord 
 Bute ; nor is it from any natural confusion in their ideas 
 that they are so ready to confound the original of a king 
 with the disgraceful representation of him. 
 
 " The distance of the colonies would make it impossible 
 for them to take an active concern in your affairs if they 
 were as well affected to your government as they once pre- 
 tended to be to your person. They were ready enough to 
 distinguish between you and your ministers. They com- 
 plained of an act of the legislature, but traced the origin of 
 it no higher than to the servants of the crown ; they pleased 
 themselves with the hope that their sovereign, if not favour- 
 able to their cause, at least was impartial. The decisive, 
 personal part you took against them has effectually banished 
 that first distinction from their minds f . They consider you 
 as united with your servants against America, and know how 
 to distinguish the sovereign and a venal parliament on one 
 side from the real sentiments of the English people on the 
 the other. Looking forward to independence, they might 
 possibly receive you for their king ; but, if ever you retire to 
 America, be assured they will give you such a covenant to 
 
 * Viscount Townshend, sent over on the plan of being resident governor. 
 The history of his ridiculous administrations shall not be lost to the 
 public. JUNIUS. 
 
 This promise Junius did not fulfil ; but see his Miscellaneous Letter, 
 No. 4, on the appointment of this noblemam to the lord-lieutenarcy. 
 
 f In the King's speech of November 8, ] 768, it was declared " That the 
 spirit of faction had broken out afresh in some of the colonies, and, in one of 
 them, proceeded to acts of violence and resistance to the execution of the laws ; 
 that Boston was in a state of disobedience to all law and government, and 
 had proceeded to measures subversive of the constitution, and attended with 
 circumstances that manifested a disposition to throw off their dependence on 
 9reat Britain." JCNIUS.
 
 264 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 digest as the presbytery of Scotland would have been ashamed 
 to offer to Charles the Second. They left their native land in 
 search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided as they 
 are into a thousand forms of policy and religion, there is one 
 point in which they all agree they equally detest the 
 pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a 
 bishop. 
 
 " It is not then from the alienated affections of Ireland or 
 America that you can reasonably look for assistance ; still 
 loss from the people of England, who are actually contending 
 for their rights, and in this great question are parties against 
 you. You are not, however, destitute of every appearance of 
 support you have all the Jacobites, Nonjurors, Roman 
 Catholics, and Tories of this country, and all Scotland with- 
 out exception. Considering from what family you are de- 
 scended, the choice of your friends has been singularly di- 
 rected ; and truly, Sir, if you had not lost the Whig interest 
 of England, I should admire your dexterity in turning the 
 hearts of your enemies. Is it possible for you to place any 
 confidence in men who, before they are faithful to you, must 
 renounce every opinion and betray every principle, both in 
 church and state, which they inherit from their ancestors, 
 and are confirmed in by their education ? whose numbers are 
 so inconsiderable that they have long since been obliged to give 
 up the principles and language which distinguish them as a 
 party, and. to fight under the banners of their enemies? 
 Their zeal begins with hypocrisy, and must conclude in 
 treachery. At first they deceive at last they betray. 
 
 " As to the Scotch, I must suppose your heart and under- 
 standing so biassed from your earliest infancy in their favour, 
 that nothing less than your own misfortunes can undeceive 
 you. You will not accept of the uniform experience of your 
 ancestors ; and when once a man is determined to believe, 
 the very absurdity of the doctrine confirms him in his faith 
 A bigoted understanding can draw a proof of attachment to 
 the house of Hanover from a notorious zeal for the house of 
 Stuart, and find an earnest of future loyalty in former rebel- 
 lions. Appearances are, however, in their favour ; so strongly, 
 indeed, that one would think they had forgotten that you are 
 their lawful king, and had mistaken you for a pretender to 
 the crown. Let it be admitted, then, that the Scotch are aa
 
 ADDRESS TO THE KTKG. 265 
 
 sincere in their present professions as if you were in reality 
 not an Englishman, but a Briton of the North. You would 
 not be the first prince of their native country against whom 
 they have rebelled, nor the first whom they have basely 
 betrayed. Have you forgotten, Sir, or has your favourite 
 concealed from you that part of our history when the un- 
 happy Charles (and he too had private virtues) fled from the 
 open, avowed indignation of his English subjects, and sur- 
 rendered himself at discretion to the good faith of his owr 
 countrymen ? Without looking for support in their affections 
 as subjects, he applied only to their honour as gentlemen for 
 protection. They received him as they would your Majesty, 
 with bows, and smiles, and falsehood, and kept him until they 
 had settled their bargain with the English parliament ; then 
 basely sold their native king to the vengeance of his enemies. 
 This, Sir, was not the act of a few traitors, but the deliberate 
 treachery of a Scotch parliament representing the nation. 
 A wise prince might draw from it two lessons of equal utility 
 to himself. On one side he might learn to dread the undis- 
 guised resentment of a generous people, who dare openly 
 assert their rights, and who, in a just cause, are ready to 
 meet their sovereign in the field. On the other side, he 
 would be taught to apprehend something far more formidable 
 a fawning treachery against which no prudence can guard, 
 no courage can defend. The insidious smile upon the cheek 
 would warn him of the canker in the heart. 
 
 " From the uses to which one part of the army has been 
 too frequently applied *, you have some reason to expect that 
 there are no services they would refuse. Here, too, we trace 
 the partiality of your understanding. You take the sense of 
 the army from the conduct of the guards, with the same jus- 
 tice with which you collect the sense of the people from the 
 representations of the ministry. Your marching regiments, 
 Sir, will not make the guards their example either as soldiers 
 or subjects. They feel and resent, as they ought to do, that 
 invariable, undistinguishing favour with which the guards 
 are treated f ; while those gallant troops by whom every 
 
 * Miscellaneous Letter, No. 24, vol. ii., in which the author discusses 
 this subject more at large. 
 
 f The number of commissioned officers in the guards are to the marching 
 regiments as one to eleven : the number of regiments given to the guards,
 
 266 LETTERS OF JUSTUS. 
 
 hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left to 
 [erish in garrisons abroad, or pine in quarters at home, neg- 
 lected and forgotten. If they had no sense of the great 
 original duty they owe their countiy, their resentment would 
 operate like patriotism, and leave your cause to be defended 
 by those to whom you have lavished the rewards and honours 
 of their profession. The praetorian bands, enervated and 
 debauched as they were, had still strength enough to awe the 
 Roman populace ; but when the distant legions took the 
 alarm, they marched to Rome and gave away the empire. 
 
 " On this side, then, whichever way you turn your eyes 
 you see nothing but perplexity and distress. You may deter- 
 mine to support the very ministry who have reduced your 
 affairs to this deplorable situation you may shelter yourself 
 under the forms of a parliament, and set your people at 
 defiance. But be assured, Sir, that such a resolution would 
 be as imprudent as it would be odious. If it did not imme- 
 diately shake your establishment, it would rob you of your 
 peace of mind for ever. 
 
 " On the other, how different is the prospect ! How easy, 
 how safe and honourable is the path before you ! The Eng- 
 lish uation declare they are grossly injured by their repre- 
 sentatives, and solicit your Majesty to exert your lawful pre- 
 rogative, and give them an opportunity of recalling a trust 
 which, they find, has been scandalously abused. You are not 
 to be told that the power of the House of Commons is not 
 original, but delegated to them for the welfare of the people 
 from whom they received it. A question of right arises 
 between the constituent and the representative body. By 
 what authority shall it be decided ? Will your Majesty inter- 
 fere in a question in which you have properly no immediate 
 concern ? It would be a step equally odious and unnecessary. 
 
 compared with those given to the line, is about three to one at a moderate 
 computation ; consequently the partiality in favour of the guards is as thirty- 
 three to one. So much for the officers. The private men have fourpence 
 k day to subsist on, and five hundred lashes if they desert. Under thi 
 punishment they frequently expire. With these encouragements it is sup- 
 posed they may be depended upon whenever a certain person thinks it neces- 
 sary to butcher his fellow-svl/jects. JUNICS. 
 
 The impolicy here pointed out has been since acknowledged and acted 
 upon ; and the soldier of the present day has no reason to complain eithei cd 
 poverty of income or severity of discipline.
 
 ADDRESS TO THE KING. 267 
 
 Shall the Lords be called upon to determine the rights and 
 privileges of the Commons ? They cannot do it without a 
 flagrant breach of the constitution. Or will you refer it to 
 the judges? They have often told your ancestors that the 
 law of parliament is above them. What party then remains 
 but to leave it to the people to determine for themselves ? 
 They alone are injured ; and, since there is no superior power 
 to which the cause can be referred, they alone ought to 
 determine. 
 
 " I do not mean to perplex you with a tedious argument 
 upon a subject already so discussed that inspiration could 
 hardly throw a new light upon it. There are, however, two 
 points of view in which it particularly imports your Majesty 
 to consider the late proceedings of the House of Commons. 
 By depriving a subject of his birthright, they have attributed 
 .0 their own vote an authority equal to an act of the whole 
 legislature ; and, though perhaps not with the same motives, 
 have strictly followed the example of the Long Parliament, 
 which first declared the regal office useless, and soon after, 
 with as little ceremony, dissolved the House of Lords. The 
 same pretended power which robs an English subject of his 
 birthright may rob an English king of his crown. In another 
 view, the resolution of the House of Commons, apparently 
 not so dangerous to your Majesty, is still more alarming to 
 your people. Not contented with divesting one man of his 
 right, they have arbitrarily conveyed that right to another. 
 They have set aside a return as illegal, without daring to cen- 
 sure those officers who were particularly apprized of Mr. 
 Wilkes's incapacity, not only by the declaration of the House, 
 but expressly by the writ directed to them, and who, never- 
 theless, returned him as duly elected. They have rejected 
 the majority of votes, the only criterion by which our laws 
 judge of the sense of the people ; they have transferred the 
 right of election from the collective to the representative 
 body ; and, by these acts, taken separately or together, they 
 have essentially altered the original constitution of the House 
 of Commons. Versed as your Majesty undoubtedly is in the 
 English history, it cannot easily escape you how much it is 
 your interest, as well as your duty, to prevent one of the 
 three c states from encroaching upon the province of the other
 
 2o8 LETTERS OF JUNIU8 
 
 two, or assuming the authority of them all. When once 
 they have departed from the great constitutional line by 
 which all their proceedings should be directed, who will 
 answer for their future moderation ? Or what assurance will 
 they give you that when they have trampled upon your 
 equals they will submit to a superior? Your Majesty may 
 learn hereafter how nearly the slave and tyrant are allied. 
 
 " Some of your council, more candid than the rest, admit 
 the abandoned profligacy of the present House of Commons, 
 but oppose their dissolution upon an opinion, I confess not 
 very unwarrantable, that their successors would be equally at 
 the disposal of the treasury. I cannot persuade myself that 
 the nation will have profited so little by experience. But if 
 that opinion were well founded, you might then gratify our 
 wishes at an easy rate, and appease the present clamour 
 against your government, without offering any material injury 
 to the favourite cause of corruption. 
 
 " You have still an honourable part to act. The affections 
 of your subjects may still be recovered. But before you sub- 
 due their hearts you must gain a noble victory over your own. 
 Discard those little personal resentments which have too long 
 directed your public conduct. Pardon this man the remain- 
 der of his punishment ; and, if resentment still prevails, 
 make it what it should have been long since an act, not of 
 mercy, but contempt. He will soon fall back into his na- 
 tural station a silent senator, and hardly supporting the 
 weekly eloquence of a newspaper. The gentle breath of 
 peace would leave him on the surface neglected and unre- 
 moved. It is only the tempest that lifts him from his 
 place *. 
 
 " Without consulting your minister, call together your 
 whole council. Let it appear to the public that you can 
 determine and act for yourself. Come forward to your people. 
 
 * It is evident from other passages, as well as the present, that Juniui 
 was not, strictly speaking, a partisan of Mr. Wilkes, though he was a deter- 
 mined enemy to the decision of the House of Commons with respect to the 
 Middlesex election. Wilkes, at this time, was confined in the King's Bench 
 prison, under sentence of a fine of 1000. and twenty-two months' imprison- 
 ment, for the publication of the North Briton, No. 45, and the Essay on 
 Woman. -Up.
 
 ADDRESG TO THE KINO. 269 
 
 Lay aside the wretched formalities of a king, and speak to 
 your subjects with the spirit of a man, and in the language 
 of a gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived. 
 The acknowledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an 
 honour to your understanding. Tell them you are deter- 
 mined to remove every cause of complaint against vour go- 
 vernment, that you will give your confidence to no man who 
 does not possess the confidence of your subjects ; and leave 
 it to themselves to determine, by their conduct at a future 
 election, whether or no it be in reality the general sense of 
 the nation that their rights have been arbitrarily invaded by 
 the present House of Commons, and the constitution be- 
 trayed. They will then do justice to their representatives 
 and to themselves. 
 
 " These sentiments, Sir, and the style they are conveyed 
 in, may be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. 
 Accustomed to the language of courtiers, you measure their 
 affections by the vehemence of their expressions ; and, when 
 they only praise you indirectly, you admire their sincerity 
 But this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They 
 deceive you, Sir, who tell you that you have many friends 
 whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal 
 attachment. The first foundation of friendship is not the 
 power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which 
 they are received and may be returned. The fortune which 
 made you a king forbad you to have a friend. It is a law of 
 nature which cannot be violated with impunity. The mis- 
 taken prince who looks for friendship will find a favourite, 
 and in that favourite the ruin of his affairs. 
 
 " The people of England are loyal to the house of 
 Hanover, not from a vain preference of one family to another, 
 but from a conviction that the establishment of that family 
 was necessary to the support of their civil and religious liber- 
 ties. This, Sir, is a principle of allegiance equally solid and 
 rational ; fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of 
 your majesty's encouragement. We cannot long be deluded 
 by nominal distinctions, The name of Stuart, of itself, is 
 only contemptible; armed with the sovereign authority, their 
 principles are formidable. The prince who imitates their 
 conJuct should be warned by their example ; and, while ha 
 plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown,
 
 270 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 should remember that, as it was acquired by one revolution, 
 it may be lost by another." 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 The above celebrated address appeared when th Whigs hope<] at last to 
 force themselves in a body into administration on their own terms. The 
 Grenvilles, the Earl of Chatham, the Marquis of Rockingham, with their 
 respective adherents, were now united, and professed to believe that their 
 purposes, whether of patriotism, avarice, or ambition, could be accomplished 
 only by unswerving fidelity to their union. The opening of the session of 
 parliament was near. They supposed that the business of government could 
 not be performed in that session unless the king should implicitly resign the 
 whole ministerial powers into their hands. They were preparing, by every 
 means, to secure, beyond the possibility of disappointment, the grand object 
 of their expectations. Not onconscious of the strength of public opinion, 
 they used every artifice to make it raise a voice continually louder and more 
 furious in theii favour. Junius, privy to tlveir secrets, though lliey were 
 not privy to his, was willing to promote, by an attempt bolder and of 
 greater effort than any he had hitherto madf, that success of his part^ in 
 which he expected probably to share. He, with this view, raised the level 
 of his invective higher than eithei the Duke of Grafton or the Duke ot 
 Bedford, and dared to try whether he might not make Majesty itself quail 
 before his attacks. 
 
 The address exhibits dignity in its tone; and preserves, even in the bitter- 
 ness of invective, somewhat of that language of respect which is becoming in 
 a subject who proffers counsel to his sovereign. It is comprehensive in iti 
 urvey of characters, events, political measures, and party interests. It 
 manages the leading points of the appeal with great skill, as being addressed 
 to a good prince who loved his people, and sincerely desired to obtain, by 
 good government, their love. It blends sublimity and vehemence with 
 brevity and pathos. Yet by some it has been judged inferior to what, after 
 the former letters, so great an occasion might have been expected to call forth 
 from so consummate a master as Junius. HERON. 
 
 LETTER XXXVI. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 
 
 ' Mr LORD, February 14, 1770 
 
 Ir I were personally your enemy, I might pity and forgive 
 you. You have every claim to compassion that can arise 
 from misery and distress. The condition you are reduced tc 
 would disarm a private enemy of his resentment, and leave 
 no consolation to the most vindictive spirit, but that such an
 
 BESIONATION OF THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 873 
 
 object as you are would disgrace the dignity of revenge*. But 
 in the relation you have borne to this country, you have no 
 title to indulgence ; and if I had followed the dictates of my 
 own opinion, I never should have allowed you the respite of 
 a moment. In your public character you have injured every 
 subject of the empire ; and though an individual is not au- 
 thorized to forgive the injuries done to society, he is called 
 upon to assert his separate share in the public resentment. 
 I submitted, however, to the judgment of men more mode- 
 rate, perhaps more candid, than myself. For my own part, I 
 do not pretend to understand those prudent forms of decorum, 
 those gentle rules of discretion which some men endeavour 
 to unite with the conduct of the greatest and most hazardous 
 affairs. Engaged in the defence of an honourable cause, I 
 would take a decisive part, I should scorn to provide for a 
 future retreat, or to keep terms with a man who preserver no 
 measures with the public. Neither the abject submission of 
 deserting his post in the hour of danger, nor even the sacred 
 shield of cowardice should protect him f. 1 would pursue 
 him through life, and try the last exertion of my abilities to 
 preserve the perishable infamy of his name and make it im- 
 mortal. 
 
 What then, my Lord, is this the event of all the sacrifices 
 you have made to Lord Bute's patronage and to your own unfor- 
 tunate ambition ? Was it for this you abandoned your earli 
 est friendships the warmest connections of your youth, and 
 all those honourable engagements by which you once solicited, 
 and might have acquired, the esteem of your country? Have 
 you secured no recompense for such a waste of honour ? 
 Unhappy man ! What party will receive the common deserter 
 of all parties ? Without a client to flatter, without a friend 
 to console you, and with only one companion from the honest 
 
 * The duke had now resigned the office of first lord of the treasury, worn 
 out by the attacks of Lord Chatham and the combined Whig phalanx in par- 
 liament, of Junius, and the petitioners and remonstrators from all parts of the 
 country out of parliament. His Grace resigned abruptly, and left the cabinet 
 in some confusion, Lord Camden having not long before been compelled to 
 leave the office of lord chancellor, and Mr. Charles Yorke, who hpd been 
 called to succeed him, having killed himself through political vexation 01 
 ome other cause. The Duke of Grafton was succeeded by Lord North. ED 
 
 t Sacro iremuere timore. Every coward pretends to be planet 
 
 struck. JUNICS.
 
 272 LETTERS CF JUNIUS. 
 
 house of Bloomsbury, you must now retire into a dreadful 
 solitude. At the most active period of life you must quit 
 the busy scene and conceal yourself from the world if you 
 would hope to save the wretched remains of a ruined reputa- 
 tion. The vices operate like age bring on disease before ita 
 time, and in the prime of youth leave the character broken 
 and exhausted. 
 
 Yet your conduct has been mysterious as well as con- 
 temptible. Where is now that firmness or obstinacy so long 
 boasted of by your friends and acknowledged by your enemies? 
 We were taught to expect that you would not leave the ruin 
 of this country to be completed by other hands, but were de> 
 termined either to gain a decisive victory over the constitu 
 tion, or to perish bravely at least behind the last dyke of the 
 prerogative. You knew the danger and might have been pro- 
 vided for it. You took sufficient time to prepare for a meeting 
 with your parliament, to confirm the mercenary fidelity of 
 your dependants, and to suggest to your sovereign a language 
 suited to his dignity, at least, if not to his benevolence and 
 wisdom. Yet, while the whole kingdom was agitated with 
 anxious expectation upon one great point, you meanly evaded 
 the question, and instead of the explicit firmness and decision 
 of a king, gave us nothing but the misery of a ruined grazier*, 
 and the whining piety of a Methodist. We had reason to 
 expect that notice would have been taken of the petitions 
 which the king has received from the English nation ; and 
 although I can conceive some personal motives for not yield- 
 ing to them, I can find none, in common prudence or decency, 
 for treating them with contempt. Be assured, my Lord, the 
 English people will not tamely submit to this unworthy 
 treatment ; they had a right to be heard, and their petitions, 
 if not granted, deserved to be considered. Whatever be the 
 
 * There was something wonderfully pathetic in the mention of the horned 
 cattle. JUNIUS. 
 
 The royal speech with which parliament was opened, Jan. 9, 1770, treated 
 with silent contempt the petitions from the City, Westminster, York, and 
 Surrey, rut was pathetic on the cattle distemper. Contemporary with the 
 murrain this year, there happening to be a great many divorces, it gave rise 
 to num'.ierless witticisms. Among the nuptial dissolutions were those of tha 
 Duke of Grafton and Lord Grosvenor ; and Almon relates that these two 
 noble lords bowed to each other while the king was reading th<s part of hi* 
 speech. ED.
 
 RESIGNATION OF THE DTJKE OF nUAFTON. 27 S 
 
 real views and doctrine of a court, the sovereign should be 
 taught to preserve some forms of attention to his subjects, 
 and if he will not redress their grievances, not to make them 
 a topic of jest and mockery among lords and ladies of the bed- 
 chamber. Injuries may be atoned for and forgiven ; but 
 insults admit of no compensation. They degrade the mind 
 in its .own esteem, and force it to recover its level by revenge. 
 This neglect of the petitions was, however, a part of your 
 original plan of government, nor will any consequences it has 
 produced account for your deserting your sovereign in the 
 midst of that distress in which you and your new friends* had 
 involved him. One would think, my Lord, you might have 
 taken this spirited resolution before you had dissolved the 
 last of those early connections which once, even in your own 
 opinion, did honour to your youth ; before you had obliged 
 Lord Granby to quit a service he was attached tof; before 
 you had discarded one chancellor and killed another}. To 
 what an abject condition have you laboured to reduce the best 
 of princes, when the unhappy man who yields at last to such 
 personal instance and solicitation as never can be fairly em- 
 ployed against a subject feels himself degraded by his com- 
 pliance, and is unable to survive the disgraceful honours 
 which his gracious sovereign had compelled him to accept ! 
 He was a man of spirit, for he had a quick sense of shame, 
 and death has redeemed his character. I know your Grace 
 too well to appeal to your feelings upon this event ; but there 
 is another heart, not yet, I hope, quite callous to the touch of 
 humanity, to which it ought to be a dreadful lesson for ever. 
 Now, my Lord, let us consider the situation to which you 
 have conducted, and in which you have thought it advisable 
 
 * The Bedford party. 
 
 r As well as the Marquis of Granby, the Dukes of Beaufort and Man- 
 chester, Lord Coventry, and Mr. Dunning, the solicitor-general, resigned ; they 
 expected, by early resignation, to be included in the new ministry of the Earl 
 of Chatham and Lord Rockingham ; but the appointment of Lord North to 
 be premier disappointed all the expectants Junius among them. ED. 
 
 Mr. Ynrke, brother of Lord Hardwicke, on being induced to accept the 
 chancellorship by the powerful solicitation above alluded to, found himseL: 
 estranged from all his friends, who would not listen to his explanations, in 
 consooucnce of which Almon says he destroyed himself the same day. ED 
 
 The most secret particulars of this detestable transaction shall, in due 
 time, be given to the public. The people shall know what kind of man 
 they have to deed with. Juu*ua. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 LETTERS 03 JUNTOS. 
 
 to abandon, your royal master. Whenever the people have 
 complained and nothing better could be said in defence of the 
 measures of government, it has been the fashion to answer us. 
 though not very fairly, with an appeal to the private virtues 
 of our sovereign. " Has he not, to relieve the people, sur- 
 rendered a considerable part of his revenue ? Has he not 
 made the judges independent by fixing them in their places 
 for life ?" My Lord, we acknowledge the gracious principle 
 which gave birth to these concessions, and have nothing to 
 regret but that it has never been adhered to. At the end of 
 seven years, we are loaded with a debt of above five hundred 
 thousand pounds upon the civil list, and we now see the chan- 
 cellor of Great Britain tyrannically forced out of his office, 
 not for want of abilities, not for want of integrity, or of atten- 
 tion to his duty, but for delivering his honest opinion in par- 
 liament upon the greatest constitutional question that has 
 arisen since the revolution *. We care not to whose private 
 virtues you appeal ; the theory of such a government is false- 
 hood and mockery; the practice is oppression. You have 
 laboured then (though I confess to no purpose) to rob your 
 master of the only plausible answer that ever was given in 
 defence of his government of the opinion which the people 
 had conceived of his personal honour and integrity. The 
 Duke of Bedford was more moderate than your Grace. He 
 
 * The question here alluded to was the legality of the rote of the House 
 of Commons, which seated Mr. Luttrell for the county of Middlesex. A 
 great debate arose upon this subject in the House of Lords on the opening 
 of the session, January 9, 1770, in which Lord Caraden expressed hig 
 decided disapprobation of the conduct pursued by the Lower House, in the 
 following energetic terms : " I consider the decision upon that affair as a 
 direct attack upon the first principles of the constitution ; and if, in the 
 judicial exercise of my office I were to pay any regard to that or to any 
 other such vote passed in opposition to the known and established laws ol 
 the land, I should look upon myself as a traitor to my trust and an enemy 
 to my country." 
 
 This public avowal of an opinion so contrary to the proceedings if not the 
 <iws of administration, was considered by them as a total defection ; and 
 on the 17th of the same month, Lord Camden received a message from the 
 Secretary of State, desiring, in his Majesty's name, that he would deliver nr 
 the seals that evening at seven o'clock ; which he did accordingly into fail 
 Majesty's own hands. 
 
 Besides his speech. Lord Camden was suspected by the court of betraying 
 the iecreU ol the Cabinet to Lord Chatham. Eix
 
 BESIGNATION Of THE DUKE OF GRAFTOH. 275 
 
 only forced his master to violate a solemn promise made to an 
 indis idual *. But you, my Lord, have successfully extended 
 your advice to every political, every moral engagement, that 
 could bind either the magistrate or the man. The condition 
 of a king is often miserable, but it required your Grace's 
 abilities to make it contemptible. 
 
 You \\iJl say perhaps that the faithful servants in whose 
 hands you have left him are able to retrieve his honour, and 
 to support his government. You have publicly declared, even 
 since your resignation, that you approved of their measured 
 and admired their character;, particularly that of the Earl of 
 Sandwich f. What a pity it is, that with all this approbation, 
 you should think it necessary to separate yourself from such 
 amiable companions ! You forget, my Lord, that while you are 
 lavish iu the praise of men whom you desert, you are publicly 
 opposing your conduct to your opinions, and depriving your- 
 self of the only plausible pretence you had for leaving your 
 sovereign overwhelmed with distress ; I call it plau&ible. for. 
 in truth, there is no reason whatsoever less than the frowns 
 of your master that could justify a man of spirit for abandon- 
 ing his post at a moment so critical and important. It is in 
 vain to evade the question. If you will not speak out, the 
 public have a right to judge from appearances. We are au 
 thorized to conclude that you either differed from your col 
 leagues whose measures you still affect to defend, or that you 
 thought the administration of the king's affairs no longer 
 tenable. Yuu are at liberty to choose between the hypocrite 
 and the coward. Your best friends are in doubt which way 
 they shall incline. Your country unites the characters, and 
 gives you credit for them both. For my own part I see 
 nothing inconsistent in your conduct. You began with betray- 
 ing the people you conclude with betraying the king. 
 
 In your treatment of particular persons you have preserved 
 (he uniformity of ycur character. Even Mr. Bradshaw de- 
 clares that no man was ever so ill used as himself. As to the 
 provision J you have made for his family, he was intitled to it 
 
 * JTr. Stuart Mackenzie, rote, ante, p. 211. 
 
 | Lord Sandwich had been First Lord of the Admiralty, and was again 
 nominated to this post in 1771. 
 
 A pension of ^1 500 per annum, insured upon the fonr-and-a-half per cents 
 (he Was too cunning to trust to Irish security), for the lives of himself and
 
 276 LETTERS OF JUXtUS. 
 
 by the house he lives in. The successor of one Chancellor 
 might well pretend to be the rival of another. It is the 
 hreach of private friendship which touches Mr. Bradshaw ; 
 and to say the truth, when a man of his rank and abilities 
 had taken so active a part in your affairs, he ought not to have 
 heon let down at last with a miserable pension of fifteen hun- 
 dred pounds a year. Colonel Luttrell, Mr. Onslow, and 
 Governor Burgoyne, were equally engaged with you, and have 
 rather more reason to complain than Mr. Bradshaw. These 
 are men, my lord, whose friendship you should have adhered 
 to, on the saire principle on which you deserted Lord Rock- 
 ingham, Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, and the Duke of 
 Portland. We can easily account for your violating your en- 
 gagements with men of honour, but why should you betray 
 your natural connections ? Why separate yourself from 
 Lord Sandwich, Lord Gower, and Mr. Rigby, or leave the 
 three worthy gentlemen above-mentioned to shift for them- 
 selves ? With all the fashionable indulgence of the times, this 
 country does not abound in characters like theirs ; and you 
 may find it a difficult matter to recruit the black catalogue of 
 your friends. 
 
 The recollection of the royal patent you sold to Mr. Hine 
 obliges me to say a word in defence of a man whom you have 
 taken the most dishonourable means to injure. I do not refer 
 to the sham prosecution which you affected to carry on against 
 him. On that ground I doubt not he is prepared to meet you 
 with tenfold recrimination, and set you at defiance. The 
 injury you have done him affects his moral character. You 
 knew that the offer to purchase the reversion of a place which 
 has heretofore been sold under a decree of the Court of 
 Chancery, however imprudent in his situation, would no way 
 
 all his sons. This gentleman, who a few years ago was clerk to a contractor 
 f,r forage, and afterwards exalted to a petty post in the war-office, thought 
 it necessary (as soon as he was appointed secretary to the Treasury) to take 
 that great house in Lincoln's-Inn Fields in which the Earl of Northington 
 had resided while he was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. As to 
 the pension, Lord North very solemnly assured the House of Commons that 
 no pension was ever so well deserved as Mr. Bradshaw's. N.B. Lord Cam- 
 den and Sir Jeffery Amherst are not near so well provided for ; and Sir 
 Edward Hawke, who saved the state, retires with two thousand pounds a 
 rear, on the Irish establishment, from which he in fact receives less than 
 Mr. Bradshaw's pension. J
 
 RESIGNATION OF THK ftUKE OF GRAFTOK. 977 
 
 tend to cover him with that sort of guilt which you wished to 
 fix upon him in the eyes of the world. You laboured, then, by 
 every species of false suggestion, and even by publishing 
 counterfeit letters, to have it understood that lie had proposed 
 terms of accommodation to you, and had offered to abandon 
 his principles, his party, and his friends. You consulted your 
 own breast for a character of consummate treachery, and gave 
 it to the public for that of Mr. Vaughan. I think myself 
 obliged to do this justice to an injured man, because I was 
 deceived by the appearances thrown out by your Grace, and 
 have frequently spoken of his conduct with indignation. If 
 he really be what I think him, honest, though mistaken, he 
 will be happy in recovering his reputation, though at the ex- 
 pense of his understanding. Here, I see, the matter is likely 
 to rest. Your Grace is afraid to carry on the prosecution. 
 Mr. Hine keeps quiet possession of his purchase ; and 
 Governor Burgoyne, relieved from the apprehension of refund- 
 ing the money, sits down for the remainder of his life infamous 
 and contented. 
 
 I believe, my Lord, I may now take my leave of you for 
 ever. You are no longer that resolute minister who had spirit 
 to support the most violent measures who compensated for 
 the want of great and good qualities by a brave determination 
 (which some people admired and relied on) to maintain him- 
 self without them. The reputation of obstinacy and perse- 
 verance might have supplied the place of all the absent virtues. 
 You have now added the last negative to your character, and 
 meanly confessed that you are destitute of the common spirit 
 of a man. Eetire then, my Lord, and hide your blushes from 
 the world ; for, with such a load of shame, even BLACK may 
 change its colour. A mind such as yours, in the solitary 
 hours of domestic enjoyment, may still find topics of consola- 
 tion. You may find it in the memory of violated friendship ; 
 in the afflictions of an accomplished prince whom you have 
 disgraced and deserted, and in the agitations of a great 
 country driven by your counsels to the brink of destruction. 
 
 The palm of ministerial firmness is now transferred to 
 Lord North. He tells us so himself with the plenitude of 
 the ore rotundo*; and I am ready enough to believe that, 
 
 * This eloquent person has got as far as the discipline of Pemosthene* 
 He constantly speaks with pebblaa iu \is month to improve his articul* 
 tion. JEHIIJS.
 
 278 LETTERS OK JUNItTS. 
 
 while he can keep his place, he will not easily be pern a Jed 
 to resign it. Your Grace was the firm minister of yesterday : 
 Lord North is the firm minister of to-day. To-morrow, per- 
 haps, his Majesty in his wisdom may give us a rival for you 
 both. You are too well acquainted with the temper of your 
 late allies to think it possible that Lord North should bo per- 
 mitted to govern this country. If we may believe common 
 fame, they have shown him their superiority already. His 
 Majesty is indeed too gracious to insult his subjects, by 
 choosing his first minister from among the domestics of the 
 Duke of Bedford. That would have been too gross an outrage 
 to the three kingdoms. Their purpose, however, is equally 
 answered by pushing forward this unhappy figure *, and 
 forcing it to bear the odium of measures which they in reality 
 direct. Without immediately appearing to govern, they pos- 
 sess the power and distribute the emoluments of government 
 as they think proper. They still adhere to the spirit of that 
 calculation which made Mr. Luttrell representative of Middle- 
 sex. Far from regretting your retreat, they assure us verj 
 gravely that it increases the real strength of the ministry. 
 According to this way of reasoning they will probably grow 
 stronger and more flourishing every hour they exist ; for I 
 think there is hardly a day passes in which some one or other 
 of his Majesty's servants does not leave them to improve by 
 the loss of his assistance. But, alas ! their countenances 
 speak a different language. When the members drop off, the 
 main body cannot be insensible of its approaching dissolution. 
 Even the violence of their proceedings is a signal of despair. 
 Like broken tenants, who have had warning to quit the pre- 
 mises, they curse their landlord, destroy the fixtures, throw 
 everything into confusion, and care not what mischief they 
 do to the estate. 
 
 JUNICJS. 
 
 * Junius describes the " uubappy figure " of the new minister in a note of 
 Lfatter No. 88. ED.
 
 CITY ADDRESS AND IUK KINo's AN8WJ5S. 279 
 
 LETTER XXXY1I. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 FIR, March 19, 1770. 
 
 I BELIEVE there is no man, however indifferent about the in 
 terests of this country, who will not readily confess that the 
 situation to which we are now reduced, whether it has arisen 
 from the violence of faction, or from an arbitrary system of 
 government, justifies the most melancholy apprehensions, and 
 calls for the exertion of whatever wisdom or vigour is left 
 among us. The king's answer to the remonstrance of the city 
 of London*, and the measures since adopted by the ministry 
 
 * The city of London, the city and liberty of Westminster, the counties 
 of Middlesex, Surrey, &c., had presented petitions to his Majesty to dissolve 
 the parliament, in consequence of the illegal rejection of Wilkes by the Lower 
 House, after he had been returned for the fourth time as a knight of the shire 
 for the county of Middlesex. These petitions not having been graciously re- 
 ceived, the petitioners assumed a bolder tone, and approached the throne with 
 remonstrances upon the answers they had received. To the remonstrance 
 of the city on the 14th of March, the king returned the following answer : 
 
 " I shall always be ready to receive the requests, and to listen to the com- 
 plaints of my subjects ; but it gives me great concern to find that any of 
 them should have been so far misled as to offer me an address and remon- 
 strance, the contents of which I cannot but consider as disrespectful to me, 
 injurious to my parliament, and irreconcilable to the principles of the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 " I have ever made the law of the land the rule of my conduct, esteeming 
 it my chief glory to reign over a free people ; with this view I have always 
 been careful, as well to execute faithfully the trust reposed in me, as to avoid 
 even the appearance of invading any of those powers which the constitution has 
 placed in other hands. It is only by persevering in such a conduct that I 
 can either discharge my own duty, or secure to my subjects the free enjoy- 
 ment of those rights which my family were called to defend, and, while I act 
 upon these principles, I shall have a right to expect, and I am confident I 
 shall contiaue to receive, the steady and affectionate support of my people." 
 
 There was at the same time a declaration against the remonstrance, drawn 
 up and subscribed by the aldermen on the ministerial side ; and an address was 
 jointly presented by both Houses of Parliament in support of the crown and 
 the propriety of the king's answer. This and his Majesty's reply gave rise 
 to a second remonstrance from the city, of which the following is the most 
 remarkable portion : 
 
 " Perplexed and astonished as we are, by the awful sentence of censure 
 lately passed upon the citizens of London, in your Majesty's answer fim the 
 throne, we cannot, without surrendering all that is dear to Englishmen, foe-
 
 280 iJETTEUS OF JTTNItTB. 
 
 amount to a declaration that the principle on which Mr. l.ufe 
 trell was seated in the House of Commons is to be supported 
 ; c all its consequences, and carried to its utmost extent. The 
 same spirit which violated the freedom of election now invades 
 the declaration and bill of rights, and threatens to punish the 
 subject for exercising a privilege hitherto undisputed, of peti- 
 tioning the crown. The grievances of the people are aggra 
 vated by insults ; their complaints not merely disregarded, 
 but checked by authority ; and every one of those acts against 
 which they remonstrated, confirmed by the king's decisive ap- 
 probation. At such a moment no honest man will remain 
 silent or inactive. However distinguished by rank or property, 
 in the rights of freedom we are all equal. As we are Eng- 
 lishmen, the least considerable man among us has an interest 
 equal to the proudest nobleman, in the laws and constitution 
 
 bear most humbly to supplicate that your Majesty will deign to grant a more 
 favourable interpretation to this dutiful, though persevering, claim to our in- 
 vaded birthrights, nothing doubting that the benignity of your Majesty's na* 
 ture will, to our unspeakable comfort, at length break through all the secret 
 and visible machinations to which the city of London owes its late severe re- 
 pulse, and that your kingly justice, and fatherly tenderness, will disclaim thi 
 malignant and pernicious advice which suggested the answer we deplore, an 
 advice of most dangerous tendency, inasmuch as thereby the exercise of the 
 clearest rights of the subject, namely, to petition the king for redress of griev- 
 ances, to complain of the violation of the freedom of election, and to pray 
 dissolution of parliament, to point out malpractices in administration, and to 
 urge the removal of evil ministers, hath, by the generality of one compen- 
 dious word, been indiscriminately checked with reprimand ; and your Ma- 
 jesty's afflicted citizens of London have heard from the throne itself, that the 
 contents of their humble address, remonstrance, and petition, laying theii 
 complaints and injuries at the feet of their sovereign cannot but be con 
 idered by your Majesty as disrespectful to yourself, injurious to your parlia 
 nient, and irreconcilable to the principles of the constitution." 
 
 His Majesty's Answer, delivered the 23rd May, 1770 : 
 " I should have been wanting to the public, as well as to myself, if I had 
 not expressed my dissatisfaction at the late address. My sentiments on that 
 subject continue the same, and I should ill deserve to be considered as the 
 Father of my People, if I should suffer myself to be prevailed upon to make 
 such an use of my prerogative as I cannot but think inconsistent with th 
 interest and dangerous to the constitution of the kingdom." 
 
 The lord mayor, Mr. Beckford, then adopted the unusual course of re- 
 plying to the king, and addressed his Majesty in the following words : 
 
 " Most gracious Sovereign, 
 " Will your Majesty be pleased so far to condescend as to permit the
 
 CITY ADDRESS AND THE KING'S .AN8WEB 281 
 
 of his country, and is equally called upon to make a generous 
 contribution in support of them ; whether it be the heart to 
 conceive, the understanding to direct, or the hand to exeaute. 
 It is a common cause in which we are all interested, in which 
 we should all be engaged. The man who deserts it at this 
 alarming crisis is an enemy to his country, and, what I think 
 of infinitely less importance, a traitor to his sovereign. The 
 subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither 
 advise nor submit to arbitrary measures. The city of London 
 have given an example which, I doubt not, will be followed 
 by the whole kingdom. The noble spirit of the metropolis 
 is the life-blood of the state collected at the heart : from that 
 point it circulates with health and vigour through every artery 
 of the constitution. The time is come when the body of the 
 English people must assert their own cause: conscious of 
 their strength, and animated by a sense of their duty, they will 
 not surrender their birthright to ministers, parliaments, or 
 kings. 
 
 The city of London have expressed their sentiments with 
 freedom and firmness ; they have spoken truth boldly ; and, 
 
 mayor of your loyal city of London to declare in your royal presence, on be- 
 half of his fellow citizens, how much the bare apprehension of your Majesty's 
 displeasure would at all times affect their minds. The declaration of that 
 displeasure has already filled them with inexpressible anxiety, and with the 
 deepest affliction. Permit me, Sire, to assure your Majesty, that your Ma- 
 jesty has not in all your dominions any subjects more faithful, more dutiful, 
 or more affectionate to your Majesty's person and family, or more ready tc 
 sacrifice their lives and fortunes in the maintenance of the true honour and 
 dignity of your crown. 
 
 " We do, therefore, with the greatest humility and submission, most 
 earnestly supplicate your Majesty that you will not dismiss us from yDur 
 presence without expressing a more favourable opinion of your faithful citi- 
 zens, and without some comfort, without some prospect at least of redress. 
 
 " Permit me, Sire, farther to observe, that whoever has already dared, or 
 shall hereafter endeavour, by false insinuations and suggestions, to alienate 
 your Majesty's affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from the 
 city of London in particular, and to withdraw your confidence in, and regard 
 for, your people, is an enemy to your Majesty's person and family, a violator 
 of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitution, as it was esta 
 Wished at the glorious revolution." 
 
 This is the famous reply which the corporation has had engraven beneath 
 the statue erected to the memory of Mr. Beckford, at the north side of Guild- 
 hall. Mr. Beckford, it may be added, was an enthusiastic admirer of Lord 
 Chatham, and the main stay of the po inlarity of that hasghty and ambitious 
 eader in the city.- -iiu.
 
 28Q LETTERS OF JUN1CS. 
 
 in whatever light their remonstrance may be represented bj 
 courtiers, I defy the most subtle lawyer in this country to 
 point out a single instance in which they have exceeded the 
 truth. Even that assertion which we are told is most offen- 
 sive to parliament in the theory of the English constitution, 
 is strictly true. If any part of the representative body be 
 not chosen by the people, that part vitiates and corrupts the 
 whole. If there be a defect in the representation of the peo- 
 ple, that power which alone is equal to the making of laws in 
 this country is not complete, and the acts of parliament, under 
 that circumstance, are not the acts of a pure and entire legis- 
 lature. I speak of the theory of our constitution ; and, what- 
 ever difficulties or inconveniences may attend the practice. I 
 am ready to maintain that, as far as the fact deviates from the 
 principle, so far the practice is vicious and corrupt. I have 
 not heard a question raised upon any other part of the remon- 
 strance. That the principle on which the Middlesex election 
 was determined is more pernicious in its effects than either 
 the levying of ship-money, by Charles the First, or the suspend- 
 ing power assumed by his sen, will hardly be disputed by 
 any man who understands or wishes well to the English con 
 stitution. It is not an act of open violence done by the king, 
 or any direct and palpable breach of the laws attempted by 
 his minister, that can ever endanger the liberties of this 
 country. Against such a king or minister the people would 
 immediately take the alarm, and all parties unite to oppose 
 him. The laws may be grossly violated in particular instances 
 without any direct attack upon the whole system. Facts ol 
 that kind stand alone ; they are attributed to necessity, not 
 defended upon principle. We can never be really in danger 
 until the forms of parliament are made use of to destroy the 
 substance of our civil and political liberties ; until parlia- 
 ment itself betrays its trust by contributing to establish new 
 principles of government, and employing the very weapons 
 committed to it by the collective body, to stab the consti- 
 tution. 
 
 As for the terms of the remonstrance, I presume it will not 
 be affirmed by any person less polished than a gentleman 
 usher that this is a season lor compliments. Our gracious 
 king indeed is abundantly civil to himself. Instead of an an- 
 swer to a petition, his Majesty very gracefully pronounces his
 
 CITT ADDRESS AND THE KING'S ANSVKR. 283 
 
 own panegyric ; and I confess that as far as his personal 
 behaviour, or the royal purity of his intentions is con- 
 cerned, the truth of those declarations which the minister has 
 drawn up for his master cannot decently be disputed. la 
 every other respect I affirm that they are absolutely unsup- 
 ported either in argument or fact. I must add, too, that sup- 
 posing the speech were otherwise unexceptionable, it is not a 
 direct answer to the petition of the city. His Majesty is 
 pleased to say that he is always ready to receive the requests 
 of his subjects ; yet the sheriffs were twice sent back with an 
 excuse, and it was certainly debated in council whether or no 
 the magistrates of the city of London should be admitted to 
 an audiei.ce. Whether the remonstrance be or be not inju- 
 rious to parliament, is the very question between the parlia- 
 ment and the people, and such a question as cannot be decided 
 by the assertion of a third party, however respectable. That 
 the petitioning for a dissolution of parliament is irreconcil- 
 able with the principles of the constitution, is a new doctrine. 
 His Majesty perhaps has not been informed that the House of 
 Commons themselves have, by a formal resolution, admitted 
 it to be the right of the subject. His Majesty proceeds to 
 assure us that he has made the laws the rule of his conduct. 
 Was it in ordering or permitting his ministers to appre- 
 hend Mr. Wilkes by a general warrant? Was it in suffering 
 his ministers to revive the obsolete maxim of nullum tempus 
 to rob the Duke of Portland of his property, and thereby give 
 a decisive turn to a county election *? Was it in erecting a 
 chamber consultation of surgeons, with authority to examine 
 into and supersede the legal verdict of a jury f ? Or did his 
 Majesty consult the laws of this country, when he permitted 
 his secretary of state to declare that whenever the civil magis- 
 trate is trifled with, a military force must be sent for, without 
 the delay of a moment, and effectually employed ? Or was it 
 in the barbarous exactness with which this illegal, inhuman 
 doctrine was carried into execution ? If his Majesty had re- 
 collected these facts, I think he would never have said, at 
 least with any reference to the measures of his government, 
 that he had made the laws the rule of his conduct. To talk 
 of preserving the affections, or relying on the support of his 
 
 * Letters 59 and 67, and notes. -f- Ante, p. 138.
 
 284 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 subjects while he continues to act upon these principles, is in 
 deed paying a compliment lr> their loyalty, which I hope tbej 
 have too much spirit and understanding to deserve. 
 
 His Majesty, \ve are told, is noc only punctual in the per- 
 formance of his own duty, but careful not to assume any of 
 those powers which the constitution has placed in other hands. 
 Admitting this last assertion to be strictly true, it is no way te 
 the purpose. The city of London have not desired the king 
 to assume a power placed in other hands. If they had, I 
 should hope to see the pei'son who dared to present such a 
 petition immediately impeached*. They solicit their sove- 
 reign to exert that constitutional authority which the laws 
 have vested in him, for the benefit of his subjects. They 
 call upon him to make use of his lawful prerogative in a case 
 which our laws evidently supposed might happen, since they 
 have provided for it by trusting the sovereign with a discre- 
 tionary power to dissolve the parliament. This request will, 
 1 am confident, be supported by remonstrances from all parts 
 of the kingdom. His Majesty will find at last that this is the 
 sense of his people, and that it is not his interest to support 
 either ministry or parliament, at the hazard of a breach with 
 the collective body of his subjects. That he is the king of a 
 free people, is indeed his greatest glory. That he may long 
 continue the king of a free people, is the second wish that 
 animates my heart. The first is, THAT THE PEOPLE MAY BE 
 FREE. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 The resignation of the Duke of Grafton and his replacement by Lord 
 North are notable events in the progress of these Letters. A ministerial 
 change had ensued, but not that change which the Whig chieftains, the 
 livery of London, or the ardour of Junius, had sought to force upon the 
 crown. In consequence, the war against the king and his ministry continued 
 
 * " When his Majesty had done reading his speech [ante, p. 279] the lord 
 meyor, &c. had the honour of kissing his Majesty's hand ; after which, as 
 tney were withdrawing, his Majesty instantly turned round to his courtiers 
 and burst out a laughiny. 
 
 " Nero fiddled irkikt Rome was burning." JUNIUS. 
 
 Mr. Home, having furnished the printer of the Public Advertiser with a 
 detail of the proceedings which took place on presenting the address on 
 the 14th of March, concluded it with the above words quoted by Justus; 
 for which a prosecution was commenced against the printer, but was not 
 persevered 'a.-
 
 KINO'S ANSWER FURTHER CONSIDERED. 285 
 
 with unabated vehemence ; the bold harangues of Chatham breathed a 
 more democratic spirit, the city continued to besiege the court with alternate 
 petition and remonstrance, and Junit-S thundered forth his terrible philippic! 
 in the columns of the Advertiser. Despite of these onslaughts, the nation 
 became gradually alienated from the assailants, and the great penman laboured 
 to inflame an ardour that was continually dying away. Lord North held on 
 his course disastrously enough sometimes for twelve years ; and, with the 
 exception of the Pelham ministry, it was the first stable government the 
 country had had since the overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole, twenty-eighf 
 years before. The event has been briefly commemorated in a previous pub- 
 lication of the editor, and as throwing light on the political aspects of the 
 time, the subjoined extract may not be misplaced : 
 
 " The establishment of Lord North's ministry in 1770 forms an epoch in 
 the history of party. By it the Whigs lost their monopoly of power which 
 they did not recover till sixty years after. The aristocratic pressure that 
 the king had vainly tried to remove at the commencement of his reign was 
 quietly removed by the course of events. Popular excitement subsided, and 
 an entire change came over the public mind. The reasons for this issue are 
 not difficult to assign. By the appointment of a new man to the head of 
 the treasury, the apple of discord was abstracted, and Grenville, Rocking- 
 ham, Chatham, and Bedford, it is probable, were less mortified at the 
 award of this prize to a stranger to their divisions than if the selection had 
 been "iade from one of themselves. The second reason was the new tone 
 ass'-med at the royal court. Attempts were made to keep up national dis- 
 contents, by procuring addresses and remonstrances to the throne, especially 
 from the city of London ; these were received either with dignified silence, 
 or met with gentle rebuke, by which happy union of temper, firmness and 
 moderation, the public mind was tranquillized and even conciliated." 
 British History. Fifth edition, p. 465. 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, April 3, 1770. 
 
 IN my last letter I offered you my opinion of the truth and 
 propriety of his M'vjesty's answer to the city of London, con- 
 sidering it merely as the speech of a minister, drawn up in 
 his own defence, and delivered, as usual, by the chief magis- 
 trate. I would separate, as much as possible, the king's per- 
 sonal character and behaviour from the acts of the present 
 government. I wish it to be understood that his Majesty had 
 in effect no more concern in the substance of what be said,
 
 280 LETTEB8 OF JUN1U8. 
 
 than Sir James Hodges* had in the remonstrant, and that 
 as Sir James, in virtue of his office, was obliged to speak the 
 sentiments of the people, his Majesty might think himself 
 bound, l>y the same official obligation, to give a graceful utter- 
 ance to the sentiments of his minister. The cold formality 
 of a well-repeated lesson is widely distant from the animated 
 expression of the heart. 
 
 This distinction, however, is only true with respect to the 
 measure itself. The consequences of it reach beyond the 
 minister, and materially affect his Majesty's honour. In their 
 own nature they are formidable enough to alarm a man of 
 prudence, and disgraceful enough to afflict a man of spirit. 
 A subject whose sincere attachment to his Majesty's person 
 and family is founded upon rational principles, will not, in 
 the present conjuncture, be scrupulous of alarming, or even of 
 afflicting his sovereign. I know tVcre is another sort of 
 loyalty, of which his Majesty has had plentiful experience. 
 When the loyalty of Tories, Jacobites, and Scotchmen, lias 
 once taken possession of an unhappy prince, it seldom leaves 
 him without accomplishing his destruction. When the poison 
 of their doctrines has tainted the natural benevolence of his 
 disposition, when their insidious counsels have corrupted the 
 stamina of his government, what antidote can restore him to 
 his political health and honour but the firm sincerity of his 
 English subjects ? 
 
 It has not been usual in this country, at least since the 
 days of Charles the First, to see the sovereign personally at 
 variance, or engaged in a direct altercation with his subjects. 
 Acts of grace and indulgence are wisely appropriated to him, 
 and should constantly be performed by himself. He never 
 should appear but in an amiable light to his subjects. Even 
 in France, as long as any ideas of a limited monarchy were 
 thought worth preserving, it was a maxim, that no man should 
 leave the royal presence discontented. They have lost or 
 renounced the moderate principles of their government, and 
 now, when parliaments venture to remonstrate, the tyrant 
 comes forward, and answers absolutely for himself. The 
 
 * Town-clerk to the city of London, who signed for the corporation the 
 city petition and remonstrance.
 
 XIAO'S ANSWER FURTHER CONSIDERED. 287 
 
 spirit of their present constitution requires that the king 
 should he feared, and the principle I believe is tolerably sup- 
 ported by the fact. But, in our political system, the theory 
 is at variance with the practice, for the king should be 
 beloved. Measures of greater severity may, indeed, in some 
 circumstances, be necessary ; but the minister who advises, 
 should take the execution and odium of them entirely upon 
 himself. He not only betrays his master, but violates the 
 spirit of the English constitution, when he exposes the chiei 
 magistrate to the personal hatred or contempt of his subjects. 
 When we speak of the firmness of government, we mean an 
 uniform system of measures, deliberately adopted, and reso- 
 lutely maintained by the servants of the crown, not a peevish 
 asperity in the language or behaviour of the sovereign. The 
 government of a weak, irresolute monarch may be wise, 
 moderate, and firm ; that of an obstinate, capricious prince, 
 on the contrary, may be feeble, undetermined, and relaxed. 
 The reputation of public measures depends upon the minister, 
 who is responsible, not upon the king, whose private opinions 
 are not supposed to have any weight against the advice of his 
 counsel, whose personal authority should therefore never be 
 interposed in public affairs. This, I believe, is true consti- 
 tutional doctrine. But, for a moment, let us suppose it false. 
 Let it be taken for granted, that an occasion may arise, in 
 which a king of England shall be compelled to take upon 
 himself the ungrateful office of rejecting the petitions, and 
 censuring the conduct of his subjects ; and let the city 
 remonstrance be supposed to have created so extraordinary au 
 occasion. On this principle, which I presume no friend of 
 administration will dispute, let the wisdom and spirit of the 
 ministry be examined. They advise the king to hazard his 
 dignity, by a positive declaration of his own sentiments ; they 
 suggest to him a language full of severity and reproach. 
 What follows ? When his Majesty had taken so decisive a 
 part in support of his ministry and parliament, he had a 
 right to expect from them a reciprocal demonstration of firm- 
 ness in their own cause, and of zeal for liis honour. He had 
 reason to expect (and such, I doubt not, were the blustering 
 promises of Lord North) that the persons, whom he had been 
 advised to charge with having failed in their respect to him, 
 with having injured parliament, and violated the principle* ol
 
 288 LETTEB8 OF Jl/'NItJS 
 
 the constitution, should not have been permitted to escape 
 without some severe marks of the displeasure and vengeance 
 of parliament. As the matter stands, the minister, after 
 placing his sovereign in the most unfavourable light to bis 
 subjects, and after attempting to fix the ridicule and odium of 
 his own precipitate measures upon the royal character, leaves 
 him a solitary figure upon the scene, to recall if he can, or to 
 compensate by future compliances for one unhappy demon- 
 stration of ill-supported firmness and ineffectual resentment. 
 As a man of spirit his Majesty cannot but be sensible that 
 the lofty terms in which he was persuaded to reprimand the 
 city, when united with the silly conclusion of the business, 
 resemble the pomp of a mock tragedy, where the most 
 pathetic sentiments, and even the sufferings of the hero, are 
 calculated for derision. 
 
 Such has been the boasted firmness and consistency of a 
 minister*, whose appearance in the Bouse of Commons was 
 thought essential to the king's service ; whose presence was 
 to influence every divison : who had a voice to persuade, an 
 eye to penetrate, a gesture to command. The reputation of 
 these great qualities has been fatal to his friends. The little 
 dignity of Mr. Ellis has been committed. The mine was 
 sunk; combustibles provided, and Wei bore Ellis, the Guy 
 Faux of the fable, waited only for the signal of command. 
 All of a sudden the country gentlemen discover how grossly 
 they have been deceived; the minister's heart fails him, the 
 grand plot is defeated in a moment, and poor Mr. Ellis and 
 his motion taken into custody. From the event of Friday 
 last one would imagine that some fatality hung over this 
 gentleman. Whether he makes or suppresses a motion, he is 
 equally sure of his disgrace. But the complexion of the 
 times will suffer no man to be vice-treasurer of Ireland with 
 impunity f 
 
 * Lord North. This graceful minister is oddly constructed. His tongue 
 is a little too big for his mouth, and his eyes a great deal too big for their 
 sockets. Every part of his person sets natural proportion at defiance. At 
 this present writing, his head is supposed to be much too heavy for his 
 ihoulders. J UNIUS. 
 
 f- About this time the courtiers talked of nothing but a bill of pains and 
 penalties against the lord mayor and sheriffs, or impeachment at the least. Little 
 mannikin Ellis told thrj king that, if the business were left to his manage- 
 ment, Lc would engage to do wonders. It was thought very odd th^t a
 
 KINO'S ANSWER FURTHER CONSIDERED. 389 
 
 I do not mean to express the smallest anxiety for the 
 minister's reputation. He acts separately for himself, and 
 the most shameful inconsistency may perhaps be no disgrace 
 to him. But when the sovereign, who represents the majesty 
 of the state, appears in person, his dignity should be sup- 
 ported. The occasion should be important; the plan well 
 considered; the execution steady and consistent. My zeal 
 for his Majesty's real honour compels me to assert that it has 
 been too much the system of the present reign, to introduce 
 him personally, either to act for, or to defend his servants 
 They persuade him to do what is properly their business, and 
 desert him in the midst of it *. Yet this is an inconvenience 
 to which he must for ever be exposed, while he adheres to a 
 ministry divided among themselves, or unequal in credit and 
 ability to the great task they have undertaken. Instead of 
 reserving the interposition of the royal personage, as the last 
 resource of government, their weakness obliges them to apply 
 it to every ordinary occasion, and to render it cheap and 
 common in the opinion of the people. Instead of supporting 
 their master they look to him for support ; and for the emolu- 
 ment of remaining one day more in office, care not how much 
 his sacred character is prostituted and dishonoured. 
 
 Jf I thought it possible for this paper to reach the closet, I 
 would venture to appeal at once to his Majesty's judgment. 
 I would ask him, but in the most respectful terms, " As you 
 are a young man, Sir, who ought to have a life of happiness 
 in prospect, as you are a husband, as you are father (your 
 filial duties I own have been religiously performed), is it 
 bond fide for your interest or your honour to sacrifice your 
 
 motion of so much importance should be entrusted to the most contemptible 
 little piece of machinery in the whole kingdom. His honest zeal, however, 
 was disappointed. The minister took fright, and at the very instant that 
 little Ellis was going to open, sent him an order to sit down. All their 
 magnanimous threats ended in a ridiculous vote of censure, and a still more 
 ridiculous address to the king. This shameful desertion so afflicted the ge- 
 nerous mind of George the Third, that he was obliged to live upon potatoei 
 for three weeks, to keep off a malignant fever. Poor man ! quit tuluifando 
 lemperet a lacrym-is I JUNIUS. 
 
 * After a certain ptraon had succeeded in cajoling Mr. Yorke, he told th 
 Duke of Grafton, with a witty smile, " My Lord, you may kill the next 
 Percy yourself.' 1 N. JJ. He had but that instant wiped the teais awaj 
 which overcame Mr. Yorke. JUNIUS. 
 
 VOL. I U
 
 290 LETTERS OF JUKI US. 
 
 domestic tranquillity, and to live in a perpetual disagreement 
 with your people, merely to preserve such a chain of beings 
 as North, Barriugton, Weymouth, Gower, Ellis, Onslow, 
 Rigby, Jerry Dyson, and Sandwich ? Their very names arc 
 a satire upon all government, and I defy the gravest of your 
 chaplains to read the catalogue without laughing." 
 
 For my own part, Sir, I have always considered addresses 
 from parliament as a fashionable unmeaning formality. Usurp- 
 ers, idiots, and tyrants have been successively complimented 
 with almost the same professions of duty and affection. But 
 let us suppose them to mean exactly what they profess. 
 The consequences deserve to be considered. Either the 
 sovereign is a man of high spirit and dangerous ambition, 
 ready to take advantage of the treachery of his parliament, 
 ready to accept of the surrender they make him of the public 
 liberty ; ov he is a mild undesigniug prince, who, provided 
 they indulge him with a little state and pageantry, would of 
 himself intend no mischief. On the first supposition, it must 
 soon be decided by the sword, whether the constitution should 
 be lost or preserved. On the second, a prince no way quali- 
 fied for the execution of a great and hazardous enterprise, and 
 without any determined object in view, may nevertheless be 
 driven into such desperate measures as may lead directly to 
 his ruin, or disgrace himself by a shameful fluctuation between 
 the extremes of violence at one moment, and timidity at an- 
 other. The minister perhaps may have reason to be satisfied 
 with the success of the present hour, and with the profits of 
 his employment. He is the tenant of the day, and has no 
 interest in the inheritance The sovereign himself is bound 
 by other obligations, and ought to look forward to a superior, 
 a permanent interest. His paternal tenderness should remind 
 him how many hostages he has given to society. The ties of 
 nature come powerfully in aid of oaths and protestations. 
 The father who considers his own precarious state of health, 
 and the possible hazard of a long minority, will wish to see 
 the family estate free and unencumbered *. What is the 
 dignity of the crown, though it were really maintained ; 
 what is the honour of parliament, supposing it could exist 
 
 * Every true friend of the house of Brunswick sees with affliction hov 
 rapidly some of the principal bnuichiw of the family have dropped ell'.
 
 RETROSPECT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY SESSION 291 
 
 without any foundation of integrity and justice ; or what is 
 the vain reputation of firmness, even if the scheme of govern 
 ment were uniform and consistent, compared with the heart- 
 felt affections of the people, with the happiness and security 
 of the royal family, or even with the grateful acclamations of 
 the populace? Whatever style of contempt may be adopted 
 by ministers or parliaments, no man sincerely despises the 
 voice of the English nation. The House of Commons are 
 only interpreters, whose duty it is to convey the sense of the 
 people faithfully to the crown. If the interpretation be false 
 or imperfect, the constituent powers are called upon to deliver 
 their own sentiments. Their speech is rude, but intelligible ; 
 their gestures fierce, but full of explanation. Perplexed by 
 sophistries, their honest eloquence rises into action. The 
 first appeal was to the integrity of their representatives ; 
 the second to the king's justice; the last argument of the 
 people, whenever they have recourse to it, will carry more per- 
 haps than persuasion to parliament, or supplication to the 
 throne. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXXIX *. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, May 28, 1770. 
 
 WHILE parliament was sitting, it would neither have been 
 safe nor perhaps quite regular to offer any opinion to the 
 public upon the justice or wisdom of their proceedings. To 
 pronounce fairly upon their conduct, it was necessary to wait 
 until we could consider, in one view, the beginning, progress, 
 
 * In parliament, in the city, in the newspapers, the contest with the court 
 was continued by the Whigs. The society for the support of the Bill of 
 Rights had discharged or compromised all Mr. Wilkes's debts, to the amount 
 of seventeen thousand pounds. The term of Wilkes's confinement had ex- 
 pired ; and he had been elected alderman for the ward of Farringdon With- 
 out. 
 
 In this state of things Junius wrote the following letter. His object in 
 it wan, to prevent the people from adopting the persuasion either that Go- 
 vernment was not greatly in the winng, or that redress was hopeless, and 
 that no part remained for the complainers but tame acquiescence. He ro 
 
 U 2
 
 202 LETTERS OF JUMUS. 
 
 and conclusion of their deliberations. The cause of the public 
 was undertaken and supported by men whose abilities and 
 united authority, to say nothing of the advantageous ground 
 they stood on, might well be thought sufficient to determine a 
 popular question in favour of the people. Neither was the 
 House of Commons so absolutely engaged in defence of the 
 ministry, or even of their own resolutions, but that they might 
 have paid some decent regard to the known disposition of 
 their constituents, and, without any dishonour to their firm- 
 ness, might have retracted an opinion, too hastily adopted, 
 when they saw the alarm it had created, and how strongly it 
 was opposed by the general sense of the nation. The ministry, 
 too, would have consulted their own immediate interest in 
 making some concession satisfactory to the moderate part of 
 the people. Without touching the fact, they might have con- 
 sented to guard against, or give up the dangerous principle on 
 which it was established. In this state of things, I think it was 
 highly improbable at the beginning of the session, that the 
 complaints of the people upon a matter, which, in their appre- 
 hension at least, immediately affected the life of the const! 
 tution, would be treated with as much contempt by their own 
 representatives, and by the House of Lords, as they had been 
 by the other branch of the legislature. Despairing of theii 
 integrity, we had a right to expect something from their pru- 
 dence, and something from their fears. The Duke of Grafton. 
 certainly did not foresee to what an extent the corruption of a 
 parliament might be carried. He thought, perhaps, that 
 there was still some portion of shame or virtue left in the 
 majority of the House of Commons, or that there was a line 
 in public prostitution beyond which they would scruple to pro- 
 ceed. Had the young man been a little more practised in the 
 world, or had he ventured to measure the characters of other 
 men by his own, he would not have been so easily discouraged. 
 
 views the proceedings of parliament during the session, which had ended on 
 the 19th of May; blames both the Lords and Commons equally for what 
 they had done, and for what they h d neglected ; arraigns the unskilfulneas 
 of the financial measures which the new minister had adopted ; and intro- 
 duces a disadvantageous comparison of the character of the present sovereign, 
 with those of some of the worst and most unfortunate of his predecessors. 
 In this way he dexterously afforded ready topics of abuse for those who de- 
 sired to keep up the popular flame. ED.'
 
 RETROSPECT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY SESSION. 298 
 
 The prorogation of parliament naturally calls upon us to 
 review their proceedings, and to consider the condition in 
 which they have left the kingdom. I do not question but 
 they have done what is usually called the king's business 
 much to his Majesty's satisfaction *. We have only to lament 
 that, in consequence of a system introduced or revived in the 
 present reign, this kind of merit should be very consistent 
 with the neglect of every duty they owe to the nation. The 
 interval between the opening of the last and the close of the 
 former session was longer than usual f. Whatever were the 
 views of the minister in deferring the meeting of parliament, 
 sufficient time was certainly given to every member of the 
 House of Commons, to look back upon the steps he had taken, 
 and the consequences they had produced. The zeal of party, 
 the violence of personal animosities, and the heat of conten- 
 tion had leisure to subside. From that period, whatever reso- 
 lution ttey took was deliberate and prepense. In the pre- 
 ceding session the dependants of the ministry had affected to 
 believe that the final determination of the question would 
 have satisfied the nation, or at least put a stop to their com- 
 plaints ; as if the certainty of an evil could diminish the sense 
 of it, or the nature of injustice could be altered by decision. 
 But they found the people of England were in a temper very 
 distant from submission ; and although it was contended that 
 the House of Commons could not themselves reverse a resolu- 
 tion which had the force and effect of a judicial sentence, 
 there were other constitutional expedients which would have 
 given a security against any similar attempts for the future. 
 The general proposition, in which the whole country had an 
 interest, might have been reduced to a particular fact, in whicli 
 Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Luttrell would alone have been con- 
 cerned The House of Lords might interpose the king 
 might dissolve the parliament or, if every other resource 
 failed, there still lay a grand constitutional writ of error, in 
 behalf of the people, from the decision of one court to the 
 wisdom of the whole legislature. Every one of these remedies 
 
 * The temper with which you have conducted all your proceedings has 
 given me great satisfaction." King's Speech on dosing tfie Session, of Par- 
 liament, May 19, 1770. 
 
 f There was no autumnal session this year. Parliament did mt meet til) 
 January 9, 1769 70.
 
 294 LETTERS OP JUN1US 
 
 has been successively attempted. The people performed theit 
 part with dignity, spirit, and perseverance. For many months 
 his Majesty heard nothing from his subjects but the language 
 of complaint and resentment; unhappily for this country, it 
 was the daily triumph of his courtiers that he heard it with an 
 indifference approaching to contempt. 
 
 The House of Commons having assumed a power unknown 
 to the constitution, were determined not merely to support it 
 in the single instance in question, but to maintain the doctrine 
 in its utmost extent, and to establish the fact as a precedent 
 in law, to be applied in whatever manner his Majesty's ser- 
 vants should hereafter think fit. Their proceedings upon 
 this occasion are a strong proof that a decision, in the first 
 instance illegal and unjust, can only be supported by a con- 
 tinuation of falsehood and injustice. To support their former 
 resolutions they were obliged to violate some of the best 
 known and established rules of the House. Tn one instance 
 they went so far as to declare, in open defiance of truth and 
 common sense, that it was not the rule of the House to 
 divide a complicated question, at the request of a member*. 
 But after trampling upon the laws of the laud, it was not 
 wonderful that they should treat the private regulations of 
 their own assembly with equal disregard. The speaker, 
 being young in office, began with pretending ignorance, and 
 
 * This extravagant resolution appears in the votes of the House, but, in 
 the minutes of the committees, the instances of resolutions contrary to law 
 and truth, and of refusals to acknowledge law and truth when proposed to 
 them, are innumerable. JUNIUS. 
 
 The following is a more particular explanation of the fact alluded to by 
 Junius : 
 
 The House having, on the 30th of January, 1770, resolved itself into a 
 committee on the state of the nation, the ensuing declaration was proposed : 
 " That, in the exercise of its jurisdiction, the House ought to judge of elec- 
 tions by the law of the land, and by the custom of parliament, which is part 
 of that law." This being the first of a string of resolutions that were to lead 
 to a condemnation of the principles on which the determination of the Middle- 
 sex election had taken place, it was contended on the part of the ministry 
 that, according to the usage of the House, the entire series could not be di- 
 vided, to which the speaker having assented, the ministry next moved, that 
 the whole of the intended resolutions, except the first, should be omitted, and 
 that the following amendment should be added to it : " And that the judg- 
 ment of this House in the case of John Wilkes was agreeable to the law * 
 the land, and fully authorized by the practice of parliament." This was 
 carried by 224 to 180.
 
 RETROSPECT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY SESSION 295 
 
 ended with deciding for the ministry. We were not surprised 
 at the decision ; but he hesitated and blushed at his own 
 baseness*, and every man was astonished f. 
 
 The interest of the public was vigorously supported in the 
 House of Lords. Their right to defend the constitution 
 against any encroachment of the other estates, and the rteces- 
 sity of exerting it at this period, was urged to them with 
 every argument that could be supposed to influence the heart 
 or the understanding. But it soon appeared that they had 
 already taken their part, and were determined to support the 
 House of Commons, not only at the expense of truth and 
 decency, hut even by a surrender of their own most important 
 rights. Instead of performing that duty which the consti- 
 tution expects from them in return for the dignity and in- 
 dependence of their station in return for the hereditary share 
 it has given them in the legislature the majority of them 
 made common cause with the other House in oppressing the 
 people, and established another doctrine as false in itself, and, 
 if possible, more pernicious to the constitution, than that on 
 which the Middlesex election was determined. By resolving 
 " that they had no right to impeach a judgment of the House 
 of Commons, in any case whatsoever, where that House has a 
 competent jurisdiction," J they in effect gave up that con- 
 
 * Sir Fletcher Norton was now speaker of the House of Commons. lie 
 had commenced his political career as a violent Whig ; but for some time 
 past had exhibited the most complete tergiversation, and had been as warm 
 in the cause of Toryism as the warmest of its oldest espousers. He was 
 elected to the chair, January 22, 1770, on the resignation of Sir John Gust, 
 through ill health, and who died on the same day that Sir Fletcher suc- 
 ceeded him. 
 
 f When the king first made it a measure of his government to destroy 
 Mr. Wilkes, and when for this purpose it was necessary to run down privi- 
 lege, Sir Fletcher Norton, with his usual prostituted effrontery, assured the 
 House of Commons that he should regard one of their votes no more than a 
 resolution of so many drunken porters. This is the very lawyer whom Ben 
 Jonson describes in the following lines : 
 
 " Gives forked counsel ; takes provoking gold, 
 
 On either hand, and puts it up. 
 
 So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue, 
 
 And loud withal, that would not wag. nor scarce 
 
 Lie still without a fee." JUNIUS. 
 
 J A motion similar to that recited in the note to p. 294 was made by the 
 Marquis of Rockingham, in the House of Lords, declaring, " That the law 
 of the land and the established customs of parliament were the sole rale of
 
 206 LETTERS OF JUNICS. 
 
 stitutional check and reciprocal control of one branch of th 
 legislature over the other, which is perhaps the greatest and 
 most important object provided for by the division of the 
 whole legislative power into three estates ; and now, let the 
 judicial decisions of the House of Commons be ever so ex- 
 travagant, let their declarations of the law be ever so flagrantly 
 false, arbitrary, and oppressive to the subject, the House of 
 Lords have imposed a slavish silence upon themselves; they 
 cannot interpose they cannot protect the subject they 
 cannot defend the laws of their country. A concession sc 
 extraordinary in itself, so contradictory to the principles oi 
 their own institution, cannot but alarm the most unsuspecting 
 mind. We may well conclude, that the Lords would hardly 
 have yielded so much to the other House, without the certainty 
 of a compensation, which can only be made to them at the 
 expense of the people. The arbitrary power they have 
 assumed of imposing fines, and committing, during pleasure, 
 will now be exercised in its full extent *. The House of 
 Commons are too much in their debt to question or interrupt 
 their proceedings. The crown too, we may be well assured, 
 will lose nothing in this new distribution of power. After 
 declaring that to petition for a dissolution of Parliament is 
 irreconcilable with the principles of the constitution f his 
 Majesty has reason to expect that some extraordinary compli- 
 ment will be returned to the royal prerogative. The three 
 branches of the legislature seem to treat their separate rights 
 and interests as the Roman Triumvirs did their friends 
 
 determination in all cases of election," which having been lost, was met by 
 one to the purport of that before quoted, which was carried by a large 
 majority ; in consequence of which, two most strong and able protests were 
 entered upon the journals of the House, which were signed by no less than 
 forty-two peers. In the last of these the protesting lords pledged them- 
 selves to the public that they would avail themselves, as far as in them lay, 
 of every right and every power with which the constitution had armed them 
 for the good of the whole, in order to obtain full relief in behalf of the 
 injured electors of Great Britain. 
 
 * The man who resists and overcomes this iniquitous power assumed by 
 the lords must be supported by the whole people. \Ve have the laws of 
 our side, and want nothing but an intrepid leader. When such man stands 
 forth let the nation look to it. It is not Ms cause, but our own. JDKIUS. 
 
 See Private Letters, Nos. 80, 81, and 82, in which Wilkes givet an 
 intimation of an intended attack upon the House of Lordi. 
 
 f Note to Letter 37, ante, p. 279.
 
 BETBOSPECT OF THE PARLIAMENTAIIY SESSION. 29? 
 
 they reciprocally sacrifice them to the animosities of each 
 other, and establish a detestable union among themselves, 
 upon the ruin of the laws and liberty of the commonwealth. 
 
 Through the whole proceedings of the House of Commons 
 in this session, there is an apparent, a palpable consciousness 
 of guilt, which has prevented their daring to assert their own 
 dignity, where it has been immediately and grossly attacked. 
 In the course of Doctor Musgrave's examination, he said 
 everything that can be conceived mortifying to individuals, or 
 offensive to the House. They voted his information frivolous, 
 but they were awed by his firmness and integrity, and sunk 
 under it *. The terms in which the sale of a patent to Mr. 
 Hine were communicated to the public f, naturally called for 
 a parliamentary inquiry. The integrity of the House of 
 Commons was directly impeached ; but they had not courage 
 to move in their own vindication, because the inquiry would 
 have been fatal to Colonel Burgoyne and the Duke of Grafton. 
 When Sir George Saville branded them with the name oi 
 traitors to their constituents when the lordmayor,the sheriffs, 
 and Mr. Trecothick expressly avowed and maintained every 
 part of the city remonstrance why did they tamely submit to 
 be Insulted ? Why did they not immediately expel those re- 
 fractory members? Conscious of the motives on which they had 
 acted, they prudently preferred infamy to danger, and were 
 better prepared to meet the contempt than to rouse the indig- 
 nation of the whole people. Had they expelled those five mem- 
 bers I, the consequences of the new doctrine of incapacitation 
 would have come immediately home to every man. The truth 
 of it would then have been fairly tried, without any reference 
 to Mr. Wilkes's private character, or the dignity of the House, 
 or the obstinacy of one particular county. These topics, I 
 know, have had their weight with men who, affecting a cha- 
 racter of moderation, in reality consult nothing but their own 
 immediate ease who are weak enough to acquiesce under a 
 
 * The examination of this firm, honest man is printed for Aim on. The 
 reader will find it a most curious and a most interesting tract. Doctor Mus- 
 grave, with no other support but truth, and his own firmness, resisted and 
 overcame the whole House of Commons. Jumus. 
 
 f Junius, Letter 33, ante, p. 249. 
 
 The five members alluded to are Sir George Saville, Mr. Beckfotd, If: 
 TowmhenJ, Mr. Sawbridge, and Mr. Trecothick.
 
 298 I.ETTKRS OK JUNTOS. 
 
 flagrant violation of the laws, when it does not directly touch 
 themselves, and care not what injustice is practised upon a 
 man whose moral character they piously think themselves 
 obliged to condemn. In any other circumstances, the House 
 of Commons must have forfeited all their credit and dignity, 
 if, after such gross provocation, they had permitted those five 
 gentlemen to sit any longer among them. We should then 
 have seen and felt the operation of a precedent which is re- 
 presented to be perfectly barren and harmless. But there is 
 a set of men in this country whose understandings measure 
 the violation of law by the magnitude of the instance, not by 
 the important consequences which flow directly from the 
 principle ; and the minister, I presume, did not think it safe 
 to quicken their apprehension too soon. Had Mr. Hampden 
 reasoned and acted like the moderate men of these days, in- 
 stead of hazarding his whole fortune in a law-suit with the 
 crown, he would have quietly paid the twenty shillings de- 
 manded of him ; the Stuart family would probably have con- 
 tinued upon the throne ; and, at this moment, the imposition 
 of ship-money would have been an acknowledged prerogative 
 of the crown 
 
 What, then, has been the business of the session, after voting 
 the supplies, and confirming the determination of the Middle- 
 sex election? The extraordinary prorogation of the Irish 
 parliament*, and the just discontents of that kingdom, have 
 been passed by without notice. Neither the general situation 
 of our colonies, nor that particular distress which forced the 
 inhabitants of Boston to take up anus in their defence, have 
 been thought worthy of a moment's consideration!. In the 
 
 * A law had lately passed in the Irish legislature, rendering the Irish 
 parliaments octennial. Prior to this period they had been of longer dura- 
 tion, and it was against the will of the court that the law was enacted. 
 The parliament that passed it was prorogued immediately afterwards, and 
 then dissolved, under the hope of a more tractable parliament in future. 
 The minister, however, was deceived ; for the new parliament objected, 
 shortly after its meeting, to passing the proposed money bill, in consequence 
 of its having originated in the privy council instead of in the House of 
 Commons. Lord Townshend, the lord-lieutenant, on December 2, entered a 
 protest on the journals of the Upper House against the rejection of this bill ; 
 and intended to have done the same on the journals of the House of Com- 
 mons, but the latter would not suffer him. 
 
 f After the repeal of the stamp act, it was tried whether the American! 
 would subnvt to certain custom-1 ouse duties, as upon glass, red-lead, tea,
 
 RETROSPECT OF 'i'HK PARLIAMENTARY SESSION. 299 
 
 repeal of those acts, which were most offensive to America. 
 the parliament have done everything but remove the offence. 
 They have relinquished the revenue, but judiciously taken 
 care to preserve the contention. It is not pretended that the 
 continuance of the tea duty is to produce any direct benetit 
 whatsoever to the mother country. What is it, then, but ai 
 odious, unprofitable exertion of a speculative right, and fixinj 
 a badge of slavery upon the Americans, without service t 
 their masters ? But it has pleased God to give us a ministry 
 and a parliament who are neither to be persuaded by argu 
 ment nor instructed by experience. 
 
 Lord North, I presume, will not claim an extraordinary 
 merit from anything he has done this year in the improve- 
 ment or application of the revenue. A great operation, 
 directed to -an important object, though it should fail of 
 success, marks the genius and elevates the character of a 
 minister. A poor contracted understanding deals in little 
 schemes, which dishonour him if they fail, and do him no 
 credit when they succeed. Lord North had fortunately the 
 means in his possession of reducing all the four per cents at 
 once*. The failure of his first enterprise in finance is not 
 
 &c. But it was the principle itself that was obnoxious to the Americans ; 
 and hence this attempt was as strenuously resisted as the former. These 
 latter duties were in consequence all relinquished, excepting that on tea. 
 The Americans, however, would not submit to this mortification, which as 
 much infringed upon their principle as if no part whatever had been relin- 
 quished. Government nevertheless insisted upon retaining this impost, and 
 the result is well known. Yet hostilities may be said to have commenced 
 in the first instance at Boston, from a private dispute between two or three 
 soldiers quartered th re and a party of ropemakers. The soldiers in this 
 quarrel were joined by their comrades, and even by their officers, and the 
 ropemakers by the inhabitants of the town ; in the scuffle that ensued, the 
 officers were struck, the soldiers fired, and several persons in the mob were 
 killed or wounded. Captain Preston, the commanding officer, was after- 
 wards tried but acquitted. 
 
 * The stock denominated three per cents had arisen from a loan of two 
 millions raised by government in the 29th of Geo. II., for which a lottery 
 and redeemable annuities at three pounds ten shillings per cent, had been 
 granted and secured. Of the annuities, one quarter had been paid off, and 
 the sinking fund, which was charged with the remainder, was at this time 
 80 fully capable of liquidating it, that a notice to this efivct had been given 
 by an order of the House of Commons, dated April 26, 1770. 
 
 In consequence of this flourishing state of the three per cents, into 
 which almost every one wag buying, the four per cents had been much fop
 
 300 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 half so disgraceful to Us reputation as a minister as the 
 enterprise itself is injurious to the public. Instead of striking 
 one decisive blow, which would have cleared the market at 
 once, upon terms proportioned to the price oi the four per 
 cents six weeks ago, he has tampered with a pitiful portion of 
 a commodity which ought never to have been touched but in 
 gross he has given notice to the holders of that stock, of a 
 design formed by government to prevail upon them to sur- 
 render it by degrees, consequently has warned them to hold 
 up and enhance the price ; so that the plan of reducing the 
 four per cents must either be dropped entirely, or continued 
 with an increasing disadvantage to the public. The mi- 
 nister's sagacity has served to raise the value of the thing he 
 means to purchase, and to sink that of the three per cents, 
 which it is his purpose to sell. In effect, he has contrived to 
 make it the interest of the proprietor of four per cents to sell 
 out and buy three per cents in the market, rather than 
 subscribe his stock upon any terms that can possibly be 
 offered by government. 
 
 The state of the nation leads us naturally to consider the 
 situation of the king. The prorogation of parliament has 
 the effect of a temporary dissolution. The odium of measures 
 adopted by the collective body sits lightly upon the separate 
 members who composed it. They retire into summer 
 quarters, and rest from the disgraceful labours of the 
 campaign. But as for the sovereign, it is not so with him. 
 HE has a permanent existence in this country. HE cannot 
 withdraw himself from the complaints, the discontents, the 
 
 saken, and had sunk below their level. Lord North, by a small bonus, 
 might have induced all the holders of this stock to hare transferred it into 
 three per cents instead of receiving four, which would have been a great 
 relief to the public debt ; but, though the minister was open to this convic- 
 tion, he went to work with a timid hand, and took so much time to com- 
 plete what he did intend, as to forfeit every advantage he might at first 
 have derived. Instead of making a proposal of this kind to embrace the 
 whole of the four per cents, he proposed to convert only two millions and a 
 quarter of them into three per cents, and that the bonus should be a lottery 
 fcr five hundred thousand pounds, divided into fifty thousand tickets, of 
 which every holder of a hundred pounds capital should be entitled, for thii 
 supposed difference of fourteen pounds sterling, to two of such lottery 
 tickets. In the prospect of this scheme the four per cents began to rise at 
 the expense of the three per cents, and the object, so far aa regarded pecu- 
 niary advantage, was completely frustrated.
 
 EKTBOSPKCT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY SESSION. 301 
 
 reproaches of his subjects They pursue him to his retire- 
 ment, and invade his domestic happiness, when no address 
 can be obtained from an obsequious parliament to encounige 
 or console him. In other times, the interest of the king 
 and people of England was, as it ought to be, entirely the same 
 A new system has not only been adopted in fact, but pro- 
 fessed upon principle. Ministers are no longer the public 
 servants of the state, but the private domestics of the 
 sovereign. One particular class of men are permitted to 
 call themselves the king's friends*, as if the body of the 
 people were the king's enemies; or as if his Majesty looked 
 for a resource or consolation in the attachment of a few 
 favourites against the general contempt and detestation of 
 his subjects. Edward and Richard the Second made the 
 same distinction between the collective body of the people, 
 and a contemptible party who surrounded the throne. The 
 event of their mistaken conduct might have been a warning 
 to their successors. Yet the errors of those princes were not 
 without excuse. They had as many false friends as our 
 present gracious sovereign, and infinitely greater temptations 
 to seduce them. They were neither sober, religious, nor 
 demure. Intoxicated with pleasure, they wasted their in- 
 heritance in pursuit of it. Their lives were like a rapid 
 torrent, brilliant in prospect, though useless or dangerous in 
 its course. In the dull, unanimated existence of other 
 princes, we see nothing but a sickly, stagnant water, which 
 taints the atmosphere without fertilizing the soil. The 
 morality of a king is not to be measured by vulgar rules. 
 His situation is singular. There are faults which do him 
 honour, and virtues that disgrace him. A faultless, insipid 
 equality in his character, is neither capable of vice nor virtue 
 in the extreme ; but it secures his submission to those 
 persons whom he has been accustomed to respect, and makes 
 him a dangerous instrument of their ambition. Secluded 
 from the world, attached from his infancy to one set of 
 persons, and one set of ideas, he can neither open his heai't 
 to new connections, nor his mind to better information. A 
 
 * " An ignorant, mercenary, and servile crew ; unanimous in evil, dili- 
 gent in mischief, variable in principles, constant to flattery, talkers for 
 liberty, but slaves to power styling themselves the court party and the 
 prince's only friends." Davenani, quoted by Jusius.
 
 802 LETTERS OF JUNIDS. 
 
 character of this sort is the soil fittest to produce that ob 
 etinate bigotry in politics and religion which begins with a 
 meritorious sacrifice of the understanding, and finally con- 
 ducts the monarch and the martyr to the block. 
 
 At any other period, 1 doubt not, the scandalous disorders 
 which have been introduced into the government of all the 
 dependencies of the empire would have roused and engaged 
 the attention of the public. The odious abuse and prostitu- 
 tion of the prerogative at home, the unconstitutional employ- 
 ment of the military, the arbitrary fines and commitments 
 by the House of Lords, and Court of King's Bench, the 
 mercy of a chaste and pious prince extended cheerfully to a 
 wilful murderer, because that murderer is the brother of a 
 common prostitute, would, I think, at any other time, have 
 excited universal indignation*. But the daring attack upon 
 the constitution in the Middlesex election, makes us callous 
 and indifferent to inferior grievances. No man regards an 
 eruption upon the surface when the noble parts are invaded, 
 and he feels a mortification approaching to his heart. The 
 free election of our representatives in parliament compre- 
 hends, because it is the source and security of, every right 
 and privilege of the English nation. The ministry have 
 realized the compendious ideas of Caligula. They know that 
 the liberty, the laws, and property of an Englishman have in 
 truth but one neck, and that, to violate the freedom of election, 
 strikes deeply at them all. 
 
 JDNIUS. 
 
 * Matthew and Patrick Kennedy had been condemned to suffer death for 
 the murder of John Bigby, a watchman. Their sister, Miss Kennedy, was 
 a prostitute well known to many of the courtiers of the day, and her inter- 
 cession availed to obtain for them, first a respite, and afterwards a pardon. 
 The widow of Bigby, nevertheless, laid an appeal against the murderers, 
 and a new trial was appointed. The friends of Miss Kennedy, however, 
 bought them off, by a present to the widow of three hundred and fifty 
 pounds, and, in consequence, she detisted from appearing against the 
 prisoners when they were arraigned.
 
 TO LORD NORTE 803 
 
 LETTER XL*. 
 
 TO LORD NORTH. 
 
 MY LOHD, Angtst 22, 1770. 
 
 MR LUTTRELL'S services were the chief support and ornament 
 of the Duke of Grafton's administration. The honour of 
 rewarding them was reserved for your lordship. The duke, 
 it seems, had contracted an obligation he was ashamed to 
 acknowledge, and unable to acquit. You, my Lord, had no 
 scruples. You accepted of the succession with all its in- 
 cumbrances, and have paid Mr. Luttrell his legacy, at the 
 hazard of ruining the estate. 
 
 When this accomplished youth declared himself the 
 champion of government, the world was busy in inquiring 
 what honours or emoluments could be a sufficient recompense, 
 to a young man of his rank and fortune for submitting to 
 mark his entrance into life with the universal contempt and 
 detestation of his country. His noble father had not been so 
 precipitate. To vacate his seat in parliament to intrude 
 upon a county in which he had no interest or connection 
 to possess himself of another man's right, and to maintain it 
 in defiance of public shame as well as justice, bespoke a 
 degree of zeal or of depravity which all the favour of a pious 
 prince could hardly requite. I protest, my Lord, there is in 
 this young man's conduct a strain of prostitution, which, for 
 its singularity, I cannot but admire. He has discovered a 
 
 * In the perusal of the strictures of Junius, it should be borne in mind, 
 that, in regard to the great constitutional grounds on which the two adverse 
 parties of the Crown and the Opposition had taken each its separate stand, 
 both were in the right. The executive power did well to maintain its 
 dignity with firmness, in spite of factious importunity, or popular outragf. 
 It did well to preserve the sovereign from the humiliation of being treated 
 merely as a lunatic in the hands of the Whigs. The Opposition, on 
 the other hand, acted a part which, however intended, had substantially th 
 effect of true patriotism when they resisted the execution of general war- 
 rants, branded with reprobation what they esteemed an ignominious peace, 
 gupported Wilkes, notwithstanding his private errors, against ministerial 
 oppression, asserted the violated rights of the electors of Middlesex, and 
 eagerly watched against any undue interposition of the military force in 
 the ordinary exercise of the civil authority. Such were the good and evil oi 
 the struggle. Junius belonged to the constitutional or resisting party, and 
 for his purpose the present letter is written with admirable foice, liveliness, 
 and proDrietv. Vn
 
 30-4 LETTERS OF JUNIC8. 
 
 new line in the human character he has degrad. d even the 
 name of Luttrell, and gratified his father's most sanguine 
 expectations 
 
 The Duke of Graf ton, with every possible disposition to 
 patronise this kind of merit, was contented with pronouncing 
 Colonel Luttrell's panegyric*. The gallant spirit, the disin- 
 terested zeal of the young adventurer, were echoed through 
 the House of Lords. His Grace repeatedly pledged himself 
 to the House, as an evidence of the purity of his friend 
 Mr. Luttrell's intentions, that he had engaged without any 
 prospect of personal benefit, and that the idea of compensa- 
 tion would mortally offend himf. The noble Duke could 
 hardly be in earnest; but he had lately quitted his employ- 
 ment, and began to think it necessary to take some care of 
 his reputation. At that very moment the Irish negotiation 
 was probably begun. Come forward, thou worthy represen- 
 tative of Lord Bute, and tell this insulted country, who 
 advised the king to appoint Mr. Luttrell ADJUTANT-GENERAL 
 to the army in Ireland. By what management was Colonel 
 Cuninghame prevailed on to resign his employment, and the 
 obsequious Gisborne to accept of a pension for the government 
 of Kinsale J? Was it an original stipulation with the Princess 
 of Wales, or does he owe his preferment to your Lord- 
 ship's partiality, or to the Duke of Bedford's friendship ? 
 My Lord, though it may not be possible to trace this mea- 
 sure to its source, we can follow the stream, and warn the 
 country of its approaching destruction. The English nation 
 must be roused, and put upou its guard. Mr. Luttrell has 
 already shown us how far he may be trusted whenever an 
 open attack is to be made upon the liberties of this country 
 
 * At this time he was only lieutenant-coloneL 
 
 f He now says that his great object is the rank of colonel, and that he 
 will have it JUNIUS. 
 
 \ This infamous transaction ought to be explained to the public. Colonel 
 Gisborne was quarter-master-general in Ireland. Lord Townshend persuades 
 him to resign to a Scotch officer, one Fraser, and gives him the government 
 of Kinsale. .Colonel Cuninghame was adjutant general in Ireland. Lord 
 Townshend offers him a pension to induce him to resign to Luttrell. Cun- 
 inghamo treats the offer with contempt. What's to be done 7 Poor Gis- 
 borne must move once more. He accepts of a pension of 5001. a year until 
 a government of greater value shall become vacant. Colonel Cuninghame 
 is made governor of Kinsale ; and Luttrell, at last, for whom the whole 
 machinery is put in motion, becomes adjutant-general, and in effect takes 
 the command nf the army in Ireland. Jirsica.
 
 TO LORD XORTH. 305 
 
 I do not doubt that there is a deliberate plan formed. Your 
 Lordship best knows by whom ; the corruption of the legis 
 lative body on this side, a military force on the other, and 
 then farewell to England ! It is impossible that any minister 
 shall dare to advise the king to place such a man as Luttrell 
 in the confidential post of adjutant-general, if there were not 
 some secret purpose in view which only such a man as Lut- 
 trell is fit to promote. The insult offered to the army in 
 general is as gross as the outrage intended to the people of 
 England. What ! Lieutenant-colonel Luttrell to be adjutant' 
 general of an army of sixteen thousand men ! One would 
 think his Majesty's campaigns at Blackheath and Wimble- 
 don might have taught him better. I cannot help wish- 
 ing General Harvey joy of a colleague who does so much 
 honour to the employment. But, my Lord, this measure 
 is too daring to pas-s unnoticed, too dangerous to be received 
 with indifference or submission. You shall not have time 
 to remodel the Irish army. They will not submit to be 
 garbled by Colonel Luttrell. As a mischief to the English 
 constitution (for he is not worth the name of enemy), they 
 already detest him. As a boy, impudently thrust over their 
 heads, they will receive him with indignation and contempt. 
 As for you, my Lord, who perhaps are no more than the 
 blind unbappy instrument of Lord Bute and her Royal 
 Highness the Princess of Wales, be assured that you shall 
 be called upon to answer for the advice which has been given, 
 and either discover your accomplices, or fall a sacrifice to 
 their security. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD MANSFIELD*. 
 
 MY. LORD, November 14, 1770. 
 
 THE appearance of this letter will attract the curiosity of 
 the public, and command even your Lordship's attention. 
 
 * In the envelcpe to this nddress, Junius makes the following observation : 
 a The incbsed, though begun within these few days, has beer greatly 
 laboured." Private Letter, No. 24. 
 
 Warms) by their adventures with Wilkes, the ministers, though sorely 
 
 vet. i. ' *
 
 'J LETTERS OF JUSIUS. 
 
 1 ain coiisiderably in your debt, and shall endeavour, once foi 
 all, to balance the account. Accept of this address, my 
 Lord, as a prologue to more important scenes, in which you' 
 will probably be called upon to act or suffer. 
 
 iTou will not question my veracity when I assure you, that 
 it has not been owing to any particular respect for your person 
 lhat I have abstained from you so long. Besides the distress 
 and danger with which the press is threatened, when your 
 ] ..ordship is party, and the party is to be judge, I confess I have 
 been deterred by the difficulty of the task. Our language 
 lias no term of reproach, the mind has no idea of detesta- 
 tion, which has not already been happily applied to you, and 
 exhausted. Ample justice has been done by abler pens than 
 mine to the separate merits of your life and character. Let it 
 
 g.illed by Junius, did not think it politic to combat him by the shield and 
 spear of legal prosecution till his Letter to the King appeared to them to 
 have proceeded to an audacity of seditious invective which could not fail to 
 provoke the indignation of every Englishman in whose breast false patriotism 
 had not utterly extinguished all sentiments of loyalty. Mr. AVoodfall, there- 
 fore, the original publisher of that and the other letters of Junius, Mr. Almon, 
 who had sold it in a publication called the London Museum. Mr. Miller, 
 the publisher of the London Evening Post, and others who had also re- 
 printed the same letter to the king, were brought, at different times, to trial. 
 Almon's trial came on first ; he was found guilt}' of selling the letter by the 
 jury. The sentence pronounced upon him was, to pay a fine of ten marks, 
 and to find sureties for his good behaviour for two years ; himself to be 
 bound in four hundred pounds, his sureties in two hundred pounds each. 
 Woodfall was found guilty by the jury, of printing and puJ/lixIcing only. 
 Miller and Baldwin were acquitted. At the trial of Robinson, one of the 
 jurymen, starting up while the judge was giving his charge, cried, You. need 
 not say any more, for I am, determined to acquit him. And, in consequence 
 of this irregularity, the trial was put off till the next term. On these trials 
 the court wished to confine the juries to find simply the fact of printing or 
 publishing, without giving any opinion of its guilt or innocence. 
 
 It was after the issue of these trials had shown what the publishers of 
 the letters of Junius had to dread, that the author a idressed the present 
 long and eloquent one to Lord Mansfield. In this letter Junius professes to 
 write an invective of revenge : relates, in opprobrium against Lord Mans- 
 field, some particulars of his lordship's early life; condemns the gcteral 
 tenor of his conduct as a judge ; accuses him of endeavouring continually 
 to sophisticate the spirit of the law of England, by debasing additions out 
 of the civil law of Rome ; blames nim tor giving evil political advice to his 
 sovereign; and concludes with threatening fiercer invective if the priuten 
 1 this letter nhould be harassed by prosecution. ED.
 
 OOWTWTCT OF CHIEF JUSTICE MAKSFIKLD. 307 
 
 bo my humble office to collect the scattered sweets, till their 
 united virtue tortures the sense. 
 
 Permit me to begin with paying a just tribute to Scotch 
 sincerity wherever 1 find it. I own I am not apt to confide 
 iu the professions of gentlemen of that country; and when 
 they smile, I feel an involuntary emotion to guard myself 
 against mischief. With this general opinion of an ancient 
 nation, I always thought it much to your Lordship's honour, 
 that in your earlier days, you were but little infected with 
 the prudence of your country. You had some original attach- 
 ments, which you took every proper opportunity to acknow- 
 ledge. The liberal spirit of 3 r outh prevailed over your native 
 discretion. Your zeal in the cause of an unhappy prince was 
 expressed with the sincerity of wine, and some of the solem- 
 nities of religion *. This, I conceive, is the most amiable 
 point of view in which your character has appeared. Like an 
 honest man, you took that part in politics which might have 
 been expected from your birth, education, country, and con- 
 nections j. There was something generous in your attach - 
 
 * This man was always a rank Jacobite. Lord Ravensworth produced the 
 most satisfactory evidence of his having frequently drunk the Pretender's 
 health upon his knees. JUNIOS. 
 
 f This statement of Lord Mansfield's immediate connection with the 
 Pretender's secretary has been disputed ; and the charge advanced by Lord 
 Ravensworth of his having drunk the Pretender's health upon his knees, 
 was made the subject of investigation before the Privy Council and the 
 House of Lords, in the year 1753, which terminated in Mr. Murray's acquit- 
 tal, both tribunals declaring the charge to be a foul calumny. That Lord 
 Mansfield, however, lay under the public imputation of being a relative of 
 the Pretender's secretary is certain ; as, in a memorial in Dodington's Diary, 
 p. 441, edit. 1809, anonymously addressed to General Hawley, and written 
 for the avowed purpose of procuring the Solicitor-General's dismission, he is 
 thus spoken of : " To have a Scotsman, of a most disaffected family, and 
 allied to the Pretender's first minister, consulted in the education of the 
 Prince of Wales, must tend to alarm and disgust the friends of the present 
 royal family. Dodington, who was intimate with Lord Mansfield, then Mr. 
 Murray, nowhere contradicts the supposed connection ; who, nevertheless, 
 it is presumed, would have done so if the assertion had not been true. Mr. 
 Murray, when a student in the Temple, was an intimate acquaintance ol 
 Mr. Yernon, a rich Jacobite mercer on Ludgate Hill, and the toast referrej 
 to is said to have been frequently drunk in the house of this gentleman. 
 Mr. Yernon on his death bequeathed to Mr. Murray an estate iu the o.iiu> 
 tcs of Chester and Derby. 
 
 X 2
 
 308 LETTERS OF JtTXIUS. 
 
 ment to the banished house of Stuart. We lament the mis- 
 Lakes of a good man, and do not begin to detest him until ha 
 affects to renounce his principles. Why did you not adhere 
 to that loyalty you once professed ? Why did you not follow 
 the example of your worthy brother * ? With him you might 
 have shared in the honour of the Pretender's confidence 
 with him you might have preserved the integrity of your 
 character, and England, I think, might have spared you 
 without regret. Your friends will say, perhaps, that, although 
 you deserted the fortune of your liege lord, you have adhered 
 firmly to the principles which drove his father from the 
 throne ; that without openly supporting the person, you have 
 done essential service to the cause, and consoled yourself for 
 the loss of a favourite family, by reviving and establishing 
 the maxims of their government. This is the way in which 
 a Scotchman's understanding corrects the error of his heart. 
 My Lord, I acknowledge the truth of the defence, and can 
 trace it through all your conduct. I see through your whole 
 life one uniform plan to enlarge the power of the crown at 
 ihe expense of the liberty of the subject. To this object 
 your thoughts, words, and actions have been constantly 
 directed. In contempt or ignorance of the common law of 
 England, you have made it your study to introduce into the 
 court where you preside maxims of jurisprudence unknown 
 to Englishmen. The Roman code, the law of nations, and 
 the opinion of foreign civilians are your perpetual theme ; 
 but who ever heard you mention Magna Charta or the Bill 
 of Rights with approbation or respect? By such treacherous 
 arts the noble simplicity and free spirit of our Saxon laws 
 were first corrupted. The Norman conquest was not com- 
 plete until Norman lawyers had introduced their laws, and 
 reduced slavery to a system. This one leading principle 
 directs your interpretation of the laws, and accounts for your 
 treatment of juries. It is not in political questions ouly 
 (for there the courtier might be forgiven), but let the cause 
 be what it may, your understanding is equally on the rack, 
 either to contract the power of the jury, or to mislead their 
 
 * Confidential secretary to the late Pretender. This circumstance con- 
 firmed the friendship between the brothers. Jmnus.
 
 CONDUCT OF CHIEF JUSTICE MAN8FTEU) 309 
 
 judgment. For the truth of tin's assertion, T appeal to the 
 doctrine you delivered in Lord Grosvenor's cause. An action 
 for criminal conversation being brought by a peer against a 
 prince of the blood*, you were daring enough to tell the 
 jury that, in fixing the damages, they were to pay no regard 
 to the quality or fortune of the parties ; that it was a trial 
 between A. and B.; that they were to consider the of- 
 fence in a moral light only, and give no greater damages 
 to a peer of the realm than to the meanest mechanic. I 
 shall not attempt to refute a doctrine which, if it was 
 meant for law, carries falsehood and absurdity upon the 
 face of it; but, if it was meant for a declaration of your 
 political creed, is clear and consistent. Under an arbitrary 
 government all ranks and distinctions are confounded. The 
 honour of a nobleman is no more considered than the re- 
 putation of a peasant, for, with diffei'ent liveries, they are 
 equally slaves. 
 
 Even in matters of private property we see the same bias 
 and inclination to depart from the decisions of your prede- 
 cessors, which you certainly ought to receive as evidence of 
 the common law. Instead of those certain positive rules by 
 which the judgment of a court of law should invariably be 
 determined, you have fondly introduced your own unsettled 
 notions of equity and substantial justice. Decisions given 
 upon such principles do not alarm the public so much as they 
 ought, because the consequence and tendency of each par- 
 ticular instance is not observed or regarded. In the mean- 
 time the practice gains ground ; the Court of King's Bench 
 becomes a court of equity, and the judge, instead of con- 
 sulting strictly the law of the land, refers only to the wisdom 
 of the court, and to the purity of his own conscience. 
 The name of Mr. Justice Yates will naturally revive in your 
 mind some of those emotions of fear and detestation with 
 
 * The action was brought by Lord Grosvenor against the Duke of Cum- 
 berland for criminal conversation with Lady Grosvenor ; and the cause in 
 which Lord Mansfield delivered the opinion here charged to him, was tried 
 before his Lordship in the Court of King's Bench, July 5, 1770. The 
 damages were laid at 100,00(M. : the verdict was for 10,0001. The ioc- 
 trine here objected against by Junius has since been relinquished iu court* 
 of justice, and his own substituted.
 
 310 LETTERS OF JUMU8. 
 
 wliL'h you always beheld him*. That great lawyer, that 
 honest man, saw your whole conduct in the light that I do. 
 After years of ineffectual resistance to the pernicious prin- 
 ciples introduced by your Lordship, and uniformly supported 
 by your humble friends upon the bench, he determined to 
 quit a court whose proceedings and decisions he could neither 
 assent to with honour nor oppose with success. 
 
 The injustice done to an individual is sometimes of service 
 to the public f. Facts are apt to alarm us more than the 
 most dangerous principles. The sufferings aad firmness of 
 a printer have roused the public attention. You knew and 
 felt that your conduct would not bear a parliamentary inquiry, 
 and you hoped to escape it by the meanest, the basest sacri- 
 fice of dignity and consistency that ever was made by a great 
 magistrate. Where was your firmness, where was that vin- 
 dictive spirit, of which we have seen so many examples, when 
 a man, so inconsiderable as Bingley, could force you to con- 
 fess, in the face of this country that, for two years together, 
 you had illegally deprived an English subject of his liberty^ 
 and that he had triumphed over you at last? Yet I own, my 
 Lord, that yours is not an uncommon character. Women, and 
 men like women, are timid, vindictive, and irresolute. Their 
 passions counteract each other, and make the same creaturo 
 at one moment hateful, at another contemptible. I fancy, my 
 Lord, some time will elapse before you venture to commit 
 another Englishman for refusing to answer interrogatories }. 
 
 * Sir Joseph "Jates was lately dead. The facts which Junius relates are 
 true. Yates was an able and upright judge, but incapable of improving the 
 spirit of the law in his interpretation of it. There was opposition of juri- 
 dical principles and of personal views between him and Lord Minsfield. 
 He passed to the Court of Common Pleas on the 4th of May ; hij death 
 happened on the 7th of June, 1770. ED. 
 
 f The oppression of an obscure individual gave birth to the famous 
 Habeas Corpus Act of 31 Car. II. which is frequently considered as another 
 Magna Charta of the kingdom. Blackstone, iii. 135. Jcuius. 
 
 + " Bingley was committed for contempt in not submitting to be examined. 
 He lay in prison two years, until the Crown thought the matter might 
 occasion some serious complaint, and therefore he was let out, in the same 
 contumac.ous state he had been put in, with all his sins about him, un- 
 anointed and unannealed. There was much coquetry between the Court 
 and the Attorney-General about who should undergo the ridicule of letting 
 him escape." Vide another Letter to ALMOH, p. 189. JUNIUS.
 
 CONDUCT OF CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 311 
 
 The doctrine you have constantly delivered in casas of 
 libel, is another powerful evidence of a settled plan to con- 
 tract, the legal power of juries, and to draw questions inse 
 parable from facts within the arbitrium of the court. Here, 
 my Lord, you have fortune of your side. When you invade 
 the province of the jury in matter of libel, you, in effect, 
 attack the liberty of the press, and, with a single stroke, 
 wound two of your greatest enemies. In some instances you 
 have succeeded, because jurymen are too often ignorant of 
 their own rights, and too apt to be awed by the authority of 
 a chief justice. In other criminal prosecutions the malice of 
 the design is confessedly as much the subject of consideration 
 to a jury as the certainty of the fact. If a different doctrine 
 prevails in the case of libels, why should it not extend to all 
 criminal cases? Why not to capital offences? I see no 
 reason (and I dare say you will agree with me that there is 
 no good one) why the life of the subject should be better 
 protected against you than his liberty or property. Why 
 should you enjoy the full power of pillory, fine, and impri- 
 sonment, and not be indulged with hanging or transporta- 
 tion ? With your Lordship's fertile genius and merciful 
 disposition, I can conceive such an exercise of the power you 
 have, as could hardly be aggravated by that which you have 
 not*. 
 
 But, my Lord, since you have laboured (and not unsuccess- 
 fully) to destroy the substance of the trial, why should you 
 suffer the form of the verdict to remain ? Why force twelve 
 honest men, in palpable violation of their oaths, to pronounce 
 their fellow-subject a guilty man, when, almost at the same 
 moment, you forbid their inquiring into the only circum 
 stance which, in the eye of law and reason, constitutes guilt 
 the malignity or innocence of his intentions? But I under- 
 stand your Lordship. If you could succeed in making the 
 trial by jury useless and ridiculous, you might then with 
 greater safety introduce a bill into parliament for enlarging 
 the jurisdiction of the court, and extending your favourite 
 
 * An act of parliament already mentioned, declaratory of the rights of 
 jWies in cases of libel, which Mr. Fox, with the assistance of Mr. Erskine, 
 introduced, established the principle, " that the jury is, in regard to libels, 
 to judjie of law as well as of fact, of intention a well as of the 
 act." Bu.
 
 312 LETTERS OF JUNIU8. 
 
 trial by interrogatories to every question in which the life of 
 liberty of an Englishman is concerned*. 
 
 Your charge to the jury, in the prosecution against Almon 
 and Woodfall, contradicts the highest legal authorities as 
 well as the plainest dictates of reason. In Miller's cause, 
 and still more expressly in that of Baldwin, you have pro- 
 ceeded a step further, and grossly contradicted yourself. 
 You may know, perhaps, though I do not mean to insult you 
 by an appeal to your experience, that the language of truth 
 is uniform and consistent. To depart from it safely requires 
 memory and discretion. In the two List trials your charge to 
 the jury began, as usual, with assuring them that they had 
 nothing to do with the law, that they were to find the bare 
 fact, and not concern themselves about the legal inferences 
 drawn from it, or the degree of the defendant's guilt. Thus 
 far you were consistent with your former practice. But how 
 will you account for the conclusion ? You told the jury that, 
 " if, after all, they would take upon themselves to determine 
 the law, they might do it, but they must be very sure that 
 they determined according to law, for it touched their con- 
 sciences, and they acted at their peril." If I understand 
 your first proposition, you meant to affirm, that the jury were 
 not competent judges of the law in the criminal case of a 
 iibel that it did not fall within their jurisdiction ; and that, 
 with respect to them, the malice or innocence of the defend- 
 ant's intentions would be a question coram non judice. 
 But the second proposition clears away your own difficulties, 
 and restores the jury to all their judicial capacities. You 
 make the competence of the court to decend upon the 
 legality of the decision f. In the first instance you deny 
 
 * " The philosophical poet doth notably describe the damnable and 
 damned proceedings of the Judge of Hell : 
 
 " Gnossius hie Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna, 
 " Castigatque, auditque dolos, subigi tqite fateri. 
 
 First he punisheth and then he heareth ; and, lastly, compelleth to confess, 
 and makes and mars laws at his pleasure ; like as the Centurion in the 
 holy history did to St. Paul, for the text saith, Centurio apprehendi Paulum 
 jussit, et se catenis ligari, et tune INTERROGABAT, quit fuitset, et quid fecisset: 
 but good judges and justices abhor these courses." C<~ 2, Inst. 55. 
 JUNICS. 
 
 f Directly the reverse of the doctrine he constantly maintained in the 
 Hiuse of Lords and elsewhere upon the decision of the Middlesex election.
 
 CONDUCT OF CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 313 
 
 the power absolutely. In the second, you admit the power, 
 provided it be legally exercised. Now, my Lord, without 
 pretending to reconcile the distinctions of Westminster Hall 
 with the simple information of common sense or the inte- 
 grity of fair argument, I shall be understood by your Lord- 
 ship when I assert that, if a jury or any other court of 
 judicature (for jurors are judges) have no right to entertain 
 a cause or question at law, it signifies nothing whether their 
 decision be or be not according to law. Their decision is in 
 itself a mere nullity ; the parties are not bound to submit 
 to it; and, if the jury run any risk of punishment, it is not 
 for pronouncing a corrupt or illegal verdict, but for the ille- 
 gality of meddling with a point on which they have no legal 
 authority to decide *. 
 
 I cannot quit this subject without reminding your Lordship 
 of the name of Mr. Benson. Without offering any legal 
 objection, you ordered a special juryman to be set aside in 
 a cause where the king was prosecutor. The novelty of the 
 fact required explanation. Will you condescend to tell the 
 world by what law or custom you were authorized to make a 
 peremptory challenge of a juryman? The parties, indeed, 
 have this power, and perhaps jour Lordship, having accus- 
 tomed yourself to unite the characters of judge and party, 
 may claim it in virtue of the new capacity you have assumed, 
 and profit by your own wrong. The time within which you 
 might have been punished for this daring attempt to pack a 
 jury is, I fear, elapsed ; but no length of time shall erase the 
 record of it. 
 
 The mischiefs you have done this country are not confined 
 to your interpretation of the laws. You are a minister, my 
 Lord, and, as such, have long been consulted ; let us candidly 
 examine what use you have made of your ministerial influence; 
 I will not descend to little matters, but come at once to those 
 
 He invariably asserted that the decision must be legal, because the court 
 was competent; and never could be prevailed on to enter further into the 
 question. J UNIXTS. 
 
 * These iniquitous prosecutions cost the best of princes six thousand 
 pounds, and ended in the total defeat and disgrace of the prosecutors. In the 
 course of one of them, Judge Aston had the unparalleled impudence to tell 
 Mr. Morris (a gentleman of unquestionable honour and integrity, and who 
 was then giving his evidence on oath), that he .should pay very little regard 
 to any affidavit he should mate. JUNTOS.
 
 31-1 LETTKRS OK JUXIUS. 
 
 important points on which your resolution was waited for, on 
 which the expectation of your opinion kept a great part of the 
 nation in suspense. A constitutional question arises upon a 
 declaration of the law of parliament, by which the freedom of 
 election and the birthright of the subject were supposed to 
 have been invaded ; the king's servants are accused of violat- 
 ing the constitution ; the nation is in a ferment ; the ablest 
 men of all parties engage in the question, and exert their 
 utmost abilities in the discussion of it what part has the 
 honest Lord Mansfield acted ? As an eminent judge of the 
 law, his opinion would have been respected ; as a peer, he had 
 a right to demand an audience of his sovereign, and inform him 
 that his ministers were pursuing unconstitutional measures ; 
 upon other occasions, my Lord, you have no difficulty in finding 
 your way into the closet. The pretended neutrality of belong 
 ing to no party will not save your reputation ; in questions 
 merely political an honest man may stand neuter, but the laws 
 and constitution are the general property of the subject not 
 to defend is to relinquish; and who is there so senseless as to 
 renounce his share in a common benefit, unless he hopes to 
 profit by a new division of the spoil ? As a lord of parliament 
 you were repeatedly called upon to condemn or defend the 
 new law declared by the House of Commons ; you affected 
 to have scruples, and every expedient was attempted to remove 
 them ; the question was proposed and urged to you in a 
 thousand different shapes ; your prudence still supplied you 
 with evasion, your resolution was invincible ; for my own part 
 I am not anxious to penetrate this solemn secret. I care not 
 to whose wisdom it is entrusted, nor how soon you carry it 
 with you to your grave*. You have betrayed your opinion by 
 the very care you have taken to conceal it. It is not from 
 Lord Mansfield that we expect any reserve in declaring his 
 real sentiments in favour of Government, or in opposition to 
 the people ; nor is it difficult to account for the motions of a 
 timid, dishonest heart, which neither has virtue enough to 
 acknowledge truth, nor courage to contradict it. Yet you con- 
 tinue to support an administration which you know is univer- 
 
 * He said in the House of Lords that he believed he should carry hi 
 opinion with him to the grave. It was afterwards reported that he had 
 entrusted it, in special confidence, to the ingenious Duke of Cumberland. 
 JUJTIUB.
 
 COKTHTCT OF CHIEF JUSTICE MAXSFIFLD. 315 
 
 sally odious, and which, on some occasions, you yourself speak 
 of with contempt. You would fain be thought to take no 
 share in government, while, in reality, you are the main 
 spring of the machine. Here, too, we trace the little, pru- 
 dential policy of a Scotchman. Instead of acting that open, 
 generous part which becomes your rank and station, you 
 meanly skulk into the closet, and give your sovereign such 
 advice as you have not spirit to avow or defend. You secretly 
 engross the power, while you decline the title of minister ; 
 and though you dare not be chancellor, you know how to 
 secure the emoluments of the office. Are the seals to be for 
 ever in commission, that you may enjoy five thousand pounds 
 a year? I beg pardon, my Lord*, your fears have interposed 
 at last, and forced you to resign ; the odium of continuing 
 speaker of the House of Lords upon such terms was too for- 
 midable to be resisted. What a multitude of bad passions 
 are forced to submit to a constitutional infirmity ! But though 
 you have relinquished the salary, you still assume the rights 
 of a minister ; your conduct it seems must be defended in 
 parliament. For what other purpose is your wretched friend, 
 that miserable serjeant, posted to the House of Commons ? 
 Is it in the abilities of Mr. Leigh to defend the great Lord 
 Mansfield ? or is he only the Punch of the puppet-show, to 
 speak as he is prompted by the chief juggler behind the 
 curtain f ? 
 
 In public, affairs, my Lord, cunning, let it be ever so well 
 wrought, will not conduct a man honourably through life ; 
 like bad money, it may be current for a time, but it will soon 
 be cried down ; it cannot consist with a liberal spirit, though 
 it be sometimes united with extraordinary qualifications. 
 When I acknowledge your abilities you may believe I am 
 sincere. I feel for humar*. nature, when I see a man so gifted 
 
 * Upon the death of Charles Yorke, whose suicide hag been already 
 mentioned (p. 271,) on his appointment to the Chancellorship, the great seal 
 was held in commission by Sir Sydney Stafford Smythe, the hon. Henry 
 Bathurst, and Sir Richard Aston ; while Lord Mansfield was appointed 
 Speaker of the Upper House, and received the fees attached to that import- 
 ant situation. Lord Apsley, about the date of this letter, succeeded to botk 
 offices. 
 
 f This paragraph gagged poor Leigh. I really am concerned for the man, 
 and wish it were possible to open his mouth. He is a very pretty orator.
 
 316 LETTERS OF JUKI US. 
 
 as you are descend to such vile practice ; yet do not suffer yout 
 vanity to console you too soon. Believe me, my good Lord, 
 you are not admired in the same degree in which you are 
 detested. It is only the partiality of your friends that ba- 
 lances the defects of your heart with the superiority of your 
 understanding ; no learned man, even among your own tribe, 
 thinks you qualified to preside in a court of common law ; yet 
 it is confessed that, under Justinian, you might have made an 
 incomparable Pr&tor. It is remarkable enough, but I hope 
 not ominous, that the laws you understand best, and the 
 judges you affect to admire most, flourished in the decline of 
 a great empire, and are supposed to have contributed to 
 its fall. 
 
 Here, my Lord, it may be proper for us to pause together. 
 It is not for my own sake that 1 wish you to consider the 
 delicacy of your situation. Beware how you indulge the first 
 emotions of your resentment. This paper is delivered to the 
 world, and cannot be recalled. The persecution of an innocent 
 printer cannot alter facts nor refute arguments. Do not fur- 
 nish me with farther materials against yourself. An honest 
 man, like the true religion, appeals to the understanding, or 
 modestly confides in the internal evidence of his conscience ; 
 the impostor employs force instead of argument, imposes 
 eilence where he cannot convince, and propagates his character 
 by the sword. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XLII*. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 SIR, January 30, 1771. 
 
 IF we recollect in what manner the king's friends have been 
 constantly employed, we shall have no reason to be surprised 
 
 * Falkland Islands, adjacent to the continent of South America, were dis- 
 covered by the early navigators more than two centuries and a half since. 
 The Spaniards considered them as included iu the grant to their ove>
 
 AFFAIR OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 817 
 
 at any condition of disgrace to which the once resp octed nama 
 of Englishmen may be degraded. His Majesty has no cares 
 but such as concern the laws and constitution of this country 
 In his royal breast there is no room left for resentment, no 
 place for hostile sentiments against the natural enemies of 
 his crown. The system of government is uniform : violence 
 and oppression at home can only be supported by treachery 
 and submission abroad. When the civil rights of the people 
 are daringly invaded on one side, what have we to expect but 
 that their political rights should be deserted and betrayed, in 
 the same proportion, on the other? The plan of domestic 
 policy which has been invariably pursued from the moment of 
 his present Majesty's accession engrosses all the attention of 
 his servants ; they know that the security of their places 
 depends upon their maintaining, at any hazard, the secret 
 system of the closet. A foreign war might embarrass, an un- 
 favourable event might ruin the minister, and defeat the deep- 
 laid scheme of policy to which he and his associates owe their 
 employments. Rather than suffer the execution of that 
 scheme to be delayed or interrupted, the king has been 
 advised to make a public surrender, a solemn sacrifice, in the 
 
 reigns from the Roman Pontiff. The English claimed them by the right 
 supposed to be conferred by priority of discovery. They remained 
 desolate and neglected till late in the eighteenth century. It was at last 
 judged by the English, that, as a station from which the Spaniards of South 
 America might be annoyed in war, or visited for commercial purposes during 
 peace, these isles might be seized and colonised with advantage. They were 
 accordingly occupied by an Engl.sh force, and some slight fortifications 
 erected. Aware of the danger to their empire in South America if a 
 flourishing English colony should be established so near, the Spaniards 
 sent an arrnaKent from an American port, which dispossessed the English, 
 and sent them ignominiously home. An act of such hostility was to be 
 lesented. Complaints were made to the Court of Madrid ; and preparations 
 were ut the same time commenced for going to war if the Spaniards should 
 refuse to restore the islands without a contest. Negotiations were protracted, 
 but the Spaniards at length agreed to make the required restitution, but 
 without relinquishing their right ; while it was secretly stipulated that 
 England, soon after the surrender, should evacuate the disputed possession. 
 
 On the 2'2nd of January, 1771, the king was enabled to inform his par- 
 liament of the settlement of the dispute with Spain. Opposition arraigned 
 the dishonour of the implied conditions. Junius undertook to rouse public 
 opinion on their side in the present letter, which is more ably written 
 than those on the subject of the London petitions. ED.
 
 318 LETTERS OF JUNIU8. 
 
 face of all Europe, not only of the interests of his subjects 
 but of his own personal reputation, aud of the dignity of that 
 crown which his predecessors have worn with honour. These 
 are strong terms, Sir. but they are supported by fact aud 
 argument. 
 
 The king of Great Britain has been for some years in pos- 
 session of an island, to which, as the ministry themselves 
 have repeatedly asserted, the Spaniards had no claim of right. 
 The importance of the place is not in question ; if it were, a 
 better judgment might be formed of it from the opinions of 
 Lord Anson and Lord Egmont, and from the anxiety of the 
 Spaniards, than from any fallacious insinuations thrown out 
 by men whose interest it is to undervalue that property which 
 they are determined to relinquish. The pretensions of Spain 
 were a subject of negotiation between the two courts ; they 
 had been discussed but not admitted ; the king of Spain, in these 
 circumstances, bids adieu to amicable negotiation, and appeals 
 directly to the sword. The expedition against Port Egmont 
 does not appear to have been a sudden, ill-concerted enterprise ; 
 it seems to have been conducted not only with the usual 
 military precautions, but in all the forms and ceremonies of 
 war. A frigate was first employed to examine the strength 
 of the place ; a message w r as then sent, demanding immediate 
 possession, in the catholic king's name, and ordering our 
 people to depart ; at last, a military force appears, and com- 
 pels the garrison to surrender. A formal capitulation ensues, 
 and his Majesty's ship, which might at least have been per- 
 mitted to bring home his troops immediately, is detained in 
 port twenty days, and her rudder forcibly taken away. This 
 train of facts carries no appearance of the rashness or violence 
 of a Spanish governor ; on the contrary, the whole plan seems 
 to have been formed and executed in consequence of deliberate 
 orders, and a regular instruction from the Spanish court. 
 Mr. Bucarelli is not a pirate, nor has he been treated as such 
 by those who employed him*. I feel for the honour of a 
 gentleman, when I affirm that our king owes him a signal 
 reparation. Where will the humiliation of this country end ! 
 A king of Great Britain, not contented with placing himself 
 
 * The governor of Buenos Ayres, under whose direction the expedition 
 cut to take possession of Port .Egmont was forwarded; and who, it wat 
 veil known, did not act without authority.
 
 ABTA1B OK THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. 8l9 
 
 upon a lovel with a Spanish governor, descends so low as to 
 do a notorious injustice to that governor. As a salvo for his 
 own reputation, he has been advised to traduce the character 
 of a brave officer, and to treat him as a common robber, when 
 he knew with certainty that Mr. Bucarelli had acted in 
 obedience to his orders, and had done no more than his duty. 
 Thus it happens in private life, with a man who has no spirit 
 nor sense of honour : one of his equals orders a servant to 
 strike him ; instead of returning the blow to his master, his 
 courage is contented with throwing an aspersion, equally false 
 and public, upon the character of the servant. 
 
 This short recapitulation was necessary to introduce the 
 consideration of his Majesty's speech of 13th November, 1770, 
 and the subsequent measures of government. The excessive 
 caution with which the speech was drawn up had impressed 
 upon me an early conviction that no serious resentment was 
 thought of, and that the conclusion of the business, whenever 
 it happened, must, in some degree, be dishonourable to Eng- 
 land. There appears through the whole speech a guard and 
 reserve in the choice of expression, which shows how careful 
 the ministry were not to embarrass their future prospects by 
 any firm or spirited declaration from the throne. When all , 
 hopes of peace are lost, his Majesty tells his parliament that 
 he is preparing, not for barbarous war, but (with all his 
 mother's softness *)/or a different situation. An open act of 
 hostility, authorised by the catholic king, is called an act of a 
 governor. This act, to avoid the mention of a regular siege 
 and surrender, passes under the piratical description of seizing 
 by force ; and the thing taken is described, not as a part of 
 the king's territory or proper dominion, but merely as a 
 possession a word expressly chosen in contradistinction to, and 
 exclusion of, the idea of right, and to prepare us for a future 
 surrender both of the right and of the possession. Yet this 
 speech, Sir, cautious and equivocal as it is, cannot, by any 
 sophistry, be accommodated to the measures which have since 
 been adopted ; it seemed to promise that whatever might be 
 given up by secret stipulation, some care would be taken to 
 save appearances to the public. The event shows us that 
 
 * Alluding to the vulgar report of the day, that the Princess Dowagtr a! 
 Wales had interfered in the Spanish negotiation.
 
 320 LETTERS OF JUMUS. 
 
 to depart, in the minutest article, from the nicety and strict 
 ness of punctilio, is as dangerous to national honour as tc 
 female virtue. The woman who admits of one familiarity 
 seldom knows where to stop, or whut to refuse ; and when the 
 counsels of a great country give way in a single instance, 
 when once they are inclined to submission, every step accele- 
 rates the rapidity of the descent. The ministry themselves, 
 when they framed the speech, did not foresee that they should 
 ever accede to such an accommodation as they have since 
 advised their master to accept of. 
 
 The king says, the honour of my crown and the rights of my 
 people are deeply affected. The Spaniard, in his reply, says, 
 Z give you back possession, but I adhere to my claim of prior 
 right, reserving the assertion of it for a more favourable 
 opportunity. 
 
 The speech says, / made an immediate demand of satisfac 
 tion, and, if that fails, I am prepared to do myself justice 
 This immediate demand must have been sent to Madrid on 
 the 12th of September, or in a few days after. It was cer- 
 tainly refused, or evaded, and the king has not done himself 
 justice ; when the first magistrate speaks to the nation, some 
 care should be taken of his apparent veracity. 
 
 The speech proceeds to say, I shall not discontinue my 
 preparations until I have received proper reparation for Hie 
 injury. If this assurance may be relied on, what an enormous 
 expense is entailed, sine die, upon this unhappy country ! 
 Restitution of a possession, and reparation of an injury, are as 
 different in substance as they are in language ; the very act 
 of restitution may contain, as in this instance it palpably does, 
 a shameful aggravation of the injury. A man of spirit does 
 not measure the degree of an injury by the mere positive 
 damage he has sustained ; he considers the principle on 
 which it is founded, he resents the superiority asserted over 
 him, and rejects with indignation the claim of right which 
 his adversary endeavours to establish and would force him to 
 acknowledge 
 
 The motives on which the catholic king makes restitution 
 are, if possible, more insolent and disgraceful to our sovereign 
 than even the declaratory condition annexed to it. Aftel 
 taking four months to consider whether the expedition wae 
 undertaken by his OTTO orders or net, he condescends to dis
 
 AFVAIR OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. 321 
 
 avow the enterprise and to restore the island, not "rom any 
 regaiti to justice, not from any regard he bears to his Britannic 
 Majesty, but merely from the persuasion in which he is of the 
 pacific sentiments of the king of Great Britain ; at this rate, if 
 our king had discovered the spirit of a man, if he had made a 
 peremptory demand of satisfaction, the king of Spain would 
 have given him a peremptory refusal. But why this unseason- 
 able, this ridiculous mention of the king of Great Britain's 
 pacific intentions? Have they ever been in question ? Was 
 he the aggressor? Does he attack foreign powers without 
 provocation ? Does he even resist when he is insulted ? No, 
 Sir, if any ideas of strife or hostility have entered his royal 
 mind, they have a very different direction. The enemies of 
 England have nothing to fear from them. 
 
 After all, Sir, to what kind of disavowal has the king of 
 Spain at last consented ? Supposing it made in proper time, 
 it should have been accompanied with instant restitution, and 
 if Mr. Bucarelli acted without orders, he deserved death. Now, 
 Sir, instead of immediate restitution we have a four months' 
 negotiation ; and the officer, whose act is disavowed, returns 
 to court and is loaded with honours. 
 
 If the actual situation of Europe be considered, the treachery 
 of the king's servants, particularly of Lord North, who takes 
 the whole upon himself, will appear in the strongest colours 
 of aggravation. Our allies were masters of the Mediterranean 
 The king of France's present aversion from war and the dis- 
 traction of his affairs are notorious ; he is now in a state of 
 war with his people ; in vain did the catholic king solicit him 
 to take part in the quarrel against us ; his finances were in 
 the last disorder, and it was probable that his troops might 
 find sufficient employment at home. In these circumstances 
 we might have dictated the law to Spain. There are no terms 
 to which she might not have been compelled to submit ; at 
 the worst, a war with Spain alone carries the fairest promise 
 of advantage. One good effect at least would have been 
 immediately produced by it the desertion of France would 
 have irritated her ally, and, in all probability, have dissolved 
 the family compact. The scene is now fatally changed; the 
 advantage is thrown away, the most favourable opportunity is 
 lost; hereafter we shall know the value of it. "When the 
 
 VOL. 1 T
 
 322 LETTERS OF JUKTO9. 
 
 French king is reconciled to his subjects, when Spain has 
 completed her preparations, when the collected strength of 
 the house of Bourbon attacks us at once, the king himself 
 will be able to determine upon the wisdom or imprudence of 
 his present conduct. As far as the probability of argument 
 extends, we may safely pronounce that a conjuncture, which 
 threatens the very being of this country, has been wilfully 
 prepared and forwarded by our own ministry. How far the 
 people may be animated to resistance under the present ad- 
 ministration I know not; but this I know with certainty, 
 that, under the present administration, or if anything lilie 
 it should continue, it is of very little moment whether we 
 are a conquered nation or not.* 
 
 Having travelled thus far in the high road of matter of fact, 
 I may now be permitted to wander a little into the field of 
 imagination. Let us banish from our minds the pel-suasion 
 that these events have really happened in the reign of the 
 best of princes ; let us consider them as nothing more than 
 the materials of a fable, in which we may conceive the sove- 
 reign of some other country to be concerned. I mean to 
 violate all the laws of probability, when I suppose that this 
 imaginary king, after having voluntarily disgraced himself in 
 the eyes of his subjects, might return to a sense of his dis- 
 honour! that he might perceive the snare laid for him by 
 his ministers, and feel a spark of shame kindling in his breast 
 The part he must then be obliged to act would overwhelm 
 him with confusion. To his parliament he must say, I called 
 you together to receive your advice, and have never asked your 
 
 * The king's acceptance of the Spanish Ambassador's declaration is drawn 
 up in barbarous French, and signed by the Earl of Rochford. This diplo- 
 matic lord has spent his life in the study and practice of etiquettes, and is 
 supposed to be a profound master of the ceremonies. I will not insult him 
 by any reference to grammar or common sense. If he were even acquainted 
 with the common forms of his office, I should think him as well qualified 
 for it as any man in his Majesty's service. The reader is requested to 
 observe Lord Eochford's method of authenticating a public instrunent 
 " En foi de quoi, moi soussigne un des principaux secretaires d'eta. de 
 S. M. B. ai signe la presente de ma signature ordinaire, et a icelle 
 fait apposer le cathet de nos armes." In three lines there are no less than 
 seven false concords. But the man does not even know the style of hit 
 office ; if he had known it, he would have said, '' noui loussigne, secre- 
 Ja're i'etat de S. M. B. avons sign4/' &r J CHICS.
 
 AFFAIR OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 3'23 
 
 opinion ; to the merchant, I have distressed your commerce, I 
 have dragged your seamen out of your ships, I hare loaded you 
 with a grievous weight of insurances ; to the landholder, I told 
 you war icas too probable ichen I was determined to submit tc 
 any terms of accommodation, T extorted new taxes from you 
 before it was possible they could be wanted, and am now unable 
 to account for the application of them ; to the public creditor, 
 I have delivered up your fortunes a 'prey to foreigners, and to 
 the vilest of your fellow-subjects. Perhaps this repenting 
 prince might conclude with one general acknowledgment to 
 them all, / have involved every rank of my subjects in anxiety 
 and distress, and have nothing to offer you in return but the 
 certainty of national dishonour, an armed truce, and peace 
 without security. 
 
 If these accounts were settled there would still remain an 
 apology to he made to his navy and to his army. To the first he 
 would say, you icere once the terror of the world, but go back to 
 your harbours ; a man dishonoured, as I am, has no use for 
 your service. Tt is not probable that he would appear again 
 before his soldiers, even in the pacific cereirony of a review*. 
 But, wherever he appeared, the humiliating confession would 
 be extorted from him. I have received a blow, and had not 
 spirit to resent it; I demanded satisfaction, and have accepted 
 a declaration in which the right to strike me again is asserted 
 and confirmed. His countenance at least would speak this 
 language, and even his guards would blush for him. 
 
 But to return to our argument. The ministry, it seems, 
 are labouring to draw a line of distinction between the honour 
 of the crown and the rights of the people. This new idea has 
 yet been only started in discourse, for, in effect, both objects 
 have been equally sacrificed. I neither understand the dis- 
 tinction, nor what use the ministry propose to make of it 
 The king's honour is that of his people. Their real honour and 
 real interest are the same; I am not contending for a vain 
 punctilio. A clear, unblemished character comprehends nut 
 only the integrity that will not offer, but the spirit that will not 
 submit to an injury ; and whether it belongs to an individual or 
 to a community it is the foundation of peace, of independence, 
 
 * A mistake. He appears before them everv day with the mark of 
 blow upon his face. Proh pudor I JUKIUS, 
 
 * a
 
 324 LETTERS OF JOWIUS. 
 
 arid of safety Private credit is wealth, public honour is 
 Security ; the feather that adorns the royal bird, supports its 
 flight ; strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 It was against the preceding letter that Dr. Johnson was engaged by the 
 ministry to muster his argumentative powers. His answer, published in 1771, 
 is entitled, " Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands;" 
 from which the following is worth transcribing : 
 
 " Of Junius it cannot be said, as of Ulysses, that he scatters ambiguous ex- 
 pressions among the vulgar ; for he cries havoc without reserve, and endea- 
 vours to let slip the dogs of foreign and of civil war, ignorant whither they 
 are going, and careless what may be their prey. Junius has sometimes made 
 his satire felt, but let not injudicious admiration mistake the venom of the 
 shaft for the vigour of the bow. He has sometimes sported with lucky 
 malice ; but to him that knows his company, it is not hard to be sarcastic in 
 a mask. While he walks like Jack the Giant Killer in a coat of darkness, 
 he may do much mischief with little strength. Novelty captivates the super- 
 ficial and thoughtless ; vehemence delights the discontented and turbulent. 
 He that contradicts acknowledged truth will always have an audience ; he 
 that vilifies established authority will always find abettors. 
 
 " Junius burst into notice with a blaze of impudence which has rarely 
 glared upon the world before, and drew the rabble after him as a monster 
 makes a show. When he had once provided for his safety by impenetrable 
 secrecy, he had nothing to combat but truth and justice, enemies whom he 
 knows to be feeble in the dark. Being then at liberty to indulge himself in 
 all the immunities of invisibility ; out of the reach of danger, he has been 
 bold ; out of the reach of shame he has been confident. As a rhetorician, 
 he has the art of persuading when he seconded desire ; as a reasoner, he has 
 convinced those who had no doubt before ; as a moralist, he has taught that 
 virtue may disgrace; and as a patriot, he has gratified the mean by insults 
 on the high. Finding sedition ascendant, he has been able to advance it ; 
 finding the nation combustible, he has been able to inflame it. Let us 
 abstract from his wit the vivacity of insolence, and withdraw from his efficacy 
 the sympathetic favour of plebeian malignity ; I do not say that we shall 
 leave him nothing; the cause that I defend scorns the help of falsehood; 
 but if we leave him only his merit, what will be his praise ] 
 
 " It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his pungency of periods, or his 
 fertility of allusion, that he detains the cits of London and the boors of 
 Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take no cognizance. They admire 
 him for virtues like their own, for contempt of order and violence of out- 
 rage, for rage of defamation and audacity of falsehood. The supporters of 
 the Bill of Rights feel no niceties of composition, nor dexterities of sophistry; 
 their faculties are better proportioned to the bawl of Bellas or barbarity 01 
 Beckford ; but they are told that Junius is on their side, and they are there- 
 fore sure tJat Junius is infallible. Those who know not whither he would 
 lead them, resolve to follow him ; and those who cannot find his meaning, 
 hope he rL^ans rebellion.
 
 PHILOOUNIUS ON THE SPANISH CONVENTIOA 325 
 
 " Junius is an unusual phenomenon on which some have gazed :vitli 
 wonder, and some with terror, but wonder and terror are transitory passions. 
 He will soon be more closely viewed, or more attentively examined, and 
 what folly has taken for a comet that, from its flaming hair, shook pestilence 
 and war, inquiry will find to be only a meteor formed by the vapours 
 of putrefying democracy, and kindled into flame by the effervescence of 
 interest struggling with conviction, which after having plunged its followers 
 in a bog, will leave us inquiring why we regarded it. 
 
 " Yet though I cannot think the style of Junius secure from criticism 
 though his expressions are often trite, and his periods feeble, I should neve\ 
 have stationed him where he has placed himself, had I not rated him by his 
 morals rather than his faculties. ' What,' says Pope, ' must be the priest, 
 where the monkey is a god V What must be the drudge of a party of which 
 the heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Sawbridge and Townshend 1 
 
 " Junius knows his own meaning, and can therefore tell it. He is an enemy 
 to the ministry, he sees them hourly growing stronger. He knows that a 
 war at once unjust and unsuccessful would have certainly displaced them, 
 and is therefore, in his zeal for his country, angry that war was not unjustly 
 made, and unsuccessfully conducted; but there are others whose thoughts are 
 less clearly expressed, and whose schemes, perhaps, are less consequentially 
 digested, who declare that they do not wish for a rupture, yet condemn the 
 ministry for not doing that from which a rupture would naturally have fol- 
 lowed." 
 
 Of this pamphlet the ministry were not a little proud ; and especially as 
 they made no doubt that Junius would hereby be drawn into a paper con- 
 test with Dr. Johnson, and that hence they would possess a greater facility 
 of detecting him. Junius seems to have been aware of the trap laid for 
 him, and made no direct reply whatever. 
 
 LETTER XLIII 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 SIR, February 6, 1771. 
 
 I HOPE your correspondent Junius is better employed than in 
 answering or reading the criticisms of a newspaper. This is 
 a task from which, if he were inclined to submit to it, his 
 friends ought to relieve him*. Upon this principle I shall 
 undertake to answer Anti- Junius, more, I believe, to his 
 conviction than to his satisfaction. Not daring to attack the 
 main body of Junius's last letter, he triumphs in having, as 
 
 * In his Preface (p. 91), Junius says his " subordinate character is nevel 
 guilty of the indecorum of praising iiis principal;" but does net this com 
 mencement savour strongly of laudation 1 ED.
 
 308 LETTEBS OF JTJNIUS. 
 
 he thinks, surprised an outpost, and cut off a detached 
 argument, a mere straggling proposition. But even in thifc 
 petty warfare, he shall find himself defeated. 
 
 Junius does not speak of the Spanish nation as the natural 
 emmies of England. He appaes that description, with the 
 strictest truth and justice, to the Spanish Court. From the 
 moment when a prince of the House of Bourbon ascended 
 that throne, their whole system of government was inverted 
 and became hostile to this country. Unity of possession 
 introduced a unity of politics, and Lewis the Fourteenth had 
 reason when he said to his grandson, " The Pyrenees ore 
 removed." The history of the present centuiy is one con- 
 tinued confirmation of the prophecy. 
 
 The assertion "That violence and oppression at home can 
 only be supported by treachery and submission abroad," is 
 applied to a free people whose rights are invaded, not to the 
 government of a country where despotic or absolute power is 
 confessedly vested in the prince; and with this application, 
 the assertion is true. An absolute monarch having no points 
 to carry at home will naturally maintain the honour of his 
 crown in all his transactions with foreign powers. But if we 
 could suppose the sovereign of a free nation possessed with a 
 design to make himself absolute, he would be inconsistent 
 with himself if he suffered his projects to be interrupted or 
 embarrassed by a foreign war, unless that war tended, as in 
 some cases it might, to promote his principal design. Of the 
 three exceptions to this general rule of conduct (quoted by 
 Anti-Junius] that of Oliver Cromwell is the only one in 
 point. Harry the Eighth, by the submission of his parlia- 
 ment, was as absolute a prince as Lewis the Fourteenth. 
 Queen Elizabeth's government was not oppressive to the 
 people ; and as to her foreign wars, it ought to be considered 
 that they were unavoidable. The national honour was not in 
 question. She was compelled to fight in defence of her own 
 person and of her title to the crown. In the common course 
 of selfish policy, Oliver Cromwell should have cultivated the 
 friendship of foreign powers, or at least have avoided disputes 
 with them the better to establish his tyranny at home. Had 
 he been only a bad man, he would have sacrificed the honour 
 of the nation to the success of his domestic policy. But, with 
 all his crimes, he had the spirit of an Englishman. The
 
 PHILO-JTJNIUS ON THE SPANISH CONVENTION. 327 
 
 conduct of such a man must ahvays be an exception to vulgai 
 rules. He had abilities sufficient to reconcile contradictions, 
 and to make a gttat nation at the same moment unhappy and 
 formidable. If it were not for the respect I bear the minister, 
 I could name a man who, without one grain of understanding, 
 can do half as much as Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 Whether or no there be a secret system in the closet, an^ 
 what may be tbe object of it, are questions which can only be 
 determined by appearances, and on which every man must 
 decide for himself. 
 
 The whole plan of Junius's letter proves that he himself 
 makes no distinction between the real honour of the crown 
 and the real interest of the people. In the climax, to which 
 your correspondent objects, Junius adopts the language of the 
 court, and by that conformity, gives strength to his argument. 
 He says that, " the king has not only sacrificed the interests of 
 his people, but (what was likely to touch him more nearly) 
 fits personal reputation, and the dignity of his crown." 
 
 The queries put by Anti-Junius can only be answered by 
 the ministry*. Abandoned as they are, I fancy they will not 
 confess that they have, for so many years, maintained pos- 
 session of another man's property. After admitting the 
 assertion of the ministry, viz., that the Spaniards had no 
 rightful claim, and after justifying them for saying so, it is 
 his business, not mine, to give us some good reason for their 
 suffering the pretensions of Spain to be a subject of negotiation. 
 He admits the facts ; let him reconcile them if he can. 
 
 The last paragraph brings us back to the original question, 
 whether the Spanish declaration contains such a satisfaction 
 as the king of Great Britain ought to have accepted. This 
 was the field upon which he ought to have encountered 
 Junius openly and fairly. But here he leaves the argument 
 as no longer defensible. I shall therefore conclude with one 
 general admonition to my fellow-subjects ; that, when they 
 hear these matters debated, they should not suffer themselves 
 to be misled by general declamations upon the conveniences 
 of peace, or the miseries of war. Between peace and war, 
 
 * A writer, subscribing himself Anti-Junim, attacked the preceding 
 letter of Junius in three successive numbers of the Public Advertiser, in 
 February, 1771 ; but, after the extracts iriserted from Dr. Johnson, his letter* 
 re hardly entitled to further notice.
 
 328 I^TTERS OF JUNICS, 
 
 abstractedly, there is not there cannot be, a question in thj 
 mind of a rational being. The real questions are, Have wt 
 any security that the peace we have so dearly purchased will 
 last a twelvemonth? and if not, have we, or have we not, 
 sacrificed the fairest opportunity of making war with ad- 
 vantage ? 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XLIV *. 
 
 TO HIE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIK, April 22, 1771. 
 
 To write for profit without taxing the press, to write for 
 fame and to be unknown, to support the intrigues of faction 
 
 * The debates in pafliaisent had never yet been regularly and avowedly 
 published in the newspapers. But various artifices had been used in order to 
 make them known, under some affectation of disguise, by which the general 
 curiosity might be gratified without provoking parliamentary censure. 
 Even this disguise began to be laid aside under the freedom of the press, 
 which had begun to be exercised since the commencement of the present 
 reign. This freedom was, however, frequently checked by both Houses of 
 Parliament. The printers of any publication in which either House was 
 mentioned were liable to be summoned before that House, confined, 
 reprimanded, severely fined, and only dismissed after they had made the 
 most humiliating submissions, and paid large sums of money in fines and 
 fees. A Lord Marchmont, especially, used to watch with suspicious vigilance 
 over the newspapers, and to make motions against their printers in the 
 House of Peers, whenever any of the proceedings of that House were, however 
 slightly, mentioned in the papers. The public endured this severe use of the 
 privilege of parliament with great impatience. The printers of the news- 
 papers were from time to time encouraged to set it at defiance. At length, 
 in the beginning of March, 1771, the matter was brought to trial between 
 the people and the House of Commons. 
 
 Accounts of the proceedings in parliament had been printed in the different 
 newspapers. Colonel Onslow made a motion in the House of Commons 
 atiainst the printers, as guilty of a violation of the privileges of parliament. 
 The printers were summoned to attend the House. Those who obeyed the 
 summons, obtained, on easy terms, their pardon. Robert Thompson, and 
 John Wlieble, printers of the Gazetteer, and the Middlesex Journal, slighted 
 the order ; and a proclamation was therefore issued, offering a reward of fifty 
 pounds to apprehend them. On the 13th of March, the printers of the 
 if 01 ning Chronicle, the St. James's Chronicle, the London, the If hitehall, 
 and the General Evening, Posts, and the London Packet, were also ordered 
 to atu-nd the House of Commons. J. Hillei, printer of the Londvi Hveninj
 
 ON THE PRIVILEGES OF PARLIAMENT. 826 
 
 and to be disowned, as a dangez .us auxiliary, by every party 
 ill the kingdom, are contradictions which the minister must 
 
 P<, it, slighting this order, a messenger from the Commons was, on the 1 4th, 
 Bent to take him into custody. 
 
 While these proceedings went on in the House of Commons against the 
 printers, the city was in a commotion agsiinst their vexatious measures. Mr. 
 Wilkes, now alderman of the Ward of Farringdon Without, concerted a 
 plan to baffle all the wrath of the Commons. Wheble was apprehended, in 
 consequence of the proclamation, on the 15th, and was brought before him, 
 then the sitting alderman at Guildhall. In contempt of the authority of the 
 House of Commons, and the proclamation, Wilkes discharged Wheble; bound 
 him over to prosecute the person by whom he had been apprehended ; 
 obliged that person to give bail for his future appearance in trial ; and sent 
 notice of these proceedings to Lord Halifax, then one of the secretaries of 
 Btate. A messenger from the Serjeant-at-Arms attending on the House of 
 Commons was sent to take into custody Miller, the refractory printer of the 
 London Evening Post. Miller was instructed to charge that messenger :is 
 guilty of an assault, if he should attempt to seize him, to call in a constable 
 to take him into custody, and to carry him before the city magistrates. All 
 this was done. Whittam, the messenger from the Serjeant-at-Arms, attempt- 
 ing to seize Miller, was, by him, carried before the Lord Mayor; who, with 
 Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver, committed Whittam to Wood Street-compter, 
 and afterwards held him to bail for his future appearance. 
 
 At the news of this invasion of their privileges, the Commons were highly 
 enraged. They summoned Crosby, the Lord Mayor, to attend in his place, and 
 give an account of his conduct in committing a messenger from the House of 
 Commons into custody. Mr. Wilkes was ordered to attend the House, but 
 refused, unless he might attend in his place as Member for Middlesex. On 
 the 19th, Crosby and Oliver obeyed the order of the Commons. They justi- 
 fied, or attempted to justify, their conduct, by pleading their obligation to 
 maintain inviolate the rights of the city. The ministers and their friends 
 earnestly proposed that the Lord Mayor, and Mr. Oliver, should be at least 
 committed to the Tower during the pleasure of the House. The minority 
 contended with every argument which zeal could suggest in their favour. 
 Oliver was sent to the Tower immediately after the close of the debate. The 
 recognizance of Whittam the messenger was erased out of the minute book 
 of recognizances belonging to the Lord Mayor's court. The determination 
 in respect to Crosby, the Mayor, was delayed, only because illness made him 
 unable to continue in the House till the close of the proceedings of the day. 
 On the 27th, the Lord Mayor again attended in his place, refused all con- 
 cessions, and was also sent to the Tower. Wilkes had received a second 
 order to attend the House, which he sligtited equally as the first. He was 
 a third time summoned to attend on the 8th of April. But the leaders of the 
 majority, aware that he would still slight their summons, contrived to waive 
 the contention which he courted by adjourning over the day on which he waj 
 last ordered to attend, and then ceasing from any farther repetition of their 
 lummons. 
 
 In the mean time Crosby, Wilkes, and Oliver were extolled as the Em
 
 830 TETTERS OF JTNIDS 
 
 reconcile, before I forfeit my credit with the public I may 
 quit the service, but it would be absurd to suspect mo of 
 desertion. The reputation of these papers is an honourable 
 pledge for my attachment to the people. To sacrifice a 
 respected character, and to renounce the esteem of society, 
 requires more than Mr. Wedderburne's resolution * ; and 
 though, iii him, it was rather a profession than a desertion of 
 his principles (I speak tenderly of this gentleman, for when 
 
 friends of the freedom of discussion. The thanks of the Common Council were 
 eagerly voted to them. A committee of the Common Council was appointed 
 to assist them in their defence. To defray the necessary expense, a sum of 
 money was zealously granted. In their passage through the streets, between 
 the Mansion House, the House of Commons, and the Tower, they were 
 followed by an immense crowd, consisting not merely of the populace, but of 
 the livery, who were zealous in whatever could thwart the House of Commons 
 or the views of the administration. In the Tower, the Mayor and Alderman 
 Oliver were visited by the leaders of the minority in parliament; and had a 
 table kept for them at the expense of the city. Application was made to the 
 Chief Justices of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, to admit 
 them to bail. Both these judges, however, acknowledged the authority ot 
 the House of Commons, and refused to interpose between that House and 
 the prisoners. They remained, therefore, in confinement till the prorogation 
 f that session of parliament They were then, of course, set at liberty; as 
 the authority of the House of Commons had ceased. They were received, 
 when they left the Tower, with many expressions of congratulation by their 
 fellow-citizens. The printers were presented with a gratification in money 
 from the supporters of the Bill of Eights. Whittam, the messenger, was 
 saved by a noli prosequi from the prosecution which was in the printer's 
 name urged against him. The city, after Crosby and Oliver were at liberty, 
 again petitioned the king against the House of Commons. From the period 
 of this spirited resistance, the printers of newspapers have been tacitly suf- 
 fered to publish such accounts as they could procure of the debates in the 
 two Houses of parliament without punishment, unless when those accounts 
 have misrepresented or vilified the proceedings of either House. 
 
 On the 22nd of April, while the Lord Mayor and Alderman Oliver were 
 still in the Tower, Junius wrote the present letter (No. 44). Its design is to 
 prove that the House of Commons had no right to imprison for any contempt of 
 their authority. It may not be one of his most powerful or constitutional 
 productions, yet it contains much force of reasoning, authority, and eloquence. 
 In a private note to Alderman Wilkes (Private Letters, No. 70, vol. ii.) he 
 says, " the pains I took with that paper are greater than I can express to 
 you." ED. 
 
 * Mr. Wedderburne, progressively Baron Loughborough and Earl of Ross- 
 lyn, had, on the 12th of January preceding the date of this letter, been pro- 
 moted to the offices of Solicitor-General, and cofferer to the quecu. His politic* 
 may, therefore, be ascertained without trouble ; yet he had been inducted 
 into public life under the auspices of Goorge Grenville after the latter had
 
 ON THE P1UVILEUKS OF PARLIAMENT 881 
 
 treachery is in question, 1 think we should make allowances 
 for a Scotchman), yet we have seen him in the House of 
 Commons overwhelmed with confusion, and almost bereft of 
 his faculties. But in truth, Sir, I have left no room foi an 
 accommodation with the piety of Saint James's. My offences 
 are not to be redeemed by recantation or repentance. On one 
 side, our warmest patriots would disclaim me as a burthen to 
 their honest ambition. On the other, the vilest prostitution, 
 if Junius could descend to it, would lose its natural merit and 
 influence in the cabinet, and treachery be no longer a recom- 
 mendation to the royal favour. 
 
 The persons who till within these few years, have been 
 most distinguished by their zeal for high church and preroga- 
 tive, are now, it seems, the great asscrtors of the privileges of 
 the House of Commons. This sudden alteration of their 
 sentiments or language parries with it a suspicious appearance. 
 When I hear the undefined privileges of the popular branch 
 of the legislature exalted by Tories and Jacobites, at the 
 expense of those strict rights which are known to the subject, 
 and limited by the laws, I cannot but suspect that some 
 mischievous scheme is in agitation to destroy both law and 
 privilege by opposing them to each other. They who have 
 uniformly denied the power of the whole legislature to alter 
 the descent of the crown, and whose 'ancestors, in rebellion 
 against his Majesty's family, have defended that doctrine at 
 the hazard of their lives, now tell us that privilege of par- 
 liament is the only rule of right, and the chief security of the 
 public freedom. I fear, Sir, that while forms remain, there 
 has been some material change in the substance of our 
 constitution. The opinions of these men were too absurd to 
 be so easily renounced. Liberal minds are open to convic- 
 tion liberal doctrines are capable of improvement. There 
 are proselytes from atheism, but none from superstition. If 
 their present professions were sincere, I think they could not 
 but be highly offended at seeing a question concerning par- 
 liamentary privilege unnecessarily started at a season so 
 unfavourable to the House of Commons, and by so very mean 
 
 professed the principles of Whigcism, and while he was a partisan of Lord 
 Rockingham ; and it is to this defection from the tenets Mr. Wedderb UTM 
 avowed till khis period, that or i author \ere alludei.
 
 382 LETTERS OF JUNIUS 
 
 and insignificant a person as the minor Onslow*. They knew 
 that the present House of Commons, having commenced 
 hostilities with the people, and degraded the authority of the 
 laws by their own example, were likely enough to be resisted, 
 per fas et nefas. If they were really friends to privilege, they 
 would have thought the question of right too dangerous to be 
 hazarded at this season, and, without the formality of a 
 convention, would have left it undecided. 
 
 I have been silent hitherto, though not from that shameful 
 indifference about the interests of society which too many of 
 us profess, and call moderation. I confess, Sir, that I felt the 
 prejudices of my education, in favour of a House of Commons, 
 still hanging about me. I thought that a question between 
 law and privilege f could never be brought to a formal 
 decision without inconvenience to the public service, or a 
 manifest diminution of legal liberty ; that it ought, there- 
 fore, to be carefully avoided: and when 1 saw that the 
 violence of the House of Commons had carried them too far 
 to retreat, I determined not to deliver a hasty opinion upon a 
 matter of so much delicacy and importance. 
 
 The state of things is much altered in this country since it 
 was necessary to protect our representatives against the direct 
 power of the crown. We have nothing to apprehend from 
 prerogative, but everything from undue influence. Formerly 
 it was the interest of the people that the privileges of parlia- 
 should be left unlimited and undefined. At present it is not 
 only their interest, but I hold it to be essentially necessary to 
 the preservation of the constitution, that the privileges of par 
 liament should be strictly ascertained and confined within the 
 narrowest bounds the nature of their institution will admit of. 
 Upon the same principle on which I would have resisted 
 prerogative in the last century, I now resist privilege. It is 
 indifferent to me whether the crown, by its own immediate 
 
 * It was this gentleman, afterwards Lord Onslow, who moved the resolution 
 against the printers already noticed ; and who commenced a prosecution for 
 defemation against Home, in which he was not successful. 
 
 f- The transaction referred to is the resistance of the authority of a mere 
 royal proclamation, and a mere order of the House of Commons by the 
 magistrates of the city; the arrests and counter-arrests that followed; and 
 tne commitment of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to the Tower. See pr 
 rious note, p. 328, and Miscellaneous Letter, No. 92. ED ;
 
 ON THE P1UVILEGES OF PAKIJAMENT 338 
 
 act, imposes new, and dispenses with old laws, or whether 
 the same arbitrary pcm 3r produces the same effects through 
 the medium of the House of Commons. We trusted our 
 representatives with privileges for their own defence and 
 ours. We cannot hinder their desertion, but we can pre- 
 vent their carrying over their arms to the service of the 
 enemy. It will be said that I begin with endeavouring to 
 reduce the argument concerning privilege to a mere ques- 
 tion of convenience that I deny at one moment what I 
 Would allow at another and that to resist the power of a 
 prostituted House of Commons, may establish a precedent in 
 jurious to all future parliaments. To this I answer generally, 
 that human affairs are iu no instance governed by strict posi- 
 tive right. If change of circumstances were to have no weight 
 in directing our conduct and opinions, the mutual intercourse 
 of mankind would be nothing more than a contention be- 
 tween positive and equitable right. Society would be a state 
 of war, and law itself would be injustice. On this general 
 ground it is highly reasonable that the degree of our submis- 
 sion to privileges, which have never been defined by any posi- 
 tive law, should be considered as a question of convenience, 
 and proportioned to the confidence we repose in the integrity 
 of our representatives. As to the injury we may do to any 
 future and more respectable House of Commons, I own I am 
 not now sanguine enough to expect a more plentiful harvest 
 of parliamentary virtue in one year than another. Our politi- 
 cal climate is severely altered ; and, without dwelling upon 
 the depravity of modern times, I think no reasonable man 
 will expect that, as human nature is constituted, the enormous 
 influence of the crown should cease to prevail over the virtue 
 of individuals. The mischief lies too deep to be cured by any 
 remedy less than some great convulsion which may either 
 carry back the constitution to its original principles or utterly 
 destroy it. I do not doubt that, in the first session after the 
 next election, some popular measures may be adopted. The 
 present House of Commons have injured themselves by a too 
 early and public profession of their principles ; and if a strain 
 of prostitution, which had no example, were within the reach 
 of emulation, it might be imprudent to hazard the experiment 
 too soon. But after all, Sir, it is very immaterial whether a 
 House of Commons shall preserve their virtue for a week,
 
 334 ucrtRns OF JTTXIUS. 
 
 month, or f year. The influence which makes a septennial 
 parliament dependent upon the pleasure of the crown has a 
 permanent operation and cannot fail of success. My premises, 
 1 know, will be denied in argument, but every man's conscience 
 tells him they are true. It remains, then, to be considered 
 whether it be for the interests of the people that privilege of 
 parliament (which*, in respect to the purposes for which it 
 has hitherto been acquiesced under, is merely nominal) should 
 be contracted within some certain limits, or whether the sub- 
 ject shall be left at the mercy of a power arbitrary upon the 
 face of it, and notoriously under the direction of the crown. 
 
 I do not mean to decline ihe question of right. On the con- 
 trary, Sir, I join issue with the advocates for privilege, and affirm 
 that, "excepting the cases wherein the House of Commons are 
 a court of judicature (to whir h, from the nature of their office, 
 a coercive power must belong), and excepting such contempts 
 as immediately interrupt their proceedings, they have no legal 
 authority to imprison any man for any supposed violation of 
 privilege whatsoever." It is not pretended that privilege, as 
 iiow claimed, has ever been defined or confirmed by statute ; 
 neither can it be said, with any colour of truth, to be a pnrt of 
 the common law of England which had grown into prescrip- 
 tion long before we knew any thing of the existence of a House of 
 Commons. As for the law of parliament, it is only another 
 name for the privilege in question; and since the power of creat- 
 ing new privileges has been formally renounced by both 
 Houses since there is no code, in which we can study the law 
 of parliament, we have but one way left to make ourselves 
 acquainted with it, that is, to compare the nature of the in 
 stitution of a House of Commons with the facts upon record. 
 To establish a claim of privilege in either House, and to dis- 
 
 * The necessity of securing the House of- Commons against the king's 
 power, so that no interruption might be given either to the attendance of the 
 members in parliament, or to the freedom of debate, was the foundation of 
 parliamentary privilege; and we may observe, in all the addresses of new 
 appointed speakers to the sovereign, the utmost privilege they demand is 
 liberty of speech and freedom from arrests. The very word privilege, means 
 no more than immunity or a safe-guard to the party who possesses it, and 
 can never be construed into an active power of invading the rights of others." 
 JUNTOS. 
 
 This and some of the following notes form pnrt of a le'tei signed a Whig 
 cud will be found in the Miscellaneous Collection, No. 95.
 
 ON THE PRIVILEGES OF PARLIAMENT. 83 
 
 tinguish original right from usurpation, it must apjcar that 
 it is indispensably necessary for the performance of the duty 
 they are employed in, and also that it has been uniformly 
 allowed. From the first part of this description it follows 
 clearly, that whatever privilege does of right belong to the 
 present House of Commons did equally belong to the first 
 assembly of their predecessors, was as completely vested in 
 them, and might have been exercised in the same extent 
 From the second, we must infer that privileges which, for 
 several centuries, were not only never allowed, but never 
 even claimed by the House of Commons, must be founded 
 upon usurpation. The constitutional duties of a House of 
 Commons are not very complicated nor mysterious. They 
 are to propose or assent to wholesome laws for the benefit of 
 the nation. They are to grant the necessary aids to the king; 
 petition for the redress of grievances, and prosecute treason 
 or high crimes against the state. If unlimited privilege be 
 necessary to the performance of these duties, we have reason 
 to conclude that, for many centuries after the institution of 
 the House of Commons, they were never performed. I am 
 not bound to prove a negative, but I appeal to the English 
 history when I affirm that, with the exceptions already stated 
 (which yet 1 might safely relinquish), there is no precedent, 
 from the year 1265 to the death of Queen Elizabeth, of the 
 House of Commons having imprisoned any man (not a mem- 
 ber of their House) for contempt or breach of privilege la 
 the most flagrant cases, and when their acknowledged privi- 
 leges were most grossly violated, the poor Commons, as they 
 then styled themselves, never .took the power of punishment 
 into their own hands. They either sought redress by peti- 
 tion to the king, or, what is more remarkable, applied for jus- 
 tice to the House of Lords ; and when satisfaction was denied 
 them or delayed, their only remedy was to refuse proceeding 
 upon the king's business. So little conception had our an- 
 cestors of the monstrous doctrines now maintained concern 
 ing privilege, that, in the reign of Elizabeth, even liberty of 
 speech, the vital principle of a deliberative assembly, waa 
 restrained, by the queen's authority, to a simple aye or no, 
 and this restriction, though imposed upon three successive par 
 liamcnts*, was never once disputed by the House of Commons 
 * ID the years 1593 1597, and 1601.
 
 336 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 I know there are many precedents of arbitrary commitments 
 for contempt. But, besides that they are of too modern a 
 date to warrant a presumption that such a power was originally 
 vested in the House of Commons jFacf alone does not con- 
 stitute Eight. If it does, general warrants were lawful. An 
 ordinance of the two houses has a force equal to law; and the 
 criminal jurisdiction assumed by the Commons in 1621, in the 
 case of Edward Lloyd *, is a good precedent, to warrant the 
 like proceedings against any man who shall unadvisedly men 
 lion the folly of a king or the ambition of a princess. The 
 truth is, Sir, that the greatest and most exceptionable part of 
 the privileges now contended for, were introduced and asserted 
 by a House of Commons which abolished both monarchy and 
 peerage, and whose proceedings, although they ended in one 
 glorious act of substantial justice, could no way be reconciled 
 to the forms of the constitution. Their successors profited by 
 the example, and confirmed their power by a moderate or 
 a popular use of it. Thus it grew by degrees from a noto- 
 rious innovation at one period, to be tacitly admitted as the 
 privilege of parliament at another. 
 
 If, however, it could be proved, from considerations of 
 necessity or convenience, that an unlimited power of commit- 
 ment ought to be intrusted to the House of Commons, and 
 that, in fact, they have exercised it without opposition, still, 
 in contemplation of law, the presumption is strongly against 
 them. It is a leading maxim of the laws of England (and 
 without it all laws are nugatory), that there is no right with- 
 out a remedy, nor any legal power without a legal course to 
 carry it into effect. Let the power now in question be tried 
 by this rule. The speaker issues his warrant of attachment. 
 The party attached either resists force with force, or appeals 
 to a magistrate, who declares the warrant illegal, and dis- 
 charges the prisoner. Does the law provide no legal means 
 
 * Lloyd, while a prisoner in the Fleet, had ridiculed the daughter of James 
 the First and her consort, for which complaint was made to the House of 
 Commons, who, on investigation, chose to think the words sufficiently proved, 
 4nd sentenced him to be " set on the pillory at Westminster for two hours, to 
 ride backward upon a horse without a saddle with the horse's tail in his 
 hand, to have labels affixed on his head, indicating that he had been found 
 guilty of using ' false, malicious, and despiteful speeches against the king's 
 daughter and her husband/ to be again pilloried in Cheapside, and to be 
 fined l^OOf.
 
 ON THE PRIVILEGES OF PARLIAMENT. 837 
 
 for enforcing a legal warrant? Is there no regular pro- 
 ceeding pointed cut in our law hooks to assert and vindicate 
 the authority of so high a couri as the House of Commons ? 
 The question is answered directly by the fact. Their un- 
 lawful commands are resisted, and they have no remedy. 
 The imprisonment of their own members is revenge indeed, 
 but it is no assertion of the privilege they contend for*. 
 Their whole proceeding stops, and there they stand, 
 ashamed to retreat, and unable to advance. Sir, these 
 ignorant men should be informed that the execution of the 
 laws of England is not left in this uncertain, defenceless con- 
 dition. If the process of the courts of Westminster Hall be 
 resisted, they have a direct course sufficient to enforce sub- 
 mission. The Court of King's Bench commands the sheritf 
 to raise the posse comitatus. The Courts of Chancery and 
 Exchequer issue a writ of rebellion which must also be sup- 
 ported, if necessary, by the power of the county. To whom 
 will our honest representatives direct their writ of rebellion ? 
 The guards, I doubt not, are willing enough to be employed, 
 but they know nothing of the doctrine of writs, and may 
 think it necessary to wait for a letter from Lord Barringtonf. 
 It may now be objected to me that my arguments prove too 
 much ; for that certainly there may be instances of contempt 
 and insult to the House of Commons which do not fall within 
 my own exceptions, yet, in regard to the dignity of the House, 
 ought not to pass unpunished. Be it so. The courts of 
 criminal jurisdiction are open to prosecutions which the 
 Attorney-General may commence by information or indict- 
 ment. A libel, tending to asperse or vilify the House of 
 Commons or any of their members, may be as severely 
 punished in the Court of King's Bench as a libel upon the 
 king. Mr. De Grey thought so, when he drew up the 
 information upon my letter to his Majesty, or he had 110 
 meaning in charging it to be a scandalous libel upon the 
 
 * Upon their own principles they should have committed Mr. Wilkea, 
 who had been guilty of a greater offence than even the Lord Mayor 01 
 Alderman Oliver. But after repeatedly ordering him to attend, they at last 
 Hdjourned beyond the day appointed for his attendance, and by this mean, 
 pitiful evasion, gave up the point. Such is the force of conscious guilt ! 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 f In allusion to his letter of thanks to the guards for their conduct in St 
 George's F'elds. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 838 LETTERS OF JUNIDS. 
 
 House of Commons. In my opinion, they would consult 
 their real dignity much better by appealing to the laws when 
 they are offended than by violating the first principle of 
 natural justice, which forbids us to be judges when we are 
 parties to the cause *. 
 
 I do not mean to pursue them through the remainder of 
 their proceedings. In their first resolutions it is possible 
 they might have been deceived by ill-considered precedents. 
 For the rest there is no colour of palliation or excuse. 
 They have advised the king to resume a power of dispensing 
 with the laws by royal proclamation f ; and kings, we see, are 
 ready enough to follow such advice. By mere violence, and 
 without the shadow of right, they have expunged the record 
 of a judicial proceeding J. Nothing remained but to attribute 
 to their own vote a power of stopping the whole distribution 
 of criminal and civil justice. 
 
 The public virtues of the chief magistrate have long since 
 ceased to be in question. But it is said that he has private 
 good qualities, and I myself have been ready to acknowledge 
 them. They are now brought to the test. If he loves his 
 people, he will dissolve a parliament which they can never 
 confide in or respect. If he has any regard for his own 
 honour, he will disdain to be any longer connected with such 
 abandoned prostitution. But if it were conceivable that a 
 
 * " If it be demanded in case a subject should be committed by either 
 House for a matter manifestly out of their jurisdiction, what remedy can he 
 have ? I answer, that it cannot well be imagined that the law, which favours 
 lothing more than the liberty of the subject should give us a remedy against 
 ;ommitments by the king himself, appearing to be illegal, and yet give us 
 no manner of redress against a commitment by our fellow-subjects, equally 
 appearing to be unwarranted. But as this is a case which I am persuaded 
 will never happen, it seems needless over nicely to examine it" Hawkins 2, 
 110. N.R. lie was a good lawyer, but no prophet. JUNTOS. 
 
 f That their practice might be every way conformable to their principles, 
 the House proceed to advise the crown to publish a proclamation universally 
 acknowledged to be illegal. Mr. Moreton publicly protested against it before 
 it was issued ; and Lord Mansfield, though not scrupulous to an extreme, 
 speaks of it with horror. It is remarkable enough that the very men who 
 advised the proclamation, and who hear it arraigned every day both withiu 
 doors and without, are not daring enough to utter one word in its defence, 
 nor have they ventured to take the least notice of Mr. Wilkes for discharging 
 the persons apprehended under it. JCNIUS. 
 
 i Lord Chatham very properly called this the <w* of a mob not of a senate 
 JUNIUS.
 
 PH1LO-JUNIUS IN EXPLANATION. 839 
 
 king of this country had lost all sense of personal honour, 
 and all concern for the welfare of his subjects, I confess, Sir, 
 I should be contented to renounce the forms of the constitu- 
 tion once more, if there were no other way to obtain substan- 
 tial justice for the people*. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XLV. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, May 1, 1771. 
 
 THEY who object to detached parts of Junius's last letter, 
 either do not mean him fairly, or have not considered the 
 general scope and course of his argument. There are degrees 
 in all the private vices. Why not in public prostitution ? 
 The influence of the crown naturally makes a septennial 
 parliament dependent. Does it follow that every House of 
 Commons will plunge t once into the lowest depths of prosti- 
 tution? Junius supposes that the present House of Com- 
 mons, in going such enormous lengths, have been imprudent 
 to themselves, as well as wicked to the public; that their 
 
 * When Mr. Wilkes was to be punished they made no scruple about the 
 privileges of parliament; and, although it was as well known as any matter of 
 public record and uninterrupted custom could be, that the members of either 
 house are privileged, except in case of treason, felony, or breach of peace, 
 they declared without hesitation that privilege of parliament did not extend 
 to the case of a seditious libel; and undoubtedly they would have done the 
 same if Mr. Wilkes had been prosecuted for any other misdemeanor what- 
 soever. The ministry are of a sudden grown wonderfully careful of pri- 
 vileges which their predecessors were as ready to invade. The known laws 
 of the land, the rights of the subject, the sanctity of charters, and the re- 
 erence due to our magistrates, must all give way, without question or 
 resistance, to a privilege of which no man knows either the origin or the 
 extent. The House of Commons judge of their own privileges without 
 appeal they may take offence at the most innocent action, and imprison the 
 person who offends them during their arbitrary will and pleasure. The 
 party has no remedy; he cannot appeal from their jurisdiction; and if he 
 questions the privilege which he is supposed to have violated, it becomes an 
 aggravation of his offence. Surely this doctrine is not to be found in Magna 
 Charta. If it be admitted without limitation, I affirm that there is neither 
 law nor liberty in this kingdom. We are the slaves of the House of Com- 
 mons, and through them, we are the slaves of the king and his ministers,
 
 340 LETTERS <F JUSICS. 
 
 example is not within the reach of emulation; and that, iu 
 the first session after the next election, some popular mea- 
 sures may probably be adopted. He does not expect that 
 a dissolution of parliament will destroy corruption, but that 
 at least it will be a check and terror to their successors, who 
 will have seen that, in flagrant cases, their constituents can 
 and will interpose with effect. After all, Sir, will you not 
 endeavour to remove or alleviate the most dangerous symp- 
 toms because you cannot eradicate the disease? Will you 
 not punish treason or parricide, because the sight of a gibbet 
 does not prevent highway robberies? When the main argu- 
 ment of Junius is admitted to be unanswerable, I think it 
 would become the minor critic who hunts for blemishes, to 
 be a little more distrustful of his own sagacity. The other 
 objection is hardly worth an answer. When Junius observes 
 that kings are ready enough to follow such advice, he does 
 not mean to insinuate that, if the advice of parliament were 
 good, the king would be so ready to follow it. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XLVT. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, May 22, 1771. 
 
 VERY early in the debate upon the decision of the Middlesex 
 election, it was well observed by Junius, that the House of 
 Commons had not only exceeded their boasted precedent of 
 the expulsion and subsequent incapacitation of Mr. Walpole, 
 but that they had not even adhered to it strictly as far as it 
 went. After convicting Mr. Dyson of giving a false quotation 
 from the journals*, and having explained the purpose which 
 that contemptible fraud was intended to answer, ne proceeds 
 to state the vote itself by which Mr. Walpole's supposed 
 incapacity was declared, viz., " Resolved, that Robert Wal- 
 pole, Esq., having been this session of parliament committed 
 a prisoner to the Tower, and expelled this House for a high 
 breach of trust in the execution of his office, and notorious 
 corruption when secretary at war, was, and is, iucupatle of 
 Letter 20, note, ante, p. 198.
 
 MB. WALFOLE'S CASH AND THF MIDDLESEX ELECTION. 341 
 
 being elected a member to serve in this present parliament: ' 
 and then observes, that, from the terms of the vote, we have 
 no right to annex the incapacitation to the expulsion only, for 
 that, as the proposition stands, it must arise equally from tho 
 expulsion and the commitment to the Tower. I believe, Sir, 
 no man, who knows anything of dialectics, or who under- 
 stands English, will dispute the truth and fairness of this 
 construction. But Junius has a great authority to support 
 him which, to speak with the Duke of Grafton, I accidental!) 
 met with this morning in the course of my reading. It con- 
 tains an admonition which cannot be repeated too often. 
 Lord Somers, in his excellent tract upon the rights of the 
 people, after reciting the vote of the convention of the '/28th 
 of January, 1689, viz., "That King James the Second, 
 having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of this king- 
 dom by breaking the original contract between king and 
 people, and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked per- 
 sons having violated the fundamental laws, and having 
 withdrawn himself out of this kingdom, hath abdicated the 
 government," &c., makes this observation upon it: "The 
 word abdicated relates to all the clauses aforegoing, as well 
 as to his deserting the kingdom, or else they would have 
 been wholly in vain." And, that there might be no pretence 
 for confining the abdication merely to the withdrawing, Lord 
 Somers farther observes, that King James, by refusing to 
 govern us according to that law by which he held the crown, 
 did implicitly renounce his title to it. 
 
 If Junius's construction of the vote against Mr. Walpole 
 be now admitted (and indeed I cannot comprehend how it 
 can honestly be disputed), the advocates of the House of 
 Commons must either give up their precedent entirely, or be 
 reduced to the necessity of maintaining one of the grossest 
 absurdities imaginable, viz., " That a commitment to the 
 Tower is a constituent part of, and contributes half at least, 
 to the incapacitation of the person who suffers it." 
 
 I need not make you any excuse for endeavouring to keep 
 alive the attention of the public to the decision of the Mid- 
 dlesex election. The more I consider it, the more I am 
 convinced that, as a fact, it is indeed highly injurious to the 
 rights of the people ; but that, as a precedent, it is one of 
 the most dangerous that ever was established against thoso 
 who ore to come after us. Yet I am so far a moderate man
 
 342 LETTERS OF JUN1US. 
 
 that 1 verily believe the majority of the House of Commons, 
 when they passed this dangerous vote, neither understood the 
 question, nor knew the consequence of what they were doing. 
 Their motives were rather despicable than criminal in the 
 extreme. One effect they certainly did not foresee. They 
 are now reduced to such a situation, that if a member of the 
 present House of Commons were to conduct himself ever so 
 improperly, and in reality deserve to be sent back to his con- 
 stituents with a mark of disgrace, they would not dare to 
 expel him ; because they know that the people, in order to 
 try again the great question of right, or to thwart an odious 
 House of Commons, would probably overlook his immediate 
 unworthiuess, and return the same person to parliament. 
 But in time the precedent will gain strength. A future 
 House of Commons will have no such apprehensions, conse- 
 quently will not scruple to follow a precedent which they did 
 not establish. The miser himself seldom lives to enjoy the 
 fruit of his extortion ; but his heir succeeds to him of course, 
 and takes possession without censure. No man expects him 
 to make restitution, and no matter for his title, he lives quietly 
 upon the estate. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 Mr. Wilkes having been again returned as one of the members for the 
 county of Middlesex, in the parliaments of 1774 and 1780, made various 
 fruitless efforts to get the decision of the House of Commons on this interest- 
 ing controversy erased from their journals, which he at length effected on the 
 dissolution of the administration of which Lord North had been at the head, 
 frfiu the time of the resignation of the Duke of Gtafton in the year 1770. 
 This occurred May 3, 1782. His address on this occasion, as a specimen of 
 the oratory of the groat popular leader of his time, and as his statement of 
 his case, is subjoined. The expulsion of Mr. Wilkes from the House oi 
 Commons, and its resolution declaring his ineligibility to sit in the House 
 after such expulsion, though returned by a majority of parliamentary electors, 
 form such prominent events, that it may be convenient to state the final issue 
 of the struggle. 
 
 Mr. Wilkes prefaced hiB motion in the following address to the House : 
 " MR. SPEAKER, 
 
 " I think myself peculiarly happy at the present moment, that I have the 
 honour of submitting to the House an important national question respecting 
 the rights of election, when the friends and favourites of the people enjoy, 
 with the smiles of our sovereign, the offices of trust and power in the state, 
 accompanied with that fair influence which is necessaiily created by great 
 ability, perfect integrity, the purest political virtue, and the remembrance of 
 their former upright conduct in the cause of the people. If the people ol
 
 MR. WILKES AND THE MINISTRY. 84'J 
 
 England, Sir, have at any period explicitly and fully declared an opinion on 
 a momentous constitutional question, it has been in regard to the Middlesex 
 election in 1768, and the subsequent most profligate proceedings of an admi- 
 ristration, hostile by system to the rights of this country, and every part of 
 tue British Empire. An instance cannot be found in our history of a more 
 general concurrence of sentiment among the freeholders of England, and 
 they were joined by almost every borough and corporation in the southern 
 part of the island. I am satisfied, therefore, that I now shall find the real 
 friends of the people determined and zealous in the support of their just 
 claims and undoubted privileges. 
 
 " Hitherto, Sir, every attempt for the recovery of this invaluable franchise 
 has been rendered fruitless by the arts and machinations of power in the 
 hands of wicked men ; and I may with truth assert, that the body of the 
 people long addressed, petitioned, and remonstrated with manly firmness and 
 perseverance, without the least effect or even impression. The full redress 
 demanded by this injured nation seems reserved to distinguish the present 
 propitious era of public liberty, among the early and blooming honours of an 
 administration which possesses the confidence, and daily conciliates the 
 affections, of a brave and sensible people. Their voice w;is never heard in a 
 more clear and distinct manner than on this point of the first magnitude for 
 all the electors of this kingdom ; and I trust will now be heard favourably. 
 The general resentment and indignation ran so high against the House o'. 
 Commons which committed the outrage, that their immediate dissolution 
 became the prayer of numberless petitions to the throne. No man scrupled 
 to declare them unworthy to exist in their political capacity. The public 
 pronounced them guilty of sacrificing and betraying the rights which they 
 were called upon, by every tie of justice and duty, to defend. The noble 
 spirit of the freeholders of Middlesex, persevering in the best of causes, un- 
 daunted by all the menaces of power, was the subject of the most general 
 applause and admiration. The voice of the people was then in the harsh 
 and sharp tone of passion and anger against ministers. It will, I am per- 
 suaded, soon be in the soft and pleasing accents of joy and thankfulness tc 
 our deliverers. 
 
 " It is scarcely possible, Sir, to state a question in which the people of this 
 free country are more materially interested than in the right ot election 
 for it is the share which they have reserved to themselves in the legislature 
 When it was wrested from them by violence, the constitution was torn up 
 by the roots. 
 
 " I have now the happiness of seeing the treasury bench filled with the 
 friends of the constitution, the guardians and lovers of liberty, who have 
 been unwearied and uniform in the defence of all our rights, and in particular 
 of this invaluable franchise. I hail the present auspicious moment, and with 
 impatience expect the completion of what I have long and fervently desired 
 for my friends and country, for the present age, and a free posterity. The 
 former conduct of those now in power affords me the most sanguine hopes of 
 this day seeing justice done to a people to whom they have so frequently 
 appealed, who now look up to them with ardent expectation, with pleasure 
 and esteem. Consistency, Sir, has drawn the right line of their political 
 conduct to this period. It will now point out the same path of public virtue 
 ind honour. May I be indulged in a hint, which I mean to extend much
 
 344 LETTERS OF JUNIUB. 
 
 beyond the business of the day, when I say that consistency will be attended 
 with that stability and perfect security which are the objects of every good 
 man's wishes for them ? They have given us a fair earnest of their rever- 
 ence for the constitution by their support of two bills essentially necessary 
 to restore the purity and independency of parliament; I mean the bill for 
 preventing contractors from sitting in the House of Commons, and the bill for 
 disabling officers of the revenue from, voting at elections." Mr. Wilkes wa 
 here interrupted with a message by Sir Francis Molyneaux, gentleman usher 
 of the black rod, desiring the immediate attendance of the House of Commons 
 in the House of Lords. The Speaker then went up to the House of Peers; 
 and after his return and report of what had passed, 
 
 Mr. Wilkes said : 
 " MR. SPEAKER, 
 
 " I return my thanks to the Had rod for so luckily interposing in favour 
 of this House, when I might possibly have again tired them with the im- 
 portant, however stale, case of the Middlesex election, which their patient 
 ear has for several years with much good nature suffered. I will now make 
 some return to their indulgence in profiting by the circumstance of this happj 
 interruption, and not saying a single word about Walpole or Wollaston, 
 Coke or Blackstone. I will not detain the House longer than by observing 
 the parliamentary form of desiring the clerk to read the resolution of the 
 17th of February, 1769." Which having been complied with, he then 
 moved " That the entry of the resolution of the 17th of February, 1769, 
 ' That John Wilkes, Esq., having been in this session of parliament expelled 
 this House, was, and is, incapable of being elected a member to serve in this 
 present parliament,' might be expunged from their journals, it being subver- 
 sive of the rights of the whole body of the electors of this kingdom." This 
 motion was (after some opposition from the late Mr. Fox, then Secretary of 
 State, and from the late Lord Melville, then Lord Advocate for Scotland, the 
 former of whom had strenuously supported the whole of the resolutions 
 passed by the House of Commons in respect of the Middlesex election) 
 carried on a division, by 185 to 47. Mr. Wilkes, as soon as this question was 
 disposed of, moved " That all the declarations, orders and resolutions of the 
 House respecting his election for the county of Middlesex as a void election, 
 the due and legal election of Mr. Luttrell into parliament for the said county, 
 and his own incapacity to be elected a member to serve in the said parlia- 
 ment, be expunged;" which motion was, for the reasons before given, carried 
 without a division. 
 
 Thus terminated one of the most severe, and on the part of the servants of 
 the crown, unconstitutional and impolitic contests, that ever agitated the people 
 of this country ; not leaving a rack behind to constitute, as our author empha- 
 tically terms it, " A precedent the most dangerous that ever was established 
 against those who are to come after us." As the merit of the erasure of 
 these obnoxious resolutions from the journals of the House of Commons is 
 solely due to the talents and perseverance of Mr. Wilkes, it will not be unfair 
 to defend his motives and pretensions as a patriot, from the detraction of 
 contemporary adversaries as well as from his more modern opponents. The 
 first political offence of which he appears to have been guilty, was the severity 
 with which he attacked the administration of Lord Bute, and which wa* 
 characterized as being denVent in ability, as it was odiously unconstitutional.
 
 MR. WTI.KES AND THE MINISTBT. 345 
 
 For this attack a general warrant was issued, his papers weie seized, and 
 himself committed a close prisoner to the Tower. He wad afterwards pro- 
 ecuted for the repvblication of the North Briton, No. 45, the vehicle of hi 
 political lucubrations, and for the " Essay on Woman," which had been su> 
 leptitiously stolen from him by a man of the name of Curry, employed in 
 printing it at his private press, at the instigation of, and under the promise of 
 ample reward and protection from, Philip Carteret Webb, the solicitor to the 
 treasury. Previous to the trial, Wilkes fled to France, where he remained for 
 some years ; in the mean time he had been found guilty in the King's Bench 
 of printing and publishing both libels; and not appearing in due time to re- 
 ceive the judgment of the court, he was outlawed. A short time previous to 
 the dissolution of parliament in the year 1768, he returned to this country, 
 and was elected member for the county of Middlesex. In the meanwhile, 
 he surrendered himself to the King's Bench, and having claimed the benefit 
 of certain errors in the writ of outlawry, the same were, after solemn argu- 
 ment, admitted by the court, and the outlawry was reversed. A few days 
 subsequent to this determination, the judgment of the court was pronounced 
 on him for publishing the libels; for the former he was sentenced to pay a fine 
 of 500/. to the king, and to be imprisoned ten months ; and for the latter, he 
 was fined in the like sum, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment ; 
 and was further ordered to find security for his good behaviour for seven 
 years, himself in 1000J. and two sureties in 5001. each. His expulsion from 
 the House of Commons, and the consequences of it, are the subject of several 
 of the letters of these volumes, as well as of the notes which have been 
 added to them. Not long previous to his release from prison, he was elected 
 alderman of Farringdon Without; shortly afterwards one of the sheriffs of 
 London, and in due course Lord Mayor; and on the death of Mr. Hopkins, 
 chamberlain. At a subsequent period of Mr. Wilkes's life, when the vio- 
 lence of the politics which had raised him to these several respectable situa- 
 tions had altogether subsided, he was attacked more than once, on the annual 
 election of chamberlain, and other city offices, with a demand of the previous 
 resignation of his gown as an alderman of London, which he always most 
 resolutely refused, declaring that no consideration on earth should induce him 
 to forego the honour which he felt had been conferred upon him by his 
 election to the magistracy of the City of London, and by which determina- 
 tion he ran considerable risk of losing his election to the former lucrative 
 situation ; an instance of disinterestedness not often to be met with in thog* 
 who most confidently lay claim to patriotism, which certainly places his cha- 
 racter in a higher point of view than many have been willing to allow to it : 
 and in so far as the motives which actuated his political conduct can be 
 called in question, adds to the value of the obligations conferred upon the 
 public by his able and successful opposition to general warrants ; by the aid 
 and assistance afforded the printers in resisting the violence of their repre- 
 sentatives on the subject of reporting the debates in parliament; and by his 
 perseverance in vindicating the rights of the electors of Great Britain in pro- 
 curing the erasure from the journals of the House of Commons of their 
 most unconstitutional determination, on the much-agitated question of the 
 Middlesex election. With respect to the private character of Mr. Wilkes in 
 early life, the writer of this note will not venture to make any defence, 
 though he trusts to IB excused if he quotes the npology which was made foi
 
 346 LETTERS OF JUN1US. 
 
 him by a friend in the year 1769. " As to his private foibles, I shall cnly 
 add that he may apply what a very eccentric genius of this age has said oi 
 himself : my own passions, and the passions and interests of other people 
 still more, have led me aside. I launched into the deep before I had loaded 
 ballast enough. If the ship did not sink, the cargo was thrown overboard. 
 The storm itself threw me into port." Mr. Wilkes, after he lost his election 
 for the county of Middlesex in the year 1790, lived in considerable retire- 
 ment, and much respected. His literary attainments were of the higher 
 order, and, as a political controversialist, few men were equal to him. Not 
 many years before his death, he was applied to by the late Mr. H. S. Woodfall 
 to write some explanatory notes for a new edition of these letters, which by 
 Borne have been erroneously attributed to his pen, but declined it on the 
 ground, as he stated, of not wishing to pay a second visit to the prison of the 
 King's Bench. Mr. Wilkes died December 26, 1797, in the 71st year of 
 
 LETTER XLVII. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, May 25, 1771. 
 
 I CONFESS my partiality to Junius, and feel a considerable 
 pleasure in being able to communicate anything to the public 
 in support of his opinions. The doctrine laid down in his 
 last letter concerning the power of the House of Commons 
 to commit for contempt is not so new as it appeared to many 
 people who, dazzled with the name of privilege, had never 
 suffered themselves to examine the question fairly. In the course 
 of my reading this morning I met with the following passage in 
 the journals of the House of Commons (vol. i., p. 603). Upon 
 occasion of a jurisdiction unlawfully assumed by the House, in 
 the year 1621, Mr. Attorney-General Noye gave his opinion 
 as follows: "No doubt but, in some cases, this House may 
 give judgment, in matters of returns, and concerning members 
 of our House, or falling out in our view in parliament; but, 
 for foreign matters, knoweth not how we can judge it ; knowetk 
 not that we have been used to give judgment in any case but 
 those before mentioned." 
 
 Sir Edward Coke, upon the same subject, says (page 604), 
 44 No question but this is a house of record, and that it hath 
 power of judicature in some cases have power to judge ol 
 returns and membei's of our House ; one, no member offending
 
 CONTRADICTORY RESOLUTIONS OF PARLIAMENT 347 
 
 nut of the parliament, when he came hither and justified it, 
 was censured for it." 
 
 Now, Sir, if you will compare the opinion of these great 
 sages of the law with Junius's doctrine, you will find they tally 
 exactly. He allows the power of the House to commit their 
 own members (which, however, they may grossly abuse) ; he 
 allows their power in cases where they are acting as a court 
 of judicature, viz., elections, returns, &c. ; and he allows it 
 in such contempts as immediately interrupt their proceedings, 
 or, as Mr. Noye expresses it, Jailing out in their view in par- 
 liament. 
 
 They who would carry the privileges of parliament farther 
 than Junius, either do not mean well to the public, or know 
 not what they are doing. The government of England is a 
 government of law. We betray ourselves, we contradict the 
 spirit of our laws, and we shake the whole system of English 
 jurisprudence, whenever we intrust a discretionary power over 
 the life, liberty, or fortune of the subject, to any man or set of 
 men whatsoever, upon a presumption that it will not be 
 abused. 
 
 PHILO-JUNirS. 
 
 LETTER XL VIII *. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIB, May 28, 1771. 
 
 ANY man who takes the trouble of perusing the journals of 
 the House of Commons will soon be convinced that very little 
 if any regard at all ought to be paid to the resolutions of 
 one branch of the legislature declaratory of the law of the 
 land, or even what they call the law of parliament. It will 
 appear that these resolutions have no one of the properties by 
 which, in this country particularly, law is distinguished from 
 
 * Junius, since his last letter, had discovered, by more diligent search, in the 
 records of the House of Commons, an instance in which that House carried 
 its claim of privileges considerably beyond what the present parliament re- 
 garded as just. The parliament in which such extravagance of privilege 
 was arrogated, had, by the violence of their proceedings, obliged Queen Anne 
 to prorogue, and then dissolve them. He hastened to lay before the public 
 these facts, from which his own inference was, that the law of parliament was
 
 348 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 mere will and pleasure, : but that, on the contrary, they beai 
 every mark of a power arbitrarily assumed and capriciously 
 applied ; that they are usually made in times of contest, and 
 to serve some unworthy purpose of passion or party ; that the 
 law is seldom declared until after the fact by which it is sup- 
 posed to be violated; that legislation and jurisdiction are 
 united in the same persons, and exercised at the same mo- 
 ment ; and that a court from which there is no appeal assumes 
 an original jurisdiction in a criminal case ; in short, Sir, to 
 collect a thousand absurdities into one mass, " we have a law 
 which cannot be known because it is ex post facto, the party 
 is both legislator and judge, and the jurisdiction is without 
 appeal." Well might the judges say, the law of parliament is 
 above us. 
 
 You will not wonder, Sir, that with these qualifications the 
 declai'atory resolutions of the House of Commons should 
 appear to be in perpetual contradiction, not only to common 
 sense and to the laws we are acquainted with (and which alone 
 we can obey), but even to one another. I was led to trouble 
 you with these observations by a passage which, to speak in 
 lutestring, I met with this morning in the course of my reading, 
 and upon which I mean to put a question to the advocates for 
 privilege : on the 8th of March, 1704 (vide Journals, vol. xiv., 
 p. 565), the House thought proper to come to the following 
 resolutions : 1, " That no commoner of England committed 
 by the House of Commons for breach of privilege, or contempt 
 of that House, ought to be, by any writ of Habeas Corpus, 
 made to appear in any other place, or before any other judi- 
 cature, during that session of parliament wherein such person 
 was so committed." 
 
 altogether unsettled, and it may be added, so continues ; but that it was 
 Usual for the sovereign to dissolve his parliament when their own refractory 
 conduct, or the general wishes of the people, strongly recommended such a 
 measure. 
 
 In the first paragraph of this letter, Juuius skilfully discriminates between 
 a resolution of the House of Commons, and an act of the whole legislature. He 
 then states from the journals for the year 1704 the great fact for the pur- 
 pose of proclaiming which this letter was written. An application of this 
 fact to the support of his own former doctrine concerning the law of parlia- 
 ment, fills the next paragraph. In the closing sentences, he employs, with 
 triumph, the inference which he had deduced to expose to still stronger ridi- 
 cule and more abhorrent odium, that act of authority by which the House o! 
 Commons had sect Crosby and Oliver to the Tower. Ei>.
 
 CONTRADICTORY RESOLUTIONS OF PARLIAMENT. 349 
 
 2. " That the serjeant-at-arms attending this House do make 
 no return of, or yield any obedience to, the said writs of 
 Habeas Corpus, and for such his refusal, that he have the 
 protection of the House of Commons."* 
 
 Wei bore Ellis, what say you ? Is this the law of parliament, 
 or is it not? I am a plain man, Sir, and cannot follow you 
 through the phlegmatic forms of an oration. Speak out, 
 Grildrig f, say yes or no ! If you say yes, I shall then enquire 
 by what authority Mr. De Grey, the honest Lord Mansfield, 
 and the barons of the exchequer, dared to grant a writ of 
 Habeas Corpus for bringing the bodies of the lord mayor and 
 Mr. Oliver before them, and why the lieutenant of the Tower 
 made any return to a writ which the House of Commons had, 
 in a similar instance, declared to be unlawful. If you say no, 
 take care you do not at once give up the cause in support of 
 which you have so long and so laboriously tortured your un- 
 derstanding. Take care you do not confess that there is no 
 test by which we can distinguish, no evidence by which we can 
 determine, what is and what is not the law of parliament. 
 The resolutions I have quoted stand upon your journals un- 
 controverted and unrepealed ; they contain a declaration of 
 the law of parliament, by a court competent to the question, 
 and whose decision, as you and Lord Mansfield say, must be 
 law, because there is no appeal from it ; and they were made 
 not hastily, but after long deliberation upon a constitutional 
 question. What farther sanction or solemnity will you annex 
 to any resolution of the present House of Commons beyond 
 what appears upon the face of those tow resolutions, the 
 legality of which you now deny ? If you say that parliaments 
 
 * If there be in reality any such law in England as the law of parlia- 
 ment, which (under the exceptions stated in my letter on privilege), I confess, 
 after long deliberation, I very much doubt, it certainly is not constituted by, 
 nor can it be collected from, the resolutions of either House, vtheiher enacting 
 or declaratory. I desire the reader will compare the above resolution of the 
 year 1704, with the following of the 3rd of April, 1628. "Resolved, That 
 the writ of Habeas Corpus cannot be denied, but ought to be granted to 
 tvery man that is committed or detained in prison, or otherwise restrained 
 by the command of the king, the privy council, or any otlier, he praying the 
 same." JuNiua 
 
 t The diminutive stature of Mr. Welbore Ellis, afterwards Lord Mendip, 
 hence in another place called, by our author, little mannikin Ellis, has been 
 already roticed. The term Grildria; preserves the same idea, this being th 
 name bestowed on Gulliver by the gigantic inhabitants of Brobdignag.
 
 350 LETTERS OF JUNIU8. 
 
 ore not infallible, and that Queen Anne, in consequence of the 
 violent proceedings of that House of Commons, was obliged to 
 prorogue and dissolve them, I shall agree with you very 
 heartily, and think that the precedent ought to be followed 
 immediately. But you, Mr. Ellis, who hold this language, 
 are inconsistent with your own principles. You have hitherto 
 maintained that the House of Commons are the sole judges 
 of their own privileges, and that their declaration does, ipso 
 facto, constitute the law of parliament ; yet now you confess 
 that parliaments are fallible, and that their resolutions may be 
 illegal, consequently that their resolutions do not constitute 
 the law of parliament. When the king was urged to dissolve 
 the present parliament, you advised him to tell his subjects 
 that he was careful not to assume any of those powers which the 
 constitution had placed in other hands, &c. Yet Queen Anne, 
 it seems, was justified in exerting her prerogative to stop a 
 House of Commons whose proceedings, compared with those 
 of the assembly of which you are a most worth}' member, were 
 the perfection of justice and reason. 
 
 In what a labyrinth of nonsense does a man involve himself 
 who labours to maintain falsehood by argument ! How much 
 better would it become the dignity of the House of Commons 
 to speak plainly to the people, and tell us at once that their 
 will must be obeyed, not because it is lauful and reasonable, 
 but because it is their will ! Their constituents would have a 
 better opinion of their candour, and, I promise you, not a 
 worse opinion of their integrity. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER XLIX*. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 
 
 MY LORD, June 22, 1771. 
 
 THE profound respect I bear to the gracious prince who governs 
 this country with no less honour to himself than satisfaction 
 
 * The death of George Grenville, the indiscreet violence of the livery ol 
 London, with the mingled firmness and moderation of the government, had, 
 lince the commencement of the session of parliament for 1770 71, given new 
 to the administration which Junius opposed. Persons who, a few
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 851 
 
 to his subjects, and who restores you to your rank under his 
 standard, will save you from a multitude of reproaches. The 
 attention I should have paid to your failings is involuntarily 
 attracted to the hand that rewards them ; and though I am 
 not so partial to the royal judgment as to affirm that the favour 
 of a king can remove mountains of infamy, it serves to lessen 
 at least, for undoubtedly it divides, the burden. While I 
 remember how much is due to his sacred character, I cannot, 
 with any decent appearance of propriety, call you the meanest 
 and the basest fellow in the kingdom. I protest, my Lord, I 
 do not think you so. You will have a dangerous rival in that 
 
 months before, had shown an inclination to abandon the ministry, now 
 returned to proffer their aid, and to court its alliance. Nor were their 
 offers hastily slighted. The opposition were still numerous, powerful, and 
 active ; and no means were to be neglected likely to fortify the government 
 against their attacks. 
 
 In this state of things, the Duke of Grafton, who had almost withdrawn 
 from the administration, renewed his connection with it, and obtained new 
 proofs of royal favour. He was appointed, on the 12th of June, 1771, lord 
 keeper of the privy seal, instead of Lord Suffolk, who succeeded the Earl of 
 Halifax, as secretary of state for the northern department. On the 14th day 
 of the same month, he was appointed in succession to the Earl of Halifax, 
 ranger and warden, of Salcey Park, in Northamptonshire. Thus gratified 
 with honours and emoluments, yet not placed in a situation of dangerous 
 responsibility, he was more closely than ever attached to the king and his 
 ministry. Junius appeared to have menaced and inveighed in vain. He felt 
 himself insulted by this new hardihood of the duke. He was enraged 
 equally, that the duke should dare to accept ministerial appointment, and 
 that the king should presume to employ and reward him. He determined to 
 resume his strain of invective against the faithless friend of Wilkes, the 
 deserter of Chatham, and not to spare even Majesty itself ; since it was 
 probable that, however outrageous, he might still find protection for his 
 printers in the favour of a London jury. 
 
 At the outset he aims his invective more against the king himself than 
 against his minister. He then ingenuously hints that the loudest outcry of 
 some of the patriots had been but hollow pretence. He indignantly enume- 
 rates those acts of imputed perfidy, by which alone, as he would insinuate, 
 the Duke of Grafton had gained his sovereign's cordial favour. He involves, 
 in the current of his outpouring, various other names ; exhausts his present 
 stores of satirical eloquence, and menaces new terrors, in a tone somewhat 
 between the bullying of weakness, and the haughty threat of conscious 
 power. 
 
 This letter, according to his own estimate, and with reason, appears to 
 have been considered one of his greatest efforts. In a private note (No. 
 6) he says, " I am strangely partial to the inclosed. It is finished with 
 the utmost care. If I find myself mistaken in my judgment of tlus paper, 
 I poaiiively will never write again." ED.
 
 352 LETTERS OF J OKI UH 
 
 kind of fame to which you have hitherto so hippily directed 
 your ambition, as long as there is one man living who thinks 
 you worthy of his confidence, and fit to be trusted with any 
 share in his government. I confess you have great intrinsic 
 merit, but take care you do not value it too highly ; consider 
 how much of it would have been lost to the world, if the king 
 had not graciously affixed his stamp, and given it currency 
 among his subjects. If it be true that a virtuous man, 
 struggling with adversity, be a scene worthy of the gods, the 
 glorious contention between you and the best of princes 
 deserves a circle equally attentive and respectable ; I think I 
 already see other gods rising from the earth to behold it. 
 
 But this language is too mild for the occasion. The king 
 is determined that our abilities shall not be lost to society. 
 The perpetration and description of new crimes will find em- 
 ployment for us both. My Lord, if the persons who have 
 been loudest in their professions of patriotism had done thein 
 duty to the public with the same zeal and perseverance thai 
 I did, I will not assert that government would have recovered 
 its dignity, but at least our gracious sovereign must have 
 spared his subjects this last insult*, which, if there be any 
 feeling left among us, they will resent more thati even the real 
 injuries they received from every measure of your Grace's 
 administration. In vain would he have looked round him for 
 another character so consummate as yours. Lord Mansfield 
 shrinks from his principles f, his ideas of government perhapa 
 go farther than your own, but his heart disgraces the theory 
 of his understanding. Charles Fox { is yet in blossom ; and 
 as for Mr. Wedderburne, there is something about him which 
 
 * The duke was lately appointed lord privy geal. JtrNius. He succeeded 
 Lord Suffolk, who had just taken possession of the post of the northern de- 
 partment upon the death of the Earl of Halifax. E. 
 
 f Alluding to Lord Mansfield's call of the House upon the subject of the 
 opinion of the judges, in consequence of the verdict of the jury upon Wood- 
 fall's trial, which embraced the question whether juries were judges of the 
 fact alone, or of both the fact and law. An important motion was expected, 
 but his Lordship, as Junius states it, shrunk from the principles he had ad- 
 vanced, and merely informed the House that he had left a paper with their 
 clerk, containing the unanimous judgment of the Court of King's Bench upon 
 the verdict in question, and the doctrine it necessarily embraced, and that 
 their Lordships were welcome to copies of it if they chose. 
 
 J Afterwards the celebrated leader of the Whigs, though then a member of 
 Tory administration, as a lord of the admiralty. ED.
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GBAFTON. 858 
 
 even treachery cannot trust ; for the present, theisfore, the 
 best of princes must have contented himself with Lord Sand- 
 wich. You would long since have received your final dismis- 
 sion and reward ; and I, my Lord, who do not esteem you the 
 more for the high office you possess, would willingly have fol- 
 lowed you to your retirement. There is surely something 
 singularly benevolent in the character of our sovereign. From 
 the moment he ascended the throne there is no crime of 
 which human nature is capahle (and I call upon the recorder* 
 to witness it), that has not appeared venial in his sightf. 
 With any other prince, the shameful desertion of him in the 
 midst of that distress, which you alone had created, in the 
 very crisis of danger, when he fancied he saw the throne 
 already surrounded by men of virtue and abilities, would have 
 outweighed the memory of your former services. But his 
 Majesty is full of justice, and understands the doctrine of 
 compensations ; he remembers with gratitude how soon you 
 had accommodated your morals to the necessities of his ser- 
 vice ; how cheerfully you had abandoned the engagements of 
 private friendship, and renounced the most solemn professions 
 to the public. The sacrifice of Lord Chatham was not lost 
 upon him. Even the cowardice and perfidy of deserting him 
 may have done you no disservice in his esteem The instance 
 was painful, but the principle might please. 
 
 You did not neglect the magistrate while you flattered the 
 man. The expulsion of Mr. Wilkes, predetermined in the 
 cabinet ; the power of depriving the subject of his birthright, 
 attributed to a resolution of one branch of the legislature ; the 
 constitution impudently invaded by the House of Commons ; 
 the right of defending it treacherously renounced by the House 
 of Lords : these are the strokes, my Lord, which, in the present 
 reign, recommend to office and constitute a minister. They 
 would have determined your sovereign's judgment if they had 
 made no impression upon his heart. We need not look for 
 any other species of merit to account for his taking the earliest 
 opportunity to recall you to his councils ; yet you have other 
 merit in abundance. Mr. Hine, the Duke of Portland, and 
 
 * The late Chief Justice Eyre was. at this time, recorder of London. ED. 
 f The author here more particularly alludes to the pardon of M'Quirh 
 nd the Kennedys. See Letter 8. 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 354 LETTERS OF JUNIU*. 
 
 Mr. Yorke, breach of trust, robbery, and murder*. 5Toa 
 would think it a compliment to your gallantry if I added rape 
 to the catalogue, but the style of your amours secures you from 
 resistance. I know how well these several charges have beeu 
 defended. In the first instance, the breach of trust is sup- 
 posed to have been its own reward. Mr. Bradshaw affirms upon 
 his honour (and so may the gift of smiling never depart from 
 him!) that you reserved no part of Mr. Mine's purchase- 
 money for your own use, but that every shilling of it was 
 scrupulously paid to Governor Burgoyne. Make haste, my 
 Lord, another patent, applied in time, may keep the OAKS f in 
 the family ; if not, Birnham Wood, I fear, must come to the 
 macaroni \. 
 
 The Duke of Portland was in life your earliest friend. In 
 defence of his property he had nothing to plead but equity 
 against Sir James Lo wther, and prescription against the crown . 
 You felt for your friend, but the law must take its course. 
 Posterity will scarce believe that Lord Bute's son-in-law had 
 barely interest enough at the Treasury to get his grant com- 
 pleted before the general election ||. 
 
 Enough has been said of that detestable transaction, which 
 ended in the death of Mr. Yorke. I cannot speak of it with- 
 out horror and compassion. To excuse yourself, you publicly 
 impeach your accomplice, and to his mind, perhaps, the acca- 
 sation may be flattery ; but in murder you are both principals. 
 It was once a question of emulation, and if the event had not 
 disappointed the immediate schemes of the closet, it might 
 
 * These points have all been elucidated ; they relate to Iline's patent 
 place ; Inglewood Forest, &c., in Cumberland, granted to Sir James Lowther 
 by the crown, although it had been in possession of the Duke of Portland's 
 family for seventy years ; and the suicide of Charles Yorke, the lord chan- 
 cellor, who cut his throat from political chagrin, immediately after his 
 appointment. 
 
 f A superb villa of Colonel Burgoyne, about this time advertised for 
 gale. 
 
 The person alluded to is the father of the late Mr. Christie, who was the 
 auctioneer employed to sell the estate. 
 
 Sir James Lowther was son-in-law to Lord Bute by the marriage of one 
 of his daughters. 
 
 |j It will appear by a pubsequent letter, that the duke's precipitation 
 
 E roved fatal to the grant. It looks like the hurry and confusion of a young 
 ighwayman, who takes a few shillings, but leaves the purse and watch 
 behind him. And yet the duke was an old offender. JUNICS.
 
 DDKE OF GRAFTONS ATTACHMENTS. 355 
 
 stiil have been a hopeful subject of jest and merriment between 
 j*ou 
 
 This letter, my Lord, is only a preface to my future corres- 
 pondence; the remainder of the summer shall be dedicated to 
 your amusement. I mean now and then to relieve the severity 
 of your morning studies, and to prepare you for the business 
 of the day. Without pretending to more than Mi . Bradshaw's 
 sincerity, you may rely upon my attachment as long as you 
 are in office. 
 
 Will your Grace forgive me if I venture to express some 
 anxiety for a man whom I know you do not love ? My Lord 
 Weymouth has cowardice to plead, and a desertion of a later 
 date than your own. You know the privy seal was intended 
 for him ; and if you consider the dignity of the post he 
 deserted, you will hardly think it decent to quarter him on 
 Mr. Rigby. Yet he must have bread, my Lord ; or rather he 
 must have wine *. If yon deny him the cup, there will be no 
 keeping him within the pale of the ministry. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER L. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OK GRAFTON 
 
 City business is the burthen of this letter. Junius connects it with the 
 Duke of Grafton's name, solely for the sake of holding out his Grace, as much 
 BS possible, to public odium and obloquy. It relates that the secretary to the 
 treasury under Lord North was as busy in dishonourable practices as Mr. 
 Bradshaw, the secretary under the Duke of Grafton, had been. It insults 
 
 * Lord Weymouth, upon deserting the ministry, was succeeded in the 
 foreign department by the Earl of Rochford. The former nobleman re- 
 signed Dec. 10, 1770, and the Duke of Grafton on the preceding 28th 
 of January. Lord Weymouth's attachment to the bottle furnishes the 
 ground for the imagery with which the letter concludes. White's, in St. 
 James's Street, was his favourite house, and his boon companions were the 
 Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Gower, Lord Thurlow, Mr. Rigby, and Mr. 
 Gamier. He loved play but not deep. Although a bon vivant, he kept 
 faithfully the secrets of the closet, which gained him the esteem of the king, 
 who honoured him with the garter, and made him a marquis without the 
 wcomonndution of any minister. E. 
 
 A A a
 
 356 LETTERS CF JUNTOS. 
 
 over the death of Mr. Dingley, and brings into quaint comparison T.-ith hii 
 fate and his relations to the duke, the name and character of the sovereign ; 
 lastly Mi Home is assailed, and accused of wavering, if not the desertion 
 f his former friends and principles. It is not one of Junius's best letters, 
 yet it is not without some admirable strokes of genius and Indignation. ED. 
 
 MY LORD, July 9, 1771. 
 
 THE influence of your Grace's fortune still seems to preside 
 over the treasury; the genius of Mr. Bradshaw inspires Mr. 
 Robinson*. How remarkable it is (and I speak it not as a 
 matter of reproach, but as something peculiar to your charac- 
 ter), that you have never yet formed a friendship which has 
 not been fatal to the object of it. n^v adopted a cause to which, 
 one way or other, you have not done mischief. Your attach- 
 ment is infamy while it lasts, and whichever way it turns, 
 leaves ruin and disgrace behind it. The deluded girl who 
 yields to such a profligate, even while he is constant, forfeits 
 her reputation as well as her innocence, and finds herself 
 abandoned at last to misery and shame. Thus it happened 
 with the best of princes. Poor Dingley, too f ! I protest I 
 hardly know which of them we ought most to lament, the un- 
 happy man who sinks under the sense of his dishonour, or 
 him who survives it ; characters so finished are placed beyond 
 the reach of panegyric. Death has fixed his seal upon Ding- 
 ley ; and you, my Lord, have set your mark upon the other. 
 
 The only letter I ever addressed to the king was so unkindly 
 received that I believe I shall never presume to trouble his 
 Majesty in that way again ; but my zeal forhis service is superior 
 to neglect, and, like Mr. Wilkes's patriotism, thrives by perse 
 fcution. Yet his Majesty is much addicted to useful reading, 
 end, if I am not ill informed, has honoured the Public Adver- 
 
 * By an intercepted letter from the secretary of the treasury, it appeared, 
 that the friends of government were to be very active in supporting the minis- 
 terial nomination of sheriffs JCNIUS. 
 
 Robinson was now secretary of the treasury, and filled the same post of 
 confidential agent to Lcrd North that Bradshaw had before filled to the Duke 
 of Grafton. 
 
 + Dingley was now just dead : and our author insinuates that he died 
 of a broken heart in consequence of having been so contemptuously treated at 
 the preceding election for Middlesex, in which he had offered himself a can- 
 diJate at the request of the Duke of Grafton, but could not obtain a 
 nomination from any one freeholder, and was afraid even to nominate 
 himself!
 
 ATTACKS THE EEV. MR. HORNE. 357 
 
 tisei with particular attention. I have endeavoured, th.3ref.ore, 
 and not without success (as perhaps you may remember), tc 
 furnish it with such interesting and edifying intelligence as 
 probably would not reach him through any other channel 
 The services you have done the nation, your integrity in 
 office, and signal fidelity to your approved good master, have 
 been faithfully recorded. Nor have his own virtues been 
 entirely neglected. These letters, my Lord, are read in other 
 countries and in other languages ; and I think I may affirm, 
 without vanity, that the gracious character of the best of 
 princes is by this time not only perfectly known to his sub- 
 jects, but tolerably well understood by the rest of Europe. 
 In this respect, alone, I have the advantage of Mr. White- 
 head*. His plan, I think, is too narrow. He seems to 
 manufacture his verses for the sole use of the hero who is 
 supposed to be the subject of them ; and, that his meaning 
 may not he exported in foreign bottoms, sets all translation 
 at defiance. ... 
 
 Your Grace's re-appointment to a seat in the cabinet was 
 announced to the public by the ominous return of Lord Bute 
 to this counntry -J-. When that noxious planet approaches 
 England, he never fails to bring plague and pestilence along 
 with him. The king already feels the malignant effect of 
 your influence over his councils ; your former administration 
 made Mr. Wilkes an alderman of London and representative 
 of Middlesex ; your next appearance in office is marked with 
 his election to the shrievalty ; in whatever measure you are 
 concerned, you are not only disappointed of success, but always 
 contrive to make the government of the best of princes 
 contemptible in his own eyes and ridiculous to the whole 
 world. Making all due allowance for the effect of the minis- 
 ter's declared interposition, Mr. Robinson's activity}, and Mr 
 
 * Poet-laureate of the day. 
 
 f From the continent, over a part of which he had been for some time 
 travelling. 
 
 J Junius was charged by the writers of the day, as well as by a more 
 recent opponent, with having " debased his pretensions to greatness by 
 engaging unsuccessfully in city politics." He, however, does not appear ta 
 have been the only unsuccessful politician who had plunged into the mire ol 
 London politics, as the following letter from that celebrated character, Jack 
 Rrbinson, written during the election of sheriffs of London, will evince : 
 
 ' Mr. HubinsoL presents his compliments to Mr. Smith. Sit.
 
 858 LETTERS OF JTJN1US. 
 
 Home's new zeal in support of administration*, we stil! 
 want the genius of the Duke of Grafton to account for com- 
 mitting the whole interest of government in the city to the 
 conduct of Mr. Harley. I will not bear hard upon your faith- 
 ful friend and emissary, Mr. Touchet, for I know the difficulties 
 of his situation, and that a few lottery tickets are of use to 
 his economy. There is a proverb concerning persons in the 
 predicament of this gentleman, which, however, cannot be 
 strictly applied to him : they commence dupes and finish knaves. 
 
 meets his ward publicly to day, to support Aldermen Plumbe and Kirkman. 
 The friends of government will be very active, and it is earnestly de- 
 ired that you will exert yourself to the utmost of your power to support 
 those aldermen. It is thought it will be very advantageous to push the 
 poll to day with as many friends as possible, therefore it is desired that 
 you will pursue that conduct. Mr. Harley will be early in the city to- 
 day, and to be heard of at his counting-house in Bridge Yard, Bucklersbury, 
 and if you, or such person as you intrust in this matter, could see him to con- 
 sult thereon, it might be beneficial to the cause. 
 
 " Tuesday Morning, 25th of June, 1771, six o'clock. 
 
 J. Robinson." 
 
 " To Beiij. Smith, Esq." 
 
 This letter, intended for Mr. Benjamin Smith, the partner of Mr. Alder- 
 man Nash, of Cannon Street, was, through the mistake of ths messenger, 
 delivered to Mr. Smith of Budge Row, who published it, together with 
 an affidavit as to its verity, which had such an effect on the election, that 
 Mr. Bull, who at the time was fourth on the poll, was ultimately returned as 
 one of the sheriffs of London, in conjunction with Mr. Wilkes, another of the 
 candidates for that important office. 
 
 * Mr. Home (the celebrated Horne Tooke of a later period), had long 
 zealously fought on the side of the staunchest Whigs, and was an active mem- 
 ber of the society for the support of the Bill of Rights which had just dis- 
 charged \Vilkes's debts. Alderman Oliver, who had also been as zealous an 
 advocate on the same side, and had suffered himself to be committed with 
 the lord mayor to the Tower, in support of his principles, for some reason 
 or other became at this time jealous of the popularity of Wilkes, affected 
 to rival him, and refused to serve in the office of sheriff if Wilkes were 
 allowed to be his colleague. Horne joined with Townshend, and the 
 society for the support of the Bill of Rights became divided into two 
 grand parties. 
 
 Wilkes united with Alderman Bull in proposing himself for the shrievalty, 
 and in the contest that ensued between them with Oliver Kirkman, and 
 IMumbe, obtained a large majority both for himself and his colleague, 
 leaving Oliver, though supported by all the efforts of Horne, the lowest on 
 the poll. 
 
 It was in consequence of the conduct thus pursued by Horne, and which 
 was fatal to the popular cause, that Junius chose to represent him as bribed 
 by the ministry.
 
 ATTACKS THE REV. MB. HORNE. 353 
 
 Now, Mr. Touchet's character is uniform I am convinced 
 that his sentiments never depended upon his circumstances, 
 and that, in the most prosperous state of his fortune, he was 
 always the very man he is at present ; but was there no other 
 person of rank and consequence in the city whom government 
 could confide in but a notorious Jacobite ? Did you imagine 
 that the whole body of the dissenters*, that the whole Whig 
 interest of London would attend at a levee, and submit to the 
 directions of a notorious Jacobite ? Was there no Whig 
 magistrate in the city to whom the servants of George the 
 Third could intrust the management of a business so very 
 interesting to their master as the election of sheriffs ? Is there 
 no room at St. James's but for Scotchmen and Jacobites ? 
 My Lord, I do not mean to question the sincerity of Mr. 
 Harley's attachment to his Majesty's government. Since the 
 commencement of the present reign I have seen still greater 
 contradictions reconciled. The principles of these worthy 
 Jacobites are not so absurd as they have been represented ; 
 their ideas of divine right are not so much annexed to the 
 person or family as to the political character of the sovereign. 
 Had there ever been an honest man among the Stuarts, his 
 Majesty's present friends would have been Whigs upon prin- 
 ciple. But the conversion of the best of princes has removed 
 their scruples. They have forgiven him the sins of his 
 Hanoverian ancestors, and acknowledge the hand of Providence 
 in the descent of the crown upon the head of a true Stuart. 
 In you, my Lord, they also behold, with a kind of predilection 
 which borders upon loyalty, the natural representative of that 
 illustrious family. The mode of your descent from Charles 
 the Second is only a bar to your pretensions to the crown, and 
 no way interrupts the regularity of your succession to all the 
 virtues of the Stuarts. 
 
 The unfortunate success of the Rev. Mr. Home's endea- 
 vours in support of the ministerial nomination of sheriffs, 
 will, I fear, obstruct his preferment. Permit me to recom- 
 mend him to your Grace's protection ; you will find him 
 copiously gifted with those qualities of the heart which usually 
 direct you in the choice of your friendships. He, too, was 
 
 * The family of the Harleys were originally dissenters, and the allusion is 
 to this feet.
 
 360 LETTERS OF OUNIUS 
 
 Mr Wilkes's friend, and as incapable as you are of the liberaJ 
 resentment of a gentleman. No, my Lord, it was the solitary, 
 vindictive malice of a monk, brooding over the infirmities of 
 his friend, until he thought they quickened into public life, 
 and feasting with a rancorous rapture upon the sordid cata- 
 logue of his distresses *. Now let him go back to his cloister, 
 -the church ia a proper retreat for him ; in his principles 
 he is already a bishop. 
 
 The mention of this man has moved me from my natural 
 moderation. Let me return to your Grace. You are the 
 pillow upon which I am determined to rest all my resentments. 
 What idea can the best of sovereigns form to himself of his 
 own government ? In what repute can he conceive that he 
 stands with his people, when he sees, beyond the possibility 
 of a doubt, that, whatever be the office, the suspicion of his 
 favour is fatal to the candidate, and that when the party he 
 wishes well to has the fairest prospect of success, if his royal 
 inclination should unfortunately be discovered, it drops like 
 an acid, and turns the election. This event, among others, 
 may perhaps contribute to open his Majesty's eyes to his real 
 honour and interest. In spite of all your Grace's ingenuity, 
 he may at last perceive the inconvenience of selecting, with 
 such a curious felicity, every villain in the nation to fill the 
 various departments of his government. Yet I should be 
 sorry to confine him in the choice either of his footmen or his 
 friends. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER LT. 
 
 FROM THE REVEREND MR. BORNE TO JUNIUS. 
 
 SIR, July 13, 1771. 
 
 FARCE, Comedy, and Tragedy Wilkes, Foote, and Junius} 
 united at the same time against one poor parson, are fearful 
 
 * See note to Letter 52, post, p. 365. 
 
 f In consequence of his defection from the Whigs, Mr. Home had lost 
 his popularity ; upon which reverse Foote, tlie great mimic and farce writer, 
 ventured to caricature Home's negligence of dress on the stage. While Mr 
 Home pretends to tremble beneath the comic efforts of Foote and the tra<ji<. 
 effort* of Junius, he still wishes the world to regard Wilkes's opposition to him 
 is a mere farce.
 
 REPLY OF THE REV. MR. HOBNE. 301 
 
 cdds ; the two former are only labouring in their vocation, and 
 ma} r equally plead, in excuse, that their aim is a livelihood. 
 1 admit the plea for the second his is an honest calling, and 
 my clothes were lawful game ; but I cannot so readily approve 
 Mr. Wilkes, or commend him for making patriotism a trade, 
 and a fraudulent trade. But what shall I say to Junius ? the 
 grave, the solemn, the didactic ! Ridicule, indeed, has been 
 ridiculously called the test of truth ; but surely to confess that 
 you lose your natural moderation when mention is made of 
 the man, does not promise much truth or justice when you 
 speak of him yourself. 
 
 You charge me with " a new zeal in support of administra- 
 tion," and with " endeavours in support of the ministerial 
 nomination of sheriffs." The reputation which your talents 
 have deservedly gained to the signature of Junius, draws from 
 me a reply which I disdained to give to the anonymous lies of 
 Mr. Wilkes. You make frequent use of the word gentleman, 
 I only call myself a man, and desire no other distinction ; if 
 you are either, you are bound to make good your charges, or 
 to confess that you have done me a hasty injustice upon nt 
 authority. 
 
 I put the matter fairly to issue. I say, that so far from 
 any new " zeal in support of administration," I am possessed 
 with the utmost abhorrence of their measures ; and that I 
 have ever shown myself, and am still ready, in any rational 
 manner, to lay down all I have my life in opposition to 
 those measures. I say, that I have not, and never have had, 
 any communication or connection of any kind, directly or 
 indirectly, with any courtier or ministerial man, or any of 
 their adherents ; that I never have received, or solicited, or 
 expected, or desired, or do now hope for, any reward of any 
 sort, from any party or set of men in administration or opposi- 
 tion;' I say, that I never used any " endeavours in support of 
 the ministerial nomination of sheriffs." That I did not solicit 
 any one liveryman for his vote for any one of the candidates, 
 nor employ any other person to solicit ; and that I did not 
 write one single line or word in fa 1 Dur of Messrs. Plumbe and 
 Kirkman*, whom I understand to have been supported by tha 
 ministry. 
 
 * Plumbe and Kirkman were the real government candidates for the 
 ihrievally. Oliver stood alone. Yet Junius, availing himself of this last
 
 362 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 You are bound to refute what I here Advance, or to los 
 your credit for veracity : you must produce facts ; surmise and 
 general abuse, in however elegant language, ought not to pass 
 for proofs ; you have every advantage, and I have every disad- 
 vantage ; you are unknown, I give my name ; all parties both 
 in and out of administration have their reasons (which I shall 
 relate hereafter) for uniting in their wishes against me ; and 
 the popular prejudice is as strongly in your favour as it ia 
 violent against the parson *. 
 
 gentleman's opposition to Wilkes, was shrewdly desirous of impressing on tie 
 world an idea that they had all been supported by government with a view 
 of throwing out Wilkes and his avowed colleague Bull. 
 
 * This paragraph Mr. Home was accused of borrowing from Mr. Hugh 
 Kelly, author of False DJicacy, and several other dramatic pieces, as will 
 appear from the following letter addressed to that gentleman : 
 
 For the Public Advertiser. 
 
 TO THE REV. MR. HOKKK. 
 
 SIR, July 20th, 1771. 
 
 Happening to De at a distance from London, your letter to Junius did not 
 fall into my hands till yesterday, when I confess I read it with equal 
 astonishment and indignation ; and, though it may be inconsistent with 
 the generosity of an Englishman to strike the fallen, there is something 
 BO peculiarly unmanly in your conduct, that it is impossible to let you escape 
 without some memorandums of your judgment when the case is, and when 
 the case is not your own. 
 
 Do you remember, Sir, Friday, April 30, 1771, when you harangued 
 the freeholders for Middlesex for three tedious hours, at the assembly 
 room at Mile End ; when you urged random accusations yourself against 
 others, for their supposed connection with government ; when you par- 
 ticularly attacked Mr. Kelly as the immediate champion of administration, 
 and affirmed with great pathos that he was employed at the soldier's trial at 
 Guildford to vindicate the wanton effusion of innocent blood ] 
 
 I have no connection with Mr. Kelly, Sir, nor do I by any means 
 profess myself of his political faith ; but if fame says true, he has been 
 no apostate to his principles ; has betrayed no friendship; and I introduce him 
 solely here, that the world may see how conformable the tenor of Mr. Home's 
 conduct is to the candour of his professions. The following, Sir, is your 
 speech relative to the Guildford affair : 
 
 " It is necessary to give you an account of Maclean's trial, because the 
 judge forbad it being taken down by any one, except it was government. 
 It has never been published. A very false account of this trial has indeed 
 been published by Mr. Kelly, who was paid and brought down to Guildford 
 for that purpose, and who had lodgings taken for him there, and who wai 
 familiarly conversant witli a gentleman, whose name I shall not mention now, 
 lest it should seem to proceed from resentment in me for an account I have to 
 settle with him next week. However, one circumstance I ought to tell yon, 
 tins gfntleman was foreman of the grand iury."
 
 REPLY OF THE REV. MR. IIORKE. 363 
 
 Singular as my present situation is, it is neither painful, 
 nor was it unforeseen. He is not fit for public business who 
 does not, even at his entrance, prepare his ncind for such an 
 event. Health, fortune, ti'anquillity, and private connections 
 I have sacrificed upon the altar of the public ; and the only 
 return I receive, because I will not concur to dupe and mislead 
 a senseless multitude, is barely that they have not yet torn me 
 in pieces ; that this has been the only return is my pride, and 
 a source of more real satisfaction than honours or prosperity 
 I can practise before I am old the lessons I learned in my 
 youth, nor shall I ever forgat the words of my ancient 
 monitor*, 
 
 " ' Tis the last key-stone 
 
 That makes the arch : the rest that there were put, 
 Are nothing till that comes to bind and shut. 
 Then stands it a triumphal maik ! then men 
 Observe the strength, the height, the why and when 
 It was erected j and still walking under, 
 Meet some new matter to look up at and wonder !" 
 
 JOHN HORNE. 
 
 " Mr. Kelly, in the address prefixed to his play, which you and other 
 advocates for the freedom of the press so basely drove from the theatre, 
 after saying some civil things relative to the character which he had heard of 
 your disposition, and which your perfidy to that true friend of the con- 
 stitution, Mr. Wilkes, has clearly proved you never merited, thus expresses 
 himself: 
 
 " ' But though Mr. Kelly reiidily makes this concession in favour of Mr. 
 Home's private character, he must observe that the constitution of this 
 country, for the purity of which Mr. Home is so strenuous an advocate, does 
 not allow the mere belief of any man to be positive evidence ; nor com- 
 pliment his simple conjecture with the force of a fact. For this reason Mr. 
 Home should be extremely cautious how he asserts anything to the 
 prejudice of another's reputation. Hearsay authority is not enough for this 
 purpose ; he should know of his own knowledge what he asserts upon his 
 own word; and be certain in his proof where he is peremptory in his 
 accusation.' 
 
 " Honestly, now, Mr. Home, had you not this paragraph either in your 
 head, or your heart, at the time you were writing the following passage 
 to Junius] 
 
 ' You are bound to refute,' &c. " WHIPCORD." 
 
 To this letter Mr. Home did not return any answer. 
 
 * B. Jonson, of whose writings Mr. Home Tooke was remarkably fond. 
 The Sad Shepherd of th.it author is called his favourite poem in the '' Diver- 
 sions of Purley." The present quotation is from his Underwoods : vide an 
 epistle to Sir Edward b'ackvi'.le, now Earl of Dorset. Folio, 1692. p. 
 053.
 
 361 LETTERS OF JUNTOS 
 
 LETTER LIL 
 
 TO THE REVEREND MR. HORNE. 
 
 SIR, July 24, 1771. 
 
 I CANNOT descend to an altercation \vith you in the news 
 papers. But since I have attacked your character, and you 
 complain of injustice, I think you have some right to an 
 explanation. You defy me to prove that you ever solicited a 
 vote, or wrote a word in support of the ministerial aldermen. 
 Sir, I did never suspect you of such gross folly. It would 
 have been impossible for Mr. Home to have solicited votes, 
 and very difficult to have written for the newspapers in 
 defence of that cause, without being detected and brought to 
 shame. Neither do I pretend to any intelligence concerning 
 you, or to know more of your conduct than you yourself have 
 thought proper to communicate to the public. It is from 
 your own letters I conclude that you have sold yourself to 
 the ministry* ; or, if that charge is too severe, and supposing 
 it possible" to be deceived by appearances so very strongly 
 against you, what are your friends to say in your defence ? 
 Must they not confess that, to gratify your personal hatred of 
 Mr. Wilkes, you sacrificed, as far as depended upon your 
 interest and abilities, the cause of the country ? I can make 
 allowance for the violence of the passions, and, if ever I 
 should be convinced that you had no motive but to destroy 
 Wilkes, I shall then be ready to do justice to your character, 
 and to declare to the world, that I despise you somewhat less 
 than I do at present. But, as a public man, I must for ever 
 condemn you. You cannot but know, nay, you dare not pre- 
 tend to be ignorant, that the highest gratification of which 
 
 the most detestable in this nation is capable would 
 
 have been the defeat of Wilkes. I know that man much 
 better than any of you. Nature intended him only for a 
 good-humoured fool. A systematical education, with long 
 practice, has made him a consummate hypocrite. Yet this 
 man, to say nothing of his worthy ministers, you have most 
 assiduously laboured to gratify. To exclude Wilkes, it was 
 
 * The letters written by Mr. Horne in the dispute with Mr. \Vilkea. Set 
 the subsequent note as well as rne appended to Private Letter, No. 35.
 
 TO THE REV. MR. HOHKE. 365 
 
 not necessary you should solicit votes for his opponents. 
 We incline the balance as effectually by lessening the weight 
 in one scale as by increasing it in the other. 
 
 The mode of your attack upon Wilkes (though I am far 
 from thinking meanly of your abilities) convinces me, that 
 you either want judgment extremely, or that you are blinded 
 by your resentment. You ought to have foreseen that the 
 charges you urged against Wilkes could never do him any 
 mischief. After all, when we expected discoveries highly 
 interesting to the community, what a pitiful detail did it 
 end in! Some old clothes a Welch pony a French foot- 
 man, and a hamper of claret*. Indeed, Mr. Home, the 
 
 * The facts here alluded to were as. follow : The Inte Mr. Tooke, 
 then Mr. Home, while travelling on the continent was introduced to Mr. 
 Wilkes, at that time resident in Paris, which led to a subsequent intimacy, 
 and apparently warm friendship. Mr. Home, on leaving that gay metro- 
 polis, left behind him, in the care of Mr. Wilkes, several suits of clothes of 
 the most fashionable Parisian manufacture, being ill adapted to the clerical 
 profession, as well as ill calculated to please the taste or suit the man- 
 ners of the people of this country. In a political quarrel which occurred 
 between these gentlemen, shortly previous to the date of this letter, and 
 which was the subject of a long and acrimonious altercation in the Public 
 Advertiser, Mr. Home accused Mr. Wilkes with having, in the midst of his 
 distress, pawned the clothes intrusted to his custody ; with commissioning 
 Mr. Home's brother-in-law to purchase a pony which he never paid for; with 
 drinking claret while detained in the King's Bench prison ; with endeavour- 
 ing to make his brother chamberlain of London ; and with retaining in his 
 service six domestics, three of whom were French. As these, with several 
 other charges, were detailed to the public by Mr. Home in thirteen or four- 
 teen very long letters, the editor will not here transcribe them, but content 
 himself with inserting several detached parts of Mr. Wilkes's defence against 
 these accusations, as they contain some curious facts, and are illustrative of 
 the subject more particularly adverted to in the text by the author. 
 
 For the Public Advertiser. 
 
 TO THE KBV. MR. HORNE. 
 
 SIR, Prince's Court, Saturday, May 18. 
 
 Your first letter of May 14, told me that you " blamed my public conduct," 
 and " would not open any account with me on the score of private character." 
 A third letter is this day addressed to me. Not a word hitherto " of my 
 public conduct," but many false and malignant attacks about Mr. Wild- 
 man, your brother-in-law, who formerly kept the Bedford Head, in South- 
 ampton Street, Covent Garden, and your old clothes. The public will impute 
 the impertinence of such a dispute to its author, and pardon my calling their 
 attention for a few moments to scenes of so trifling a nature, because it is in 
 in*titicption of an innocent man. 
 
 When you left Paris in May 1767, you desired me to take care at
 
 366 
 
 LETTERS OF JUSTUS. 
 
 pubLc should, and will, forgive him his claret and his foot- 
 men, and even the ambition of making his brother chamber- 
 lain of London, as long as he stands forth against a ministry 
 
 your old clothes, for you meant to return in a few months, and they could be 
 of no use to you in England. The morning of your departure you acnt EM 
 the following letter : 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 ** According to your permission I leave with you 
 1 suit of scarlet and gold 1 , , 
 1 suit of white and silver J th> 
 
 1 suit of blue and silver camblet. 
 
 1 suit of flowered silk. 
 1 suit of black silk. 
 And 1 black velvet surtout. 
 
 " If you have any fellow-feeling you cannot but be kind to them ; since they 
 too, as well as yourself, are outlawed in England ; and on the same account 
 their superior worth. 
 
 " I am, Dear Sir, 
 
 "Your very Affectionate, 
 
 " Humble Servant, 
 "Paris, May 25, 1767." " JOHN HORNE." 
 
 This letter I returned to you at the King's Bench, and at the bottom of it 
 the following memorandum in my own hand-writing: " Nov. 21, 1767, sent 
 to Mr. Panchaud's in the Rue St. Sauveur." I left Paris Nov. 22, 1767, 
 and therefore thought it proper the day before to send your clothes where I 
 was sure they would be perfectly safe, to Mr. Panchaud's, the great Eng- 
 lish banker's. They remained in my house, Rue des Saint Peres, only from 
 May till the November following, nor was any demand, or request, made to 
 me about them by Mr. Wildman, or any one else. You are forced to own " I 
 have received a letter within the last three months from Mr. Panchaud, in- 
 forming me that they (the clothes) have long been in his possession." Examine 
 the banker's books. You will find the date is Nov. 21, 1767. You say, 
 " for my own part I never made the least inquiry after my clothes." I sup- 
 pose for the plainest reason in the world. You knew where they were, 
 and that they could be no part of a clergyman's dress in England, but 
 that you were sure of so rich a wardrobe on your next tour to France or 
 Italy, as Paris would probably be your route. This is all I know of the 
 vestimenta pretiosa of Eutrapelus. I hope, Sir, the putting them on 
 will not have the same effect on you as they formerly had on his ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 Cum pulchris tunicis sumet nova consilia et spes ; 
 
 Dormiet in lucem ; scorto postpone! honestam 
 
 Officium ; nummos alienos pascet, 
 
 Your charge about your brother-in-law, Mr. Wildman, is equally unjust 
 When I was in England, in October, 1766, 1 lodged at Mr. "Wildman's house 
 in Argyle Buildings, on his own most pressing invitation. I had long known 
 fciii, and for several years belonged to a club which met once a week .t th
 
 TO THE HEV. MR. HOBNE 387 
 
 fcnd parliament who are doing everything they can to euslava 
 the country, and as long as he is a thorn in the king's side. 
 You will not suspect me of setting up Wilkes for a perfect cha- 
 
 Bedford Head. Mr. Wildman desired to be considered at this time as the 
 warm partisan of Mr. Wilkes. He begged that he might be useful as far as 
 he could to me and my friends. I asked him to buy a little Welch horse for 
 a lady in France, to whom I was desirous of paying a compliment. I fixed 
 the price, and insisted on paying him at that very time, which I did. About 
 a year afterwards Mr. Wildman fulfilled my commission, purchased me a 
 Welch pony, and sent it to Calais. This was the single transaction of 
 my own with your brother-in-law at that time. I gave him two or three 
 trifling commissions from Monsieur Saint Foy for arrack, &c., which were 
 to be forwarded to Paris. I believe they were sent, but they never passed 
 through my hands, nor do I know whether Mr. Wildman has yet been paid 
 for those trifles, the whole of which amounted only, as he told me, to about 
 thirty pounds. 
 
 Your endeavours to create a coolness between Mr. Cotes and me are 
 clearly seen through, and will prove ineffectual. You made the same 
 attempt on the late Mr. Sterne and me with the same success. In yom letter 
 to me at Paris, dated Jan. 3, 1766, you say, " I passed a week wuh Sterne 
 at Lyons, and am to meet him again at Sienna in the summci. Forgive my 
 quest on, and do not answer it if it is impertinent. Is there any cause 
 of i oldness between you and Sterne ; he speaks very handsomely of you, 
 when it is absolutely necessary to speak at all ; but not with tliat warmth 
 and enthusiasm that I expect from every one that knows you. Do not let 
 3ie cause a coldness between you if there is none. I am sensible my question 
 is at least imprudent, and my jealousy blameable." 
 
 In your second letter you say, " the nature of our intercourse, for it cannot 
 be called a connection," and afterwards, " in my return from Italy to Ens- 
 land in the year 1767, I saw reasons sufficient nev^r more to trust yon with 
 a single line ; " and in your third letter you pretend that you had even in 
 1767, " infinite contempt for the very name of Mr. Wilkes." However, on 
 the 17th of last May, you write me another letter on my going to Fulham, 
 while my house here was repairing, to recommend six tradesmen to me, to 
 tell me how most sincerely you were mine, &c. You add, " I could not for- 
 bear showing my friendship to you by letting you know your friends." You 
 will find, Sir, that it requires more memory as well as wit than falls to one 
 man's share, to support a long chain of falsehoods. You are lost and be- 
 wildered in the intricacies of error. The path of truth you would find more 
 easy and honourable. 
 
 You assert " I found that all the private letters of your friends were regu- 
 larly pasted in a book, and read over indiscriminately, not only to your 
 friends and acquaintance, but to every visitor." I glory, Sir, in having four 
 large volumes of manuscript letters, irany of them written by the first men of 
 this age. I esteem them my most valuable possession. Why is the pleasure 
 of an elegant and instructive epistle to perish with the hour it is received 1 
 To the care and attention of Cicero's friends in preserving that great 
 Homan's letters we owe the best history of Rome for a most interestiij
 
 db LETTERS OF JUXIUS. 
 
 racter. The question to the puMic is, \\here shall we find a 
 man who, with purer principles, will go the lengths ami run 
 
 period of about forty years. You mistake when you talk of all the private 
 letters of your friends. My care has extended only to letters of particular 
 friends on particular occasions, or to letters of business, taste, or literature. 
 The originals of such I have preserved ; never any copies of my own letters, 
 unless when I wrote to a secretary of state, to a Talbot, a Martin, or a Home. 
 When you add, " that they are read over indiscriminately, not only to your 
 friends and acquaintance, but to every visitor," you knowingly advance a 
 falsehood. So much of your time has passed with me that you are sen- 
 sible very few of my friends have ever heard of the volumes I mentioned. 
 The preservation of a letter is surely a compliment to the writer. But, 
 although I approve the preservation in general, I highly disapprove the pub- 
 lication of any private letters. However, there are cases which justly call 
 them forth to light. Mr. Onslow's first letter was after great importunity 
 from you printed by me, to justify what you had said at Epsom. The 
 second you printed, without my consent, from a copy I suffered you 
 to take. 
 
 The pamphlet you mention has not yet been published. I have now before 
 me the copy, corrected with your own hand, which you gave me at Paris. 
 The following passage I am sure you will read at this time with particular 
 satisfaction, and I reserve it for you, pour la bonne louche. 
 
 " We have seen, by Mr. Wilkes's treatment, that no man who is not, and 
 who has not always been, absolutely perfect himself, must dare to arraign the 
 measures of a minister. 
 
 " It is not sufficient that he pay an inviolable regard to the laws ; 
 that he be a man of the strictest and most unimpeached honour ; that he be 
 endowed with superior abilities and qualifications ; that he be blessed with a 
 benevolent, generous, noble, free soul ; that he be inflexible, incorruptible, 
 and brave; that he prefer infinitely the public welfare to his own interest, 
 peace, and safety; that his life be ever in his hand, ready to be laid down 
 cheerfully for the liberty of his country ; and that he be dauntless and un- 
 wearied in her service. All this avails him nothing. 
 
 " If it can be proved (though by the base means of treachery and theft) 
 that in some unguarded, wanton hour, he has uttered an indecent word or 
 penned a loose expression away with such a fellow from the earth it is not 
 fit that he should live." 
 
 After a variety of accusations of private crimes, you effect to nover the 
 whole with the veil of hypocrisy. You say, " I have mentioned these cir- 
 cumstances not as any charges against yon, though no doubt they will 
 operate as such." Had your turn, Sir, been to divinity, in the subtleties of 
 the schools you would have outshone Thomas Aquinas or Duns Scotus, in 
 treachery even the priest Malagrida. 
 
 You have in your late letters to me accused me of almost every crime, 
 of which the most diabolical heart is capable. When you wrote the letteri 
 to Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, I had only one crime, of which I ow:i I 
 hve not repented. " Mr. Wilkes's crime is well known to have been hit 
 pposing and exposing the measures of Lord Bute.
 
 TO THE REV. MR. HORifK. 369 
 
 the hazards that he has done ? the season calls for such a 
 Jnan, and he ought to be supported. What would have been 
 
 **The two Humes, Johnson, Murphy, Ralph, Smollett, Shebbeare, &c., 
 &c., all authors pensioned, or promised, had been let loose on him in vain. 
 'Ihe lord steward of his Majesty's household (who has therefore continued 
 in that post through every revolution of ministry), and the treasurer to 
 the Princess Dowager of Wales (who together with that office has a pension 
 for himself and a reversion for his son), had separately endeavoured to com- 
 mit a murder on his body, with as little success as others hod attempted hit 
 reputation ; for they found him tarn Marie quam Mercurio. 
 
 " The intended assassination of him by Forbes and Dun had miscarried. 
 
 " The secretaries of state had seized his papers, and confined his per- 
 son to close imprisonment. They had trifled with and eluded the Habeas 
 Corpus. But still he rose superior to them all, and baffled alone the insati- 
 able malice of all his persecutors ; for though they had in a manner ruined 
 his private fortunes, his public character remained entire. They had spilt 
 his blood indeed ; but they had not taken his life, and with it still were left 
 
 ' The unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame.' 
 
 It remained then to make one general attack upon him at once of erery 
 power of the state, each in its separate capacity. The reverend name of 
 Majesty itself was misapplied to this business. The House of Lords, the 
 House of Commons, and the Court of King's Bench, through the little agency 
 of Carrington, Kidgell, Curry, Webb, Faden, Sandwich, make one general 
 assault" 
 
 As you mentioned a promise you had obtained of being one of the chap- 
 lains to his Majesty, I shall conclude my present extracts with the following 
 passage which will show how peculiarly fitted you are to be a domestic 
 c/taplain to our present sovereign. 
 
 " Sheridan is at Blois by order of his Majesty, and with a pension, invent- 
 ing a method to give the proper pronunciation of the English language to 
 stiangers, by means of sounds borrowed from their own. And he begins 
 with the French. 
 
 "I remember a few years ago when an attempt was made to prove Lord 
 Darborough an idiot. The counsel on both sides produced the same instance ; 
 one of his wit, the other of his folly. His servants were puzzled once to un- 
 pack a large box, and his lordship advised them to do with it as they did 
 with oysters put it in the fire, and it would gape. 
 
 " This commission of Sheridan appear? to me equally equivocal. And 
 hould a similar statute be at any time attempted against his Majesty, they 
 who do not know him may be apt to suspect that he employed Sheridan in 
 this manner, not so much for the sake of foreigners as of his own subjects, 
 and had permitted him to amuse himself Abroad, to prevent his spoiling our 
 pronunciation at home." 
 
 Am I to ansyer your impertinence about claret and French servants 1 It 
 hall be in one word. I have not purchased a bottle of claret airce I 
 left the King's Bench. Only two French rrant are in ny family Ai 
 
 TOL. I. B B
 
 370 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 the triumph of that odious hypocrite and his minions, if 
 Wilkes had been defeated ! It was not your fault, reverend 
 Sir, that he did not enjoy it completely. But now, I promise 
 
 old woman who has many years attended my daughter, and a footman, whom 
 I esteem, as I have often told you, not as a Frenchman, but for his singular 
 fidelity to an Englishman during a course of several years when I had the 
 honour of being exiled. I have reason to believe that from hence originated 
 your hatred to him. 
 
 You assert "though I knew not the person of any one man in opposition, 
 I quitted all my friends and connections when I joined the public cause ; 
 and with my eyes open, exchanged ease and fair fame for labour and re- 
 proach." I desire to know what one friend, and what single connection you 
 have quitted for the public cause. Your fair fame at Katon and Cam- 
 bridge survived a very short time your abode at either of these places. Will 
 you call an Italian gentleman now in town, your confident during your 
 whole residence at Genoa, to testify the morality of your conduct in Italy 1 
 But I will not write the life of Jonathan Wild, nor of Orator Henley. 
 
 You declare " ministerial and court favour I know I can never have, and 
 for public favour I will never be a candidate. I chose to tell them that, as 
 far as it affects myself, / Laugh at the displeasure of botli." You well 
 know that no minister will ever dare openly to give you any mark of court 
 favour, at lea t in the church ; many secret favours you may, you do expect, 
 and some I believe actually receive. The public you have abandoned in 
 despair, after an assiduous courtship of near four years, but remember, 
 Sir, when you say, that yon laugh at their displeasure, the force of truth 
 h;is extorted even from Lord Mansfield the following declaration : " The people 
 are almost always in the right. The great may sometimes be in the wrong, 
 but the body of the people are always in the right." 
 
 In your first letter you declare " it is necessary to give a short history of 
 the commencement, progress, and conclusion of the intercourse between us." 
 In your second you say " The nature of our intercourse (for it cannot be called 
 a connection), will best appear from the situation of each of us at its com- 
 mencement." Your situation shall be explained by yourself from the words 
 of the first letter you ever wrote to me. 
 
 " You are entering into a correspondence with a parson, and I am a little 
 apprehensive lest that title should disgust you; but give me leave to assure 
 you I am not ordained a hypocrite. 
 
 " It is true I have suffered the infectious hand of a bishop to be waved 
 over me, whose imposition, like the sop given to Judas, is only a signal for 
 the devil to enter. It is true that usually at that touch fugiunt pudor, 
 verumque, fide-que. In quorum sobeunt locum fraudes, dolique, insidiaeque, 
 &c., &c., but I hope I have escaped the contagion : and if I have not, if you 
 ihoulil at any time discover the BLACK spot under the tongue, assist m 
 Juiidly to conquer the prejudice! of education and profession." 
 
 I am, Sir, &c., 
 JOHN WILKEB.
 
 TO THE REV MR. HOR33. 37 J 
 
 you, you have so little power to do mischief, that I much 
 question whether the ministry will adhere to the promises 
 they have made you. It will be in vain to say that I am a 
 partisan of Mr. Wilkes, or personally your enemy. You will 
 convince no man, for you do not believe it yourself. Yet, 
 I confess, I am a little offended at the low rate at which you 
 seem to value my understanding. I beg, Mr. Home, you will 
 hereafter believe that I measure the integrity of men by their 
 conduct, not by their professions. Such tales may entertain 
 Mr. Oliver or your grandmother, but, trust me, they are 
 thrown away upon Junius. 
 
 You say you are a man. Was it generous, was it manly, 
 repeatedly to introduce into a newspaper the name of a young 
 lady*, with whom you must heretofore have lived on terms 
 of politeness and good humour? But I have done with you. 
 In my opinion your credit is irrecoverably ruined. Mr. 
 Townshend, I think, is nearly in the same predicament. 
 Poor Oliver has been shamefu^y duped by you. You have 
 made him sacrifice all the honour he got by his imprison- 
 ment. As for Mr. Sawbridgef, whose character I really 
 respect, I am astonished he does not see through your dupli- 
 city. Never was so base a- design so poorly conducted. 
 This letter, you see, is not intended for the public ; but if 
 you think it will do you any service, you are at liberty to 
 publish it. 
 
 JUNIUSt 
 
 * Home had taken liberties with the name of Miss Wilkes in his public 
 letters in some of the newspapers and liberties which no misconduct of hers 
 had entitled him to take. 
 
 t Townshend and Sawbridge had been persuaded by Home to unite in sup- 
 porting Oliver against Wilkes ; and both, in consequence hereof, forfeited 
 much of their popularity from this moment, and were accused of gross want 
 of understanding, and by some of tergiversation, 
 
 J This letter was transmitted privately by the printer to Mr. Home, by 
 Junius's request. Mr. Home returned it to the printer with directions to 
 publish it. JUNICS. 
 
 The reason for such private transmission was, that it was not Junius's wish 
 to increase those divisions which Home and Oliver had so unwisely pro- 
 roked in the Bill of Rights Society by an open contest letween himself ftr.cj 
 any one of its members. 
 
 B 8
 
 372 LETTERS OF JCN1U3. 
 
 LETTER LI II. 
 
 FKOM THE REVEREND MR. HORNE TO JUNTOS. 
 
 SIR, July 31, 1771. 
 
 You have disappointed me. When I told you that surmise 
 and general abuse, in however elegant language, ought not 
 to pass for proofs, I evidently hinted at the reply which I 
 expected ; but you have dropped your usual elegance, and 
 seem willing to try what will be the effect of surmise and 
 general abuse in very coarse language. Your answer to my 
 letter (which, I hope, was cool and temperate and modest), 
 has convinced me that my idea of a man is superior to yours 
 of a gentleman. Of your former letters I have always said 
 materiem superabat opus : I do not think so of the present ; 
 the principles are more detestable than the expressions are 
 mean and illiberal. I am contented that all those who adopt 
 the one should for ever load me with the other. 
 
 I appeal to the common sense of the public, to which I 
 have ever directed myself. I believe they have it; though 
 I am sometimes half inclined to suspect that Mr. Wilkes 
 has formed a truer judgment of mankind than I have. 
 However, of this I am sure, that there is nothing else upon 
 which to place a steady reliance. Trick and low cunning, 
 and addressing their prejudices and passions, may be the 
 fittest means to carry a particular point ; but if they have 
 not common sense, there is no prospect of gaining for them 
 any real permanent good. The same passions which have 
 been artfully used by an honest man for their advantage, 
 may be more artfully employed by a dishonest man for their 
 destruction. I desire them to apply their common sense to 
 this letter of Junius, not for my sake, but their own ; it 
 concerns them most nearly, for the principles it contains lead 
 to disgrace and ruin, and are inconsistent with every notion of 
 civil society. 
 
 The charges which Junius has brought against me are 
 made ridiculous by his own inconsistency and self-contradic- 
 tion. He charges me positively with "anew zeal in support 
 of administration ;" and with " endeavours in support of the 
 ministerial nomination of sheriffs." And he assigns two
 
 BEV. MR. HORNE IN REPLY TO JUNTOS. 373 
 
 inconsistent motives for my conduct; either that I have 
 "sold myself to the ministry," or am instigated "by the 
 solitary vindictive malice of a monk;" either that I am influ- 
 enced by a sordid desire of gain, or am hurried on by " per- 
 sonal hatred and blinded by resentment." In his letter to 
 the Duke of Grafton he supposes me actuated by both ; in 
 his letter to me he at first doubts which of the" two, whether 
 interest or revenge is my motive ; however, at last he deter- 
 mines for the former, and again positively asserts that " the 
 ministry have made me promises ;" yet he produces no in- 
 stance of corruption, nor pretends to have any intelligence 
 of a ministerial connection : he mentions no cause of per- 
 sonal hatred to Mr. Wilkes, nor any reason for my resentment 
 or revenge ; nor has Mr. Wilkes himself ever hinted any, 
 though repeatedly pressed *. When Junius is called upon to 
 
 * In one of the letters addressed to Mr. Wilkes by Mr. Home, during the 
 altercation spoken of in the preceding notes, the latter thus explains himself 
 with respect to his support of the former, as well as to the motives which in- 
 duced him to withdraw it. In this extract Mr. Home also gives a general 
 and able outline of his political opinions, from which he does not appear to 
 have materially varied to the day of his death. " I was your friend only for 
 the sake of the public cause ; that reason does in certain matters remain ; as 
 far as it remains, so far I am still your friend, and therefore, I said in my 
 first letter, ' the public should know how far they ought, and how far they 
 ought not to support you.' To bring to punishment the great delinquents 
 who have corrupted the parliament and the seats of justice; who have en- 
 couraged, pardoned, and rewarded murder ; to heal the breaches made in the 
 constitution, and by salutary provisions to prevent them for the future ; to 
 replace once more, not the administration and execution, for which they ara 
 very unfit, but the checks of government really in the hands of the go- 
 verned. 
 
 " For these purposes, if it were possible to suppose that the great enemy 
 of mankind could be rendered instrumental to their happiness, so far the 
 devil himself should be supported by the people ; for a human instru- 
 ment they should go farther, he should not only be supported but thanked 
 and rewarded for the good which, perhaps, he did not intend, as an en- 
 couragement to others to follow his example. But if the foul fiend, having 
 gained their support, should endeavour to delude the weaker part, and entice 
 them to an idolatrous worship of himself, by persuading them that what he 
 suggested was their voice, and their voice the voice of God ; if he should 
 attempt to obstruct everything that leads to their security and happiness, 
 and to promote every wickedness that tends only to his own emolument ; if 
 when the cause the cauie reverberates on their ears, he should divert 
 them from the original sound, and direct them towards the opposite unfaith- 
 ful echo ; if confusion should be all his aim, and mischief his sole enjoyment, 
 would not he act the part of a faithful monitor to the people who should 
 ave them from their suares by rewinding them of the true object of theii
 
 374 MnrERs OF 
 
 justify his accusation, he answers " he cannot descend to an 
 altercation with me in the newspapers." Junius, who exists 
 only in the newspapers, who acknowledges " he has attacked 
 ray character" there, and "thinks I have some right to an 
 explanation;" yet this Junius "cannot descend to an alterca- 
 tion in the newspapers ! " and because he cannot descend to 
 an altercation with me in the newspapers, he sends a letter of 
 abuse by the printer, which he finishes by telling me " I am 
 at liberty to publish it." This, to be sure, is a most excellent 
 method to avoid an altercation in the newspapers ! 
 
 The proofs of his positive charges are as extraordinary. 
 " He does not pretend to any intelligence concerning me, or 
 
 constitutional worship, expressed in those words of holy writ (for to me it ia 
 BO) Rex, Lex loquens ; Lex, Rex mutus. This is the cause the cause. To 
 make this union indissoluble is the only cause I acknowledge. As far as the 
 support of Mr. Wilkes tends to this point I am as warm as the wannest. 
 But all the lines of your projects are drawn towards a different centre your- 
 self ; and if with a good intention I have been diligent to gain you powers 
 which may be perverted to mischief, I im bound to be doubly diligent to 
 prevent their being so employed. 
 
 " The diligence I have used for two years past, and the success I have had 
 in defeating all your shameful schemes, is the true cause of the dissension be- 
 tween us. I have never had any private pique or quarrel with you. It was 
 your policy in paragraphs and anonymous letters to pretend it, but you cannot 
 mention any private cause of pique or quarrel. 
 
 " To prevent the mischief of division to a popular opposition, those who 
 saw both your bad intentions and your actions were silent ; and whilst they 
 defeated all your projects, they were cautious to conceal your defects. They 
 studied so much the mors to satisfy your voracious prodigality, and thought, 
 as I should have done if a minister, that if feeding it would keep you from 
 mischief, a few thousands would be well employed by the public for that 
 purpose. But I can never, merely for the sake of strengthening opposi- 
 tion, join in those actions which would prevent all the good effects to be 
 hoped for from opposition, and for the sake of which alone any opposi- 
 tion to government can be justifiable. Such a practice would very well 
 suit those who wish a change of ministerg. For my part I wish no such 
 thing ; bad as the present are, I am afraid the next will not be better, though 
 I am sure they cannot be worse, I care not under whose administration good 
 comes. But the people must owe it to themselves, nor ought they to receive 
 the restoration of their rights as a favour from any set of men, minister, or 
 king. The moment they accept it as a grant, a favour, an act of grace, the 
 people have not the prospect of a right left. They will from that time be- 
 come like the mere possessors of an estate without a title, and of which they 
 m&y be dispossessed at pleasure. If the people are not powerful enough to make 
 a bad administration or a bad king do them justice, they will not often have 
 a good one. Would to God the time were come, which I am afraid is very 
 distant beyond the period of my Life, when an honest man could not be a
 
 KEY. MR. HOKNE IN REPLY TO JUNIUS. 375 
 
 to know more of my conduct than 1 myself have thought 
 proper to communicate to the public." He does not suspect 
 me of such gross folly as to have solicited votes, or to have 
 written anonymously in the newspapers ; because it is impos- 
 sible to do either of these without being detected and 
 brought to shame. Junius says this ! Who yet imagines that 
 he has himself written two years under that signature (and 
 more under others) without being detected ! his warmest 
 admirers will not hereafter add, without being brought to 
 shame. But though he did never suspect me of such gross 
 folly as to run the hazard of being detected and brought to 
 shame by anonymous writing, he insists that I have been 
 
 opposition ! I declare I should rejoice to find the patronage of a minister in 
 the smallest degree my honour and interest. I never have pretended to any 
 more than to prefer the former to the latter. But it is not upon me alone 
 that you have poured forth your abuse, but upon every man of honour who 
 has deserved well of the public. And if you were permitted to proceed with- 
 out interruption, there would shortly not be found one honest man who would 
 not shudder to deserve well of the people. 
 
 " The true reason of our dissension being made public is, that you could 
 not get on a step without it ; and you trust that the popularity of your name, 
 and your diligence in paragraphing the papers, will outweigh with the people 
 the most essential services of others ; and that you shall get rid of all control 
 by taking away from those who mean well the confidence of the people. If 
 you can once get them affronted by the public whom they have faithfully 
 served, you flatter yourself that disgust will make them retire from a scene 
 where such a man as you are, covered with infamy like yours, has the dis- 
 posal of honour and disgrace, and the characters of honest men at his mercy. 
 
 " JOHN HORNE." 
 
 To the second paragraph of this extract Mr. Wilkes makes the following 
 attempt at a reply : 
 
 " I thank you for the entertainment of your sixth letter. The idea of an 
 unfaithful echo, although not quite new and original, is perfectly amusing ; 
 but, like Bayes, you love to elevate find surprise. I wish you would give 
 the list of echoes of this kind, which you have heard in your travels through 
 Fiance and Italy. I have read of only one such in a neighbouring kingdom. 
 If you ask, How do you ? it answers, Pretty well I thank you. The sound 
 of your unfaithful echo can only be paralleled by Jack Home's silence ivith 
 a stilly sound, in the tragedy of Douglas. 
 
 ' The torrent rushing o'er its pebbly banks, 
 Infuses silence with a stilly sound.' 
 
 " I have heard of the babbling, the mimic, the shrill echo. The discovery 
 of an unfaithful echo was reserved for Mr. Home. Really, Sir, I should 
 have thought, notwithstanding all your rage, you might bave suffered an echo 
 to be faithful. I did not expect novelty or variety, much less infidelity from 
 an echo."
 
 376 LETTEBS OP JtJNttJS. 
 
 guilty of a much grosser folly of incurring the certainty of 
 shame and detection by writings signed with my name! 
 But this is a small flight for the towering Junius. " He is 
 FAB from thinking meanly of my abilities," though he is 
 'convinced that I want judgment extremely," and can, 
 " really respect Mr. Sawbridge's character," though he de- 
 clares* him to be so poor a creature as not to be able to 
 " see through the basest design conducted in the poorest 
 manner ! " And this most base design is conducted in the 
 poorest manner by a man whom he does not suspect of gross 
 folly, and of whose abilities he is FAB from thinking meanly ! 
 
 Should we ask Junius to reconcile these contradictions and 
 explain this nonsense, the answer is ready ; " he cannot 
 descend to an altercation in the newspapers." He feels no 
 reluctance to attack the character of any man the throne is 
 not too high nor the cottage too low his mighty malice can 
 grasp both extremes he hints not his accusations as opinion, 
 conjecture, or inference, but delivers them as positive asser- 
 tions. Do the accused complain of injustice ? He acknow- 
 ledges they have some sort of right to an explanation ; 
 but if they ask for proofs and facts, he begs to be excused ; 
 and though he is nowhere else to be encountered, "he can- 
 jot descend to an altercation in the newspapers " 
 
 And this, perhaps, Junius may think " the liberal resent 
 ment of a gentleman" this skulking assassination he may 
 call courage. In all things, as in this, I hope we differ. 
 
 " I thought that fortitude had been a mean 
 'Twixt fear and rashness ; not a lust obscene, 
 Or appetite of offending ; but a skill 
 And nice discernment between good and ill. 
 
 * I beg leave to introduce Mr. Home to the character of the Doulle Dealer. 
 I thought they had been better acquainted. " Another very wrong objec- 
 tion has been made by some, who have not taken leisure to distinguish the 
 characters. The hero of the play (meaning Mellefont) is a gull, and made a 
 fool, and cheated. Is every man a gull and a fool that is deceived ] At that 
 rate I am afraid the two classes of men will be reduced to one, and the knavea 
 themselves be at a loss to justify their title. But if an open, honest-hearted 
 man, who has an entire confidence in one whom he takes to be his friend, 
 and who (to confirm him in his opinion) in all appearance and upon several 
 trials has been so ; if this man be deceived by the treachery of the other, 
 must he of necessity commence fool immediately, only because the other has 
 proved a villain 1" YES, says parson Home. No, says Conyreve, and he, J 
 think, is a'lowed to have known something of human nature. JuHiU3.
 
 BEV. MB. HORNE IN REPLY TO JUNIUS. 377 
 
 Her ends are honesty and public good, 
 And without these she is not understood." * 
 
 Of two things, however, he has condescended to give proof. 
 He very properly produces a young lady, to prove that I am 
 not a man ; and a good old woman, my grandmother, to 
 prove Mr. Oliver a fool. Poor old soul ! she read her Bible 
 far otherwise than Junius ! she often found there that the 
 sins of the fathers had been visited on the children ; and 
 therefore was cautious that herself and her immediate de- 
 scendants should leave no reproach on her posterity ; and 
 they left none. How little could she foresee this reverse of 
 Junius, who visits my political sins upon my grandmother ! 
 I do not charge this to the score of malice in him, it pro- 
 ceeded entirely from his propensity to blunder, that whilst 
 he was reproaching me for introducing in the most harmless 
 manner the name of one female, he might himself, at the 
 same instant, introduce two. 
 
 I am represented alternately, as it suits Junius's purpose, 
 under the opposite characters of a gloomy monk, and a man 
 of politeness and good humour. I am called " a solitary 
 monk," in order to confirm the notion given of me in, 
 Mr. Wilkes's anonymous paragraphs, that I never laugh, 
 and the terms of politeness and good humour, on which I am 
 said to have lived heretofore with the young lady, are in- 
 tended to confirm other paragraphs of Mr. Wilkes, in which 
 he is supposed to have offended me by refusing his daughter. 
 Ridiculous ! Yet I cannot deny but that Junius has proved 
 me unmanly and ungenerous as clearly as he has shown mo 
 corrupt and vindictive: and I will tell him more ; I have paid 
 the present ministry as many visits and compliments as ever 
 I paid to the young lady, and shall all my life treat them with 
 the same politeness and good humour. 
 
 * This quotation is also from the epistle to Sackvile. Mr. Horne here made 
 loaie slight alterations : perhaps he quoted from memory. For B. Jonson'a 
 
 ' Or science of a discerning good and ill," 
 he prints, 
 
 And nice discernment between,, &c. 
 For 
 
 " And where they want she is not understood," 
 
 And -without these, &c. 
 
 One of his alterations disturbs, however astonishing, the grammatical con- 
 struction : a skill between good and ill is not English.
 
 378 LETTERS OF JtTXIVS. 
 
 But Junius " begs me to believe that he measures tha 
 integrity of men by their conduct, not by their professions." 
 Surely this Junius must imagine his readers as Toid of un- 
 derstanding as he is of modesty ! Where shall we find the 
 standard of HTS integrity ? By what are we to measure the 
 conduct of this lurking assassin? And he says this to me, 
 whose conduct, wherever- 1 could personally appear, has been 
 as direct and open and public as my words ; I have not, like 
 him, concealed myself in my chamber to shoot my arrows out 
 the window ; nor contented myself to view the battle from 
 afar, but publicly mixed in the engagement and shared the 
 danger. To whom have I, like him, refused my name upon 
 complaint of injury? what printer have I desired to conceal 
 me ? in the infinite variety of business in which I have been 
 concerned, where it is not so easy to be faultless, which of 
 my actions can he arraign ? to what danger has any man 
 been exposed to which I have not faced ? information, action, 
 imprisonment, or death ? what labour have I refused ? what 
 expense have I declined ? what pleasure have I not re- 
 nounced ? But Junius, to whom no conduct belongs, " mea- 
 sures the integrity of men by their conduct, not by their 
 professions ;" himself all the while being nothing but profes- 
 sions, and those too anonymous ! the political ignorance or 
 wilful falsehood of this declaimer is extreme : his own former 
 letters justify both my conduct and those whom his last 
 letter abuses ; for the public measures, which Junius has 
 been all along defending, were ours, whom he attacks ; and 
 the uniform opposer of those measures has been Mr. Wilkes, 
 whose bad actions and intentions he endeavours to screen. 
 
 Let Junius now, if he pleases, change his abuse ; and, 
 quitting his loose hold of interest and revenge, accuse me of 
 vanity, and call this defence boasting. I own I have a pride 
 to see statues decreed, and the highest honours conferred for 
 measures and actions which all men have approved ; whilst 
 those who counselled and caused them are execrated and 
 insulted. The darkness in which Juuius thinks himself 
 shrouded has not concealed him ; nor the artifice of only 
 attacking under that signature those he would pull down 
 (whilst he recommends by other ways those he would have 
 promoted), disguised from me whose partisan he is. When 
 Lord Chatham can forgive the awkward situation in which
 
 BEV. MR. HORNE IS H2PLY fO JTJNItJS. 379 
 
 for the sake of the public he was designedly placed by the 
 thanks to him from the city*; and when Wilkes s name 
 ceases to be necessary to Lord Buckingham to keep up a 
 clamour against the persons of the ministry, without obliging 
 the different factions now in opposition to bind themselves 
 beforehand to some certain points, and to stipulate some pre- 
 cise advantages to the public, then, and not till then, may 
 those whom he now abuses expect the approbation of Junius. 
 The approbation of the public for our faithful attention to 
 their interest by endeavours for those stipulations which 
 have made us as obnoxious to the factions in opposition as to 
 those in administration, is not perhaps to be expected till 
 some years hence, when the public will look back and see 
 how shamefully they have been deluded, and by what arts 
 they were made to lose the golden opportunity of preventing 
 what they will surely experience, a change of ministers, 
 without a material change of measures, and without any 
 security for a tottering constitution. 
 
 But what cares Junius for the security of the constitu- 
 tion? He has now unfolded to us his diabolical principles. 
 As a public man he must ever condemn any measure which 
 may tend even accidentally to gratify the sovereign ; and 
 Mr. Wilkes is to be supported and assisted in all his attempts 
 (no matter how ridiculous or mischievous his projects) as long 
 as he continues to be a thorn in the king's side ! The cause 
 of the country, it seems, in the opinion of Junius, is merely 
 to vex the king ; and any rascal is to be supported in any 
 roguery, provided he can only thereby plant a thorn in the 
 king's side. This is the very extremity of faction, and the 
 last degree of political wickedness. Because Lord Chatham 
 has been ill-treated by the king, and treacherously betrayed 
 by the Duke of Grafton, the latter is to be " the pillow on 
 which Junius will rest his resentment!" and the public are 
 to oppose the measures of government from mere motives of 
 personal enmity to the sovereign ! These are the avowed 
 principles of the man who in the same letter says, "if ever 
 he should be convinced that I had no motive but to destroy 
 Wilkes, he shall then be ready to do justice to my character, 
 and to declare to the world that he despises me somewhat 
 
 * See note, pott, p. 384.
 
 380 LETTERS OF JCXIUS. 
 
 less than he does at present ! " Had I ever acted from per 
 sonal affection or enmity to Mr. Wilkes, I should justly be 
 despised ; hut what does he deserve whose avowed motive is 
 personal enmity to the sovereign ? The contempt which I 
 should otherwise feel for the absurdity and glaring incon- 
 sistency of Junius is here swallowed up in my abhorrence of 
 his principle. The right divine and sacredness of kings is to 
 me a senseless jargon. It was thought a daring expression 
 of Oliver Cromwell in the time of Charles the First, that if 
 he found himself placed opposite the king in battle, he would 
 discharge his piece into his bosom as soon as into any other 
 man's. I go farther : had I lived in those days, I would not 
 have waited for chance to give me an opportunity of doing 
 my duty ; I would have sought him through the ranks, and, 
 without the least personal enmity, have discharged my piece 
 into his bosom rather than into any other man's*. The king 
 
 * Mr. Home was charged with having stolen this idea from a note of Mr. 
 Wilkes, annexed to that passage in Clarendon to which the writer here more 
 particularly alludes. The letter is short, and as it also explains a subse- 
 quent fact, it ought not to be omitted. 
 
 For the Public Advertiser. 
 
 TO THE REV. MR. HORNE. 
 
 SIR, Aug. 6, 1771. 
 
 You declare in your letter to Junius, that Mr. Wilkes told the Rocking- 
 ham administration, " it cost me a year and a half to write down the last ad- 
 ministration." Unluckily for Mr. Ilorne the administration said to be wrote 
 down by Mr. Wilkes did not last one year, and Mr. Wilkes is certainly too 
 well informed to have made so gross a mistake. Lord Bute was made first 
 commissioner of the treasury, May 29, 1762, and resigned April 8, 1763. 
 The Noi-th Briton made its first appearance June 5, 1762. The paper war, 
 therefore, did not last quite one year before the enemy abandoned the capi- 
 tal post he had seized. Mr. Home when he invents, should be careful not 
 to give absurd fictions. I am acquainted both with Mr. Wilkes and Mr. 
 Home. It is amusing to observe how the parson has, on a variety of occa- 
 sions, purloined from the alderman. Many of their former common friends 
 have been amused with the instances. The late passage about Cromwell is 
 curious. Mr. Home says, " it was thought a daring expression of Oliver 
 Cromwell, &c." Mr. Wilkes has probably forgot the little anecdote ; but I 
 breakfasted with him at the King's Bench with Mr. Home, who copied in my 
 presence the following note from Mr. Wilkes's Clarendon, which I likewise 
 preserved : " Cromwell ought to have declared, that he would rather choose 
 to single out the king, and discharge his pistol upon him, as the first author 
 of the guilt of a civil war, and whose death then might probably extinguish 
 it." The whole passage of Clarendon is so curious, your readers will not be 
 displeased to find it in your paper. " Cromwell, though the greatest dis-
 
 REV. MB. HORNE IN REPLY TO JUNIDS. 381 
 
 whose actions justify rebellion to his government deserves 
 death from the hand of every subject. And should such a 
 time arrive I shall be as free to act as to say. But till then 
 my attachment to the person and family of the sovereign 
 shall ever be found more zealous and sincere than that of 
 his flatterers. I would offend the sovereign with as much 
 reluctance as the parent ; but, if the happiness and security 
 of the whole family made it necessary, so far and no farther 
 I would offend him without remorse. 
 
 But let us consider a little whither these principles of 
 Junius would lead us. Should Mr. Wilkes once more com- 
 mission Mr. Thomas Walpole to procure for him a pension of 
 one thousand pounds upon the Irish establishment for thirty 
 years, he must be supported in the demand by the public, 
 because it would mortify the king ! 
 
 Should he wish to see Lord Rockingham and his friends 
 once more in administration, uncloqged by any stipulations for 
 the people, that he might again enjoy a pension of one thousand 
 and forty pounds a year, viz., from the first lord of the 
 
 sembler living, always made his hypocrisy of singular use and benefit to him, 
 and never did anything, how ungracious or imprudent soever it seemei 
 to be, hut what was necessary to the design ; even his roughness and un- 
 polishedness, which, in the beginning of the parliament, he affected contrary 
 to the smoothness and complacency which his cousin, and bosom friend, Mr. 
 Hampden, practised towards all men, was necessary; and his first public de- 
 claration, in the beginning of the war, to his troop when it was first mustered, 
 that he would not deceive or cozen them by the perplexed and involved ex- 
 pressions in his commission, to fight for king and parliament, and therefore 
 told them, that if the king chanced to be in the body of the enemy that he 
 was to charge, he would as soon discharge his pistol upon him as any other 
 private person ; and if their conscience would not permit them to do the like 
 he advised them not to list themselves in h ; s troop, or under his command, 
 which was generally looked upon as imprudent and malicious, and might, 
 by the professions the parliament then made, have proved dangerous t 
 him, yet served his turn, and severed from others, and united among them- 
 selves, all the furious and incensed men against the government, whether 
 ecclesiastical or civil, to look upon him as a man for their turn, upon whom 
 they might depend, as one who would go through the work that he under 
 took." 
 
 The passage I have quoted from Mr. Home's letter appears to me in flat 
 contradiction to what he says at the end of the same letter, " whoever or 
 whatever is sovereign demands the respect and support of the people." Is it 
 possible that the last paragraph could be written by the same person who 
 printed in all the papers that the king's snriing when the city remonstrant* 
 was presented reminded him that "Nero fiddled while Rome was burning]'* 
 
 W. B.
 
 382 LETTERS OF JTJNIU8 
 
 treasury 8QQZ. ; from the lords of the treasury QCl each ; from 
 the lords of trade 40L each *, &c. The public must give up 
 their attention to points of national benefit, and assist Mr 
 Wilkes in his attempt because it would mortify the king ! 
 
 Should he demand the government of Canada, or of Ja- 
 maica, or the embassy to Constantinople, and, in case of 
 refusal, to write them down, as he had before served another 
 administration, in a year and an half, he must be supported 
 in his pretensions, and upheld in his insolence because it 
 would mortify the king! 
 
 Junius may choose to suppose that these things cannot 
 happen ! But that they have happened, notwithstanding Mr. 
 Wilkes's denial, I do aver. I maintain that Mr. Wilkes did 
 commission Mr. Thomas Walpole to solicit for him a pension 
 of one thousand pounds on the Irish establishment for thirty 
 years, with which, and a pardon, he declared he would be 
 satisfied, and that, notwithstanding his letter to Mr. Onslow, 
 he did accept a clandestine, precarious and eleemosynary pen 
 sion from the Rockingham administration, which they paic 
 in proportion to and out of their salaries ; and so entirely was 
 it ministerial, that as any of them went out of the ministry ; 
 their names were scratched out of the list, and they contri- 
 buted no longer. I say, he did solicit the governments and 
 the embassy, and threatened their refusal nearly in these 
 words " It cost me a year and an half to write down the last 
 administration ; should I employ as much time upon you, very 
 few of you would be in at the death." When these threats did 
 not prevail, he came over to England to embarrass them by 
 his presence ; and when he found that Lord Rockingham was 
 something firmer and more manly than he expected, and 
 refused to be bullied into what he could not perform, Mr. 
 Wilkes declared that he could not leave England without 
 money ; and the Duke of Portland and Lord Rockingham 
 purchased his absence with one hundred pounds a -piece ; with 
 which he returned to Paris. And for the truth of what I here 
 advance, I appeal to the Duke of Portland, to Lord Rocking- 
 
 * The Rockingham party had consented to unite with the Bedford ad- 
 ministration on the express stipulation of a reversal of the proceedings against 
 Wilkes. They were not, however, able to obtain this stipulation at la s t ; 
 and, as some indemnification to Wilkes for the promise they had made to him 
 in this respect, they granted him a pension out of their own sa'ariea, upon 
 the proportions stated above, with whicn, ;it their entreaty, he again returned 
 to the continent.
 
 REV. MB. HORNE IN REPLY TO JUMUS. 383 
 
 nam, to Lord John Cavendish, to Mr. Walpole, &c. I appeal 
 to the hand-writing of Mr. Wilkes, which is still extant. 
 
 Should Mr. Wilkes afterwards (failing in this wholesale 
 trade) choose to dole out his popularity by the pound, and ex 
 pose the city offices to sale to his brother, his attorney, &c. 
 Junius will tell us it is only an ambition that he has to make 
 them cham berlain,town clerk, &c., and he mustnot be opposed in 
 thus robbing the ancient citizens of their birth-right because 
 any defeat of Mr. Wilkes would gratify the king ! 
 
 Should he, after consuming the whole of his own fortune 
 and that of his wife, and incurring a debt of twenty thousand 
 pounds merely by his own private extravagance, without a 
 single service or exertion all this time for the public whilst 
 his estate remained should he, at length being undone, 
 commence patriot, have the good fortune to be illegally per- 
 secuted, and in consideration of that illegality be espoused by 
 a few gentlemen of the purest public principles should his 
 debts (though none of them were contracted for the public) 
 and all his uiher incumbrances be discharged should he be 
 offered 600/. or 1000Z. a year to make him independent for 
 the future and should he, after all, instead of gratitude for 
 these services, insolently forbid his benefactors to bestow their 
 own money upon any other object but himself*, and revile them 
 for setting any bounds to their supplies Junius (who, any more 
 than Lord Chatham, never contributed one farthing to these 
 enormous expenses) will tell them, that if they think of con- 
 verting the supplies of Mr. Wilkes's private extravagance to 
 the support of public measures they are as great fools as my 
 grandmother ; and that Mr. Wilkes ought to hold the strings 
 of their purses as long as he continues to be a thorn in the 
 king's side! 
 
 Upon these principles I never have acted, and I never will 
 Act. In my opinion, it is less dishonourable to be the creature 
 of a court than the tool of a faction. I will not be either. I 
 understand the two great leaders of opposition to be Lord 
 Rockingham and Lord Chatham ; under one of whose banners 
 all the opposing members of both Houses, who desire to get 
 
 * The quarrel between Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Home is said to have origi- 
 nated in the mode of appropriating the contributions to the Bill of Rights 
 Society, the funds of which were professedly subscribed for the purpose of 
 paying the debts of the former.
 
 384 I^TTKRS OI JCNIU8. 
 
 places, enlist. I can place no confidence ia aither of them 
 or in any othei's, unless they will now engage, whilst thev 
 are OUT, to grant certain essential advantages for the security 
 of the public when they shall be IN administration. These 
 points they refuse to stipulate, because they are fearful lest 
 they should prevent any future overtures from the ccurt. To 
 force them to these stipulations has been the uniform endea- 
 vour of Mr Sawbridge, Mr. Townshend, Mr. Oliver, &c., and, 
 THERZFOKE, they are abused by Junius. I know no reason but 
 my zeal and industry in the same cause that should entitle 
 me to the honour of being ranked by his abuse with persons 
 of their fortune and station. It is a duty I owe to the memory 
 of the late Mr. Beckford to say, that he had no other aim 
 than this when he provided that sumptuous entertainment at 
 the Mansion House for the members of both Houses in op- 
 position *. At that time he drew up the heads of an engage- 
 ment which he gave to me with a request that I would couch 
 it in terms so cautious and precise as to leave no room for 
 future quibble and evasion, but to oblige them eiiher to fulfil 
 the intent of the obligation, or to sign their own infamy, and 
 leave it on record ; and this engagement he was determined 
 to propose to them at the Mansion House, that either by their 
 refusal they might forfeit the confidence of the public, or by 
 the engagement lay a foundation for confidence. When they 
 were informed of the intention, Lord Rockingham and his 
 friends flatly refused any engagement; and Mr. Beckford as 
 flatly swore, they should then " eat none of his broth ;" and 
 he was determined to put off the entertainment ; but Mr. 
 
 Beckford was prevailed u.jxm by to indulge them in 
 
 the ridiculous parade of a popular procession through the 
 city, and to give them the foolish pleasure of an imaginary 
 consequence for the real benefit only of the cooks and pur- 
 veyors. 
 
 It was the same motive which dictated the thanks of the 
 city to Lord Chatham, which were expressed to be given for his 
 declaration in favour of short parliaments f ; in order thereby 
 
 * On the 22nd of March, 1770, at which forty-five noblemen, besides a 
 great number of members of parliament, and other persons of distinction, wer< 
 present. 
 
 4- The vote of thanks and answer were as follow : 
 
 At a Gammon Council holien on the 14th of May, 1770, it was resolved;
 
 REV. MR. HORNE IN RKPT.Y TO JUNIUS. 885 
 
 to fix Lord Chatham at least to that one constitutional re- 
 medy without which all others can afford no security. The 
 embarrassment no doubt was cruel. He had his choice either 
 
 " That the grateful thanks of this court be presented to the Right Hon. Wil- 
 liam Earl of Chatham, for the zeal he has shown in support of those most 
 valuable and sacred privileges, the right of election, and the right of petition ; 
 and for his wishes and declaration, that his endeavours shall hereafter be 
 used that parliaments may be restored to their original purity, by shortening 
 their duration, and introducing a more full and equal representation, an act 
 which will render his name more honoured by posterity than the memorable 
 successes of the glorious war he conducted." 
 
 To this vote of thanks the Earl of Chatham made the following reply to 
 the committee deputed to present it to his Lordship : 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, 
 
 " It is not easy for me to give expression to all I feel on the extraordi- 
 nary honour done to my public conduct by the city of London ; a body so 
 highly respectable on every account, but above all, for their constant asser- 
 tion of the birthrights of Englishmen in every great crisis of the constitution. 
 
 " In our present unhappy situation my duty shall be, on all proper occa- 
 sions, to add the zealous endeavours of an individual to those legal exertions 
 of constitutional rights, which, to their everlasting honour, the city of London 
 has made in defence of freedom of election and freedom of petition, and for 
 obtaining effectual reparation to the electors of Great Britain. 
 
 " As to the point among the declarations which I am understood to have 
 made, of my wishes for the public, permit me to say there has been some 
 misapprehension, for with all my deference to the sentiments of the city, I am 
 bound to declare, that I cannot recommend triennial parliaments as a remedy 
 against that canker of the constitution, venality in elections ; but I am ready 
 to submit my opinion to better judgment if the wish for that measure shall 
 become prevalent in the kingdom. Purity of parliament is the corner 
 stone in the commonwealth ; and as one obvious means towards this neces 
 sary end is to strengthen and extend the natural relation between the con- 
 stituents and the elected, I have, in this view, publicly expressed my earnest 
 wishes for a more full and equal representation by the addition of one knight 
 of the shire in a county, as a further balance to the mercenary boroughs. 
 
 " I have thrown out this idea with the just diffidence of a private man 
 when he presumes to suggest anything new on a high matter. Animated by 
 your approbation, I shall with better hope continue humbly to submit it to 
 the public wisdom, as an object most deliberately to be weighed, accurately 
 examined, and maturely digested. 
 
 " Having many times, when in the service of the crown, and when retired 
 from it, experienced, with gratitude, the favour of my fellow-citizens, I am 
 now particularly fortunate, that, with their good liking, I can offer anything 
 towards upholding this wisely-combined frame of mixed government against 
 the decays of time, and the deviations incident to all human institutions ; and 
 I shall esteem my life honoured indeed, if the city of London can vouchsafe 
 to think that my endeavours have not been wanting to maintain the national 
 honour, to defend the colonies, and extend the commercial greatness of my 
 
 VOL. CO
 
 386 I,KTTEBS OF JDNIU8. 
 
 to offenl the Rockingham party who declared formally against 
 short parliaments, and with the assistance of whose numbers 
 in both Houses he must expect again to be minister, cr to 
 give up the confidence of the public, from whom finally all 
 real consequence must proceed. Jord Chatham chose the 
 latter, and I will venture to say tLat, by his answer to those 
 thanks, he has given up the people tvithout gaining tho 
 friendship cr cordial assistance of tho Rockingham faction, 
 whose little politics are confined to the making of matches, 
 and extending their family connections, and who think they 
 gain more by procuring one additional vote to their party in 
 the House of Commons, than by adding to their languid pro- 
 perty and feeble character, the abilities of a Chatham, or the 
 confidence of the public. 
 
 Whatever may be the event of the present wretched state 
 of politics in this country the principles of Juuius will suit 
 no form of government. They are not to be tolerated under 
 any constitution. Personal enmity is a motive fit only for the 
 devil. Whoever or whatever is sovereign demands the re- 
 spect and support of the people. The union is formed for 
 their happiness, which cannot be had without mutual respect ; 
 and he counsels maliciously who would persuade either to a 
 wanton breach of it. When it is banished by either party, 
 and when every method has been tried in vain to restore it, 
 there is no remedy but u divorce ; but even then he must 
 have a hard and a wicked heart indeed who punishes the 
 greatest criminal merely / / the sake of the punishment; and 
 who does not let fall a tear for every drop of blood that is shed 
 in a public struggle, however just the quarrel. 
 
 JOHN HORNE. 
 
 country, as well as to preserve from violation the law of the land, and the 
 ensential rights of the constitution." 
 
 On the subject of triennial parliaments, Lord Chatham appears subsequently 
 t< have changed his opinion, as will be seen by reference to his speech in 
 the Lords. April 30, 1771, in which he declares himself "a convert to tri- 
 ennial parliaments.'' Kr.
 
 REPLY TO THE REV. MB. HORNE. 387 
 
 LETTER L1V*. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, August 13, 1771. 
 
 I OUGHT to make an apology to the Duke of Graf ton for 
 suffering any part of my attention to be diverted from his 
 Grace to Mr. Home. I am not justified by the similarily of 
 their dispositions. Private vices, however detestable, have 
 not dignity sufficient to attract the censure of the press unless 
 they are united with the power cf doing some signal mischief 
 to the community. Mr. Home's situation does not correspond 
 with his intentions. In my own opinion (which I know, will 
 be attributed to my usual vanity and presumption) his letter 
 to me does not deserve an answer. But I understand that the 
 public are not satisfied with ray silence ; that an answer is 
 expected from me, and that if I persist in refusing to plead, 
 it will be taken for conviction. I should be inconsistent with 
 the principles I profess if I declined an appeal to the good 
 sense of the people, or did not willingly submit myself to the 
 judgment of my peers. 
 
 If any coarse expressions have escaped me T am ready to 
 agree that they are unfit for Junius to make use of, but I see 
 no reason to admit that they have been improperly applied. 
 
 Mr. Home, it seems, is unable to comprehend how .an 
 extreme want of conduct and discretion can consist with the 
 abilities I have allowed him ; nor can he conceive that a very 
 honest man, with a very good understanding, may be deceived 
 by a knave. His knowledge of human nature must be limited 
 indeed. Had he never mixed with the world one would think 
 that oven his books might have taught him better. Did he 
 hear Lord Mansfield when he defended his doctrine con- 
 cerning libels ? Or when he stated the law in prosecutions for 
 criminal conversation? Or when he delivered his reasons for 
 calling the House of Lords together to receive a copy of his 
 charge to the jury in Woodfall's trial? Had he been present 
 
 * Junius, in Private Letter, No. 37, makes the following observation : 
 " If Mr. Home answers this letter handsomely, and in point, he shall be mj 
 great Apolio." 
 
 c c a
 
 338 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 upon any of these occasions he would have soon how possible 
 it is for a man of the first talents to confound himself in ab- 
 surdities which would disgrace the lips of an idiot. Perhaps 
 the example might have taught him not to value his own 
 understanding so highly. Lord Littleton's integrity and 
 judgment are unquestionable; yet he is known to admire that 
 cunning Scotchman, and verily believes him an honest man. 
 I speak to facts with which all of us are conversant. I speak 
 to men and to their experience, and will not descend to an- 
 swer, the little sneering sophistries of a collegian. Distin- 
 guished talents are not necessarily connected with discretion. 
 If there be anything remarkable in the character of Mr. 
 Home, it is that extreme want of judgment should be united 
 with his very moderate capacity. Yet I have not forgotten 
 the acknowledgment I made him. He owes it to my bounty ; 
 and though his letter has lowered him in my opinion, I scorn 
 to retract the charitable donation. 
 
 I said it would be very difficult for Mr. Home to write 
 directly in defence of a ministerial measure and not be de- 
 tected ; and even that difficulty I confined to his particular 
 situation. He changes the terms of the proposition, and 
 supposes me to assert that it would be impossible for any man 
 to write for the newspapers and not be discovered. 
 
 He repeatedly affirms, or intimates at least, that he knows 
 the author of these letters. With what colour of truth then can 
 he pretend that I am nowhere to be encountered but in a neics- 
 paper ? I shall leave him to his suspicions. It is not neces- 
 sary that I should confide in the honour or discretion of a 
 man who already seems to hate me with as much rancour as 
 if I had formerly been his friend. But he asserts that he 
 lias traced me through a variety of signatures. To make the 
 discovery of any importance to his purpose, he should have 
 proved either that the fictitious character of Junius has not 
 been consistently supported, or that the author has main- 
 tained different principles under different signatures. I can 
 not recall to my memory the numberless trifles I have 
 written ; but I rely upon the consciousness of my OWTJ in- 
 tegrity, and defy him to fix any colourable charge of incon- 
 sistency against me. 
 
 T am not bound to assign the secret motives of his apparent 
 hatred of Mr. Wilkes ; nor does it follow that I may not
 
 BEPLY TO THE REV. MB. HORNE. 38U 
 
 judge fairly of his conduct, though it were true that I had no 
 conduct of my own. Mr. Home enlarges, with rapture, upon 
 the importance of his services ; the dreadful battles which he 
 might have been engaged in, and the dangers he has escaped. 
 In support of the formidable description, he quotes verses 
 without mercy. The gentleman deals in fiction and naturally 
 appeals to the evidence of the poets. Taking him at his 
 word, he cannot but admit the superiority of Mr. Wilkes in 
 this line of service. On one side we see nothing but imaginary 
 distresses. On the other we see real prosecutions real 
 penalties real imprisonment life repeatedly hazarded 
 and, atone moment, almost the certainty of death. Thanks 
 are undoubtedly due to every man who does his duty in the 
 engagement ; but it is the wounded soldier who deserves the 
 reward. 
 
 I did not mean to deny that Mr. Home had been an active 
 partisan. It would defeat my own purpose not to allow him 
 a degree of merit which aggravates his guilt. The very 
 charge of contributing his utmost efforts to support a ministerial 
 measure implies an acknowledgment of his former services. 
 If he had not once been distinguished by his apparent zeal in 
 defence of the common cause he could not now be distin- 
 guished by deserting it. As for myself, it is no longer a 
 question whether I shall mix with the throng, and take a single 
 share in the danger. Whenever Junius appears, he must 
 encounter a host of enemies. But is there no honourable 
 way to serve the public without engaging in personal quarrels 
 with insignificant individuals, or submitting to the drudgery 
 of canvassing votes for an election ? Is there no merit in 
 dedicating my life to the information of my fellow-subjects ? 
 What public question have I declined? what villain have I 
 spared? Is there no labour in the composition of these let 
 ters ? Mr. Home, 1 fear, is partial to me, and measures the 
 facility of my writings by the fluency of his own. 
 
 He talks to us, in high terms, of the gallant feats he would 
 have performed if he had lived in the last century. The 
 unhappy Charles could hardly have escaped him. But living 
 princes have a claim to his attachment and respect. Upon 
 these terms there is no danger in being a patriot. If he 
 means anything more than a pompous rhapsody, let us try 
 how well his argument holds together I presume he is not
 
 300 LETTERS OF JUMU8. 
 
 yet so much a courtier as to affirm that the constitution has 
 not been grossly and daringly violated uifder the present 
 reign. He will not say that the laws have not been shame- 
 fully broken or perverted ; that the rights of the subiect have 
 not been invaded, or that redress has not been repeatedly 
 solicited and refused. Grievances like these were the foun- 
 dation of the rebellion in the last century, and, if I understand 
 Mr. Home, they would, at that period, have justified him, to 
 his own mind, in deliberately attacking the life of his sove- 
 reign. I shall not ask him to what political constitution this 
 doctrine can be reconciled. But, at least, it is incumbent 
 upon him to show, that the present king has better excuses 
 than Charles the First for the errors of his government. He 
 ought to demonstrate to us that the constitution was better 
 understood a hundred years ago than it is at present ; that 
 the legal rights of the subject, and the limits of the preroga- 
 tive were more accurately denned and more clearly compre- 
 hended. If propositions like these cannot be fairly main- 
 tained, I do not see how he can reconcile it to his conscience, 
 not to act immediately with the same freedom with which he 
 speaks. I reverence the character of Charles the First as 
 little as Mr. Home ; but I will not insult his misfortunes by 
 a comparison that would degrade him. 
 
 It is worth observing by what gentle degrees the furious 
 persecuting zeal of Mr. Home Las softened into moderation. 
 Men and measures were yesterday his object. What pains 
 did he once take to bring that great state criminal Mac Quirk 
 to execution ! To-day he confines himself to measures only. 
 No penal example is to be left to the successors of the Duke 
 ot'Grafton. To-morrow I presume both men and measures 
 will be forgiven. The flaming patriot who so lately scorched 
 us in the meridian sinks temperately to the west, and is 
 hardly felt as he desceoas. 
 
 I comprehend the policy of endeavouring to communicate 
 to Mr. Oliver and Mr. Sawbridge a share in the reproaches 
 with which he supposes me to have loaded him. My memory 
 fails me if I have mentioned their names with disrespect ; 
 unless it be reproachful to acknowledge a sincere respect for 
 the character of Mr. Sawbridge, and not to have questioned 
 the innocence of ilr. Oliver's intentions. 
 
 It seems I am a partisan of the great leader of tbe oppo-
 
 REPLY TO THE REV. MR. HORSE. 391 
 
 sition. K the charge had been a reproach, it should have 
 been better supported. I did not intend to make a public 
 declaration of the respect I bear Lord Chatham. I well 
 knew what unworthy conclusions would be drawn from it. 
 But I am called upon to deliver my opinion; and surely it is 
 not in the little censure of Mr. Home to deter me from doing 
 signal justice to a man who, I confess, has grown upon my 
 esteem. As for the common, sordid views of avarice, or any 
 purpose of vulgar ambition, I question whether the applause 
 of Junius would be of service to Lord Chatham. My vote 
 will hardly recommend him to an increase of his pension, or 
 to a seat in the cabinet. But if his ambition be upon a level 
 with his understanding if he judges of what is truly 
 honourable for himself, with the same superior genius which 
 animates and directs him to eloquence in debate, to wisdom 
 in decision, even the pen of Junius shall contribute to reward 
 him. Recorded honours shall gather round his monument 
 and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and will support 
 the laurels that adorn it. I am not conversant in the lan- 
 guage of panegyric. These praises are extorted from me : 
 but they will wear well, for they have been dearly earned. 
 
 My detestation of the Duke of Grafton is not founded 
 upon his treachery to any individual ; though I am willing 
 enough to suppose that, in public affairs, it would be impos- 
 sible to desert or betray Lord Chatham without doing an 
 essential injury to this country. My abhorrence of the Duke 
 arises from an intimate knowledge of his character, and from 
 a thorough conviction that his baseness has been the cause of 
 greater mischief to England than even the unfortunate anabi 
 lion of Lord Bute. 
 
 The shortening the duration of parliaments is a subject on 
 which Mr. Home cannot enlarge too warmly; nor will I ques- 
 tion his sincerity. Tf I did not profess the same sentiments 
 J should be shamefully inconsistent with myself. It is un- 
 iccessary to bind Lord Chatham by the written formality of 
 an engagement. He has publicly declared himself a convert 
 to triennial parliaments ; and though I have long been con- 
 vinced that this is the only possible resource we have left to 
 preserve the substantial freedom of the constitution, I do not 
 think we have a right to determine against the integrity of 
 Lord Rockingham or his friends. Other measures may un
 
 392 LETTF.RS OF JT7NIT78. 
 
 doubtedly be supported in argument, as better adapted to the 
 disorder, or more likely to be obtained. 
 
 Mr. Home is well assured that I never was the champion 
 of Mr. Wilkes. But, though I am not obliged to answer for 
 ths firmness of his future adherence to the principles he 
 professes, I have no reason to presume that he will hereafter 
 disgrace them. As for all those imaginary cases which Mr. 
 Home so petulantly urges against me, I have one plain, honest 
 answer to make to him. Whenever Mr. Wilkes shall be 
 convicted of soliciting a pension, an embassy, or a govern- 
 ment, he must depart from that situation, and renounce vhat 
 character, which he assumes at present, and which, in my 
 opinion, entitle him to the support of the public. By the 
 same act, and at the same moment, he will forfeit his power 
 of mortifying the king ; and, though he can never be a favourite 
 at St. James's, his baseness may administer a solid satisfac- 
 tion to the royal mind. The man I speak of has not a heart 
 to feel for the frailties of his fellow-creatures. It is their 
 virtues that afflict, it is their vices that console him. 
 
 I give every possible advantage to Mr. Home when I take 
 the facts he refers to for granted. That they are the produce 
 of his invention, seems highly probable ; that they are exag- 
 gerated, T have no doubt. At the worst, what do they amount 
 to but that Mr. Wilkes, who never was thought of as a per- 
 fect pattern of morality, has not been at all times proof 
 against the extremity of distress ! How shameful is it in a 
 man who has lived in friendship with him, to reproach him 
 with failings too naturally connected with despair ! Is no 
 allowance to be made for banishment and ruin ? Does a two 
 years' imprisonment make no atonement for his crimes '? The 
 resentment of a priest is implacable. No sufferings can 
 soften, no penitence can appease him. Yet he himself, I 
 think, upon his own system, has a multitude of political 
 offences to atone for. I will not insist upon the nauseous 
 detail with which he so long disgusted the public. He seems 
 to be ashamed of it. But what excuse will he make to the 
 friends of the constitution for labouring to promote this cor*- 
 wtnmtttehi lad man to a station of the highest national trust 
 and importance ? Upon what honourable motives did he re 
 commend him to the livery of London for their represen- 
 tative ; to the ward of Farringdon for their alderman; to
 
 BEPLT TO THE REV. MB. HOHNE 393 
 
 the county of Middlesex for their knight? Will he affirm 
 that, at that time, he was ignorant of Mr. Wilkes's solicita 
 tions to the ministry? That he should say so is indeed very 
 necessary for his own justification, but where will he find cre- 
 dulity to believe him? 
 
 In what school this gentleman learned his ethics I know 
 not. His logic seems to have been studied under Mr. Dyson. 
 That miserable pamphleteer, by dividing the only precedent 
 in point, and taking as much of it as suited his purpose, had 
 reduced his argument upon the Middlesex election to some- 
 thing like the shape of a syllogism. Mr. Home has con- 
 ducted himself with the same ingenuity and candour. I had 
 affirmed that Mr. Wilkes would preserve the public favour, 
 " as long as he stood forth against a ministry and parliament, 
 who were doing everything they could to enslave the country, 
 and as long as he was a thorn in the king's side." Yet, from 
 the exulting triumph of Mr. Home's reply, one would think 
 that I had rested my expectation that Mr. Wilkes would be 
 supported by the public, upon the single condition of his mor- 
 tifying the king. This may be logic at Cambridge or at the 
 treasury, but among men of sense and honour it is folly or 
 villany in the extreme. 
 
 I see the pitiful advantage he has taken of a single un- 
 guarded expression in a letter not intended for the public. 
 Yet it is only the expression that is unguarded. J adhere 
 to the true meaning of that member of the sentence, taken 
 separately as he takes it ; and now, upon the coolest delibera- 
 tion, re-assert that, for the purposes 1 referred to, it may be 
 highly meritorious to the public to wound the personal feel 
 ings of the sovereign. It is not a general proposition, nor is 
 it generally applied to the chief magistrate of this, or any 
 other constitution. Mr. Home knows, as well as I do, that 
 the best of princes is not displeased with the abuse which 
 he sees thrown upon his ostensible ministers. It makes 
 them, I presume, more properly the objects of his royal com- 
 passion. Neither does it escape his sagacity, that the lowel 
 they are degraded in the public esteem the more submis- 
 sively they must depend upon his favour for protection. This, 
 I affirm, upon the most solemr Conviction, and the most cer 
 tain knowledge, is a leading masim in the policy of the closet 
 It is unnecessary to pursue the argument any farther.
 
 394: LETTERS OF JUN10S 
 
 Mr. Home is now a very loyal subject. Ho laments the 
 wretched state of politics in this country, and sees in a new 
 light the weakness and folly of the opposition. Whoever or 
 whatever is sovereign demands the respect and support of tht> 
 people*; it was not so, when Xero fiddled while Borne was 
 burning \. Our gracious sovereign has had wonderful success 
 i. creating new attachments to his j)crson and family. He 
 o\\ >s it, I presume, to the regular system he has pursued in 
 the mystery of conversion. He began with an experiment 
 upon the Scotch, and coucludes with converting Mr. Home. 
 What a pity it is that the Jews should be condemned by Pro- 
 vidence to wait for a Messiah of their own ! 
 
 The priesthood are accused of misinterpreting the scrip- 
 tures. Mr. Home has improved upon his profession. He 
 alters the text, and creates a refutable doctrine of his own. 
 Such artifices cannot long delude the understanding of the 
 people; and, without meaning an indecent cpmparison, I may 
 venture to foretel, that the Bible and Junius will be read 
 when the commentaries of the Jesuits are forgotten. 
 
 JUNIUS, 
 
 LETTER LV. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PD3LIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, August 26, 1771. 
 
 THE enemies of the people, having now nothing better to ob- 
 ject to my friend Junius, are at last obliged to quit his poli- 
 tics, and to rail at him for crimes he is not guilty of. Hia 
 vanity and impiety are now the perpetual topics of their 
 abuse. I do not mean to lessen the force of such charges 
 (supposing they were true), but to show that they are not 
 founded. If I admitted the premises, I should readily agree 
 in all the consequences drawn from them. Vanity, indeed, ia 
 a venial error, for it usually carries its own punishment with 
 it ; but if I thought Junius capable of uttering a disrespect- 
 ful word of the religion of his country, I should be the first 
 
 * The very soliloquy of Lord Suffolk before he passed the Rubicon. 
 + This forms a sentence of Mr. Home's own writing, and wa one 01 
 his bitterest sarcasms against the Kmg.
 
 HEPLY TO THE KEY MR. HORNE. 3{5 
 
 to renounce and give him up to the public contempt and in- 
 dignation. As a man, I am satisfied that he is a Christian 
 upon the most sincere conviction. As a writer, he would be 
 grossly inconsistent with his political principles if he dared 
 to attack a religion established by those laws which it seems 
 to be the purpose of his life to defend. Now for the proofs. 
 Junius is accused of an impious allusion to the holy sacra- 
 ment, where he says that, if Lord Weymouth be denied the cup, 
 there will be no keeping him within the pale of the ministry 
 Now, Sir, I affirm that this passage refers entirely to a cere 
 monial in the Roman Catholic Church which denies the cup 
 to the laity. It has no manner of relation to the Protestant 
 creed, and is, in this country, as fair an object of ridicule as 
 transubstantiation, or any other part of Lord Peter's history 
 in the Tale of the Tub. 
 
 But Junius is charged with equal vanity and impiety in 
 comparing his writings to the holy scripture. The formal 
 protest he makes against any such comparison avails him 
 nothing. It becomes necessary, then, to show that the charge 
 destroys itself. If he be vain he cannot be impious. A vain 
 man does not usually compare himself to an object which it 
 is his design to undervalue. On the other hand, if he be im- 
 pious he cannot be vain. For his impiety, if any, must con- 
 sist in his endeavouring to degrade the holy scriptures by a 
 comparison with his own contemptible writings. This would 
 be folly indeed of the grossest nature ; but where lies the 
 vanity? I shall now be told, " Sir, what you say is plausible 
 enough, but still you must allow that it is shamefully impu- 
 dent in Junius to tell us that his works will live as long as 
 the Bible." My answer is, Ayreed; butjirst 2>rove that he has 
 saul so. Look at his words, and you will find that the utmost 
 he expects is that the Bible and Junius will survive the 
 commentaries of the Jesuits, which may prove true in a fort- 
 night. The most malignant sagacity cannot show that his 
 works are, in his opinion, to live as long as the Bible. Sup- 
 pose I were to foretel that Jack and Tom would survive 
 Harry ; does it follow that Jack must live as long as Tom ? 
 I would only illustrate my meaning, and protest against the 
 least idea of profaneness. 
 
 Yet this is the way in which Junius is usually answered, 
 arraigned, and convicted. These candid critics never remoo*
 
 396 .LETTERS OF JCNIU8. 
 
 ber anything he says in honour of our holy religior. ; though 
 it is true that one of his leading arguments is made to rest 
 upon the internal evidence which the purest of all religions 
 carries with it. I quote his words, and conclude from them 
 that he is a true and hearty Christian, in substance, not in 
 ceremony ; though possibly he may not agree with my reve- 
 rend Lords the Bishops, or with the Head of the Church, that 
 prayers are morality, or that kneeling is religion. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER LVI. 
 
 FROM THE REV. MR. HORNE TO JUNIOS. 
 
 August 16, 1771. 
 
 I CONGRATULATE you, Sir, on the recovery of your wonted 
 style, though it has cost you a fortnight. I compassionate 
 your labour in the composition of your letters, and will com 
 municate to you the secret of my fluency. Truth needs no 
 ornament, and, in my opinion, what she borrows of the pencil 
 is deformity. 
 
 You brought a positive charge against me of corruption. I 
 denied the charge, and called for your proofs. You replied 
 with abuse and reasserted your charge. I called again for 
 proofs. You reply again with abuse only and drop your ac- 
 cusation. In your fortnight's letter there is not one word 
 upon the subject of my corruption. 
 
 I have no more to say but to return thanks to you for your 
 condescension, and to a grateful public and honest ministry for 
 all the favours they have conferred upon me. The two latter, 
 I am sure, will never refuse me any grace I shall solicit , and 
 since you have been pleased to acknowledge that you told a 
 deliberate lie in my favour out of bounty, and as a charitable 
 donation, why may I not expect that you will hereafter (if 
 you do not forget you ever mentioned my name with dis- 
 respect) make the same acknowledgment for what you have 
 said to my prejudice? This second recantation will perhaps 
 be more abhorrent from your disposition ; but should you de- 
 cline it, you will only afford one more instance how much 
 easier it is to be generous than just, and that men are some 
 times bountiful who are not honest
 
 TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 397 
 
 At all events, I am as well satisfied with your panegyric aa 
 Lord Chatham can be. Monument I shall have none ; but 
 over my grave it will be said, in your own words, " Home's 
 situation did not correspond with his intentions."* 
 
 JOHN HORNE. 
 
 LETTER LVIIf. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 
 
 MY LOKP, September 28, 1771. 
 
 THE people of England are not apprized of the full extent of 
 their obligations to you. They have yet no adequate idea of 
 the endless variety of your character. They have seen you 
 distinguished and successful in the continued violation of 
 those moral and political duties by which the little, as well 
 as the great, societies of life are collected and held together. 
 Every colour, every character, became you. With a rate of 
 abilities which Lord Weymouth very justly looks down upon 
 with contempt, you have done as much mischief to the com- 
 munity as Cromwell would have done if Cromwell had been a 
 coward, and as much as Machiavel if Machiavel had not 
 known that an appearance of morals and religion are useful in 
 society. 
 
 To a thinking man, the influence of the crown will, in no 
 view, appear so formidable as when he observes to what enor- 
 mous excesses it has safely conducted your Grace, without a 
 ray of real understanding, without even the pretension to 
 common decency or principle of any kind, or a single spark of 
 
 * The epitaph would not be ill-suited to the character. At the best it is 
 but equivocal. JUNIUS. 
 
 f " The inclosed is of such importance, so very material, that it must be 
 given to the public immediately." Private Letter, No. 38. 
 
 Junius's rage against the quondam friend of Lord Chatham and Mr. Wilkes, 
 was not to be appeased. He had been unwillingly entangled in the contro- 
 versy with Mr. Home, and he, therefore, made this escape from it with as 
 much haste as was possible. But he delighted to hurl all his invectives against 
 the Duke of Grafton ; and on this subject he was, therefore, earnestly dis- 
 posed to dwell as long the public were not unwilling to listen. Nothing is 
 more remarkable than the wonderful power to diversify invective, which th 
 writer displays in this letter; and the most damaging portion of it, as will 
 be discovered in a note at the conclusion, is founded upon false facts. Eit
 
 898 LETTERS OF JTJNIOS. 
 
 personal resolution. What must be the operation of that per- 
 nicious influence (for which our kings have wisely exchanged 
 the nugatory name of prerogative) that, in the highest sta- 
 tions, can so abundantly supply the absence of virtue, courage, 
 and abilities, and qualify a man to be the minister of a great 
 nation whom a private gentleman would be ashamed and 
 afraid to admit into his family ! Like the universal passport 
 of an ambassador, it supersedes the prohibition of the laws, 
 banishes the staple virtues of the country, and introduces vice 
 and folly triumphantly into all the departments of the state. 
 Other princes, besides his Majesty, have had the means of 
 corruption within their reach, but they have used it with 
 moderation. In former times corruption was considered as 
 a foreign auxiliary to government, and only called in upon 
 extraordinary emergencies. The unfeigned piety, the sanc- 
 tiiied religion, of George the Third, have taught him to new 
 model the civil forces cf the state. The natural resources of 
 the crown are no longer confided in. Corruption glitters in 
 the van, collects and maintains a standing army of merce- 
 naries, and, at the same moment, impoverishes and enslaves 
 the country. His Majesty's predecessors (excepting that 
 worthy family, from which you, ray Lord, are unquestionably 
 descended) had some generous qualities in their composition, 
 with vices, I confess, or frailties in abundance. They were 
 kings or gentlemen, not hypocrites or priests. They were at 
 the head of the church, but did not know the value of their 
 office. They said their prayers without ceremony, and had 
 too little priestcraft in their understanding to reconcile the 
 sanctimonious forms of religion with the utter destruction of 
 the morality of their people. My Lord, this is fact, not 
 declamation. With all your partiality to the house of Stuart, 
 you must confess that even Charles II. would have blushed 
 at that open encouragement, at those eager, meretricious 
 caresses, with which every species of private vice and public 
 prostitution is received at St. James's. The unfortunate House 
 of Stuart has been treated with an asperity which, if com- 
 parison be a defence, seems to border upon injustice. Neither 
 Charles nor his brother were qualified to support such a sys- 
 tem of measures as would be necessary to change the govern- 
 ment and subvert the constitution of England. One of 
 them was too much iu earnest in his pleasures the other iu
 
 TO THE DUKE 01 GRAFTON. 399 
 
 his religion. But the danger to this country would cease to 
 be problematical, if the crown should ever descend to a prince 
 whose apparent simplicity might throw his subjects off their 
 guard who might he no libertine in behaviour who should 
 have nc sense of honour to restrain him, and who, with just 
 religion enough to impose upon the multitude, might have no 
 scruples of conscience to interfere with his morality. With 
 these honourable qualifications, and the decisive advantage of 
 situation, low craft and falsehood are all the abilities that are 
 wanting to destroy the wisdom of ages, and to deface the 
 noblest monument that human policy has erected. I know 
 such a man my Lord, I know you both and, with the 
 blessing of God (for I, too, am religious), the people of Eng 
 land shall know you as well as I do. I am not very sure that 
 greater abilities would not, in effect, be an impediment to a 
 design which seems, at first sight, to require a superior capa- 
 city. A better understanding might make him sensible of 
 the wonderful beauty of that system he was endeavouring to 
 corrupt. The danger of the attempt might alarm him. The 
 meanness, and intrinsic worthlessness of the object (supposing 
 he could attain to it) would fill him with shame, repentance, 
 and disgust. But these are sensations which find no entrance 
 into a barbarous, contracted heart. In some men there is a 
 malignant passion to destroy the works of genius, literature, 
 and freedom. The Vaudal and the monk find equal gratifica 
 tion in it. 
 
 Reflections like these, my Lord, have a general relation to 
 your Grace, and inseparably attend you in whatever company 
 or situation your character occurs to us ; they have no imme- 
 diate connection with the following recent fact, which I lay 
 before the public for the honour of the best of sovereigns, 
 and for the edification of his people. 
 
 A prince (whose piety and self-denial, one would think, 
 might secure him from such a multitude of worldly necessities,) 
 with an annual revenue of near a million sterling, unfortunately 
 wants money. The navy of England, by an equally strange 
 concurrence of unforeseen circumstances (though not quite so 
 unfortunately for his Majesty), is in equal want of timber. The 
 world knows in what a hopeful condition you delivered the 
 navy to your successor, and in what a condition we found it iu 
 the moment of distress; you were determined it should cou
 
 400 LETTERS OF JUXIUS. 
 
 tiuue in the situation in which yon left it *; it happened, how 
 ever, very luckily for the privy purse, that one of the above 
 wants promised fair to supply the other. Our religious, 
 benevolent, generous sovereign, has no objection to selling hit 
 own timber to his own admiralty to repair his own ships, nor 
 to putting the money into his own pocket. People of a 
 religious turn naturally adhere to the principles of the church. 
 Whatever they acquire falls into mortmain. Upon a represen- 
 tation from the admiralty of the extraordinary want of timber 
 for the indispensable repairs of the navy, the surveyor-general 
 was directed to make a survey of the timber in all the royal 
 chases and forests in England. Having obeyed his orders 
 with accuracy and attention he reported that the nnest timber 
 he had anywhere met with, and the properest in every respect 
 for the purposes of the navy, was in Whittlebury Forest, of 
 which your Grace, T think, is hereditary ranger. In conse- 
 quence of this report, the usual warrant was prepared at the 
 Treasury, and delivered to the surveyor, by which he or his 
 deputy were authorised to cut down any trees in Whittlebury 
 Forest, which should appear to be proper for the purposes 
 above mentioned. The deputy being informed that the war- 
 rant was signed and delivered to his principal in London, 
 crosses the country to Northamptonshire, and, with an officious 
 zeal for the public service, begins to do his duty in the forest. 
 Unfortunately for him, he had not the warrant in his pocket 
 The oversight was enormous, and you have punished him for 
 it accordingly ; you have insisted that an active, useful officer 
 should be dismissed from his place ; you have ruined an inno- 
 cent man and his family. In what language shall I address 
 so black, so cowardly a tyrant, thou worse than one of the 
 
 * When the armament took place, in consequence of the dispute with 
 Spain respecting Falkland's Islands, the navy was found to be in a most 
 deplorable state. By the exertions of the late Earl of Sandwich, then and 
 for many years afterwards first lord of the admiralty, it was greatly reno- 
 vated. It is, however, to later periods, to the superintendence of the pre- 
 sent Earl Spencer and some of his very able successors, that we are tc look 
 for its true pinnacle of glory for the manifestation of that expert and 
 chivalrous courage which has made it indeed the envy of an individual 
 tyrant, but the admiration of the universe. [This observation, it should b* 
 itmembered, was made by the former editor (Dr. Mason Good) in 1814, 
 o- earlier, in reference to the French emperor, Napoleon I. ED.]
 
 TO THE DUKE Otf GRAFTON. 40 1 
 
 Brunsmcks, and all the Stuarts ! To them who know Lord 
 North it is unnecessary to say that he was mean and base 
 enough to submit to you ; this, however, is but a small part of 
 the fact. After ruining the surveyor's deputy for acting with- 
 out the warrant, you attacked the warrant itself. You declared 
 it was illegal, and swore, in a fit of foaming, frantic passion. 
 that it never should be executed. You asserted, upon your 
 honour, that in the grant of the raugership of Whittlebury 
 Forest, made by Charles the Second (whom, with a modesty 
 that would do honour to Mr. Rigby, you are pleased to call 
 your ansestor) to one of his bastards (from whom I make no 
 doubt of your descent), the property of the timber is vested in 
 the ranger. I have examined the original grant, and now, in 
 the face of the public, contradict you directly upon the fact. 
 The very reverse of what you have asserted, upon your honour, 
 is the truth. The grant, expressly, and by a particular clause, 
 reserves the property of the timber for the use of the crown. 
 In spite of this evidence, in defiance of the representations of 
 the admiralty, in perfect mockery of the notorious distresses 
 of the English navy, and those equally pressing, and almost 
 equally notorious, necessities of your pious sovereign, here tbo 
 matter rests. The lords of the treasury recall their warrant, 
 the deputy-surveyor is ruined for doing his duty, Mr. John 
 Pitt (whose name I suppose is offensive to you) submits to be 
 brow-beat.en and insulted, the oaks keep their ground, the king 
 is defrauded, and the navy of England may perish for want of 
 the best and finest timber in the island. And all this is sub- 
 mitted to, to appease the Duke of Grafton ! to gratify the 
 man who has involved the king and his kingdom in confusion 
 and distress, and who, like a treacherous coward, deserted his 
 sovereign in the midst of it ! 
 
 There has been a strange alteration in your doctrines since 
 you thought it advisable to rob the Duke of Portland of his 
 property, in order to strengthen the interest of Lord Bute's 
 son-in-law before the last general election *. Nullum tempua 
 
 * Few persons have yet forgotten the commotion into which the ration 
 <vas thrown by this outrageous attempt of the minister to enlarge the royal 
 prerogative. By the common law ol England no man can be disturbed" in 
 his title who has been in quiet possession of an estate for sixty years ; but 
 by an old obsolete law, a wretched remnant ot ancient tyranny, it was 
 asserted that nultum temfis occutrit reyt, and such was the commmreimnt 
 
 VOL I. i) D
 
 402 LErntRs OF JTTNIUS 
 
 cccurrit regi was then your boasted motto, and the cry of all 
 vour hungry partisans. Now it seems a grant of Cnarles II. 
 to one of his bastards is to be held sacred and inviolable ! 
 ]t must not be questioned by the king's sen-ants, nor sub- 
 mitted to any interpretation but your own. My Lord, this 
 was not the language you held when it suited you to insult 
 the memory of the glorious deliverer of England from that 
 detested family to which you are still more nearly allied in 
 principle than in blood. In the name of decency and common 
 sense, what are your Grace's merits, either with king or 
 ministry, that should entitle you to assume this domineering 
 authority over both? Is it the fortunate consanguinity you 
 claim with the House of Stuart? Is it the secret correspond- 
 ence you have for so many years carried on with Lord Bute, 
 by the assiduous assistance of your cream-coloured parasite*? 
 Could not your gallantly find sufficient employment for him 
 in those gentle offices by which he first acquired the tender 
 friendship of Lord Barrington ? Or is it only that won- 
 derful sympathy of mariners which subsists between your 
 Grace and one of your superiors, and does so much honour to 
 you both? Is the union of B/ifil and Black George no linger 
 a romance? From whatever origin your influence it> this 
 
 of the law itself, in plain English, that no term of possession, whethei 
 sixty or a hundred and sixty years, can defend against a claim of the 
 crown. This law was attempted to be revived in the reign of James I.; 
 but the attempt was so effectually opposed in its outset by that sound con- 
 stitutional lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, that a bill of a contrary tendency was 
 suffered to pass in its stead, which expressly secured every estate of sixty 
 years' possession "against all and every person having or pretending to 
 have any estate, right, or title, by force or colour of any letters patent, or 
 grants, upon suggestion of concealment, or defective titles, of or fur which 
 said manors, lands, and tenements, no verdict, judgment, or decree, hath 
 been had or given." 
 
 This extraordinary and unconstitutional prerogative of the ciown was 
 attempted to be revived by the Duke of Grafton in 1767, who, for the 
 ui-re purpose of carrying an election for the county of Cumberland in favoui 
 of Sir James Lowther against the Duke of Portland, had admitted the 
 former to become a royal grantee of an enormous portion of what had for- 
 merly been crown lands, but which had been for upwards of seventy years 
 in the different families of the actual possessors. '1 his attempt introduced 
 Sir George Savilc's famous bill, which was called the Quieting Bill, and 
 was intended to render more valid the Act of James I. in favour of tli* 
 subject against the crown. 
 
 * Mr. Bradshaw. Amow.
 
 TO 1HE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 403 
 
 country arises, it is a phenomenon in the history of human 
 virtue and understanding. Good men can hardly believe the 
 fact. Wise men are unable to account for it. Religious men 
 find exercise for their faith, and make it the last effort of 
 their piety not to repine against Providence. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 To this Letter the following answer was returned, which, as it proves 
 Junius to have been mistaken as to the facts relative to Whittlebury Forest, 
 is here inserted on the score of impartiality. 
 
 FOR THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 The STORY of the OAKS, addressed to the Public and to JUNIUS. 
 
 The principles upon which Junius fabricates all his declamations to the 
 public have been fairly unmasked and plainly exhibited in two former let- 
 ter*. They need only an exposure to nullify everything he promulgates, 
 and render him abominable in the eyes of common sense and honesty. 
 But to follow so gross a falsifier through the infinity of his wicked libels 
 and virulent attacks upon the king, and many of the worthiest characters in 
 the nation, is a task too foul for any gentleman to undertake. Suffice it, 
 therefore, to observe, that Junius's labours all tend to sinister ends, and they 
 are glossed over with a high varnish only to conceal the coarseness of the 
 design. Men and not measures are his aim. He avails himself of the 
 unhappy licentiousness of the times, and levels all his rhetoric at your 
 passions, not at your reason. 
 
 He began his career upon the old infamous maxim in political writing, 
 that lies are swifter of foot than truth, and, when they are roundly and 
 boldly asserted, will find believers; but luckily for us, that left-handed wis- 
 dom called cunning always detects and frustrates itself. 
 
 The last charge which he has blazoned in such fiery colours against the 
 Duke of Gra r ton relative to the Oaks may serve as a specimen of his 
 veracity. The fact is in no one instance as he has represented it. An 
 officer was sent down by the commissioners of the navy (as he declared) to 
 inspect the tin. her in Salcey and Whittlebury Forests in Northamptonshire ; 
 and was ordere-1 to make a return of what he found fit for the purposes c*f 
 ship building. He accordingly marked upwards of four thousand trees in 
 the latter, which are almost all that deserve the name of timber in the 
 whole forest. In consequence of his return, an application was made to the 
 treasury fr.r permission to cut down thirteen hundred loads, and, to make a 
 just parody upon Junius's own words, " to them who know Lord North it 
 is unnecessary to say that he was very ready to give his assent ;'' as the 
 advancement of every public good has ever been the invariable rule of his 
 Lordship's conduct. But it was never intended nor suspected that it would 
 be carried into a rash unseasonable execution, without due regard being 
 first paid to the circumstances attendant upon such an operation ; nor was 
 the exigency so urgent as to warrant a flagrant violation of private property 
 which the adjacent parishes must have suffered in their right of commonaye, 
 Mid tho Duke in Ira hereditary right to the underwood, had he not remott 
 
 D D SI
 
 404 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 rtrated against it. Besides, the season for felling timber was so far 
 that the bark (which is a valuable article, and will never run except in Aprii 
 or May, while the sap is rising,) would have been entirely lost. But there is 
 another argument to be adduced, still more cogent than all the rest, it being 
 a great national concern, which is to preserve the succession of young trees. 
 This can only be done by carefully clearing away the common underwood, 
 o as to expose them to plain view, otherwise they would be inevitably 
 demolished, partly by the falling of the trees, and partly by the carelessness 
 of workmen, as they grow mostly under them from the acorns which drop. 
 
 There is an established and legal rule against cutting the underwood 
 oftener than once in twenty-one years ; for nine years after it is cut, the 
 ame regulation prescribes that the respective coppices shall be fenced in to 
 prevent the cattle and deer from destroying the young tender shoots ; 
 during which time the vicinage is deprived of the pasture ; and for the 
 remaining twelve years of that term the neighbouring villages have a posi- 
 tive right of common. Underwood is as necessary to draw young trees up 
 straight and produce good timber, as a hotbed is for raising melons and 
 mushrooms. There are many secondary considerations which ought to have 
 their weight, though it is not requisite, after what has been advanced, to 
 swell this narrative by enumerating them. Without deliberating upon these 
 essential points, so ardent was the zeal of the surveyor-general for the public 
 service (for the trifling perquisites of the lop and chips, amounting to little 
 more than half the value of the timber, cannot be deemed a sufficient incen- 
 tive for committing such a depredation), that he immediately dispatched a 
 person unauthorized, to hack and hew, without the least previous intimation 
 being given to the hereditary ranger, deputy-ranger, or the king's wood 
 ward. In opposition to all this strange precipitancy and irregularity, the 
 Duke of Grafton did no more than interpose a candid representation of the 
 case, which wisely put a stop to such unjust proceedings. He never once 
 made use of those absurd declarations which Juuius has so invidiously put 
 in his mouth, " that the property of the timber was vested in the ranger." 
 And to retort a few more of his own precious words, he must here be 
 " contradicted in the face of the public directly upon the fact. The very 
 reverse of what he has asserted is the truth ;" for neither the present Duke 
 nor his predecessor ever allowed a single stick of timber to be cut down 
 for any i urpose, without first having obtained a regular order from the trea- 
 sury ; on the contrary (as it has been heretofore justly remarked) it has 
 been preserved for the use of the public, with an attention and integrity not 
 to be paralleled in any other royal forest. 
 
 For the better convenience of supplying the industrious poor of the cir- 
 cumjacent country with firing, it has been always a custom to arrange the 
 coppices in a regular progression, so as to cut two or more annually. There 
 are, however, two coppices (which contain a great quantity of fine timber) 
 exempt from comir.onage; aiid as none of the stated periods for the otheis 
 are yet expired, though they are too young, yet rather than withhold the 
 wood from the navy, the Duke has given orders for fencing and clearing 
 them, which will be effected long ere the proper season arrives for felling 
 the trees. The rest will be cut as they fall in course. "Mr. Junius, this 
 is fact not declar.iation." The oaks will come down ; the king will not be 
 defrauded ; nor will the navy of England perish fcr want cf them !
 
 OK THE ELECTION OF LORD MAfOE. 405 
 
 How roost it scandalise all our patriots, that their omn. sclent Junius 
 hould discover such consummate ignorance as to be reduced to the necessity 
 of examining the original grant to inform himself of a notorious point 
 which he might have learned from every attorney's clerk throughout the 
 kingdom ; nay, even from Brass Crosby, who was only a menial servant to 
 an attorney, " that the timber in royal forests is reserved for the use of the 
 crown !" 
 
 This, I say, may serve for a damning proof of Junius's veracity, and all 
 his slanderous productions are equally refutable and false. In the abun- 
 dance of his modesty he has somewhere told us that his writings will be 
 handed down to posterity like the Bible 1 It is needless for me to censure 
 his irreverent comparison ; nor will I altogether deny his prediction ; for 
 while the Bible endures as a monument of truth, his writings may stand in 
 odious contrast as a monument of lies. PHILALETHES. 
 
 It is likely that this refutation proceeded from Mr. John Pitt, at that 
 time surveyor-general of the royal forests, for Mr. Almoii in his edition of 
 Juniui, vol ii. p. 200, states, that Mr. Pitt had assured him that Jumus'i 
 statement of the matter was erroneous throughout, and that no blame what- 
 ever could attach to the Duke of Grafton on the subject. ED. 
 
 LETTER LVIII*. 
 
 TO THE LIVERY OF LONDON. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, September 30, 1771. 
 
 IF you alone were concerned in the event of the present elec 
 tion of a chief magistrate of the metropolis, it would he the 
 highest presumption in a stranger to attempt to influence 
 
 * The period was arrived for the election of a lord mayor for the city 
 of London for the year 1771-2. That election was regulated principally, 
 though not exclusively, by the rule of seniority among the aldermen. If 
 the senior alderman should be on this occasion advanced to the mayoralty, 
 Mr. Nash, a gentleman unentangled in politics, would be the lord mayor of 
 the ensuing year. During his authority the powers of the city would not 
 be, as on former years, at the command of Wilkes and the opposition. For 
 these reasons the patriots exercised all their activity and influence to dis- 
 appoint the hopes of Mr. Nash. But their divisions had greatly diminished 
 their influence, and the better part of the citizens were sick of the turbu- 
 lence which they had so long kept up : the case was not thought of suffi- 
 cient magnitude to justify the violation of the wonted rule j Mr. Nash 
 was elected, and the letter of Junius failed in its aim. Its excellence con- 
 sists in the pertinency of its application to the design of the writer, in the 
 brevity and plainness with which the arguments are stated, and in the skill 
 with which the eloquence of bold metaphor and vehement interrogation in 
 associated with simple language and the greatest closeness of reasoning.
 
 4:06 LETTERS OF 
 
 rour choice or even to offer you his opinions. But the situa- 
 tion of public affairs has annexed an extraordinary importance 
 to your resolutions. You cannot, in the choice of your magis- 
 trate, determine for yourselves onhj ; you are going to determine 
 upon a point in which every member of the community is 
 interested. I will not scruple to say that the very being of 
 that law, of that right, of that constitution, for which we have 
 been so long contending, is now at stake. They who would 
 ensnare your judgment tell you it is a common, ordinary case, 
 and to be decided by ordinary precedent and practice. They 
 artfully conclude from moderate peaceable times to times 
 which are not moderate, and which owjht not to be peaceable ; 
 while they solicit your favour, they insist upon a rule of 
 rotation which excludes all idea of election *. 
 
 Let me be honoured with a few minutes of your attention 
 The question to those who mean fairly to the liberty of the 
 people (which we all profess to have in view), lies within a 
 very narrow compass. Do you mean to desert that just and 
 honourable system of measures which you have hitherto pur 
 sued in hopes of obtaining from Parliament or from the crown 
 a full redress of past grievances, and a security for the future ? 
 Do you think the cause desperate, and will you declare that 
 you think so to the whole people of England ? If this be 
 your meaning and opinion, you will act consistently with it in 
 choosing Mr. Nash. I profess to be unacquainted with his 
 private character. But he has acted as a magistrate, as a 
 public man ; as such I speak of him. I see hrs name in a pro- 
 test against one of your remonstrances to the crown ; he has 
 done everything in his power to destroy the freedom of popular 
 elections in the city, by publishing the poll upon a former 
 occasion ; and I know, in general, that he has distinguished 
 himself by slighting and thwarting all those public measures 
 
 * The party interest likely to be served by an observance of the rule of ro- 
 tation and consequent elevation of Alderman Nash to the mayoralty, has been 
 already noticed ; and the object of the present letter, therefore, is to per- 
 suade the livery to overlook Mr. Nash, and by an extraordinary exercise of 
 their elective franchise, to return Mr. Crosby or Mr. Sawbridge in his stead, 
 svhosi politics were well known to be of the Whig school. But the divi- 
 sions which had been i \troduced into the Bill of Rights Society, through 
 the vanity of Oliver and Home, had now spread to the city, and almost 
 ruined the popular cause. Many were suspicious of the purity of its lead- 
 ers, and still more were grown indifferent as to its result.
 
 ON THE ELECTION OP LORD MAYOR. 407 
 
 which you have engaged in with the greatest warmth, and 
 hitherto thought most worthy of your approbation. From his 
 past conduct what conclusion will you draw, but that he will 
 act the same part as lord mayor which he has invariably acted 
 as alderman and sheriff? He cannot alter his conduct with- 
 out confessing that he never acted upon principle of any kind. 
 I should be sorry to injure the character of a man, who per- 
 haps may be honest in his intentions, by supposing it possible 
 that he can ever concur with you in any political measure or 
 opinion. 
 
 If, on the other hand, you mean to persevere in those reso- 
 lutions for the public good, which, though not always success- 
 ful, are always honourable, your choice will naturally incline 
 to those men who (whatever they he in other respects) are 
 most likely to co-operate with you in the great purposes which 
 you are determined not to relinquish. The question is not of 
 what metal your instruments are made, but whether they are 
 adapted to the work you have in hand ? The honours of 
 the city, in these times, are improperly, because exclusively, 
 called a reward. You mean not merely to pay, but to employ. 
 Are Mr. Crosby and Mr. Sawbridge likely to execute the extra- 
 ordinary, as well as the ordinary duties of lord mayor? Will 
 they grant jou common halls when it shall be necessary? 
 Will they go up with remonstrances to the king? Have they 
 firmness enough to meet the fury of a venal House of Com- 
 mons ? Have they fortitude enough not to shrink at impri- 
 sonment ? Have they spirit enough to hazard their lives and 
 fortunes in a contest, if it should be necessary, with a prosti- 
 tuted legislature? If these questions can fairly be answered 
 in the affirmative, your choice is made. Forgive this passionate 
 language, I am unable to correct it ; the subject comes home to 
 us all, it is the language of my heart*. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 Private Letter, No. 56, voL il
 
 408 LETTERS OF JUNIU8. 
 
 LETTER LIX* 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISED. 
 
 SIR, October 5, 17TI. 
 
 No man laments more sincerely than I do the unhappy differ 
 ences which have arisen among the friends of the people, and 
 divided them from each other. The cause undoubtedly suffers 
 
 * The dissensions among the reformers were discrediting their cause and 
 defeating all their purposes. The Rockingham Whigs and the followers of 
 Lord Chatham had each a particular creed respecting the government of 
 America. The society for the support of the Bill of Bights had been 
 divided, and in some sort broken up, by mutual recriminations between 
 Wilkes and Home. Amid these divisions the city liberals especially forgot 
 their complaints and efforts against those whom they had accounted the 
 common enemy. The aversion which Home excited against Wilkes, and 
 the still greater aversion which was raised against Home, hindered their 
 respective friends from due co-operation to defeat Nash's election. The 
 ministry grew daily stronger in the weakness of the patriots. The former 
 letter of Junius had not proved successful ; but he was not without hopes 
 that, as in the affair of the shrievalty, the friends of Wilkes had succeeded, 
 so they might now, by a struggle, achieve their object. 
 
 The purport of this letter is to persuade the subdivided reformers that, 
 notwithstanding the differences existing among themselves, they ought to 
 act in union for a purpose so important as that of electing a mayor favourable 
 to their cause. Junius produces a number of specious arguments. As if 
 ashamed of the meanness of city politics, he endeavours to dignify his 
 theme by deriving his illustrations from subjects of grandeur and moment. 
 He contrives to escape to the examination of the parliamentary conduct of 
 the opposition ; and, showing that its leaders refused no aid, and sacrificed, 
 in furtherance of the common cause, some of its own private sentiments, 
 strives to recommend, by this example, the same conduct to the city. 
 He pleads again the apology of Wilkes. He hints anew at the mischievously- 
 perplexing spirit of Home. He pronounces the encomium of Sawbridge, and 
 soothes the grumblings of Townshend. He artfully endeavours to rouse 
 anew, among the citizens, an indignation against the leaders in the govern- 
 ment that should withdraw their minds from their own mutual discontents. 
 To Lord Mansfield he turns, as to a favourite subject of invective, and 
 strives to represent him as the worst, because he was the ablest and the 
 most artful, of all the associates of the ministry. He kindles into wrath 
 as he proceeds, and endeavours to animate against the House of Commons 
 and against septennial elections that indignation which began to flag. 
 The reader cannot but remark, with pleasure and surprise, how artfully 
 the latter part of this letter is addressed to rouse a public spirit that should 
 itift* those private dissensions which its first part strives to soothe. HERON
 
 UNION AMONG KEFOBMEBS RECOMMENDED 400 
 
 as well by the diminution of that strength which union carries 
 with it as by the separate loss of personal reputation, which 
 every man sustains when his character and conduct are fre 
 quently held forth in odious or contemptible colours. These 
 differences are only advantageous to the common enemy of the 
 country ; the hearty friends of the cause are provoked and dis 
 g'isted ; the lukewarm advocate avails himself of any pretence 
 to relapse into that indolent indifference about everything that 
 ought to interest an Englishman* so unjustly dignified with 
 the title of moderation ; the false, insidious partisan, who 
 creates or foments the disorder, sees the fruit of his dishonest 
 industry ripen beyond his hopes, and rejoices in the promise 
 of a banquet, only delicious to such an appetite as his own. 
 It is time for those who really mean the cause and the people*, 
 who have no view to private advantage, and who have virtue 
 enough to prefer the general good of the community to the 
 gratification of personal animosities, it is time for such men to 
 interpose ; let us try whether these fatal dissensions may not 
 yet be reconciled ; or, if that be impracticable, let us guard at 
 least against the worst effects of division, and endeavour to 
 persuade these furious partisans, if they will not consent to 
 draw together, to be separately useful to that cause which they 
 all pretend to be attached to. Honour and honesty must not 
 be renounced, although a thousand modes of right and wrong 
 were to occupy the degrees of morality between Zeno and 
 Epicurus. The fundamental principles of Christianity may 
 still be preserved, though every zealous sectary adheres to 
 his own exclusive doctrine, and pious ecclesiastics make it 
 part of their religion to persecute one another. The civil con- 
 stitution, too, that legal liberty, that general creed, which 
 every Englishman professes, may still be supported, though 
 Wilkes and Home, Townshend and Sawbridge, should obsti- 
 nately refuse to communicate ; and even if the fathers of the 
 church, if Savile, Richmond, Camden, Rockingham, and 
 Chatham, should disagree in the ceremonies of their political 
 worship, and even in the interpretation of twenty texts in 
 Magna Charta. I speak to the people as one of the people. 
 Let us employ these men in whatever departments their 
 various abililitles are best suited to, and as mucii to tha 
 
 * See Private Letter, No. 63.
 
 410 LETTERS OK JUNlUB. 
 
 a Jvantage of the common cause as their different inclinations 
 will permit. They cannot serve us without essentially serving 
 themselves. 
 
 If Mr. Nash be elected, he wiii hardly venture, after so 
 recent a mark of the personal esteem of his fellow-citizens, to 
 declare himself immediately a courtier. The spirit and activity 
 of the sheriffs will, I hope, be sufficient to counteract any 
 sinister intentions of the lord mayor ; in collision with their 
 virtue, perhaps he may take fire. 
 
 It is not necessary to exact from Mr. Wilkes the virtues of 
 a Stoic. They were inconsistent with themselves who, almost 
 at the same moment, represented him as the basest of man- 
 kind, yet seemed to expect from him such instances of forti- 
 tude and self-denial as would do honour to an apostle ; it is 
 not, however, flattery to say, that he is obstinate, intrepid, and 
 fertile in expedients ; that he has no possible resource but in 
 the public favour, is, in my judgment, a considerable recom- 
 mendation of him. I wish that every man who pretended to 
 popularity were in the same predicament ; I wish that a 
 retreat to St. James's were not so easy and open as patriots 
 have found it. To Mr. Wilkes there is no access. However 
 he may be misled by passion or imprudence, I think he can- 
 not be guilty of a deliberate treachery to the public ; the favour 
 of his country constitutes the shield which defends him against 
 a thousand daggers, desertion would disarm him. 
 
 I can more readily admire the liberal spirit and integrity 
 than the sound judgment of any man who prefers a republican 
 form of government, in this or any other empire of equal 
 extent, to a monarchy so qualified and limited as ours. I am 
 convinced that neither is it in theory the wisest system of 
 government, nor practicable in this country. Yet, though I 
 hope the English constitution will for ever preserve its original 
 monarchical form, I would have the manners of the people 
 purely and strictly republican. I do not mean the licentious 
 spirit of anarchy and riot, I mean a general attachment to the 
 common weal, distinct from any partial attachment to persons 
 or families ; an implicit submission to the laws only, and an 
 affection to the magistrate, proportioned to the integrity and 
 wisdom with which he distributes justice to his people, and 
 administers their affaus. The present habit of our political 
 bod^ appears to me the very reverse of what it ought to be
 
 UNION AMONG REFORMERS K2COMMBXDED. 411 
 
 The form of the constitution leans rather more tl.an enough 
 to the popular branch ; while, iu effect, the manners of the 
 people (of those at least who are likely to take a lead in the 
 country) incline too generally to a dependance upon the crown. 
 The real friends of arbitrary power combine the facts, and are 
 not inconsistent with their principles when they strenuously 
 support the unwarrantable privileges assumed by the House 
 of Commons. In these circumstances it were much to be 
 desired that we had many such men as Mr. Sawbridge to 
 represent us in parliament. I speak from common report and 
 opinion only when I impute to him a speculative predilection 
 in favour of a republic ; in the personal conduct and manners 
 of the man I cannot be mistaken ; he has shown himself pos- 
 sessed of that republican firmness which the times require, 
 and by which an English gentleman may be as usefully and as 
 honourably distinguished as any citizen of ancient Rome, of 
 Athens, or Lacedaemon. 
 
 Mr. Townshend complains that the public gratitude has not 
 been answerable to his desert ; it is not difficult to trace the 
 artifices which have suggested to him a language so unworthy 
 of his understanding. A great man commands the affections 
 of the people, a prudent man does not complain when he 
 has lost them : yet they are far from being lost to Mr. Towns- 
 hend ; he has treated our opinion a little too cavalierly. A 
 young man is apt to rely too confidently upon himself, to be 
 as attentive to his mistress as a polite and passionate lover 
 ought to be. Perhaps he found her at first too easy a con- 
 quest ; yet I fancy she will be ready to receive him whenever 
 he thinks proper to renew his addresses. With all his youth, 
 his spirit, and his appearance, it would be indecent in the lady 
 to solicit his return. 
 
 I have too much respect for the abilities of Mr. Home to. 
 flatter myself that these gentlemen will ever be cordially 
 reunited ; it is not, however, unreasonable to expect that each 
 of them should act his separate part with honour and integrity 
 to the public. As for differences of opinion upon speculative 
 questions, if we wait until they are reconciled, the action of 
 human affairs must be suspended for ever. Butneither are wo 
 to look for perfection in any one man, nor for agreement among 
 many. When Lord Chatham affirms that the authority of the 
 British legislature is not supreme over the colonies in the
 
 419 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 same sense in which it is supreme over Great Britain ; when 
 Lord Camden supposes a necessity (which the king is to judge 
 of), and, founded upon that necessity, attributes to the crown 
 a legal power (not given by the Act itself) to suspend the 
 operation of an act of the legislature, I listen to them both 
 with diffidence and respect, but without the smallest degree of 
 conviction or assent; yet I doubt not they delivered their 
 real sentiments, nor ought they to be hastily condemned. I, 
 too, have a claim to the candid interpretation of my country, 
 when I acknowledge an involuntary compulsive assent to one 
 very unpopular opinion. I lament the unhappy necessity, 
 whenever it arises, of providing for the safety of the state by 
 a temporary invasion of the personal liberty of the subject*. 
 Would to God it were practicable to reconcile these important 
 objects in every possible situation of public affairs ! I regard 
 the legal liberty of the meanest man in Britain as much as 
 my own, and would defend it with the same zeal. I know we 
 must stand or fall together. But I never can doubt that the 
 community has a right to command, as well as to purchase, 
 the service of its members. I see that right founded originally 
 upon a necessity which supersedes all argument; I see it 
 established by usage immemorial, and admitted by more than 
 a tacit assent of the legislature. I conclude there is no remedy 
 in the nature of things for the grievance complained of; for 
 if there were, it must long since have been redressed. Though 
 numberless opportunities have presented themselves highly 
 favourable to public liberty, no successful attempt has ever 
 been made for the relief of the subject in this article. Yet it 
 has been felt and complained of ever since England had a 
 navy. The conditions which constitute this right must be 
 taken together ; separately, they have little weight. It is not 
 fair to argue from any abuse in the execution to the illegality 
 of the power, much less is a conclusion to be drawn from the 
 navy to the land service. A seaman can never be employed 
 but against the enemies of his country f. The only case in 
 
 * Junitu alludes to the practice of impressing men for sea-service ; thfl 
 legality of which he allows, bit confines it to seafaring men alone. 
 
 f At the time when the dispute between this country and Spain existed 
 relative to Falkland's Islands, for a brief account of which, see note to 
 Miscellaneous Letter, No. 88 ; under a persuasion that war was inevitable 
 an armament took plaat, and preu warrants were issued. The legality of
 
 UNION AMONG KEFOKMEBS RECOMMENDKD. 413 
 
 which the king can have a right to arm his subjects in general, 
 is that of a foreign force being actually landed upon our coast 
 Whenever that case happens, no true Englishman will inquire 
 whether the king's right to compel him to defend his country 
 be the custom of England or a grant of the legislature. With 
 regard to the press for seamen, it does not follow that the 
 symptoms may not be softened, although the distemper cannot 
 be cured. Let bounties be increased as far as the public 
 
 these, in regard to the city, though backed by the lord mayor, was ques- 
 tioned by Mr. Wilkes and several other aldermen, who discharged all per- 
 sons brought before them so impressed. In consequence of these discordant 
 views of the subject, the three following questions were submitted by the 
 lord mayor to the opinion of three of the most celebrated counsel of tha 
 day, which, together with their answers, it has been thought right to 
 subjoin. 
 
 Query 1. May the Lords of the Admiralty of themselves, by virtue of 
 their commission, or under the direction of the Privy Council, legally issue 
 warrants for the impressing of seamen ? 
 
 Query 2. If yea, is the warrant annexed, in point of form, legal ] 
 
 Query 3. Is the lord mayor compellable to back such warrants 1 if he is, 
 what may be the consequence of a refusal ? 
 
 " The power of the crown to compel persons pursuing the employment and 
 occupation of seamen to serve the public in times of danger and necessity, which 
 has its foundation in that universal principle of the laws of all countries, that 
 private interest must give way to the public safety, appears to us to be well 
 established by ancient and long-continued usage frequently recognised ; and, 
 in many instances, regulated by the legislature, and noticed at least without 
 censure by courts of justice ; and we see no objection to this power being 
 exercised by the lords of the admiralty under the authority of his 
 Majesty's orders in council. 
 
 " The form of the warrant, as well as the manner in which such warrants 
 have been usually executed, appear to us to be liable to many considerable 
 objections ; but the nature of those objections leads us to think it the more 
 expedient that the authority of a civil magistrate should interpose in the 
 execution of them, to check and control the abuses to which they are liable ; 
 and, therefore, although we do not think that the lord mayor is compellable 
 to back the warrants, or liable to any punishment in case of his refusal, we 
 think it right to submit it to his Lordship's consideration, whether it will not 
 be more conducive to the preservation of the peace of the city, and the pro- 
 tection of the subject from oppression, if he conforms, in this instance, to 
 what we understand to have been the practice of most of his predecessr.ri 
 npon the like occasion. 
 
 " AL. WEDDKRBCB5, 
 "J. OLYNN, 
 " J. DUNKING/ 
 
 * November 22nd, 1770."
 
 414 LETTERS OF JtJNIUS. 
 
 purse can supp>rt them*. Still they have a limit, and 
 every reasonable expense is incurred, it will be found, in fact, 
 that the spur of the press is wanted to give operation to the 
 bounty. 
 
 Upon the whole, I never had a doubt about the strict right 
 of pressing, until I heard that Lord Mansfield had applauded 
 Lord Chatham for delivering something like this doctrine in 
 the House of Lords. That consideration staggered me not a 
 little. But, upon reflection, his conduct accounts naturally 
 for itself. He knew the doctrine was unpopular, and was 
 eager to fix it upon the man who is the first object of his fear 
 and detestation. The cunning Scotchman never speaks truth 
 without a fraudulent design. In council he generally affects 
 to take a moderate part. Besides his natural timidity, it 
 makes part of his political plan never to be known to recom- 
 mend violent measures. When the guards are called forth to 
 murder their fellow-subjects, it is not by the ostensible advice 
 of Lord Mansfield. That odious office, his prudence tells 
 him, is better left to such men as Gower and Weymouth, as 
 Barrington and Grafton. Lord Hillsborough wisely confines 
 Jus firmness to the distant Americans. The designs of 
 Mansfield are more subtle, more effectual, and secure. Who 
 attacks the liberty of the press? Lord Mansfield. Who in- 
 vades the constitutional power of juries? Lord Mansfield. 
 What judge ever challenged a juryman, but Lord Mansfield? 
 Who was that judge, who, to save the king's brother, 
 affirmed that a man of the first rank and quality, who obtains 
 a verdict in a suit for criminal conversation, is entitled to no 
 greater damages than the meanest mechanic ? Lord Mans- 
 field ? Who is it makes commissioners of the great seal ? 
 Lord Mansfield ? Who is it forms a decree for those com- 
 missioners, deciding against Lord Chatham f, and afterwards 
 (finding himself opposed by the judges) declares in Parliament 
 that he never had a doubt that the law was in direct oppo- 
 sition to that decree ? Lord Mansfield. Who is he that has 
 
 * This suggestion was adopted by the cities of London, Bristol and 
 Edinburgn, and the towns of Montrose, Aberdeen, Cambletown, and 
 Lynn. 
 
 t On the Burton Pynsent estate, which was disputed by the relatives t( 
 the deceased with the Earl of Chatham. See note, post, p. 428.
 
 UNION AMONG REFORMERS RECOMMENDED. 415 
 
 made it the stud}' and practice of his life to undermine and 
 alter the whole system of jurisprudence in the Court of King's 
 Bench? Lord Mansfield. There never existed a man but 
 himself who answered exactly to so complicated a description. 
 Compared to these enormities, his original attachment to the 
 Pretender (to whom his dearest brother was confidential 
 secretary) is a virtue of the first magnitude. But the hour 
 of impeachment will come, and neither he nor Grafton shall 
 escape me. Now let them make common cause against Eng- 
 land and the House of Hanover. A Stuart and a Murray 
 should sympathise with each other. 
 
 When 1 refer to signal instances of unpopular opinions de- 
 livered and maintained by men who may well be supposed to 
 have no view but the public good, I do not mean to renew the 
 discussion of such opinions. I should be sorry to revive the 
 dormant questions of Stamp Act, Corn Bill, or Press Warrant 
 I mean only to illustrate one useful proposition, which it is 
 the intention of this paper to inculcate : That we should not 
 generally reject the friendship or services of any man because 
 he differs from, us in a particular opinion. This will not ap- 
 pear a superfluous caution if we observe the ordinary conduct 
 of mankind. In public affairs, there is the least chance of a 
 perfect concurrence of sentiment or inclination. Yet every 
 man is able to contribute something to the common stock, and 
 no man's contribution should be rejected. If individuals have 
 no virtues, their vices may be of use to us. 1 care not with 
 what principle the new-born patriot is animated, if the mea- 
 sures he supports are beneficial to the community. The nation 
 is interested in his conduct. His motives are his own. The 
 properties of a patriot are perishable in the individual, but 
 there is a quick succession of subjects, and the breed is worth 
 preserving. The spirit of the Americans may be an useful 
 example to us. Our dogs and horses are English only upon 
 English ground ; but patriotism, it seems, may be improved 
 by transplanting. I will not reject a bill which tends to 
 confine parliamentary privilege within reasonable bounds, 
 though it should be stolen from the House of Cavendish, and 
 introduced by Mr. Onslow. The features of the infant are a 
 proof of the descent, and vindicate the noble birth from the 
 baseness of the adoption. I willingly accept of a sarcasm 
 from Colonel Barre, or a simile from Mr. Burke. Even the
 
 416 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 silent vote of Mr. Calcraft is worth reckoning in a division 
 What though he riots in the plunder of the army, and has 
 only determined to be a patriot when he could not be a peer * ? 
 Let us profit by the assistance of such men while they are 
 with us, and place them, if it be possible, in tho post of dan- 
 ger, to prevent desertion. The wary Wedderbume, the 
 pompous Suffolk f, never threw away the scabbard, nor ever 
 went upon a forlorn hope. They always treated the king's 
 servants as men with whom, some time or other, they might 
 possibly be in friendship. When a man who stands forth for 
 the public has gone that length from which there is no prac- 
 ticable retreat, when he has given that kind of personal 
 offence, which a pious monarch never pardons, I then begii. 
 to think him in earnest, and that he never will have occasion 
 l,o solicit the forgiveness of his country. But instances of a 
 determination so entire and unreserved are rarely met with. 
 Let us take mankind as they are. Let us distribute the 
 virtues and abilities of individuals according to the offices 
 they affect, and, when they quit the service, let us endeavour 
 to supply their places with better men than we have lost. In 
 this country there are always candidates enough for popular 
 favour. The temple of fame is the shortest passage to riches 
 and preferment. 
 
 Above all things, let me guard my countrymen against the 
 meanness and folly of accepting of a trifling or moderate 
 compensation for extraordinary and essential injuries. Our 
 enemies treat us as the cunning trader does the unskilful 
 Indian. They magnify their generosity when they give us 
 Baubles, of little proportionate value, for ivory and gold. The 
 same House of Commons, who robbed the constituent body 
 of their right of free election, who presumed to make a law 
 
 * Calcraft was introduced into political notice by Lord Holland, to whom 
 he had been private secretary, and afterwards accumulated an immense 
 private property by becoming army agent. He subsequently deserted his 
 patron, and strove to obtain a peerage from administration. He died with- 
 out having obtained his object. One of his mistresses was the celebrated 
 George Ann Bellamy. 
 
 f In allusion to his Lordship's manner. Tfet it must also be recollected 
 that he headed the renegade Whigs who deserted to the ministry on the 
 death of George Grenv'.lle. See Miscellaneous Letters, Nos. 96 and 97, 
 roL ii., in which his Lordship's conduct is reprobated in very severe terms ; 
 particularly BO in the Litter.
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS IN EXPLANATION. 417 
 
 under pretence of declaring it * ; who paid our good king's 
 debts, without once inquiring how they were incurred ; \vhc 
 gave thanks for repeated murders committed at home, and for 
 national infamy incurred abroad ; who screened Lord Mans- 
 field ; who imprisoned the magistrates of the metropolis for 
 asserting the subject's right to the protection of the laws ; 
 who erased a judicial record, and ordered all proceedings in a 
 criminal suit to be suspended!; this very House of Com- 
 mons have graciously consented that their own members may 
 be compelled to pay their debts, and that contested elections 
 shall for the future be determined with some decent regard to 
 the merits of the case. The event of the suit is of no con- 
 sequence to the crown. While parliaments are septennial, 
 the purchase of the sitting member or of the petitioner makes 
 but the difference of a day. Concessions such as these are 
 of little moment to the sum of things ; unless it be to 
 prove that the worst of men are sensible of the injuries 
 they have done us, and perhaps to demonstrate to us the 
 imminent danger of our situation. In the shipwreck of the 
 state, trifles float and are preserved, while everything solid 
 and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER LX. 
 
 1O THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, October 15, 1771. 
 
 I AM convinced that Junius is incapable of wilfully misre- 
 presenting any man's opinion, and that his inclination leads 
 him to treat Lord Camden with particular candour and re- 
 pect. The doctrine attributed to him by Junius, as far as it 
 goes, corresponds with that stated by your correspondent 
 Scaevola J , who seems to me to make a distinction without a 
 
 * The Nullum Temp-iis bill, which was passed in the year 1769. 
 
 t 1 For a further explanation on this subject, see note to Miscellaneous 
 Letter, No. 92. 
 
 J The letter of Scaevola here referred to occurs in the Public Adwtket 
 of October 12, and is as follows : 
 
 TO JUNIUS. 
 SIR, 
 
 you have mistaken Lord Camden's opinion, and changed it into as \veag 
 VOL. X. BE
 
 418 LETTEKS OF JCXITP. 
 
 difference Lord Camden, it is agreed, did certainly maintain 
 that, in the recess of parliament, the king (by which we all 
 mean the king in council, or the executive power) might sus- 
 pend the operation of an act of the legislature ; and he founded 
 his doctrine upon a supposed necessity, of which the king, in 
 the first instance, must be judge. The Lords and Commons 
 cannot be judges of it in the first instance, for they do not 
 exist : thus far Junius. 
 
 But, says Sca3vola, Lord Camden made parliament, and 
 not the king, judges of the necessity. That parliament may 
 review the acts of ministers, is unquestionable ; but there is a 
 wide difference between saying that the crown has a leijal 
 power, and that ministers may act at their peril. When we 
 say an act is illegal, we mean that it is forbidden by a joint 
 resolution of the three estates. How a subsequent resolution 
 of two of those branches can make it legal ab initio, will re- 
 quire explanation. If it could, the consequence would be 
 truly dreadful, especially in these times. There is no act of 
 arbitrary power which the king might not attribute to neces- 
 
 and mischievous a tenet as could have proceeded from Scroggs or Jefferies. 
 You have made it the counterpart of the ship-money doctrine. In this 
 representation you follow Lord Mansfield, who gave that colour to the 
 argument in the House of Lords. The great point of difference between 
 the representation and the truth is, that the former makes Lord Camden 
 pronounce the king judge of the necessity, and the latter, namely, my Lord 
 Camden's real speech, makes parliament the judge of it, and exposes the 
 head of the minister who advised the illegal act upon the plea of its neces- 
 sity, to the mercy of parliament. Lord Camden's opinion, which I heard 
 him twice deliver in the House of Lords, was this : That "if the king 
 should, in the recess of parliament, issue a proclamation, directing a step to 
 be taken flat against a subsisting law, and at the next meeting of parlia- 
 ment, the step should appear to them to have been necessary for the good 
 of the state, their declaration of that necessity would operate as a retrospect, 
 so as to make the act legal ab initio " (which is an idea countenanced by 
 Mr. Locke). 
 
 That this was the scope and tenor of the noble Lord's argument, I appeal 
 to himself and all that heard him. V7hether the opinion so restored be or 
 be not erroneous in point of law is a question foreign to this letter, which 
 has no other view but to convince the public that his Lordship never 
 delivered that pernicious and foolish opinion which Junius, by mistake, and 
 Lord Mansfield, by the basest misrepresentation, has imputed to him. 
 
 BOBVOU. 
 
 For J'jiaius's ooinion of this writer, see the note to Private Lettei, 
 No. 47
 
 IK EXPLANATION 419 
 
 tity, and for which he would not be secure o:" obtaining the ap- 
 probation of his prostituted Lords and Commons. If Lord 
 Camden admits that tho subsequent sanction of parliament was 
 necessary to make the proclamation legal, why did he so ob- 
 stinately oppose the bill, which was soon after brought in, for 
 indemnifying all those persons who had acted under it? If 
 that bill had not been passed, I am ready to maintain, in di- 
 rect contradiction to Lord Camden's doctrine (taken as Sca3vola 
 states it), that a litigious exporter of corn, who had suffered in 
 his property in consequence of the proclamation, might have 
 laid his action against the custom house officers, and would 
 infallibly have recovered damages. No jury could refuse 
 them ; and if I, who am by no means litigious, had been so 
 injured, I would assuredly have instituted a suit in West- 
 minster Hall, on purpose to try the question of right. I 
 would have done it upon a principle of defiance of the pre- 
 tended power of either or both Houses to make declarations 
 inconsistent with law, and I have no doubt, that, with an act 
 of parliament on my side, I should have been too strong for 
 them all. This is the way in which an Englishman should 
 speak and act, and not suffer dangerous precedents to be 
 established because the circumstances are favourable or palli- 
 ating. 
 
 With regard to Lord Camden, the truth is that he inad- 
 vertently overshot himself, as appears plainly by that un- 
 guarded mention of a tyranny of forty days, which I myself 
 heard. Instead of asserting that the proclamation was legal, 
 he should have said, " My Lords. I know the proclamation 
 was illegal, but I advised it because it was indispensably ne- 
 cessary to save the kingdom from famine, and I submit my^ 
 self to the justice and mercy of my country." 
 
 Such language as this would have been manly, rational, and 
 consistent : not unfit for a lawyer, and every way worthy of a 
 great man. 
 
 PHILO-JDNIUS. 
 
 P.S. If Scaevola should think proper to write again upon 
 this subject, I beg of him to give me a direct answer, that is, 
 a plain affirmative or negative to the following questions : In 
 the interval between the publishing such a proclamation (or 
 in council) as that in question, and its receiving the 
 
 1 9
 
 420 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 sanction of the two Houses, of what nature is it is it legal 
 or illegal? or is it neither one nor the other? I mean to be 
 candid, and will point out to him the consequence of his 
 answer either way. If it be legal it wants no farther sanction. 
 If it be illegal the subject is not bound to obey it, consequently 
 it is a useless, nugatory act, even as to its declared purpose. 
 Before the meeting of parliament, the whole mischief which 
 it means to prevent will have been completed*. 
 
 * The following extract of a subsequent letter from Scaevola, inserted in 
 the Public Advertiser, October 24, 1771, proves sufficiently that this writer 
 at last admitted Lord Camden to have maintained an erroneous doctrine. 
 
 " My Lord Camden certainly thought the vote of the two Houses in this 
 case equivalent to a parliamentary declaration ; he also thought such decla- 
 ration made the act (illegal before) legal ab initio. Now as Lord Camden 
 is no patron of mine, I am free to declare that I am satisfied he was wrong 
 in both those points, on the foot of strict law ; that he was wrong upon 
 his conviction, Junius himself has once admitted ; and that he was wrong 
 upon fair and rational though not satisfactory grounds, will appear to every 
 man of good understanding. The shade between his erroneous doctrine and 
 the true one being in sense and reason hardly distinguishable ; both doc- 
 trines admit the proclamation to be illegal, and at the minister's peril till 
 the meeting of parliament both doctrines admit the two Houses of Par- 
 liament (in this or that mode) sole judges of the necessity both doctrines 
 agree in exposing the minister to impeachment if the two Houses of Par- 
 liament should decide against his plea of necessity. Whether upon the 
 declaration of necessity the act becomes good in law ab initio, or not, is the 
 only question. Locke (no Tory) holds . the affirmative. The law, in my 
 opinion, strictly taken, is in the negative ; for I conceive that nothing but 
 an indemnity bill could justify the crown for having superseded a positive 
 act of parliament." 
 
 To these remarks Junius, on the following day, puts the subjoined 
 questions : 
 
 1st. " In what part of Mr. Locke's writings is it maintained that the 
 king may suspend an act of parliament, and that the subsequent approba- 
 bation of the two Houses makes the suspension legal ab initio, or to that 
 effect r 
 
 2nd. " Does Scaevola think that an act of the whole legislature is as 
 easily obtained and completed as a vote of the Lords or Common* " The 
 rest is a dispute about wor not worth continuing.
 
 REPLY TO ZENO. 421 
 
 LETTER LXI. 
 
 1O ZENO*. 
 
 SIB, October 17, 1771. 
 
 THE sophistry of your letter in defence of Lord Mansfield ia 
 adapted to the character you defend. But Lord Mansfield is 
 a man of form, and seldom in his behaviour transgresses the 
 
 The letter of Zeno here referred to occurs in the Public Advertiser, 
 dated October 15, 1771, and is addressed " To Junius, alias Edmund the 
 Jesuit of St Omer's." This writer, however, was not the only one of the 
 same period who erred in attributing the letters of Junius to Mr. Burke. 
 See Preliminary Essay, in which the reasons for disbelieving that gentleman 
 to have been the author of them are more particularly given. 
 
 As Junius thought Zeno's letter worthy of a reply, the reader may not 
 think it unworthy of a perusal. It is as follows : 
 
 SIK, 
 
 YOUR letter of the 8th is a greater miracle than any you have hitherto pro- 
 duced. I do not mean in its argument, language, and arrangement. In 
 these particulars you have been invested with a creative power, and what- 
 ever you are pleased to bring forth is not for us to approve, but to admire ; 
 but, Sir, your letter of the 8th is not written in the single spirit of calumny; 
 you have now turned the eiforts which formerly were exerted in creating 
 divisions amongst the good, to cement those which never fail to arise 
 amongst the bad. I have no objection to your success in this undertaking. 
 Let the fathers of your church and the sons of the city unite. Let them 
 club their arts and their powers. Let Wilkes enjoy his fertility in expedi- 
 ents, he will have need for it all. But neither that fertility, the republican 
 firmness of Sawbridge, no, nor the youth, spirit, and graces of Townshend 
 will avail to overturn the constitution, or even procure to them or to you 
 the ultimate object of your desires a little money. 
 
 Yet, Sir, why, in a letter professedly written to reconcile the patriots of 
 the city, do you make a digression to abuse Lord Mansfield ! Is it because 
 of the diametrical opposition of his character to theirs 1 Certainly it must 
 be so ; and Junius is less a fool than I believed him. Nothing more likely 
 to reconcile rogues who rail at each other than railing at honest men. If 
 your dogs are of the true breed they will leave off worrying one another, 
 and join in the cry against the common enemy. 
 
 It is on the subject of this abuse that I take the liberty to address the 
 mighty Junius. 
 
 This phoenix of politicians and of reasoners tells the public that " he 
 never had a doubt about the strict right of pressing, till he knew Lord 
 Mansfield was of the same opinion. That indeed staggered him not a 
 little ; " and to be sure it was a staggering consideration : for who is to 
 learn that Lord Mansfield is utterly ignorant of the law? and that his 
 judgment is avowedly so weak and perverse, that a wise politician (I mean 
 bo very wise a politician as Juiiius) viU examine no further, but at once
 
 4 -2'2 LETTERS OF JUXIUS. 
 
 rules of decorum I shall imitate his Lords, lip's good man- 
 ners, and leave you in full possession of his principles. I 
 will not call you liar, Jesuit, or villain; but, with all the po- 
 liteness imaginable, perhaps I may prove you so. 
 
 conclude that proposition in law to be false, which Lord Mansfield holds to 
 be true. 
 
 Sir, when you are only puerile, blundering, inconsistent, and absurd, I 
 treat you as you deserve, with ridicule and contempt. But when you assert 
 positive falsehoods, the mildest usage you can expect is to have them 
 crammed down the foul throat from which they issued. Of this nature are 
 the questions you make, and the answers you are pleased to give to yourself, 
 in relation to Lord Mansfield. So many infamous lies as these answers 
 ton tain were never crowded together before not even by Junius. You 
 insinuate (and you dare but insinuate) that Lord Mansfield was the secret 
 adviser of sending out the guards when the affair of St. George's Fields 
 happened. That his Lordship was in any shape ostensibly or otherwise con- 
 cerned in that matter, that he knew of it till days after it happened, k a lie 
 of the first magnitude ; and I dare you to bring even the shadow of proof 
 of your infamous assertion. 
 
 It is also a lie that Lord Mansfield attacks the liberty of the press. He 
 has endeavoured, indeed, by legal and constitutional methods, to restrain 
 the abuse of that liberty, and in doing so he has shown himself a good 
 citizen. Are you a politician, and ignorant that the abuse of the best 
 things makes them degenerate into the worst ? Are you a pretender to 
 reason, and ignorant that the abuse of a valuable privilege is the certain 
 means to lose it 1 Are not you a public defamer of every respectable charac- 
 ter in the nation 1 Have not you carried the licence of the press beyond 
 the bounds not only of decency and humanity, but even of human concep- 
 tion ? And dare you complain that its liberty is attacked] Your reliance 
 on the ignorance of those to whom you write must be great indeed, when 
 you dare affirm a fact which is contradicted and proved a lie by the very 
 affirmation of its truth. 
 
 Nor is it less false that Lord Mansfield invades the constitutional power 
 of juries. I refer all who are not willing to believe a lie upon the credit of 
 a common liar, to the letters of Phileleutherus Anglicanus, and those under 
 the signature of A Candid Enquirer, for information on this subject The 
 letters are in the Public Advertisers of November and December last; and 
 from them, all who are able to form a judgment on a question of law, will 
 see it clearly demonstrated that Lord Mansfield's opinion with respect to 
 the power of juries is no less the law of the land than the advantage of 
 the subject. 
 
 Your question relating to Lord Mansfield's challenging a juryman, I con- 
 fess I do not understand, neither do I know to what it alludes ; a charge of 
 that nature ought to have been accompanied w:*i circumstances of time, 
 place, and occasion. When, where, and on what account was this done? 
 Answer me these questions, and I pledge myself to the public that I shall 
 prove, to the conviction of every reasonable man, that if it was so done it 
 was legally done.
 
 REPLY TO ZENO 423 
 
 Like other fair pleaders in Lord Mansfield's school of justice, 
 you answer Junius by misquoting his words, and misstating 
 his propositions. If I am candid enough to admit that this is 
 the very logic taught at St. Omer's, you will readily allow that 
 
 Your next accusation shows you no less void of judgment and consistency 
 than of justice and truth. You accuse Lord Mansfield to the public, for 
 saying a lord is entitled to no greater damages in a suit for the debauching 
 of his wife than a mechanic. Lord Mansfield did say that, in an action of 
 damages for criminal conversation, the law did not consider the rank of the 
 person injured ; and in this he uttered not only the dictates of law, but the 
 dictates of common sense and humanity, neither of which you seem to under- 
 stand. Had Lord Mansfield said that the law did not consider the rank of 
 the injuring person, it might have been argued that he meant to screen the 
 King's brother ; but the diiference between light and darkness is not greater 
 than between this proposition and the proposition he maintained. None but 
 an Irish understanding could possibly take the change, or suppose them con- 
 vertible propositions. But can you, Junius, seriously make your court to 
 the people by telling them there is a wide difference between the crime of 
 debauching the wife of a lord and one of their own 1 Yo were bred at 
 St. Omer's. You were destined for a church, not that indeed of which 
 Savile, &c., are the fathers ; but, however, a church which requires some 
 reading. Reading the Scriptures, it is true, is forbid by your canons ; but 
 surely you have heard of the prophet Nathan's address to David on a sub- 
 ject of this nature ] The prophet, worse than Lord Mansfield, thought that 
 debauching the wife of a poor man was a greater crime than debauching the 
 wife of a lord ; for this plain and humane reason, that a poor man's wife 
 was his all, his only comfort and consolation, whereas a rich man had many 
 others ; yet Junius, the popular Jnnius, tells the people plainly that 
 debauching one of their wives is nothing in comparison of lying with a lord's, 
 and arraigns the upright and discerning judge who says that the injury to 
 the husband is in both cases equal. 
 
 Who makes commissioners of the great seal ? Lord Mansfield. Indeed, 
 I thought that power had only resided in the king. To see how plain 
 men may mistake ! If you, Junius, by making commissioners mean 
 advising the king to make commissioners I understand you. The expres- 
 sion is rather inaccurate, but that one is often obliged to pass over in Junius. 
 In my turn give me leave to ask you a question. Who so proper to advise 
 his Ma'esty in the choice of a law officer as Lord Mansfield 3 
 
 But Lord Mansfield not only made the commissioners of the great seal, 
 he also framed their decree, and then disavowed the decree of his own 
 framing in the House of Peers. This is an absurd and an improbable lie. 
 It is absurd and improbable to suppose Lord Mansfield framed a decree for 
 three judges very capable to frame one themselves. It is more absurd to 
 suppose Lord Mansfield would disavow the decree which he himself had 
 made, in the presence of the three commissioners for whom he had mada 
 it, and who could so easily have detected his duplicity. And it is a direct 
 and public lie that Lord Mansfield said he never had a doubt that the law 
 was in direct opposition to that decree. He did not give an opinion in the
 
 424 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 it is the constant practice in the Court of King's Bench 
 Junius does not say that he never had a doubt about the strict 
 right of pressing till he knew Lord Mansfield icas of the same 
 opinion. His words are, until he heard that Lord Mansfield 
 had applauded Lord Chatham for maintaining that doctrine 
 in the House of Lords. It was not the accidental concurrence 1 
 of Lord Mansfield's opinion, but the suspicious applause given 
 by a cunning Scotchman to the man he detests, that raised 
 and justified a doubt in the mind of Juuius. The question is 
 not whether Lord Mansfield be a man of learning and abili- 
 ties (which Junius has never disputed), but whether or no he 
 abuses and misapplies his talents. 
 
 Juuius did not say that Lord Mansfield had advised the 
 calling cut the guards. On the contrary, his plain mean- 
 ing is that he left that odious office to men less cunning than 
 himself. Whether Lord Mansfield's doctrine concerning libels 
 be or be not an attack upon the liberty of the press, is a ques- 
 tion which the public in general are very well able to deter- 
 mine. I shall not enter into it at present. Nor do I think 
 
 House of Peers. He only stated the question ; and the decree was reversed 
 on the unanimous opinion of the eight judges who attended. For the truth 
 of this I appeal to all who were present. 
 
 The last charge of Junius represents Lord Mansfield making it his study 
 to undermine and alter the whole system of jurisprudence in the King's 
 Bench. One would scarcely believe that there could be an understanding 
 so twisted, or a heart so corruptly malignant as to make that an article of 
 accusation, which, fairly taken, includes in it the most exalted merit and 
 virtue. If there be a superlatively eminent quality in Lord Mansfield's 
 great and deserved character, it is the unremitting and unwearied efforts he 
 constantly has made to rescue injured and oppressed innocence from the 
 harpy fangs of chicane and quibble. The nation does him justice in this 
 particular ; and all the arts and lies that have been employed to defame 
 him have never been able to stagger the public confidence in his judgment 
 and integrity. The proof of this is in the breast of every man to whom I 
 write ; and the crowd of suitors in the court where he presides gives the 
 most honourable testimony to the truth which I affirm, and the most palpa- 
 ble lie to the assertion of the abandoned Junius. 
 
 And now, Sir, having answered all your questions, you are worth no 
 further notice. I shall, in my turn, address a few queries to the public ; 
 and I am sorry that the temper of the times should oblige me to recall to 
 their memory things which ought to be indelibly engraven on the heart of 
 every Englishman. 
 
 By whose advice was it that his Majesty, immediately on his accession to 
 the throne, made the judges places for life, thereby rendering them inde- 
 pendent on king or minister ] Lord Mansfield. When Lord Chatham aud
 
 REPLY TO ZKXO. 425 
 
 it necessary to say much to a man who had the daring confi- 
 dence to say to a jury, " Gentlemen, you are to bring in a ver- 
 dict guilty or not guilty, but whether the defendant be guilty 
 or innocent is not matter for your consideration." Clothe it 
 in what language you will this is the sum total of Lord Mans- 
 field's doctrine. If not, let Zeno show us the difference. 
 
 But it seems the liberty of the press may be abused and the 
 abuse of a valuable privilege is the certain means to lose it. 
 The first I admit; but let the abuse be submitted to a jury, 
 a sufficient and indeed the only legal and constitutional check 
 upon the licence of the press. The second I flatly deny. In 
 direct contradiction to Lord Mansfield, I affirm, that " the 
 abuse of a valuable privilege is not the certain means to lose 
 it." If it were, the English nation would have few privileges 
 left, for where is the privilege that has not, at one time or 
 other, been abused by individuals ? But it is false in. reason 
 and equity, that particular abuses should produce a general 
 forfeiture. Shall the community be deprived of the protec- 
 tion of the laws, because there are robbers and murderers ? 
 
 Lord Camden attempted to revive the impious and unconstitutional doctrine 
 of a power in the crown to dispense with the laws of the land (which was 
 precisely the point on which the glorious revolution hinged, and the doctrine 
 for maintaining of which James II. lost his crown), who stood in the breach, 
 and with eloquence and argument, more than human, defeated the pernicious 
 attempt? Lord Mansfield. Who supported and carried through the House 
 of Peers the bill called the Nullum Tempus bill ; that law by which the 
 minds of the people were quieted against apprehension of claims on the part 
 of the crown ? Lord Mansfield. To whom do we owe the success of the 
 bill for restraining the privilege of parliament, of such essential service to 
 the internal commerce of the nation, and especially to that part of it which 
 could least afford to lie under any disadvantage, the industrious shopkeeper 
 and tradesman ? Lord Mansfield. Who carried Mr. Grenville's last legacy 
 to the nation through the House of Peers, that bill by which questions of 
 elections in the House of Commons are henceforth to be tried in a manner 
 which will prevent the injustice supposed to have been done in the Middle- 
 sex election, and guard against the bad consoquences which it was feared 
 miu'ht follow from that determination ] Lord Mansfield. 
 
 I might add many other constitutional questions in which Lord Mansfield 
 has ever been on the side of public liberty. But if what I have already 
 said be not sufficient to vindicate the first character in the nation from the 
 false aspersions of an unprincipled scribbler, I am bold to say that the time 
 is now arrived when it is unworthy of an honest man to labour for tha 
 public ; and the character of an Englishman, once so respectable, will nc 
 longer be known but by its folly and ingratitude. ZENO,
 
 426 LETTERS OF JUSIUS. 
 
 Shall the community be punished, because individuals have 
 offended? Lord Mansfield says so, consistently enough with 
 his principles, but I wonder to find him so explicit. Yet, for 
 one concession, however extorted, I confess myself obliged to 
 him The liberty cf the press is, after all, a valuable privi- 
 lege. I agree with him most heartily, and will defend it 
 against him. 
 
 You ask me, What juryman was challenged by Lord Mans- 
 field? I tell you his name was Benson. When his name 
 was called Lord Mansfield ordered the clerk to pass him by. 
 As for his reasons, you may ask himself, for he assigned 
 none*. But I can tell you what all men thought of it. This 
 Benson f had been refractory upon a former jury, and would 
 not accept of the law as deJivered by Lord Mansfield, but had 
 the impudence to pretend to think for himself. But you it 
 seems, honest Zeno, know nothing of the matter ! You never 
 read Junius's letter to your patron ! You never heard of the 
 intended instructions from the city to impeach Lord Mans- 
 field ! You never heard by what dexterity of Mr. Paterson 
 that measure was prevented \ ! How wonderfully ill some 
 people are informed ! 
 
 Junius did never affirm that the crime of seducing the wife 
 of a mechanic or a peer is not the same, taken in a moral or 
 religious view. What he affirmed, in contradiction to the 
 levelling principle so lately adopted by Lord Mansfield, was, 
 that the damages should be proportioned to the rank and for- 
 
 * On a motion made in the House of Commons, Nov. 27, 1770, by the 
 Hn. Mr. Phipps, for leave to bring in a bill to amend the act of William the 
 Third, which empowers the attorney -general to file informations ex officio, the 
 late Lord, then Mr., Thurlow, solicitor-general, thus defended Lord Mansfield 
 from the charge here brought against him by Junius : " Indeed, if a jury- 
 man has been rejected without a challenge from the parties, there is room fur 
 clamour. Such an act is highly criminal. No man is able, no honest man 
 would wish, to defend it. But let us not be rash in passing sentence. Let 
 the fact be well authenticated before we condemn. Kumour is not a suffi- 
 cient ground for proceeding. As we found it a liar in other articles, v/e 
 have this reason to doubt its veracity ; though I frequent Westminster Hall, 
 I know nothing of it ; but I must confess that I cannot give it the least 
 credit. The great judge who is suspected was incapable of such an 
 action." 
 
 t See Letter 63, pott, p. 438. 
 
 \ Mr. Paterson was one of the common council for the ward of Farring- 
 don Within, and took an active vart in favour of government
 
 REPLY TO ZENO. 427 
 
 tune of the parties; and for this plain reason (admitted by 
 every other judge that ever sat in Westminster Hall), because 
 \vhat is a compensation or penalty to one man is none to 
 another. The sophistical distinction you attempt to draw be- 
 tween the person injured and the person injuring is Mans- 
 field all over. If you can once establish the proposition that 
 the injured party is not entitled to receive large damages, it 
 follows pretty plainly that the party injuring should not be 
 compelled to pay them ; consequently the king's brother L 
 effectually screened by Lord Mansfield's doctrine. Your re- 
 ference to Nathan and David comes naturally in aid of your 
 patron's professed system of jurisprudence, lie is fond of in- 
 troducing into the Court of King's Bench any law that con- 
 tradicts or excludes the common law of England ; whether it 
 be canon, civil, jus gentium, or Levitical. But, Sir, the Bible 
 is the code of our religious faith, and not of our municipal 
 jurisprudence; and though it was the pleasure of God to in- 
 flict a particular punishment upon David's crime (taken as a 
 breach of his divine commands), and to send his prophet to de- 
 nounce it, an English jury have nothing to do either with 
 David or the prophet. They consider the crime only as it is 
 a breach of order, an injury to an individual, and an offence 
 to society, and they judge of it by certain positive rules of 
 law, or by the practice of their ancestors. Upon the whole, 
 the man after God's own heart is much indebted to you for 
 comparing him to the Duke of Cumberland. That his Royal 
 Highness may be the man after Lord Mansfield's own heart 
 seems much more probable, and you I think, Mr. Zeno, might 
 succeed tolerably well in the character of Nathan. The evil 
 deity, the prophet, and the royal sinner, would be very proper 
 company for one another. 
 
 You say, Lord Mansfield did not make the commissioners of 
 the great seal*, and that he only advised the king to appoint. 
 I believe Junius meant no more, and the distinction is hardly 
 worth disputing. 
 
 You say he did not deliver an opinion upon Lord Chatham's 
 
 * It has been already observed, that the great seal -vas put in commission, 
 upon the sudden death of Charles Yorke through political chagrin. Lord 
 Mansfield was upon this occasion made speaker of tie House of Lords, and 
 received the fees, w^iich were supposed to amcunt to 5000i. per annum.
 
 428 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 appeal. 1 affirm that he did, directly in favour of the appeal *. 
 This is a point of fact to be determined by evidence only 
 But you assign no reason for his supposed silence, nor for his 
 desiring a conference with the judges the day before. Waa 
 not all Westminster Hall convinced that he did it with a view 
 to puzzle them with some perplexing question, and in hopes 
 of bringing some of them over to him ? You say the com 
 missioners were very capable of framing a decree for them- 
 selves By the fact it only appears that they were capable of 
 framing an illegal one, which, I apprehend, is not much to the 
 credit either of their learning or integrity. 
 
 We are both agreed that Lord Mansfield has incessantly 
 laboured to introduce new modes of proceeding in the court 
 where he presides ; but you attribute it to an honest zeal in 
 behalf of innocence oppressed by quibble and chicane. I say 
 that he has introduced new law too, and removed the land- 
 marks established by former decisions. I say that his view 
 is to change a court of common law into a court of equity, 
 and to bring everything within the arbitrium of a pralorian 
 court. The public must determine between us. But noil 
 for his merits. First, then, the establishment of the judges 
 in their places for life (which you tell us was advised by 
 Lord Mansfield) was a concession merely to catch the 
 people. It bore the appearance of royal bounty, but had 
 nothing real in it. The judges were already for life, ex- 
 cepting in the case of a demise. Your boasted bill only 
 provides that it shall not be in the power of the king's 
 successor to remove them. At the best, therefore, it is only 
 a legacy, not a gift, on the part of his present Majesty, since 
 for himself he gives up nothing. That he did oppose Lord 
 Camden and Lord Xorthington upon the proclamation against 
 the exportation of corn, is most true, and with great ability 
 With his talents, and taking the right side of so clear a 
 question, it was impossible to speak ill. His motives are 
 not so easily penetrated. They who are acquainted with the 
 state of politics at that period, will judge of them somewhat 
 
 * Sir Win. Pynsent had bequeathed an estate to Lord Chatham, which 
 bequest was contested by his immediate heirs. The chancellorship, then 
 in commission, was appealed to. Lord Chatham lost his cause by the 
 decision of the commissioners ; but gained it upon a further appeal to the 
 House of Lords,
 
 TO AN ADVOCATE OF THE PEOPLE. 429 
 
 differently from Zeno. Of the popular bills, whicn you 
 say he supported in the House of Lords, the most material 
 is unquestionably that of Mr. Grenville for deciding con- 
 tested elections. But I should be glad to know upon what 
 possible pretence any member of the Upper House could 
 oppose such a bill, after it had passed the House of Com- 
 mons ? I do not pretend to know what share he had in pro- 
 moting the other two bills, but I am ready to give him all the 
 credit you desire. Still you will find that a whole life of de- 
 liberate iniquity is ill-atoned for by doing now and then a 
 laudable action upon a mixed or doubtful principle. If it be 
 unworthy of him, thus ungratefully treated, to labour any 
 longer for the public, in God's name let him retire. His 
 Brother's patron (whose health he once was anxious for) is 
 dead, but the son of that unfortunate prince survives, and, I 
 dare say, will be ready to receive him. 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER LXII. 
 
 TO AN ADVOCATE IN THE CAUSE OF THE PEOPLE*. 
 
 SIR, October 18, 1771. 
 
 You do not treat Junius fairly. You would not have con- 
 demned him so hastily, if you had ever read Judge Foster's 
 
 * The letter thus subscribed appeared in the Public Advertiser, Oct. 16, 
 1771, and deserves a perusal, as it was deemed entitled to a reply. 
 
 TO JCHICS. 
 SIR, 
 
 THERE is a bigotry in politics as well as in religion. Precepts which, on 
 examination, we should have found to be erroneous, are often implicitly 
 received by us, because we have formed an opinion of the integrity and 
 sound judgment of those by whom they were penned ; but the majority of 
 the people are biassed by those principles entirely which they have imbibed 
 in their youth, and pay deference to those persons and things which their 
 parents instructed them to revere. The greater, therefore, the reputation of 
 a writer, the stricter guard I must keep over my belief, for the easier he 
 might lead my judgment astray. I even think it my duty, when such 
 a writer errs, to sound the alarm, lest my fellow-citizens be unwarily misled. 
 Junins is their favourite guide; but shall they fellow him blindfold be
 
 430 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 argument upon the legality of pressing seamen. A man who 
 has not read that argument is not qualified to speak accurately 
 upon the subject. In answer to strong facts and fair reason- 
 ing, you produce nothing but a vague comparison between 
 two things which have little or no resemblance to each other. 
 General warrants, it is true, had been often issued, but they 
 had never been regularly questioned or resisted until the case 
 of Mr. Wilkes. He brought them to trial, and the moment 
 they were tried they were declared illegal. This is not the 
 case of press warrants. They have been complained of, ques- 
 tioned, and resisted, in a thousand instances; but still the 
 legislature have never interposed, nor has there ever been a 
 formal decision against them in any of the superior courts 
 On the contrary, they have been frequently recognized and ad- 
 cause he affirms it to be dark 1 No, let them walk with their eyes open, and 
 see if there be not a ray of light. Credulity and superstitious veneration 
 have ever held in darkness the human mind. It was not till the Pope and 
 his priests had forfeited their character of holiness and infallibility that the 
 Reformation took place, and mankind began to think for themselves ; the 
 Scriptures began to be understood in their original meaning, though many to 
 this day interpret them, not as they have considered them in their own 
 minds, but as, by their priests or their parents, they are taught to believe. 
 It was not till the prerogative of the crown was abused by the House of 
 Stuart, that the revolution succ eded in the government of Britain. Men 
 then lost that fear and reverence with which they used to behold their 
 king ; and they began to imagine it would be better for the common weal 
 that his power and prerogative were curtailed. The authority of the 
 monarchical law-writers became also disregarded ; and customs which, 
 before that period, were peaceably received as the laws of the land, were 
 then found to be illegal and inconsistent with the rights of a free man. 
 Our minds are becoming still daily more enlightened; general warrants 
 have lately been abolished as illegal ; and you, Junius, have publicly ar- 
 raigned the conduct of our chief magistrate with a freedom hitherto un- 
 known. A few years ago a jury of your own countrymen would have 
 perused your sentiments of their king with almost the same horror and 
 detestation as they would have read blasphemy against their God. You 
 have indeed, Sir, been the greatest reformer of our political creed, and I 
 revere you for your enlarged mind. But, though in general I assent to the 
 articles of your faith, I cannot entirely agree with you in the opinions 
 delivered to us in your letter of the 8th of this month. What you have 
 there written on the subject of press warrants does not become your pen. 
 I wish, Sir, for your own honour you would give that matter a second con- 
 sideration. You say, " I see the right (of pressing men into the sea ser- 
 vice) founded originally upon necessity, which supersedes all argument I 
 ee it established by usage immemorial, and admitted by more thnn i tacit 
 assent of the legislature. I conclude there is no remedy in the nature ol
 
 TO AN ADVOCATE OP THE PEOPLE, 431 
 
 mitted by parliament, and there are judicial opinions given in 
 their favour by judges of tbe first character. Under the 
 tarious circumstances stated by Junius. he has a right to con- 
 clude/or himself that there is no remedy. If you have a good 
 one to propose, you may depend upon the assistance and ap- 
 plause of Juuius. The magistrate who guards the liberty of 
 the individual deserves to be commended. But let him re- 
 member that it is also his duty to provide for, or at least not 
 to hazard, the safety of the community. If, in the case of a 
 foreign war, and the expectation of an invasion, you would 
 rather keep your fleet in harbour than man it by pressing 
 seamen who refuse the bounty, I have done. 
 
 You talk of disbanding the army, with wonderful ease and 
 
 things for the grievance complained of; for, if there were, it must long 
 since have been redressed." Now really, Sir, this conclusion is more like 
 the argument of a bigoted priest of the church of Rome than the sound 
 reasoning of a Protestant divine. You might as well have told us to reve- 
 rence the Pope, to believe in transubstantiation, and to kneel to all the 
 images of the popish saints, because, if it were not proper so to do, oui 
 ancestors would not have done so before us. Would you not have been 
 laughed at if, in the debate on the legality of general warrants, you had 
 declared there was no remedy against them, because, if there were, they 
 must long since have been declared illegal ? Were not general warrants as 
 much established, by usage immemorial, as is the arbitrary custom of press- 
 ing men ) and were they not as anciently admitted by the tacit assent ol 
 the legislature 1 Surely, Sir, if you had been seriously inclined to investi- 
 gate the truth, you would have delivered yourself in a more rational style. 
 
 A man of your fertile imagination could easily have thought of a remedy 
 against the grievance complained of in the custom of pressing men. You 
 could have shown us that a body of seamen kept in constant pay was much 
 more necessary for the defence of this country than a standing army. You 
 could, during the peace, have found employment for those seamen in the 
 dock -yards, in the herring fishery, in the custom-house cutters, and in fully 
 manning those inactive men-of-war now most improperly called guard-ships, 
 though originally intended to guard our isle. In short, Sir, if those seamen 
 were to do nothing during the peace, they would still be more requisite 
 than an army in peace, only employed to add force to the prerogative of the 
 crown. But Junius was not in earnest. He is, perhaps, one of our dis- 
 carded ministers (or rather one of their secretaries, for ministers rarely write 
 so well). He expects to be employed again ; and as he may then have 
 occasion for men, suddenly to put a fleet to sea, he must not deliver his 
 opinion against press warrants ; if it were received, he might hereafter find 
 a difficulty to equip his fleet ; the remedy, though found by him, being 
 not yet applied to the grievance of which the nation would complain. 
 
 An ADVOCATE IN THE CAUSE OF THE PEO^US.
 
 43'i LKTTERS OF JUNIT78. 
 
 indifference. If a wiser man held such language, I should be 
 apt to suspect his sincerity. 
 
 As for keeping up a much greater number of seamen in 
 time of peace, it is not to be done You will oppress the 
 merchant, you will distress trade, and destroy the nursery of 
 your seamen. He must be a miserable statesman who volun- 
 tarily, by the same act, increases the public expense and 
 Jessens the means of supporting it 
 
 PHILO-JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER LXIII. 
 
 October 22, 1771. 
 
 A FRIEND of Junius desires it may be observed (in answer to 
 A Barrister-at-Law*) 
 
 1. That the fact of Lord Mansfield's having ordered a jury 
 man to be passed by (which poor Zeno never heard of), is now 
 
 * The letter here referred to appeared in the Pubhc Advertiser of Oct. 
 19, 1771, and is as follows : 
 
 LORD MANSFIELD DEFENDED AGAINST JUNIUS AND HIS PARTT. 
 
 JUNIUS derives importance from every reply. His pride is flattered by 
 the number of his opponents ; and even detection itself is a triumph to a 
 man who has no honour, no feme to lose. In the absence of all character 
 he enjoys the security which others owe to a reputation invulnerable on 
 every side ; and he is singularly independent of rebuke, under the unparal- 
 leled depravity of his mind. But there are charges which require an 
 answer, notwithstanding the discredit which is annexed to them on account 
 of the quarter from which they come. Junius is not more wicked than 
 some of his readers are credulous; and this consideration was the sole 
 inducement to the following dispassionate answer to his late attack upon a 
 great law Lord who is an ornament to the present age. 
 
 The charge tliat his Lordship challenged a juror is at once impossible and 
 absurd. It answers itself, and bears the lie on its face. But Junius may 
 found his accusation upon a misrepresented fact A juryman, about fifteen 
 years ago, for a suspicion conceived upon something which happened in 
 court , was passed by with the acquiescence and consent of the counsel on 
 both sides. Neither of the parties complained. A factious attorney, to 
 gain consequence to himself, began to mutter. He met with no encourage- 
 ment, and he dropped the affair. Junius ought to know that jurors are 
 passed by with the acquiescence of both parties, without & formal challenge. 
 Without the consent of both, it cannot be done. Such a measure would 
 be a mis-trial ; and, . upon motion, would ts set aside of course by the
 
 REPLY TO A BARRISTER-AT-LAW. 433 
 
 formally admitted. When Mr. Benson's name was called, 
 Lord Mansfield was observed to flush in the face (a signal of 
 guilt not uncommon with him), and cried out, pass him ly 
 This I take to be something more than a peremptory chal- 
 lenge. It is an unlawful command, without any reason 
 
 court. But when the parties are satisfied, nobody else has any right to 
 complain. 
 
 HitLenbMp has destroyed the liberty of the press. Junins, in this charge, 
 gives himself the lie. No writer ever used the liberty of the press with 
 such unrestrained freedom as himself ; no times were ever so much marked 
 as the present with public scurrility and defamation. A reply to the charge 
 is in every column of every paper. They are the most dangerous enemies 
 who abuse the liberty of the press like Junius and his adherents. 
 
 His lordship, not content with destroying the liberty of the press, has, if 
 we believe Junius, restrained the power of juries. Juries, it has never yet 
 been doubted, have a power of doing either right or wrong, according to 
 their will and pleasure. The only question is, by what rules should they 
 govern themselves if they mean to do right. Till the year 1730, there was 
 some doubt whether the construction of a libel was not a question of law ; 
 but in Franklin's trial, the rule, which has been invariably ever since fol- 
 lowed, was admitted by Lord Hardwicke, then attorney-general, agreed to 
 by eminent counsel on the other side, and adopted by the court. Lord 
 Mansfield made a late opinion of the court very public, undoubtedly with a 
 view that it should be taken up constitutionally in parliament by those who 
 pretended to differ from him in opinion, by a bill, in the progress of which 
 the matter might be discussed, with the assistance of the judges. It was 
 in this light understood ; and the most considerable part of those who dif- 
 fered from that opinion in the House of Commons, being clear that there 
 was no colour for a declaratory law, moved for a bill to make a law for the 
 future, which was rejected. The enormous crime trumped up by Junius 
 and his party then is, that a judge tells the jury what, in his opinion, the 
 law is, and leaves them afterwards to do as they please, without interposi- 
 tion. If he thinks his opinion right, as he most certainly does, it is not in 
 his power to do otherwise ; and he must repeat the same conduct whenever 
 a similar case comes before him. 
 
 Junius next affirms, that " t > aave the king's brother. Lord Mansfield 
 declared that, in a verdict for criminal conversation, a man of the first 
 quality is entitled to no greate*. damages thai, the meanest mechanic." I 
 have talked with some who attended the trial, T have read the spurious 
 accounts of it in print. We know how falsely and ignorantly such notes 
 are taken, even when the writeis mean no harm. They are generally un- 
 intelligible till they are corrected by the persons concerned. But I suspect 
 that malice joined issue with blunder in what is made Lord Mansfield's 
 opinion. It is full of nonsense, contradictory, and manifestly imperfect. 
 Much depends upon a word or two, a restriction or a qualification. The 
 published opinion makes Lord Mansfield tell the jury that the measure al 
 damages must be formed from all the circumstances of the ease taken 
 together. In another place, it makes him state many of the ci re u in stance* 
 VOL. I. F F
 
 434 LETTERS OF JUXIUS. 
 
 assigned. That the counsel did not resist, is true ; but thw 
 might happen either from inadvertence or a criminal com- 
 plaisance to Lord Mansfield. You Barristers are too apt to 
 be civil to my Lord Chief Justice, at the expense of your 
 clients. 
 
 and say they are not .it all material, without any restriction or qualification. 
 But the scope and occasion of the direction are very plain, in whatever 
 words the direction itself was expressed. 
 
 A very eminent and able counsel had, with a torrent of eloquence, applied 
 to the passions of the jury. He laboured with great art and address to 
 carry them, it is impossible to say where, merely on account of the rank 
 and situation of the parties. The Duke of York, he informed the jury, 
 recovered one hundred thousand pounds against a man f >r calling him 
 papist, which was no .additional damage to his character, for all England 
 knew him to be actually a papist. If, therefore, continued the counsel, the 
 king's brother recovered so much, the rule should be reciprocal, and the 
 defendant ought to pay much more, as the injury was greater. The learned 
 counsel judiciously passed over the many cases in England of a Duke of 
 Norfolk, a Duke of Beaufort, a Duke of Grafton, and many other peers 
 who had recovered moderate damages from men of fortune. But he rested 
 on an Irish case, of which he stated no circumstances, where the rule was' 
 to give such damages as should ruin the defendant. He, therefore, contended 
 for an exorbitant verdict by way of punishment. 
 
 It was the indispensable duty of the judge to extricate the matter from- 
 the passions of the jury, worked up and biassed by inflammatory eloquence, 
 that powerful instrument of deceit, and to bring it back to their cool and 
 sound judgments. They were, therefore, told that damages are by way of 
 retribution or compensation to the plaintiff for the injury, and to be esti- 
 mated from all the circumstances. The rank and situation of the parties 
 were not of themselves decisive. A peer, under some circumstances, may 
 be entitled to less damages for this injury than a tradesman under other 
 circumstances. That it might be just, in certain situations, to give small 
 damages for this injury against a defendant of great wealth, and in other 
 situations to give ten thousand pounds against a person of low degree. 
 Even from the spurious opinion published, the case appears to have been 
 left to the jury, upon all the circumstances, without a single remark on any 
 of them, without a word of alleviation. No cases were mentioned where 
 moderate damages had been given to peers of the highest rank for this 
 injury against persons of great fortune. 
 
 The next charge of Junius and his party against the noble Lord is, " that 
 he iiiis changed the system of jurisprudence." The uncandid party do not 
 recollect that Lord Mansfield has had three assistants most eminent for 
 knowledge and integrity. The only change we of Westminster Hall either 
 know or have heard of is, that the decisions inform and satisfy the bar . 
 chat hitherto no one has been reversed, and, which is a main point to the 
 suitor, and perhaps new, there is no delay. Since Lord Mansfield sat there, 
 the business which flows into that channel, and leaves every other almost 
 dry, is increased beyond belief. I have been assured that, besides all the
 
 BEPLY TO A BARRISTER AT-LAW 435 
 
 2. Junius did never say that Lord Mansfield had destroyed 
 the liberty of the press. "That his lordship has laboured to 
 destroy that his doctrine is an attack upon the liberty of the 
 press that it is an invasion of the right of juries," are the 
 propositions maintained by Junius. His opponents never 
 answer him in point, for they never meet him fairly upon his 
 own ground. 
 
 3. Lord Mansfield's policy, in endeavouring to screen hia 
 unconstitutional doctrines behind .an act of the legislature, is 
 easily understood. Let every Englishman stand upon his 
 guard ; the right of juries to return a general verdict, in all 
 cases whatsoever, is a part of our constitution. It stands in 
 no need of a bill, either enacting or declaratory, to confirm 
 it*. 
 
 4. With regard to the Grosvenor cause, it is pleasant to 
 observe that the doctrine attributed by Junius to Lord 
 
 other business, there are not fewer than seven or eight hundred causes 
 entered every year at the sittings before his Lordship for London and Mid- 
 dlesex. It is at once unjust and uncandid to take from him all merit 
 while he goes through the immense fatigue which arises from a high reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 As to Lord Chatham's cause, the malevolent writer has sat down to invent 
 a lie, without giving hims If the trouble to inquire into what passed in pub- 
 lic upon that subject. I, as many more of the profession, attended that 
 cause. Lord Mansfield moved the question, which was put to the judges, 
 penned with a view to that point, upon which, it appeared afterwards, he 
 thought the cause depended. Though it had been argued, both above and 
 below, upon another point, the judges considered the point on which it had 
 been argued. They were divided and prepared to give different opinions. 
 Lord Mansfield, apprized of the disagreement among the judges, suggested 
 that point upon which he thought the cause turned, be the other as it 
 might. He proposed to the judges to consider it in that light. The House 
 was adjourned expressly for this purpose ; and when the judges came to 
 consider the cause on the point suggested by Lord Mansfield, they were 
 unanimous, which terminated the cause, whatever the law might be upon 
 the other point on which it was decided below. The allegation that Lord 
 Mansfield made the decree for the commissioners, bears on its face the marki 
 of a palpable falsehood. It is a mere invention of Junius ; never men- 
 tioned, never suspected by any other writer. I am convinced, both from the 
 delicacy of the commissioners and that of his Lordship, that not a single 
 word ever passed between them on the subject. 
 
 Temple, Oct. 16. A BARRISTER-AT-LAW. 
 
 * This subject was agitated in the House of Commons, in the spring of 
 the year 1771, on the motion of Mr. Dowdeswell for leave to bring in an 
 enacting bill ; which was rejected by a majority of 218 against 72. Se 
 also note, ante, p 84.- ED. 
 
 F F 2
 
 LETTERS OF JUNITS. 
 
 Mansfield is admitted by Zeno, and directly defended The 
 Barrister has not the assurance to deny flatly, but he evades 
 the charge, and softens the doctrine by such poor contemptible 
 quibbles as cannot impose upon the meanest understanding. 
 
 5. The quantity of business in the Court of King's Bench 
 proves nothing but the litigious spirit of the people, arising 
 from a great increase of wealth and commerce. These how- 
 ever are now upon the decline, and will soon leave nothing 
 but law suits behind them. When Juuius affirms that Lord 
 Mansfield has laboured to alter the system of jurisprudence 
 in the court where his Lordship presides, he speaks to those 
 who are able to look a little further than the vulgar. Besides 
 that the multitude are easily deceived by the imposing names 
 of equity and substantial justice, it does not follow that a 
 judge, who introduces into his court new modes of proceed- 
 ing and new principles of law, intends, in every instance, to 
 decide unjustly. Why should he where he has no interest? 
 We say that Lord Mansfield is a bad man and a worse judge ; 
 but we do not say that he is a mere devil. Our ad versariea 
 would fain reduce us to the difficulty of proving too much. 
 This artifice, however, shall not avail him. The truth of the 
 matter is plainly this : When Lord Mansfield has succeeded 
 in his scheme of changing a court of common law to a court 
 of equity, he will have it in his power to do justice whenever 
 he thinks proper. This, though a wicked purpose, is neither 
 absurd nor unattainable*. 
 
 * The unfavourable constructions by Junius of the judicial merits of Lord 
 Mansfield have not been ratified by the deliberate opinions of a later gene- 
 ration. In the above paragraph he is charged with ' making it his study to 
 undermine and alter the whole system of jurisprudence in the King's Bench ; 
 upon which allegation the explanatory defence of Lord Mansfield's biographer 
 may be fitly introduced. " His Lordship's ideas," says Mr. Holliday, " went 
 to the gradual melioration of the law, by making its liberality keep pace 
 with the demands of justice, and the actual concerns of the world ; not 
 restricting the infinitely-diversified occasions of men and the rules of 
 national justice within artificial circumscriptions. Cases in law depend on 
 the circumstances that give nse to them. A statute can seldom take in all 
 eases. Therefore the common law, which icor/.-s itself pure by rules drawo 
 from the fountain nf justice, is for this reason superior to act of parliament. 
 From the period of Lord Mansfield to the present time the law has gone on 
 continually working itself pure by rules (to use his Lordship's expression) 
 drawn from the fountain of justice. ' General rules/ said he on the bench, 
 'are wisely established for obtaining justice with ease, certainty, and
 
 EXPLANATION IN BEHALF OF JUXID8. 437 
 
 6. Tt 3 last paragraph, relative to Lord Chatham's cause, 
 cannot je answered. It partly refers to facts of too secret 
 a nature to be ascertained, and partly is unintelligible 
 " Upon one point the cause is decided against Lord Chatham, 
 upon another point it is decided for him." Both the laiv and 
 Language are well suited to a Barrister ! If I have any guess 
 at this honest gentleman's meaning it is, that " whereas the 
 commissioners of the great seal saw the question in a point 
 of view unfavourable to Lord Chatham, and decreed accord 
 ingly, Lord Mansfield, out of sheer love to Lord Chatham, 
 took the pains to place it in a point of view more favourable 
 to the ajrpettant" Credat Judteus Apella. So curious an 
 assertion would stagger the faith of Mr. Sylva. 
 
 LETTER LXIY. 
 
 TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 SIR, November 2, 1771. 
 
 WE are desired to make the following declaration in behalf 
 of Junius, upon three material points, on which his opinion 
 has been mistaken or misrepresented. 
 
 1. Junius considers the right of taxing the colonies, by an 
 act of the British legislature, as a sjieculative right merely, 
 never to be exerted nor ever to be renounced. To his judg- 
 ment it appears plain, " that the general reasonings which 
 were employed against that power, went directly to our whole 
 legislative right, and that one part of it could not be yielded 
 
 despatch. But the great end of them being to do justice, the court will see 
 that it be really obtained.' " Life of Lord Mansfield, pp. 121-3. 
 
 Lord Brougham, in his great speech on the State of 1/ie Law, Feb. 8, 
 1828, makes honourable mention of the Chief Justice, with a reference to 
 the opinion of Junius. 
 
 " Lord Mansfield, whose luminous mind was never understood except by 
 those who were either jealous of his fame or ignorant of his value in the 
 science of jurisprudence whom no man ever attacked for a deficiency in his 
 knowledge of the laws (with the exception of one yreat writer, whose style 
 gave currency for a time to the assertion, though accompanied by an obvious 
 want of legal knowledge in himself), that great man had noticed many of 
 the discrepancies of the law with the eye of a philosopher, which were not 
 to be chinged by the habits of the practitioner." ED.
 
 438 LETTEBS OF JCTNOTS 
 
 to such arguments without a virtual surrender ;f all the 
 rest." 
 
 2. That, with regard to press warrants, his argument 
 should be taken in his own words and answered strictly : 
 that comparisons may sometimes illustrate, but prove nothing ; 
 and that, in this case, an appeal to the passions is unfair and 
 innecessary. Junius feels and acknowledges the evil in the 
 most express terms, and will show himself ready to concur 
 in any rational plan that may provide for the liberty of .the 
 individual without hazarding the safety of the community. 
 At the same time he expects that the evil, such as it is, be 
 not exaggerated or misrepresented. In general it is not 
 unjust that, when the rich man contributes his wealth, the 
 poor man should serve the state in person ; otherwise the 
 latter contributes nothing to the defence of that law and 
 constitution from which he demands safety and protection. 
 But the question does not lie between rich and poor. The 
 laws of England make no such distinctions. Neither is it 
 true that the poor man is torn from the care and support of 
 a wife and family helpless without him. The single ques- 
 tion is, whether the seaman*, in times of public danger, 
 shall serve the merchant or the state in that profession to 
 which he was bred, and by the exercise of which alone he 
 can honestly support himself and his family. General argu- 
 ments against the doctinne of necessity, and the dangerous use 
 that may be made of it, are of no weight in this particular 
 case. Necessity includes the idea of inevitable. Whenever it 
 is so, it creates a law to which all positive laws and all positive 
 rights must give way. In this sense the levy of ship-money 
 by the king's warrant was not necessary, because the business 
 might have been as well or better done by parliament. If the 
 doctrine maintained by Junius be confined within this limita- 
 tion, it will go but very little way in support of arbitrary 
 power. That the king is to judge of the occasion is no 
 objection, unless we are told how it can possibly be otherwise. 
 There are other instances not less important iu the exercise, 
 nor less dangerous in the abuse, in which the constitution 
 relies entirely upon the king's judgment The executive 
 power proclaims war and peace, binds the nation by treaties, 
 
 * I confine myself strictly to seamen; if any others are pressed, it it 
 gross abuse, which th magistrates can and should correct. Jumus.
 
 EXPLANATION IX BEHALF OF JUMUS. 439 
 
 orders general embargoes, and imposes quarantines, not to 
 mention a multitude of prerogatives which, though liable to 
 the greatest abuses, were never disputed. 
 
 3. It has been urged as a reproach to Junius, that he has 
 not delivered an opinion upon the game laws, and particularly 
 the late Dog Act. But Junius thinks he has much greater 
 reason to complain that he is never assisted by those who are 
 able to assist him*, and that almost the whole labour of the 
 press is thrown upon a single hand, from which a discussion 
 of every public question whatsoever is unreasonably expected. 
 He is not paid for his labour, and certainly has a right to 
 choose his employment. As to the game laws, he never 
 scrupled to declare his opinion that they are a species of the 
 forest laws, that they are oppressive to the subject, and that 
 the spirit of them is incompatible with legal liberty ; that 
 the penalties imposed by these laws bear no proportion to the 
 nature of the oftence ; that the mode of trial, and the degree 
 and kind of evidence necessary to convict, not only deprive 
 the subject of all the benefits of a trial by jury, but are in 
 themselves too summary, and to the last degree arbitrary and 
 oppressive; that, in particular, the late acts to prevent dog- 
 stealing, or killing game between sun and sun, are distin- 
 guished by their absurdity, extravagance, and pernicious 
 tendency. Tf these terms are weak or ambiguous, in what 
 language can Juuius express himself? It is no excuse for 
 Lord Mansfield to say that he happened to be absent when 
 these bills passed the House of Lords. It was his duty to 
 be present. Such bills could never have passed the House 
 of Commons without his knowledge. But we very well know 
 by what rules he regulates his attendance. When that order 
 was made in the House of Lords in the case of Lord Pom- 
 fret* at which every Englishman shudders, my honest Lord 
 Mansfield found himself by mere accident in the Court of 
 King's Bench. Otherwise he would have done wonders in 
 defence of law and property ! The pitiful evasion is adapted 
 
 * In Private Letter, No. 66, addressed to Mr. Wilkes, Junius complains 
 of his want of " support in the newspapers." 
 
 + A case brought by Lord Pomfret before the House, from one of the 
 inferior courts, in reference to a tract of ground claimed by the parish in 
 which he resided as common land, but maintained by his Lordship to lie a 
 part of his own freehold.
 
 440 LETTERS OF JUNTUS 
 
 to the character. But Junius will never justify himself bj 
 the example of this had man. The distinction between 
 doing wrong and avoiding to do right belongs to Lord Mans- 
 6eld. Junius disclaims it. 
 
 LETTER LXV. 
 
 TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 
 
 November 2, 1771. 
 
 AT the intercession of three of your countrymen you have 
 bailed a man, who, I presume, is also a Scotchman, and 
 whom the lord mayor of London had refused to bail * 
 I do not mean to enter into an examination of the partial, 
 sinister motives of your conduct ; but, confining myself 
 strictly to the fact, I affirm, that you have done that which 
 by law you were not warranted to do. The thief was taken 
 in the theft, the stolen goods were found upon him, and he 
 made no defence. In these circumstances (the truth of which 
 you dare not deny, because it is of public notoriety), it could 
 not stand indifferent whether he was guilty or not, much less 
 could there be any presumption of his innocence ; and, in 
 these circumstances, I affirm, in contradiction to YOU, LORD 
 CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD, that, by the laws of England, he 
 was not bailable. If ever Mr. Eyre should be brought to 
 
 * In explanation of this assertion, the editor extracts the following para- 
 graph from the Public Advertiser, Oct. 20, 1771 : 
 
 " Yesterday application was made to the lord mayor by the friends of 
 John Eyre, Esq., committed on the oaths of Thomas Fielding, William 
 Holder, William Payne, and William Nash, for feloniously stealing eleven 
 quires of writing paper. The circumstances were so strong against the 
 prisoner, on whom the goods were found, and no defence whatever being 
 set up by him before the magistrate who made the commitment, that the 
 lord mayor refused to bail him. The alderman who committed him had 
 before refused to bail him, as it was alleged that no instance whatever had 
 been known of a person being bailed under such circumstances. Mr. Eyra 
 was, however, bailed yesterday by Lord Mansfield, himself in only 3001. 
 and three Scottish securities in 1001. each, a Kiiiloch, Farquar, and Innis. 
 Eyre hat rince made his escape."
 
 PLEDGE TO SUPPORT H13 CHARGE. 44] 
 
 trial*, we shall bear what you have to say for yourself ; and 
 I pledge myself before God and my country, in proper time 
 and place, to make good my charge against you. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER LXVI. 
 
 FOB THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 
 
 November 9, 1771. 
 
 Juxius engages to make good his charge against LORD CHIEF 
 JUSTICE MANSFIELD, some time before the meeting of parlia- 
 ment, in order that the House of Commons may, if they 
 think proper, make it one article in the impeachment of the 
 said Lord Chief Justice. 
 
 LETTER LXVIIf. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 
 
 November 28, 1771. 
 
 WHAT is the reason, my Lord, that, when almost every man 
 in the kingdom, without distinction of principles or party, 
 
 * The facts of the case were as follow: On the 2nd Oct., 3771, Eyre 
 was committed to Wood Street Compter, by Mr. Alderman Halifax, for 
 privately stealing out of a room at Guildhall three quires of writing-paper 
 which were found upon him ; on searching his lodgings, there were disco- 
 vered in a box eight quires more of the same sort of paper, which had been 
 marked privately for the discovery of the thief. Eyre had attended at the 
 justice-room for a considerable time, under the pretence of learning the 
 business of a magistrate, to which situation, he said, he shortly expected to 
 be appointed. On the day preceding the date of this letter, he surrendered 
 himself at the Old Bailey to take his triul for stealing the paper, to which 
 charge he pleaded guilty, and threw himself on the mercy of the 
 court. He was sentenced to be transported. This sordid wretch wag 
 asserted at the time of committing so miserable a theft to be worth at least 
 thirty thousand pounds. 
 
 f The litigation which had arisen in consequence of the attempt to grant 
 away the Duke of Portland's estate to Sir James Lowther, had ended in 
 favour of the Duke. Inglewood Forest was found to have been not legallj
 
 4.42 LETTERS 0? JUNJU8 
 
 exults in the ridiculous defeat of Sir James Lowther*, when 
 good and bad men unite in one common opinion of thel 
 baronet, and triumph in his distress, as if the event (without 
 any reference to vice or virtue) were interesting to human 
 nature, your Grace alone should appear so miserably de- 
 pressed and afflicted ? In such universal joy I know not 
 where you will look for a compliment of condolence, unless 
 you appeal to the tender sympathetic sorrows of Mr. Brad- 
 shaw. That cream-coloured gentleman's tears f, affecting as 
 they are, cany consolation along with them. He never 
 weeps but, like an April shower, with a lambent ray of sun- 
 shine upon his countenance. From the feelings of honest 
 men upon this joyful occasion I do not mean to draw any 
 conclusion to your Grace. They naturally rejoice when they 
 see a signal instance of tyranny resisted with success, of 
 treachery exposed to the derision of the world, an infamous 
 informer defeated, and an impudent robber di-agged to the 
 public gibbet. But in the ether class of mankind, I own 
 I expected to meet the Duke of Grafton. Men who have no 
 
 granted to Sir James, and to be not legally resumable from the Duke of 
 Portland. The Duke of Grafton was minister when the grant to Sir James 
 Lowther passed from the treasury ; and Junius, therefore, eagerly seizes 
 this last opportunity to insult his feelings. 
 
 The letter chiefly repeats the old themes of opprobrium levelled against 
 the Duke, is interspersed with digressions respecting the Luttrells, with 
 exultations over Sir James Lowther, and with hinted abuse of the king. It 
 is eloquent and caustic ; but contains little to demand new illustration. In 
 his Private Letter, No. 44, Junius declares that it was written in conse- 
 quence of a communication from Garrick to Ramus, and from the latter to 
 the king, that Junius would write no more ; and hence the questions in the 
 concluding paragraph. His words are, " David Garrick has literally forced 
 me to break my resolution of writing no more," for the subsequent letter 
 addressed to Lord Mansfield was completed sometime previous to the date 
 of this letter, as may be seen in Private Letter, No. 40, where, and in that 
 which follows it, will be found an explanation of the curious circumstance of 
 the communication to the king, the author's early knowledge of the fact, 
 and a copy of the very severe letter which he sent to Mr. Garrick, in con- 
 sequence of the information which he had given to Mr. Ramus. ED. 
 
 * He refers to the case of Lowther against the Duke of Portland, in the 
 contest concerning Inglewood Forest, &c.. in Cumberland. See the detail 
 and determination of the dispute (which last had now just taken place) in 
 note, ante, p. 402. 
 
 f Miscellaneous Letter 71, ToL ii
 
 PASTING LETTER TO THE DUKE OK GRAFrOX. 443 
 
 regard for justice, nor any sense of honour, seem as heartily 
 pleased with Sir James Lowther's well-deserved punishment 
 as if it did not constitute an example against themselves. 
 The unhappy baronet has no friends, even among those \vlu 
 resemble him. You, my Lord, are not yet reduced to so 
 deplorable a state of dereliction. Every villain in the king- 
 dom is your friend, and, in compliment to such amity, I think 
 you should suffer your dismal countenance to clear up. 
 Besides, my Lord, I am a little anxious for the consistency 
 of your character. You violate your own rules of decorum 
 when you do not insult the man whom you have betrayed. 
 
 The divine justice of retribution seems now to have begun 
 its progress. Deliberate treachery entails punishment upon 
 the traitor. There is no possibility of escaping it, even in 
 the highest rank to which the consent of society can exalt the 
 meanest and worst of men. The forced, unnatural union of 
 Luttrell and Middlesex was an omen of another unnatural 
 union, by which indefeasible infamy is attached to the House of 
 Brunswick. If one of those acts was virtuous and honourable, 
 the best of princes, I thank God, is happily rewarded for it 
 by the other. Your Grace, it has been said, had some share 
 in recommending Colonel Luttrell to the king. Or, was it only 
 the gentle Bradshaw who made himself answerable for the 
 good behaviour of his friend? An intimate connection has 
 long subsisted between him and the worthy Lord Irnham. 
 It arose from a fortunate similarity of principles, cemented by 
 the constant mediation of their common friend, Miss Davis*. 
 
 * There is a certain family in this country, on which nature seems to have 
 entailed an hereditary baseness of disposition. As far as their history has 
 been known, the son has regularly improved upon the vices of his father, 
 and has taken care to transmit them pure and undiminished into the bosom 
 of his successor. In the senate, their abilities have confined them to those 
 humble, sordid services, in which the scavengers of the ministry are usually 
 employed. But in the memoirs of private treachery they stand first and 
 unrivalled. The following story will serve to illustrate the character of this 
 respectable family, and to convince the world that the present possessor has 
 as clear a title to the infamy of his ancestors as he has to their estate. It 
 deserves to be recorded for the curiosity of the fact, and should be given (c 
 the public as a warning to every honest member of society. 
 
 The present Lord Irnham, who is now in the decline of life, lately cul- 
 tivated the acquaintance of a younger brother of a family with which h 
 had lived in some degree of intimacy and friendship. The young man had 
 long been the dupe of a most unhappy attachment to a common prostitute*
 
 444 LETTERS OF JTTN1T7S. 
 
 Yet I confess I should be sorry that the opprobrious infamj 
 of this match should reach beyond the family. We have now 
 a better reason than ever to pray for the long rife of the best 
 of princes, and the welfare of his royal issue. I will not mix 
 anything ominous with my prayers, but let parliament look t.: 
 it. A Luttrell shall never succeed to the crown of England* 
 ]f the hereditary virtues of the family deserve a kingdom, 
 Scotland will be a proper retreat for them. 
 
 The next is a most remarkable instance of the -goodness of 
 Providence. The just law of retaliation has at last overtaken 
 the little, contemptible tyrant of the north. To this son-in- 
 law of your dearest friend, the Earl of Bute, you meant to 
 transfer the Duke of Portland's property!; an d you hastened 
 the grant, with an expedition unknown to the treasury, that 
 he might have it time enough to give a decisive turn to the 
 election for the county. The immediate consequence of this 
 flagitious robbery was that he lost the election, which you 
 meant to ensure to him, and with such signal circumstances 
 of scorn, reproach, and insult, (to say nothing of the general 
 exultation of all parties,) as (excepting the king's brother-in- 
 law, Colonel Luttrell |, and old Simon, his father-in-law, 1 ; 
 hardly ever fell upon a gentleman in this country. In the 
 
 His friends and relations foresaw the consequences of this connection, and 
 did everything that depended upon them to save him from ruin. But he 
 had a friend in Lord Irnham, whose advice rendered all their endeavours 
 ineffectual. This hoary letcher, not contented with the enjoyment of his 
 friend's mistress [the notorious Polly Davis, mentioned in the letter above], 
 was base enough to take advantage of the passions and folly of a young 
 man, and persuaded him to marry her. He descended even to perform the 
 office of father to the prostitute. He gave her to his friend, who was on 
 the point of leaving the kingdom, and the next night lay with her himself. 
 
 Whether the depravity of the human heart can produce anything more 
 liase and detestable than this fact, must be left undetermined until the son 
 shall arrive at his father's age and experience. JCNIUS. 
 
 This note appeared in the Public Advertiser, April 7, 1769, under the 
 signature of Recens ; and was republished by Junius in the edition of hn 
 Letters, revised by himself. ED. 
 
 * The Duke of Cumberland was now married to Mrs. Horton, Colonel 
 Luttrell's sister. Miscellaneous Letter, No. 102, vol. ii. 
 
 t See note, p. 402. 
 
 Miscellaneous Letter, No. 102. Our author thus denominates hii 
 Majesty, because, by the marriage of Luttrell's sister, Mrs. Horton, with th 
 Duke of Cumberland, Luttrell was legally become brother-in-law to the 
 king's brother ; as was Luttrell's father, father-in-law to him.
 
 TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD 445 
 
 event, he loses the very property of which he thought he had 
 gotten possession, and after an expense which would have paid 
 the value of the land in question twenty times over ; the forms 
 of villany, you see, are necessary to its success. Hereafter 
 you will act with greater circumspection, and not drive so 
 directly to your object. To snatch a grate, beyond the reach 
 of common treachery, is an exception, not a rule. 
 
 And now, my good Loi'd, does not your conscious heart 
 inform you that the justice of retribution begins to operate, 
 and that it may soon approach your person ? Do you think 
 that Junius has renounced the Middlesex election ? Or that 
 the king's timber shall be refused to the royal navy with im- 
 punity* ? Or that you shall hear no more of the sale of that 
 patent to Mr. Hine, which you endeavoured to screen by sud- 
 denly dropping your prosecution of Samuel Vaughanf, when 
 the rule against him was made absolute ? I believe, indeed, 
 there never was such an instance, in all the history of negative 
 impudence. But it shall not save you. The very sunshine 
 you live in is a prelude to your dissolution. When you are 
 ripe you shall be plucked. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 P.S. I beg you will convey to our gracious master my 
 humble congratulations upon the glorious success of peerages 
 and pensions, so lavishly distributed as the rewards of Irish 
 virtue 
 
 LETTER LXVIIIt. 
 
 TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MAXSF.ELD 
 
 January 21, 1772. 
 
 I HAVE undertaken to prove that when, at the intercession of 
 three of your countrymen, you bailed John Eyre, you did that 
 
 Note, ante, p. 403. 
 
 f Letter 33, ante, p. 249, and Private Letter, No. 15, for the particular! 
 of the transaction here alluded to. 
 
 J This is the threatened proof of the charge of illegality in the admitting 
 of Eyre to bail. It attempts to show that the superior power of the
 
 440 LETTERS OF JCNtUS. 
 
 ichicli by law you were not warranted to do, and that a felon, 
 under the circumstances of being taken in the fact, with the 
 ttolen goods upon him, and making no defence, is not bailahh 
 by the laws of England. Your learned advocates have int<<t 
 preted this charge into a denial that the Court of King's Bench, 
 or the judges of that court during the vacation, have any 
 greater authority to hail for criminal offences than a justice of 
 peace. With the instance before me I am supposed to ques- 
 tion your power of doing wrong, and to deny the existence of 
 a power, at the same moment that I arraign the illegal exercise 
 of it. "But the opinions of such men, whether wilful in their 
 malignity or sincere in their ignorance, are unworthy of my 
 notice. You, Lord Mansfield, did not understand me so, and 
 I promise you your cause requires an abler defence. I am 
 now to make good my charge against you. However dull my 
 argument, the subject of it is interesting. I shall be honoured 
 with the attention of the public, and have a right to demand 
 the attention of the legislature ; supported, as I am. by the 
 whole body of the criminal law of England, I have no doubt of 
 establishing my charge. If, on your part, you should have no 
 plain, substantial defence, but should endeavour to shelter 
 yourself under the quirk and evasion of a practising lawyer, or 
 under the mere insulting assertion of power without right, the 
 reputation you pretend to is gone for ever ; you stand degraded 
 from the respect and authority of your office, and are no longer, 
 dejure, lord chief justice of England. This letter, my Lord, 
 is addressed not so much to you as to the public, Learned as 
 you are, and quick in apprehension, few arguments are neces- 
 sary to satisfy you, that you have done that which by law you 
 were not warranted to do ; your conscience already tells you that 
 you have sinned against knowledge, and that whatever defence 
 you make contradicts your own internal conviction. But other 
 
 Court of King's Bench to bail rests not upon positive law ; that in a case 
 BO clear as that of Eyre, there was no scope for the discretion of the judges ; 
 that, considering all the circumstances of that case, no juridical authority 
 known to the law of England could legally admit the culprit to bail. There 
 are infinite ingenuity and elaborate erudition in the argument. Valeat quan- 
 tum valere potest. The invective connected with it degenerates occasionally 
 iato vulgar abuse, and is inconsistent with the gravity of the investigation. 
 
 Junius, in speaking of this letter, says, " The paper itself is, in my 
 opinion, oi the highest style of Junius, and cannot fail to fell." Private 
 letter, Na. 49.
 
 TO LORP CHIEF JUSTICE MAXSFIELD 447 
 
 men are willing enough to take the law upon trust. They relj 
 upon authority, because they are too indolent to search for 
 information ; or, conceiving that there is some mystery in the 
 laws of their country which lawyers are only qualified to 
 explain, they distrust their judgment, and voluntarily renounce 
 the right of thinking for themselves. With all the evidence 
 of history before them, from Tresillian to Jefferies, from Jefferies 
 to Mansfield, they will not believe it possible that a learned 
 judge can act in direct contradiction to those laws which he is 
 supposed to have made the study of his life, and which he has 
 sworn to . administer faithfully Superstition is certainly not 
 the characteristic of this age. Yet some men are bigoted in 
 politics who are infidels in religion. I do not despair of 
 making them ashamed of their credulity. 
 
 The charge I brought against you is expressed in terms 
 guarded and well considered. They do not dei^ the strict 
 power of the judges of the Court of King's Bench to bail in 
 cases not bailable by a justice of peace, nor replevisable by 
 the common writ, or ex officio by the sheriff. I well knew the 
 practice of the court, and by what legal rules it ought to be 
 directed ; but far from meaning to soften or diminish the force 
 of those terms I have made use of, I now go beyond them, and 
 affirm 
 
 I. That the superior power of bailing for felony, claimed 
 by the Court of King's Bench, is founded upon the opinion of 
 lawyers, and the practice of the court ; that the assent of the 
 legislature to this power is merely negative, and that it is not 
 supported by any positive provision in any statute whatsoever : 
 if it be, produce the statute 
 
 II. Admitting that the judges of the Court of King's Bench 
 are vested with a discretionary power to examine and judge of 
 circumstances and allegations which a justice of the peace 
 is not permitted to consider, I affirm that the judges, in the 
 use and application of that discretionary power, are as strictly 
 bound by the spirit, intent, and meaning, as the justice of 
 peace is by the words of the legislature. Favourable circum- 
 stances, alleged before the judge, may justify a doubt whe- 
 ther the prisoner be guilty or not; and where the guilt is 
 doubtful a presumption of innocence should in general be 
 admitted. But when any such probable circumstances are 
 allegod, they alter the state and condition of the prisoner.
 
 448 LETTERS OF JUNTOS. 
 
 He is 110 longer that all-lut- convicted felon, whom the law 
 intends, and vrho by law is not bailable at all. if no cir- 
 cumstances whatsoever are alleged in his favour, if no 
 allegation whatsoever be made to lessen the force of that 
 evidence which the law annexes to a positive charge of felony, 
 and particularly to the fact of being taken with the mancr, 
 I then say that the lord chief justice of England has no 
 more right to bail him than a justice of peace. The discre- 
 tion of an English judge is not of mere will and pleasure 
 it is not arbitrary it is not capricious ; but, as that great 
 lawyer (whose authority I wish you respected half as much as 
 I do) truly says*, "Discretion, taken as it ought to be, is 
 discernere per legem quid sit jitstum. If it be not directed 
 by the right line of the law, it is a crooked cord, and ap- 
 peareth to be unlawful." If discretion were arbitrary in the 
 judge, he might introduce whatever novelties he thought 
 proper ; but, says Lord Coke, " Novelties without warrant 
 of precedents are not to be allowed; some certain rules are 
 to be followed Quicquid jndicis authoritati subjicitur, novi- 
 tati non subjicitur;" and this sound doctrine is applied to the 
 Star Chamber, a court confessedly arbitrary. If you will 
 abide by the authority of this great man, you shall have all 
 the advantage of his opinion wherever it appears to favour 
 you. Excepting the plain, express meaning of the legisla- 
 ture, to which all private opinions must give way, I desire no 
 better judge between us than Lord Coke. 
 
 III. I affirm that, according to the obvious, indisputable 
 meaning of the legislature repeatedly expressed, a person 
 positively charged with feloniously stealing, and taken in 
 flagrant* de/icto, with the stolen goods upon him, is not 
 bailable. The law considers him as differing in nothing from 
 a convict but in the form of conviction, and (whatever a cor- 
 rupt judge may do) will accept of no security but the confine- 
 ment of his body within four walls. I know it has been 
 alleged in your favour that you have often bailed for murders, 
 rapes, and other manifest crimes. Without questioning the 
 fact, I shall not admit that you are to be justified by your 
 own example. If that were a protection to you, whore is the 
 crime that, as a judge, you might not now securely commit? 
 
 * 4 List. 41, 66.
 
 TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 449 
 
 But neither shall I suffer myself to be drawn aside from my 
 present argument, nor you to profit by your own wrong 
 To prove the meaning and intent of the legislature will 
 require a minute and tedious deduction. To investigate a 
 question of law demands seme labour and attention, though 
 very little genius or sagacity. As a practical profession the 
 etudy of the law requires but a moderate portion of abilities. 
 The learning of a pleader is usually upon a level with his 
 integrity. The indiscriminate defence of right and wrong 
 contracts the understanding while it corrupts the heart 
 Subtlety is soon mistaken for wisdom, and impunity for 
 virtue. If there be any instances upon record, as some there 
 are undoubtedly, of genius and morality united in a lawyer, 
 they are distinguished by their singularity, and operate as 
 exceptions. 
 
 I must solicit the patience of my readers. This is no 
 light matter, nor is it any more susceptible of ornament than 
 the conduct of Lord Mansfield is capable of aggravation. 
 
 As the law of bail, in charges of felony, has been exactly 
 ascertained by acts of the legislature, it is at present of little 
 consequence to inquire how it stood at common law before 
 the statute of Westminster. And yet it is worth the reader's 
 attention to observe how nearly, .in the ideas of our ancestors, 
 the circumstance of being taken with the maner approached 
 to the conviction of the felon. It "fixed the authoritative 
 stamp of verisimilitude upon the accusation, and, by the 
 common law, when a thief was taken with the maner (that is, 
 with the thing stolen upon him in manu,') he might, so 
 detected, flayrante delicio, be brought into court, arraigned, 
 and tried without indictment; as, by the Danish law, he 
 might be taken and hanged upon the spot, without accusation 
 or trial.''* It will soon appear that our statute law in this 
 behalf, though less summary in point of proceeding, ig 
 directed by the same spirit. In one instance the very form 
 is adhered to. In offences relating to the forest, if a man 
 was taken with vert, or venison, it was declared to be 
 equivalent to indictmentf. To enable the reader to judge 
 for himself, I shall state, in due order, the several statutes 
 relative tc bail in criminal cases, or as much of them as may 
 
 * BlacksUn*. ;v. bui. 
 
 i I Ed. III. cap. 8 and 7 Kick JI. cap. I. 
 VOL, I. tt
 
 450 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 be material to the point in question, omitting superfluous 
 words. If I misrepresent, or do not quote with fidelity, it 
 will not be difficult to detect me. 
 
 The statute of Westminster the first*, in 1275, se*s forth, 
 that, " Forasmuch as sheriffs and others, who have taken and 
 kept in prison persons detected of felony, and incontinent 
 have let out by replevin such as were not replevisable, because 
 they would gain of the one party and grieve the other ; and 
 forasmuch as before this time it was not determined which 
 persons were replevisable and which not, it is provided, and 
 by the king commanded, that such prisoners, &c., as be taken 
 with the manor, &c., or for manifest offences, shall be in no 
 wise replevisable by the common writ, nor without writ."-| 
 Lord Coke, in his exposition of the last part of this quota 
 tion, accurately distinguishes between replevy by the common 
 writ or ex officio, and bail by the King's Bench. The words 
 of the statute certainly do not extend to the judges of that 
 court. But besides that the reader will soon find reason to 
 think that the legislature, in their intention, made no dif- 
 ference between bailable and replevisable, Lord Coke himsell 
 (if he be understood to mean nothing but an exposition of the 
 statute of Westminster, and not to state the law generally), 
 does not adhere to his own distinction. In expounding the 
 other offences which, by this statute, are declared not reple-* 
 visable, he constantly uses the words not bailable. " That 
 outlaws, for instance, are not bailable at all; that persons 
 who have abjured the realm are attainted upon their own 
 confession, and therefore not bailable at all by law; th.it 
 provers are not bailable; that notorious felons are not bail- 
 able.'\ The reason why the superior courts were not named 
 in the statute of Westminster was plainly this, " because 
 anciently most of the business touching bailment of prisoners 
 fur felony or misdemeanors was performed by the sheriffs, or 
 
 * " Videtur que le statute de mainpnse nest que reliersa.il del comen 
 icy." Bro. Mainp. 61. 
 
 f- " There are three points to be considered in the construction of all 
 remedial statutes the old law, the mischief, and the reined}' ; that is, how 
 the common law stood at the making of the act, what the mischief was for 
 which the common law did not provide, and what remedy the parliament 
 hath provided to cure this mischief. It is the business of the judges so to 
 construe the act as to suppress the mischief and advance the remedy.'' 
 Wacittone, L 87.
 
 TO Y/)RD CTTTEF JUSTTCT? MANSFIELD. 451 
 
 special bailiffs of liberties, either by writ or virtute officii ;" * 
 consequently the superior courts had little or no opportunity 
 to commit those abuses which the statute imputes to the 
 bheriffs. With submission to Doctor Blackstone. I think he 
 lias fallen into a contradiction which, in terms at least 
 appears irreconcilable. After enumerating several offences 
 not bailable, he asserts, without any condition or limitation 
 whatsoever, "all which are clearly not admissible to bail." f 
 Yet in a few lines after he says, " it is agreed that the Court 
 of King's Bench may bail for any crime whatsoever, according 
 to the circumstance of the case." To his first proposition he 
 should have added by she tiffs or justices, otherwise the two 
 propositions contradict each other, with this difference, how- 
 ever, that the first is absolute, the second limited by a con- 
 sideration of circumstances. I say this without the least 
 intended disrespect to the learned author. His work is of 
 public utility, and should not hastily be condemned. 
 
 The statute of 17 Richard II cap. 10, in 1393, sets forth, 
 that " Forasmuch as thieves notoriously defamed, and others, 
 taken with the maner, by their long abiding in prison were 
 delivered by charters, and favourable inquests procured, to the 
 great hinderance of the people, two men of law shall be 
 assigned in every commission of the peace to proceed to the 
 deliverance of such felons," &c. It seems by this act that 
 there was a constant struggle between the legislature and the 
 officers of justice. Not daring to admit felons taken with 
 the maner to bail or mainprise, they evaded the law by 
 keeping the party in prison a long time, and then delivering 
 him without due trial. 
 
 The statute of I Pdchard Hi., in 1483, sets forth, that 
 " Forasmuch as divers persons have been daily arrested and 
 imprisoned for suspicion of felony, sometime of malice, and 
 sometime of a light suspicion, and GO kept in prison without 
 bail or mainprize, be it ordained, that every justice of peace 
 shall have authority by his discretion to let such prisoners 
 and persons so arrested to bail or mainprize." By this act it 
 appears that there had been abuses in matter of imprison 
 ment, and that the legislature meant to provide for the imme- 
 diate enlargement of persons arrested on light suspicion of 
 felony. 
 
 * 2 Hale, P. C. 128. 136. f Blackstone, iv. 299. 
 
 302
 
 452 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 The statute of 3 Henry VII. in 1486, declares, that " under 
 colour of the preceding act of Richard the Third, persons, 
 such as mere not mainpernalle, were oftentimes let to bail or 
 mainprize, by justices of the peace, whereby many murderers 
 and felons escaped, the king, &c., hath ordained, that the jus 
 tices of the peace, or two of them at the least (whereof one to 
 be of the quorum) have authority to let any such prisoners or 
 persons, mainpernable by the law, to bail or mainprize." 
 
 The statute of 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, in 1554, 
 sets forth, that " notwithstanding the preceding statute of 
 Henry the Seventh, one justice of the peace hath oftentimes, 
 by sinister labour and means, set at large the greatest and 
 notablest offenders, such as be not replevisable by the laics of 
 this realm; and yet, the rather to hide their affections in that 
 behalf, have signed the cause of their apprehension to be but 
 only for suspicion of felony, whereby the said offenders have 
 escaped unpunished, and do daily, to the high displeasure of 
 Almighty God, the great peril of the king and queen's true 
 subjects, and encouragement of all thieves and evil-doers; 
 for reformation whereof be it enacted, that no justices of 
 peace shall let to bail or mainprize any such persons, which, 
 for any offence by them committed, be declared not to be 
 replevised or bailed, or be forbidden to be replevised or bailed 
 by the statute of Westminster the first ; and, furthermore, 
 that any persons arrested for manslaughter or felony, being 
 bailable by the law, shall not be let to bail or mainprize by 
 any justices of peace, but in the form thereinafter prescribed." 
 In the two preceding statutes, the words bailable, replevisable, 
 and mainpernable are used synonymously*, or promiscuously 
 to express the same single intention of the legislature, viz., 
 not to accept of any security but the body of the offender ; and 
 when the latter statute prescribes the form in which persons 
 arrested on suspicion of felony (being bailable by the law) may 
 be let to bail, it evidently supposes that there are some cases 
 not bailable by the law. It may be thought, perhaps, that I 
 attribute to the legislature an appearance of inaccuracy in the 
 use of terms, merely to serve my present purpose. But, in 
 truth, it would make more forcibly for my argument to pre- 
 sume that the legislature were constantly aware of the strict 
 
 * 2 Hals, P. C. ii. 124
 
 TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 4od 
 
 .eqral distinction between, bail and replevy, and that they 
 always meant to adhere to it*; for if it be true that replevy is 
 by the sheriffs, and bail by the higher courts at Westminster 
 (which I think no lawyer will deny), it follows that, when the 
 legislature: expressly say that any particular offence is by law 
 not bailable, the superior courts are comprehended in the pro- 
 hibition, and bound by it. Otherwise, unless there was a 
 positive exception of the superior courts (which I affirm there 
 never was in any statute relative to bail), the legislature would 
 grossly contradict themselves, and the manifest intention of 
 the law be evaded. It is an established rule that, when the 
 law is special, and the reason of it general, it is to be generally 
 understood; and though, by custom, a latitude be allowed to 
 the Court of King's Bench (to consider circumstances inductive 
 of a doubt whether the prisoner be guilty or innocent), if this 
 latitude be taken as an arbitrary power to bail, when no cir- 
 cumstances whatsoever are alleged in favour of the prisoner, 
 it is a power without right, and a daring violation of the whole 
 English law of bail. 
 
 The Act of the 31st of Charles the Second (commonly 
 called the Habeas Corpus Act) particularly declares that it is 
 not meant to extend to treason or felony plainly and specially 
 expressed in the warrant of commitment. The prisoner is 
 therefore left to seek his habeas corpus at common law ; and 
 so far was the legislature from supposing that persons (com- 
 mitted for treason or felony plainly and specially expressed in 
 the warrant of commitment) could be let to bail by a single 
 judge, or by the whole court, that this very act provides a 
 remedy for such persons in case they are not indicted in the 
 course of the term or session subsequent to their commitment. 
 The law neither suffers them to be enlarged before trial, nor 
 to be imprisoned after the time in which they ought regularly 
 to be tried. In this case the law says, " It shall and may be 
 lawful to and for the judges of the Court of King's Bench and 
 justices of oyer and terminer, or general gaol delivery, and 
 they are hereby required, upon motion to them made in open 
 court, the last day of the term, session, or gaol delivery, either 
 by the prisoner or any one in his behalf, to set at liberty tba 
 
 * Vide 2 Inst. 150. 186. "The word replevisable never signifies bai!- 
 cible. Bailable is in a court of record by the king's justice* ', but replfvisa- 
 Ue is by the sheriff."^ Selden, State Tr., vii. 149.
 
 454 LETTERS OF JUN1CS 
 
 prisoner upon bail ; unless it appear to the judges and justices, 
 upon oath made, that the witnesses for the king could not be 
 produced the same term, sessions, or gaol delivery." Upon 
 the whole of this article I observe 
 
 1. That the provision made in the first part of it would be 
 in a great measure useless and nugatory if any single judge 
 might have bailed the prisoner ex arbitrio, during the vacation ; 
 or if the court might have bailed him immediately after the 
 commencement of the term or sessions. 2. When the law 
 says, It shall and may be lawful to bail for felony under par- 
 ticular circumstances, we must presume that, before the passing 
 of that act, it was not lawful to bail under those circumstances. 
 The terms used by the legislature are enacting, not declara 
 tory. 3. Notwithstanding the party may have been impri 
 soned during the greatest part of the vacation, and during the 
 whole session, the court are expressly forbidden to bail him 
 from that session to the next, if oath be made that the wit- 
 nesses of the king could not be produced that same term or 
 sessions. 
 
 Having faithfully stated the several acts of parliament 
 relative to bail in criminal cases, it may be useful to the 
 reader to take a short historical review of the law of bail, 
 through its various gradations and improvements. 
 
 By the ancient common law, before and since the Conquest, 
 all felonies were bailable till murder was excepted by statute ; 
 so that persons might be admitted to bail, before conviction, 
 almost in every case. The statute of Westminster says that, 
 before that time, it had not been determined which offences 
 were replevisable and which were not, whether by the common 
 writ de homine repleyiando, or ex officio by the sheriff. It is 
 very remarkable that the abuses arising from this unlimited 
 power of replevy, dreadful as they were and destructive to the 
 peace of society, were not corrected or taken notice of by the 
 legislature until the Commons of the kingdom had obtained a 
 share in it by their representatives ; but the House of Com- 
 mons had scarce begun to exist when these formidable abuses 
 were corrected by the statute of Westminster. It is highly 
 probable that the mischief had been severely felt by the 
 people, although no remedy had been provided for it by the 
 Norman kings or barons. " The iniquity of the times was so 
 great, as it even forced the subjects to forego that which was
 
 TO TX>RI> CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 455 
 
 in account a great liberty, to stop the course of a growing 
 mischief."* The preamble of the statutes made by the first 
 parliament of Edward the First assigns the reason of calling 
 it : " because the people had been otherwise entreated than 
 Ihey ought to be, the peace less kept, the laws less used, and 
 offenders less punished than they ought to be, by reason whereof 
 the people feared less to offend ;"f and the first attempt to 
 reform these various abuses was by contracting the power of 
 replevying felons. 
 
 For above two centuries following it does not appear that 
 any alteration was made in the law of bail, except that being 
 taken with vert or venison was declared to be equivalent to 
 indictment. The legislature adhered firmly to the spirit of 
 the statute of Westminster. The statute of 27th of Edward 
 the First directs the justices of assize to inquire and punish 
 officers bailing such as were not bailable. As for the judges 
 of the superior courts, it is probable that, in those days, they 
 thought themselves bound by the obvious intent and meaning 
 of the legislature. They considered not so much to what par- 
 ticular persons the prohibition was addressed, as what the 
 thing was which the legislature meant to prohibit, well 
 knowing that in law, quando aliquid prohibetur, prohibetur et 
 omne, per quod devenitur ad illud. " When anything is for- 
 bidden, all the means by which the same thing may be com- 
 passed or done are equally forbidden." 
 
 By the statute of Richard the Third the power of bailing 
 was a little enlarged. Every justice of peace was authorized 
 to bail for felony ; but they were expressly confined to persons 
 arrested on light suspicion; and even this power, so limited, 
 was found to produce such inconveniences that, in three years 
 after, the legislature found it necessary to repeal it. Instead 
 of trusting any longer to a single justice of peace, the act of 
 3rd Henry VII. repeals the preceding act, and directs " that 
 no prisoner (of those who are ma'mpernable by the law) shall 
 be let to bail or mainprize by less than two justices, whereof 
 one to be of the quorum." And so indispensably necessary 
 was this provision thought for the administration of justice, 
 and for the security and peace of society, thac at this time an 
 oath was proposed by the king, to be taken by the knight* 
 
 * Stldeti, by Jf. jBocow, 18 t Parliamentary Hittory. I 32.
 
 456 LETTERS OF JUKICS. 
 
 and fcsquires of his household, by the members of the House 
 of Commons, arid by the peers spiritual and temporal, and 
 accepted and sworn to quasi und voce by them all, which, 
 among other engagements, binds them " not to let any man 
 to bail or mainprize, knowing and deeming him to be a felon, 
 upon your honour and worship. So help you -God and all 
 saints."* 
 
 In about half a century, however, even these provisions 
 were found insufficient. The act of Henry the Seventh was 
 evaded, and the legislature ouce more obliged to interpose. 
 The act of 1st and '^nd of Philip and Mary takes away 
 entirely from the justices all power of bailing for offences 
 declared not bailable by the statute of Westminster. 
 
 The illegal imprisonment of several persons who had 
 refused to contribute to a loan exacted by Charles the First, 
 and the delay of the habeas corpus and subsequent refusal to 
 bail them, constituted one of the first and most important 
 grievances of that reign. Yet when the House of Commons 
 which met in the year 1628 resolved upon measures of the 
 most firm and strenuous resistance to the power of imprison- 
 ment assumed by the king or privy council, and to the refusal 
 to bail the party on the return of the habeas corpus, they did 
 expressly, in all their resolutions, make an exception of com- 
 mitments where the cause of the restraint was expressed, 
 and did by law justify the commitment. The reason of this 
 distinction is that, whereas when the cause of commitment is 
 expressed, the crime is then known, and the offender must 
 be brought to the ordinary trial ; if, on the contrary, no cause 
 of commitment be expressed, and the prisoner be thereupon 
 remanded, it may operate to perpetual imprisonment. Thia 
 contest with Charles the First produced the act of the 16th 
 of that king, by which the Court of King's Bench are 
 directed, within three days after the return of the habeas 
 corpus, to examine and determine the legality of any commit- 
 ment by the king or privy council, and to do what to justice 
 shall appertain in delivering, bailing, or remanding the pri- 
 soner. Now, it seems, it is unnecessary for the judge to do 
 what appertains to justice. The same scandalous traffic in 
 which we have seen the privilege of parliament exerted or 
 
 Parliamentary History, ii. 419.
 
 TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 457 
 
 relaxed to gratify the present humour, or to serve the imme- 
 diate purpose, of the crown, is introduced into the administra- 
 tion of justice. The magistrate, it seems, has now no rule 
 to follow but the dictates of personal enmity, national par- 
 tiality, or perhaps the most prostituted corruption. 
 
 To complete this historical inquiry it only remains to be 
 observed, that the Habeas Corpus Act of 31st of Charles the 
 Second, so justly considered as another magna charta of the 
 kingdom, " extends only to the case of commitments for 
 such criminal charge as can produce no inconvenience to 
 public justice by a temporary enlargement of the prisoner."* 
 So careful were the legislature, at the very moment when 
 they were providing for the liberty of the subject, not to fur- 
 nish any colour or pretence for violating or evading the esta- 
 blished law of bail in the higher criminal offences. But the 
 exception, stated in the body of the act, puts the matter out 
 of all doubt. After directing the judges how they are to 
 proceed to the discharge of the prisoner upon recognizance 
 and surety, having regard to the quality of the prisoner and 
 nature of the offence, it is expressly added, " unless it shall 
 appear to the said lord chancellor, &c., that the party so com- 
 mitted is detained for such matters or offences for the which 
 
 BY THE LAW THE PRISONER IS NOT BAILABLE." 
 
 When the laws, plain of themselves, are thus illustrated 
 by facts, and their uniform meaning established by history, 
 we do not want the authority of opinions, however respectable, 
 to inform our judgment or to confirm our belief. But I am 
 determined t'lat you shall have no escape. Authority of 
 every sort shall be produced against you, from Jacob to Lord 
 Coke, from the dictionary to the classic. In vain shall you 
 appeal from those upright judges whom you disdain to imi- 
 tate, to those whom you have made your example. With one 
 voice they all condemn you. 
 
 "To be taken with the maner, is where a thief, having 
 stolen anything, is taken with the same about him, as it were 
 in his hands, which is called flagrante delicto. Such a cri- 
 minal is not bailable by law" -Jacob, under the word Maner. 
 
 "Those who are taken with the maner are excluded by the 
 statute of Westminster from the benefit of a replevin " 
 Hawkins' P. C. ii. 98. 
 
 * Blaclatone, iv. 137.
 
 458 LKTTERS OK JUNIU8. 
 
 11 Of such heinous offences no one, who is notoriously 
 guilty, seems to be bailable by the intent of this statute."- - 
 Hawkins' P. C. 99. 
 
 " The common practice and allowed general rule is, that 
 bail is only then proper where it stands indifferent whether 
 the party were guilty or innocent." Ibid 
 
 " There is no doubt but the bailing of a person, who is not 
 bailable by law is punishable, either at common law as a neg- 
 ligent escape, or as an offence against the several statutes rela- 
 tive to bail." Ibid. 89. 
 
 " It cannot be doubted but that neither the judges of this 
 nor of any other superior court of justice are strictly within 
 the purview of that statute, yet they will always, in their 
 discretion, pay a due regard to it, and not admit a person to 
 bail' who is expressly declared by it irreplevisable, without 
 some particular circumstance in his favour ; and therefore it 
 seems difficult to find an instance where persons attainted of 
 felony, or notoriously guilty of treason or manslaughter, &c., 
 by their own confession or otherwise, have been admitted to 
 the benefit of bail without some special motive to the court to 
 grant it." Ibid. 114. 
 
 "If it appears that any man hath injury or wrong by his 
 imprisonment, we have power to deliver and discharge him ; 
 if otherwise, he is to be remanded by us to prison again." 
 Lord Chief Justice Hyde State Trials, vii. 1 15. 
 
 " The statute of Westminster was especially for direction 
 to the sheriffs and others, but to say courts of justice are 
 excluded from this statute, I conceive it cannot be." Attorney- 
 General Heath State Trials, ]32. 
 
 " The court, upon review of the retum, judgeth of the 
 sufficiency or insufficiency of it. If they think the prisoner 
 in law to be bailable, he is committed to the marshal and 
 bailed ; if not, he is remanded." Through that whole debate 
 the objection on the part of the prisoners was, that no cause 
 of commitment was expressed in the warrant; but it was 
 uniformly admitted by their counsel that, if the cause of com- 
 mitment had been expressed for treason or felony, the court 
 would then have done right in remanding them. 
 
 The Attorney-General having urged, before a committee of 
 both Houses, that, in Beckwith's case and others, the lords of 
 the council sent a letter to the Court of King's Bench to
 
 TO LOBD CHIEF T STICK MAXSFTEUD. 459 
 
 laii. it was replied by the managers for the Ho^se of Com- 
 mons that this was of no moment, ' for that eiihei the 
 prisoner was bailable by the law or not bailable ; if bai able 
 by the law, then he was to be bailed without any such letter ; 
 if not bailable by the law, then plainly the judges could not 
 have bailed him upon the letter without breach of their oath, 
 which is, that they are to do justice according to the law, dc." 
 State Trials, vii. 176. 
 
 " So that, in bailing upon such offences of the highest 
 nature, a kind of discretion rather than a constant law hath 
 been exercised when it stands wholly indifferent in the eye of 
 the court, whether the prisoner be guilty or not." Selden 
 State Trials, vii. 230-1. 
 
 " I deny that a man is always bailable when imprisonment 
 is imposed upon him for custody." Attorney-General Heath 
 State Trials, 238. By these quotations from the State Trials, 
 though otherwise not of authority, it appears plainly that, in 
 regard to bailable or not bailable, all parties agreed in ad- 
 mitting one proposition as incontrovertible. 
 
 " In relation to capital offences, there are especially these 
 acts of parliament, that are the common landmarks* touching 
 offences bailable or not bailable." Hales P. 0. ii. 127. 
 The enumeration includes the several acts cited in this 
 paper. 
 
 "Persons taken with the manouvre are not bailable, because 
 it is furtum manifestum." Ibid. 133. 
 
 " The writ of habeas corpus is of a high nature ; for, if 
 persons be wrongfully committed, they are to be discharged 
 upon this writ returned, or if bailable, they are to be bailed ; 
 if not bailable, they are to be committed." Ibid. 143. This 
 doctrine of Lord Chief Justice Hale refers immediately to 
 the superior courts from whence the writ issues. " After the 
 return is filed the court is either to discharge or bail, or 
 commit him, as the nature of the cause requires." 
 Ibid. 146. 
 
 " If bail be granted otherwise than the law alloweth, the 
 party that alloweth the same shall be fined, imprisoned, 
 render damages, or forfeit his place, as the case shall re 
 quire." Selden, by IV. Bacon, 182. 
 
 * It has been the study of Lord Mansfield to remove landmarks.
 
 460 LETTEBS OF JtNIDS. 
 
 " This induces an absolute necessity of expressing upon 
 rvery commitment the reason for which it is made, that the 
 court, upon a habeas corpus, may examine into its validity, 
 and, according to the circumstances of the case, may dis- 
 charge, admit to bail, or remand the prisoner." Black- 
 stone, iii. 133. 
 
 " Harriot was committed for forging indorsements upon 
 bank bills, and, upon a habeas corpus, was bailed, because the 
 crime was only a great misdemeanor ; for, though the forging 
 the bills be felony, yet forging the indorsement is not." 
 Salkeld,\. 104. 
 
 " Appell de mahem, &c., ideo ne fuit lesse a bailie, nient 
 plus que in appell de robbery ou murder ; quod nota, et que 
 in robiy et murder le partie n'est baillable."- Bro. Main- 
 prise, 67. 
 
 " The intendment of the law in bails is quod stat indif- 
 ferenter, whether he be guilty or no ; but when he is convict 
 by verdict or confession, then he must be deemed in law to 
 be guilty of the felony, and therefore not bailable at all." 
 Coke ii. Inst. 188 iv. 178. 
 
 " Bail is quando stat indifferenter, and not when the offence 
 is open and manifest." 2 Inst. 189. 
 
 " In this case non stat indifferenter, whether he be guilty 
 or no, being taken with the maner, that is with the thing 
 stolen, as it were in his hand." Ibid. 
 
 " If it appeareth that this imprisonment be just and law- 
 ful, he shall be remanded to the former gaoler ; but, if it 
 shall appear to the court that he was imprisoned against the 
 law of the land, they ought by force of the statute to deliver 
 him ; if it be doubtful and under consideration, he may be 
 bailed." 2 Inst. 55. 
 
 It is unnecessary to load the reader with any further quota- 
 tions. If these authorities are not deemed sufficient to esta- 
 blish the doctrine maintained in this paper, it will be in vain 
 to appeal to the evidence of law books or to the opinions of 
 judges. They are not the authorities by which Lord Mans- 
 field will abide. He assumes an arbitrary power of doing 
 right, and, if he does wrong, it lies only between God and his 
 conscience. 
 
 Now, my Lord, although I have great faith in the pre- 
 ceding arguoen', I will not say that every minute part of it
 
 TO IOKD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 461 
 
 Is absol/iteiy invulnerable. I am too well acquainted with 
 the practice of a certain court directed by your example, as it 
 is governed by your authority, to think there ever yet was an 
 argument, however conformable to law and reason, in which 
 a cunning quibbling attorney might not discover a flaw. 
 But, taking the whole of it together, I affirm that it consti 
 tutes a mass of demonstration than which nothing more com- 
 plete or satisfactory can be offered to the human mind. 
 How an evasive indirect reply will stand with your reputa- 
 tion, or how far it will answer in point of defence at the bar 
 of the House of Lords, is worth your consideration. If, after 
 all that has been said, it should still be maintained that the 
 Court of King's Bench, in bailing felons, are exempted from 
 all legal rules whatsoever, and that the judge has no direction 
 to pursue but his private affections or mere unquestionable 
 will and pleasure, it will follow plainly that the distinction 
 between bailable and not bailable uniformly expressed by the 
 legislature, current through all our law books and admitted 
 by all our great lawyers without exception, is in one sense a 
 nugatory, in another a pernicious distinction. It is nugatory, 
 as it supposes a difference in the bailable quality of offences, 
 when, in effect, the distinction refers only to the rank of the 
 magistrate. It is pernicious, as it implies a rule of law 
 which yet the judge is not bound to pay the least regard to, 
 and impresses an idea upon the minds of the people that the 
 judge is wiser and greater than the law. 
 
 It remains only to apply the law thus stated to the fact in 
 question. By an authentic copy of the mittimus, it appears 
 that John Eyre was committed for felony plainly and speci- 
 ally expressed in the warrant of commitment. He was 
 charged before Alderman Halifax, by the oath of Thomas 
 Fielding, William Holder, William Payne, and William 
 Nash for feloniously stealing eleven quires of writing-paper, 
 value six shillings, the property of Thomas Beach, &c. 
 By the examinations upon oath of the four persons men- 
 tioned in the mittimus, it was proved that large quantities of 
 paper had been missed, and that eleven quires (previously 
 marked, from a suspicion that Eyre was the thief,) were found 
 upon him. Many other quires of paper marked in the same 
 manner were found at his lodgings ; and, after he had beeu 
 some time in Wood Street Compter, a key was found in his
 
 462 LETTERS OP JUNIUS. 
 
 Toom there, which appeared to be a key to the closet at 
 Guildhall, from whence the paper was stolen. When asked 
 what he had to say in his defence, his only answer was, 
 "/ hope you will bail me." Mr. Holder, the clerk, replied, 
 " That is impossible. There never was an instance of it when 
 the stolen goods were found upon the thief." The lord mayor 
 was then applied to, and refused to hail him. Of all those 
 circumstances it was your duty to have informed yourself 
 minutely. The fact was remarkahle, and the chief magis- 
 trate of the city of London was known to have refused to 
 bail the offender. To justify your compliance with the soli- 
 citations of your three countrymen, it should be proved that 
 such allegations were offered to you in behalf of their asso- 
 ciate as honestly and bond fide reduced it to a matter of 
 doubt and indifference whether the prisoner was innocent or 
 guilty Was anything offered by the Scotch triumvirate that 
 tended to invalidate the positive charge made against him by 
 four credible witnesses upon oath ? Was it even insinuated 
 to j'ou, either by himself or his bail, that no felony was com- 
 mitted, or that he was not the felon ; that the stolen goods 
 \vere not found upon him, or that he was only the receiver, 
 rot knowing them to be stolen ? Or, in short, did they 
 attempt to produce any evidence of his insanity ? To all 
 these questions I answer for you, without the least fear of 
 contradiction, positively NO. From the moment he was 
 arrested he never entertained any hope of acquittal ; there- 
 fore thought of nothing but obtaining bail, that he might 
 have time to settle his affairs, convey his fortune to another 
 country, and spend the remainder of his life in comfort and 
 affluence abroad. In this prudential scheme of future happi- 
 ness the Lord Chief Justice of England most readily and 
 heartily concurred. At sight of so much virtue in distress 
 your natural benevolence took the alarm. Such a man as 
 Mr. Eyre, struggling with adversity, must always be an 
 interesting scene to Lord Mansfield. Or was it that liberal 
 anxiety by which your whole life has been distinguished to 
 enlarge the liberty of the subject? My Lord, we did not 
 want this new instance of the liberality of your principles. 
 We ul ready knew what kind of subjects they were for whose 
 liberty you were anxious. At all events the public are much 
 indebted to you for fixing a price at which felony may bd
 
 TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE MANSFIELD. 463 
 
 commi,< ed with impunity. You bound a felon, notoriously 
 worth thirty thousand pounds, in the sum of three hundred. 
 With your natural turn to equity, and knowing as you are iu 
 the doctrine of precedents, you undoubtedly meant to settle 
 the proportion between the fortune of the felon and the fine 
 by \\hi h he may compound for his felony. The ratio now 
 upon record, and transmitted to posterity under the auspices 
 of Lord Mansfield, is exactly one to a hundred. My Lord, 
 without intending it, you have laid a cruel restraint upon the 
 genius uf your countrymen. In the warmest indulgence of 
 their passions they have an eye to the expense, and, if their 
 other virtues fail us, we have a resource in their economy. 
 
 By taking so trifling a security from John Eyre, you in- 
 vited and manifestly exhorted him to escape. Although in 
 bailable cases, it be usual to take four securities, you left him 
 in the custody of three Scotchmen, whom he might have 
 easily satisfied for conniving at his retreat. That he did not 
 make use of the opportunity you industriously gave him, 
 neither justifies your conduct, nor can it be any way accounted 
 for, but by his excessive and monstrous avarice. Any other 
 man, but this bosom friend of three Scotchmen, would gladly 
 have sacrificed a few hundred pounds, rather than submit to 
 the infamy of pleading guilty in open court. It is possible, 
 indeed, that he might have flattered himself, and not un 
 reasonably, with the hopes of a pardon. That he would have 
 been pardoned seems more than probable if I had not directed 
 the public attention to the leading step you took in favour of 
 him. In the present gentle reign, we well know what use 
 has been made of the lenity of the court and of the mercy of 
 the crown. The Lord Chief Justice of England accepts of 
 the hundredth part of the property of a felon taken in tli6 
 fact, as a recognizance for his appearance. Your brother 
 Smythe browbeats a jury, and forces them to alter their ver- 
 dict, by which they had found a Scotch serjeant guilty of mur- 
 der ; and though the Kennedys were convicted of a most 
 deliberate and atrocious murder, they still had a claim to the 
 royal mercy *. They were saved by the chastity of their con- 
 
 * The case of the Kennedys is stated in note, and, p. 302. That ol 
 John Taylor is as follows : He was a serjeant in the first, or royal Sots 
 regiment of foot, and was tried at the Guildford summer assizes in the 
 year 1770. for the murder of James Smith, the master cf the WheatsheafJ
 
 464 LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 
 
 nexions. They had a sister ; yet it was not her beauty, bat 
 the pliancy of her virtue that recommended her to the kiug 
 
 near Westminster Bridge. It appeared upon the trial, that the deceased 
 had uttered some aggravating expressions aguinst the Scots; in consequence 
 of which, the prisoner being suddenly thrown off his guard, drew his sword 
 and stabbed him. The jury, after deliberating a considerable time, brought 
 in a verdict of guilty, on which Mr. Baron Sniythe expressed his surprise, 
 adding, that he had told them it was only manslaughter, and desired (hat a 
 tpecial verdict should be drawn up, which the intimidated jury signed. On 
 this Mr. Jasper Smith, a near relation of the deceased, addressed the court 
 in the following words : " My Lord, I am the nearest of kin to the unfor- 
 tunate man who was murdered. I always thought, my Lord, when a ver- 
 dict was once given it was unalterable, but by the present method of pro- 
 ceeding, there need not have been any jury at all. It is as plain a murder 
 as can be, and I am persuaded your Lordship thinks so." To this speech 
 no reply was given. The decision of the judge, in the above case, occa- 
 sioned some severe animadversions on his conduct, and several queries were 
 addressed to him upon the subject, which were repeatedly inserted in th 
 P-Mic Advertiser, so as to become extremely conspicuous. This account, 
 however, extracted from that paper, does not seem to contain the whole train 
 of the circumstances which preceded this unfortunate catastrophe, for when 
 Taylor was brought to the bar of the King's Bench, February 8, 1771, Lord 
 Mansfield, who read the minutes of the evidence as taken down by Baron 
 Smythe, who presided at the trial, observed, that it appeared that the pri- 
 soner had been three times assaulted by Smith, the deceased, collared and 
 violently thrown backward upon a bench without any provocation, turned 
 out of the house, and called by the most opprobrious names ; and further, 
 that when out in the street, he was pursued and attacked by two men, 
 before he offered to draw his sword ; from which circumstances the court 
 was unanimously of opinion that he had only been guilty of manslaughter, 
 and sentenced him to be burnt in the hand, which was performed accord- 
 ingly, behind the bar. Mr. Dunning, also, a strong oppositionist, defended 
 Mr. Baron Smythe's conduct in respect to the trial alluded to by Junius, in 
 a speech spoken on a motion made by Mr. Serjeant Glynn, December 6, 
 1770, ''for an inquiry into the administration of criminal justice, and the 
 proceedings of the judges in Westminster Hall, particularly in cases relating 
 to the liberty of the press and the constitutional power and duty of juries." 
 Mr. Dunning's words are as follow : " It is not that the characters of the 
 judges are not traduced by groundless accusations and scandalous aspersions. 
 These are grievances which every one sees, and every one laments. Judge 
 Srnythp, for example, has, to my knowledge, been very rnjuriously treated, 
 His conduct in trying the Scotch Serjeant at Guildford, for which he has 
 been so much abused in print, and now arraigned in Parliament, was, in my 
 opinion, very fair and honourable. I was consulted on the affair ns ac 
 advocate, and I must say that I perfectly coincided with him in sentiment. 
 Had I been in his place, I must have fallen under the same odium, for my 
 conscience would not hav allowed me to use any other language but that ot 
 Baron Smythe."
 
 TO LORD CAMDEff. 465 
 
 The holy author of our xeiigion was seen in the company of 
 sinners ; but it was his gracious purpose to convert them from 
 their sins. Another man, who in the ceremonies of our faith 
 might give lessons to the great enemy of it, upon different 
 principles keeps much the same company. He advertises for 
 patients, collects all the diseases of the heart, and turns a 
 royal palace into an hospital for incurables. A man of honour 
 has no ticket of admission at St. James's. They receive him, 
 like a virgin at the Magdalen : Go tliou and do likewise. 
 
 My charge against you is now made good. I shall, how- 
 ever, be ready to answer or to submit to fair objections*. If, 
 whenever this matter shall be agitated, you suffer the doors 
 of the House of Lords to be shut, I now protest that I shall 
 consider you as having made no reply. From that moment, 
 in the opinion of the world, you will stand self-convicted. 
 Whether your reply be quibbling and evasive, or liberal and 
 in point, will be matter for the judgment of your peers ; 
 but if, when every possible idea of disrespect to that noble 
 House (in whose honour and justice the nation implicitly con- 
 fides,) is here most solemnly disclaimed, you should endea- 
 vour to represent this charge as a contempt of their authority, 
 and move their Lordships to censure the publisher of this 
 paper, I then affirm that you support injustice by violence, 
 that you are guilty of a heinous aggravation of your offence, 
 and that you contribute your utmost influence to promote, on 
 the part of the highest court of judicature, a positive denial 
 of justice to the nation. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 LETTER LXIXf. 
 
 TO THE BIGHT HONOURABLE LOBD CAMDEN. 
 
 MY LOBD, 
 
 I TURN with pleasure from that barren waste, in which no 
 salutary plant takes root, no verdure quickens, to a character 
 
 * Miscellaneous Letter, No. 106, in which Junius defends the present 
 letter against several attacks which had been made upon it in the Publit 
 Advertiser. 
 
 f Lord Camden stood in riralship to the Earl of Mansfield. He had 
 VOL. I. H H
 
 466 LETTERS OF JUNIU6. 
 
 fertile, as 1 willingly believe, in every great and good quali- 
 fication. I call upon you. in the name of the English nation, 
 to stand forth in defence of the laws of your country, and to 
 exert, in the cause of truth and justice, those great abilities 
 with which you were intrusted for the benefit of mankind. 
 To ascertain the facts set forth in the preceding paper, it may 
 be necessary to call the persons mentioned in the mittimus to 
 the bar of the House of Lords *. If a motion for that pur- 
 pose should be rejected, we shall know what to think of Lord 
 Mansfield's innocence. The legal argument is submitted to 
 you Lordship's judgment. After tho noble stand you made 
 against Lord Mansfield upon the question of libel, we did ex- 
 pect that you would not have suffered that matter to have re- 
 mained undetermined. But it was said that Lord Chief 
 Justice Wihnot had been prevailed upon to vouch for an 
 opinion of the late Judge Yates, which was supposed to make 
 against you ; and we admit of the excuse. When such de- 
 testable arts are employed to prejudge a question of right, it 
 might have been imprudent at that time to have brought it to 
 a decision. In the present instance you will have no such 
 opposition to contend with. If there be a judge or lawyer of 
 any note in Westminster Hall who shall be daring enough 
 to affirm that according to the true intendment of the laws of 
 England, a felon, taken with the maner, in flagrante delicto, 
 is bailable, or that the discretion of an English judge is 
 merely arbitrary, and not governed by rules of law, I should 
 oe glad to be acquainted with him. Whoever he be, I will 
 
 tnreatened him in the last session of parliament But Lord Mansfield eluded 
 every attempt to draw him into an open and lengthened contention relative 
 to his principles of decision. Hopes were entertained that another session 
 of parliament might see the contest renewed with Lord Mansfield. It was 
 with a view to this that Junius so laboriously resumed his attack against 
 the Chief Justice. In this letter he calls on Lord Camden, almost with 
 threats and with reproach, to make the bailing of Eyre the subject of a new 
 motion against Lord Mansfield in the House of Peers. The call was 
 fruitless. 
 
 This letter ends the political series, and followed the preceding in the 
 Public Advertiser, appearing under the same date as that addressed to Lord 
 Mansfield, namely, January 21, 1772. ED. 
 
 * In the case of Lord Mansfield's having bailed Eyre, Lord Camden had 
 fpenly expressed his opinion that the bail was illegal, and had given reason 
 to expect that he would make it the subject of a parliamentary inquiry on 
 the commencement of the ensuing session.
 
 POSTSCRIPT TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ. 407 
 
 take care that he shall not give you much trouble. Your 
 Lordship's character assures me that you will assume that 
 principal part which belongs to you, in supporting the laws of 
 England against a wicked judge, who makes it the occupation 
 of his life to misinterpret and pervert them. If you decline 
 this honourable office, I fear it will be said that for some 
 months past you have kept too much company with the Duke 
 of Grafton. When the contest turns upon the interpretation 
 of the laws you cannot, without a formal surrender of all your 
 reputation, yield the post of honour even to Lord Chatham . 
 Considering the situation and abilities of Lord Mansfield, I do 
 not scruple to affirm, with the most solemn appeal to God for 
 my sincerity, that, in my judgment, he is the very worst and 
 most dangerous man in the kingdom. Thus far I have done 
 my duty in endeavouring to bring him to punishment. But 
 mine is an inferior ministerial office in the temple of justice. 
 I have bound the victim, and dragged him to the altar. 
 
 JUNIUS. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 THE Reverend Mr. John Home having, with his usual vera- 
 city and honest industry, circulated a report that Junius, in a 
 letter to the supporters of the Bill of Rights, had warmly de- 
 clared himself in favour of long parliaments and rotten 
 boroughs, it is thought necessary to submit to the public the 
 following extract from his letter to John Wilkes, Esq., dated 
 the 7th of September, 1771, and laid before the society on 
 the 24th of the same mouth *. 
 
 "With regard to the several articles, taken separately, I 
 own I am concerned to see that the great condition, which 
 ought to be the sine qua non of parliamentary qualification, 
 which ought to be the basis (as it assuredly will be the only 
 support) of every barrier raised in defence of the constitution, 
 1 mean a declaration upon oath to shorten the duration oj 
 
 This letter is given entire in the private correspondence between Junivu 
 and Mr. Wilkes, No. 66, vol. ii. of the present edition. It is a remarkabla 
 pmdMction, both from the important political questions it discusses, and it% 
 btariugs on the great secret of the anonymous authorship of the Let- 
 id 9. ED. 
 
 H H 2
 
 468 LETTEB8 OF JUNTOS. ' ., 
 
 parliaments, is reduced to the fourth rank in the esteem 
 of the society ; and even in tnat place, far from being insisted 
 on with firmness and vehemence, seems to have been parti- 
 cularly slighted in the expression. You shall endeavour 
 to restore annual parliaments! Are these the terms which 
 men, who are in earnest, make use of when the salus rei- 
 publica is at stake? I expected other language from Mr. 
 Wilkes. Besides my objection in point of form, I disapprove 
 highly of the meaning of the fourth article as it stands. 
 Whenever the question shall be seriously agitated I will en- 
 deavour (and if I live will assuredly attempt it) to convince the 
 English nation, by arguments to my understanding unanswer- 
 able, that they ought to insist upon a triennial, and banish 
 
 the idea of an annual, parliament I am 
 
 convinced that, if shortening the duration of parliaments 
 (which, in effect, is keeping the representative under the rod 
 of the constituent) be not made the basis of our new parlia- 
 mentary jurisprudence, other checks or improvements signify 
 nothing. On the contrary, if this be made the foundation, 
 other measures may come in aid, and, as auxiliaries, be of con- 
 siderable advantage. Lord Chatham's project, for instance, 
 of increasing the number of knights of shires, appears to me 
 
 admirable As to cutting away the rotten 
 
 boroughs, I am as much offended as any man at seeing so 
 many of them under the direct influence of the crown, or at 
 the disposal of private persons. Yet, I own, I have both 
 doubts and apprehensions in regard to the remedy you pro- 
 pose. I shall be charged perhaps with an unusual want of 
 political intrepidity, when I honestly confess to you that I am 
 startled at the idea of so extensive an amputation. In the 
 first place, I question the power, de jure, of the legislature to 
 disfranchise a number of boroughs, upon the general ground 
 of improving the constitution. There cannot be a doctrine 
 more fatal to the liberty and property we are contending for 
 than that which confounds the idea of a supreme and an arbi- 
 trary legislature. I need not point out to you the fatal pur- 
 poses to which it has been, and may be, applied. If we are 
 sincere in the political creed we profess, there are many 
 things which we ought to affirm cannot be done by King, 
 Lords, and Commons. Among these I reckon the disfran- 
 chising of boroughs with a general view to improvement. I
 
 POSTSCRIPT TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ. 469 
 
 consider it as equivalent to robbing the parties concerned of 
 their freehold, of their birthright. T say, that, although this 
 birthright may be forfeited, or the exercise of it suspended 
 in particular cases, it cannot be taken away by a general 
 law for any real or pretended purpose of improving the 
 constitution. Supposing the attempt made, I am persuaded 
 you cannot mean that either King or Lords should take 
 an active part in it. A bill which only touches the repre- 
 sentation of the people, must originate in the House of 
 Commons. In the formation and mode of passing it the 
 exclusive right of the Commons must be asserted as scrupu- 
 lously as in the case of a money bill. Now, Sir, I should be 
 glad to know by what kind of reasoning it can be proved, 
 that there is a power vested in the representative to destroy 
 his immediate constituent. From whence could he possibly 
 derive it ? A courtier, I know, will be ready enough to main- 
 tain the affirmative. The doctrine suits him exactly, because 
 it gives an unlimited operation to the influence of the crown. 
 But we, Mr. Wilkes, ought to hold a different language. It 
 is no answer to me to say, that the bill, when it passes the 
 House of Commons, is the act of the majority, and not of the 
 representatives of the particular boroughs concerned. If the 
 majority can disfranchise ten boroughs, why not twenty, why 
 not the whole kingdom ? Why should not they make their 
 own seats in parliament for life ? When the Septennial Act 
 passed, the legislature did what, apparently and palpably, they 
 had no power to do ; but they did more than people in general 
 were aware of: they, in effect, disfranchised the whole kingdom 
 for four years. 
 
 " For argument's sake, I will now suppose, that the ex- 
 pediency of the measure, and the power of parliament are un- 
 questionable. Still you will find an insurmountable difficulty 
 in the execution. When all your instruments of amputation 
 are prepared, when the unhappy patient lies bound at your 
 feet, without the possibility of resistance, by what infallible 
 rule will you direct the operation ? When you propose to cut 
 away the rotten parts, can you tell us what parts are perfectly 
 sound ? Are there any certain limits in fact or theory, to in- 
 form you at what point you must stop, at what point the 
 mortification ends ? To a man so capable of observation and 
 reflection as you are, it is unnecessary to say all that might
 
 4:70 LETTERS OF JtJXlUS. 
 
 be said upon the subject. Besides that I approve highly of 
 Lord Chatham's idea, of infusing a portion of new health into 
 the constitution to enable it to bear its infirmities (a brilliant 
 expi'ession, arid full of intrinsic wisdom), other reasons concur 
 in persuading me to adopt it. I have no objection," &c. 
 
 The man who fairly and completely answers this argument, 
 shall have my thanks and my applause. My heart is already 
 with him. I am ready to be concerted. J admire his mo- 
 rality, and would gladly subscribe to the articles of his faith. 
 Grateful as I am to the GOOD BEH*G whose bounty has im- 
 parted to me this reasoning intellect, whatever it is, I told 
 myself proportionably indebted to him from whose en- 
 lightened understanding another ray of knowledge communi- 
 cates to mine. But neither should I think the most exalted 
 faculties of the human mind a gift worthy of the Divinity, 
 nor any assistance in the improvement of them a subject of 
 gratitude to my fellow-creature, if I were not satisfied that 
 really to inform the understanding corrects and enlarges the 
 
 heart. 
 
 JUNIUIS.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 MR. WOODFALL'S TRIAL*. 
 
 /Id Account of the Trial it Guild/tall of the original Publither o 
 Letter to the King. 
 
 YESTERDAY morning, (June 13, 1770), about nine o'clock, came on before 
 Lord Mansfield, in the Court of King's Bench at Guildhall, the trial of Mr. 
 Woodfall, the original printer of Junius's Letter in the Public Advertiser of 
 December 19. Only seven of the special jury attended, viz. William Bond, 
 foreman ; Peter Cazalet, Alexander Peter Allen, Frederick Commerell, Her- 
 men Meyer, John Thomas, and Barrington Buggin. 
 
 Upon which the following five talesmen were taken out of the box, viz. 
 William Hannard, Paul Verges, William Sibley, William Willett, and Wil- 
 liam Davis. 
 
 The trial was opened by Mr. Wallis. 
 
 Nathaniel Crowder swore he bought the paper of Mr. Woodfall's publish- 
 ing servant, whom he named. 
 
 Mr. Harris proved that the duty for the advertisements and stamps were 
 paid by Mr. Woodfall. And 
 
 A clerk of Sir John Fielding proved, by a receipt from Mr. Woodfall, hia 
 concern in and for the paper. 
 
 The publication and direction of the paper by Mr. Woodfall being thus 
 proved, 
 
 Lord Mansfield, in his charge, told the jury, that there were only two 
 points for their consideration : the first, the printing and publishing the 
 paper in question ; the second, the sense and meaning of it : That as to the 
 charges of its being malicious, seditious, &c., they were inferences in law 
 about which no evidence need be given, any more than that part of an indict- 
 ment need be proved by evidence, which charges a man with being moved 
 by the instigation of the Devil : That therefore the printing arid sense ot 
 the paper were alone what the jury had to consider of; and that if the papei 
 should really contain no breach of the lawj that was a matter which might 
 afterwards be moved in arrest of judgment : That he had no evidence to 
 sum up to them, as the defendant's counsel admitted the printing and publi- 
 cation to be well proved: That as to the sense, they had not called in doubt 
 the manner in which the dashes in the paper were filled up in the record, by 
 
 * For the remarks of Junius on this celebrated Trial, see Preface, p. 04, 
 note.
 
 472 APPENDIX. 
 
 giving any other se.ise to the passages ; if they had, the jury would hare 
 been to consider which application was the true one, that charged in the in- 
 formation, or suggested by the defendant : That the jury might iicw compare 
 the paper with the information : That if they did not find the application 
 wrong, they must find the defendant guilty ; and if they did find it wrong, 
 they must acquit him : That this was not the time for alleviation or aggra- 
 vation, that being for future consideration : That every subject was under the 
 control of the law, and had a right to expect from it protection for his 
 person, his property, and his good name : That if any man offended the laws, 
 he was amenable to them, and was not to be censured or punished but in a 
 legal course : That any person libelled had a right either to bring a civil or a 
 criminal prosecution : That in the latter, which is by information or indict- 
 ment, it is immaterial whether the publication be false or true : That it is no 
 defence to say it is true, because it is a breach of the peace, and therefore 
 criminal ; but in a civil prosecution it is a defence to say the charges in the 
 publication are true, because the plaintiff there sues only for a pecuniary satis- 
 faction to himself; and that this is the distinction as to that nature of defence. 
 His lordship said he was afraid it was too true that few characters in the 
 kingdom escaped libels : That many were very injuriously treated and if 
 BO, tha* the best way to prevent it was by an application to the law, which 
 is open to every man : That the liberty of the press consisted in every man 
 having the power to publish his sentiments without first applying for a licence 
 to any one ; but if any man published what was against law, he did it at his 
 peril, and was answerable for it in the same manner as he who suffers his 
 hand to commit an assault, or his tongue to utter blasphemy." 
 
 Between eleven and. twelve the jury withdrew, at four the court adjourned, 
 and a little after nine the jury waited on Lord Mansfield at his house in 
 Bloomsbury Square, with their verdict, which was Guilty of PRINTING and 
 PUBLISHING ONLY. 
 
 This charge having been laid upon the table of the House of Lords, Decem- 
 ber 10, 1770, by the Lord Chief Justice, the following questions were put to 
 him in his place by Lord Camden, on the day ensuing. 
 
 1. Does the opinion mean to declare that upon the general issue of Not 
 Guilty, in the case of a seditious libel, the jury have no right, by law, to ex- 
 amine the innocence or criminality of the paper, if they think fit, and to form 
 their verdict upon such examination ] 
 
 2. Does the opinion mean to declare, that in the case atove mentioned, 
 when the jury have delivered in their verdict, Guilty, that this verdict has 
 found the fact only and not the lawl 
 
 3. Is it to be understood by this opinion, that if the jury come to the bar, 
 and say that they find the printing and publishing, but that the paper is no 
 libel, that in that case the jury have found the defendant guilty generally, 
 and the verdict must be so entered up 1 
 
 4. Whether the opinion means to say, that if the judge, after giving hii 
 opinion of the innocence or criminality of the paper, should leave the conside* 
 ration of that matter, together with the printing and publishing, to the jury, 
 such a direction would be contrary to law ? 
 
 5. I beg leave to ask, whether dead, and living judges then absent, did 
 declare their opinions in open court, and whether the noble Lord has any 
 note of such opinions ?
 
 VIOLATION OF PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGES. 173 
 
 6 Whether they declared such opinions after solid arguments, or upon any 
 point judicially before them ] 
 
 To these queries Lord Mansfield made no reply, briefly observing, that he 
 would not answer interrogatories. 
 
 The subject was introduced into the Lower House, December 6, 1770, on 
 a motion made by Mr. Serjeant Glynn, " That a committee should be ap- 
 pointed to inquire into the administration of criminal justice, and the proceed- 
 ings of the judges in Westminster Hall, particularly in cases relating to th 
 liberty of the press, and the constitutional power and duty of juries." In the 
 course oi the discussion the speakers on both sides alluded not only to the 
 charge in Mr. Woodfall's case, but also to Mr. Baron Smythe's conduct in try 
 ing a Scotch Serjeant at Guildford, which will be found more particularly 
 detailed in the note to Junius's Letter, No. 68. Amongst the chief speakers 
 on this occasion were, on the side of the ministry, Mr. Fox, and on that cf 
 the people, Mr. Burke. 
 
 " To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament 
 assembled. 
 
 " The humble Petition of HENRY SAMPSON WOODFALL, in custody of 
 the Serjeant-at-Arms attending this House. 
 
 " SHKWETH, 
 
 " That your Petitioner, having justly incurred the displeasure of 
 this House by printing a letter highly reflecting on the character of the 
 Speaker of this House, was summoned to attend on Monday the 14th of this 
 instant, at this honourable House. 
 
 " That your Petitioner did readily obey that summons, and did attend this 
 House accordingly. 
 
 " That your Petitioner having offended inadvertently, and through a very 
 blameable neglect, which kind of neglect in future he will do his utmost en- 
 deavour to avoid, of examining, as he ought to have done, the contents of 
 what he printed, and your petitioner having already incurred very heavy ex- 
 penses which, if longer continued, must end in the ruin of himself and nume- 
 rous and .innocent family, who must be sufferers together with him. 
 
 " Your petitioner therefore humbly prays that all punishment he has already 
 undergone by expenses, confinement, and interruption of his business may 
 be taken into consideration, and, though the enormity of his oflence is con- 
 fessedly great, yet, trusting to the well-known mercy and clemency of this 
 Honourable House, your Petitioner humbly hopes he may be discharged fioia 
 the further effects of their displeasure. 
 
 " And your Petitioner, 
 "As in duty bourd, 
 
 " shall pray. 
 "HENRY SAMPSON WOODFALL. 
 
 N.B. The above is in the hand wn ting of H. 8. W.
 
 474 APPENDIX 
 
 Mil. WOODFALI/S FEES. 
 
 To the Serjeant-at-Arms, Caption Fees . 
 Seventeen days in custody . 
 Bringing to the bar . , 
 
 Housekeeper . 
 
 Messenger 17 days at 6s. 8d. per day 
 Serving the Speaker's order and warrant 
 Doorkeepers ...... 
 
 The Speaker's secretary . . , 
 
 The clerk and clerk's assistant 
 
 29 14 
 
 MK. WOODFALL'S BILL. 
 
 February 14. 3 Bottles of Port 07 
 
 2 ditto Sherry 04 
 
 Beer 01 
 
 5 Suppers, beefsteaks . . . . .07 
 
 15. 3 Breakfasts 03 
 
 2 Fowls, bacon, greens, leg of pork . . .11 
 
 6 Bottles of Port 015 
 
 2 Ditto Sherry 06 
 
 a liiscakes .......00 
 
 7 Suppers, duck, mince pies, and cold beef . 14 
 
 7 Teas and coffee 07 
 
 Beer 03 
 
 16. 2 Breakfasts 02 
 
 3 Bottles of Sherry 06 
 
 10 Ditto Port 15 
 
 6 Dinners, leg of lamb, 2 ducks, sallat, &c. . 018 
 
 Supper, beef and mutton, steaks, sallat, &c. . 10 
 
 Biscakes .......00 
 
 Beer -.03 
 
 17. 2 Breakfasts 02 
 
 5 Dinners, salt-fish, sauce, and loin of mutton . 15 
 
 2 Bottles of Sherry 04 
 
 2 Ditto Port 05 
 
 Suppers 
 
 Beer 
 
 18. 2 Breakfasts 
 
 7 Dinners, sirloin of beef, sallat, &c. . 
 
 Sherry, 1 bottle ...... 
 
 Port, 7 ditto 
 
 Brandy ........ 
 
 Biscakes 
 
 4 Teas 
 
 ,. Suppers, beef, sallat, &c. . . . 
 
 Carried forward , 11 12 II
 
 VIOLATION OF PARLTAMEXTABY PRIVILEGES. 475 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Brought forward 11 12 11 
 
 February 18. Beer 030 
 
 19. 4 Breakfasts .043 
 
 7 Dinners, mutton, 2 chickens, and sallat . .110 
 
 Sherry, 2 bottles 040 
 
 Port, 4 ditto 0100 
 
 Biscakes 003 
 
 6 Teas and coffee 060 
 
 Suppers, veal collops, sallat, &c. . . .050 
 
 Beer 020 
 
 20. 4 Breakfasts 040 
 
 6 Dinners, veal, bacon, and greens . . . 12 6 
 
 Sherry, 2 bottles 040 
 
 Port, 2 ditto < 050 
 
 12 Teas 10 
 
 6 Suppers, cold duck, beef, and sallat . .076 
 
 Beer 026 
 
 Lipsalve 003 
 
 21. 3 Breakfasts 030 
 
 ., 4 Dinners, stewed beef, &c. . . . .080 
 
 2 Bottles of Sherry 040 
 
 4 Ditto, Port 10 
 
 4 Suppers, mutton chops, cold beef, &c. . .050 
 
 Beer 626 
 
 22. 2 Breakfasts 020 
 
 7 Dinners, leg of pork and potatoes . . . 0126 
 
 Port, 3 bottles .076 
 
 Sherry, 1 ditto 020 
 
 4 Teas . . . k . . ... 3 4 
 
 6 Suppers 030 
 
 Beer ........ 3 
 
 Oranges and sugar . . . . ..006 
 
 23. 3 Breakfasts 030 
 
 7 Dinners, fish, sauce, leg pf mutton, &c. . .110 
 
 Sherry, 1 bottle 020 
 
 Port, 3 ditto 076 
 
 2 Teas ........018 
 
 6 Suppers . . . . . . .060 
 
 Beer and tobacco . , . . . .0410 
 
 24. 3 Breakfasts 030 
 
 ,, 7 Dinners, veal cutlets, &c 0176 
 
 Sherry, 2 bottles C 4 
 
 Port, 2 ditto . . . . . .050 
 
 5 Teas 042 
 
 7 Suppers, beef and mutton steaki . . .076 
 
 Beer 3 
 
 25. 3 Breakfasts . 030 
 
 Carried forward . . . . . 24 13
 
 476 APPENDIX. 
 
 * * 
 
 Brought forward . . . . . . . 24 13 3 
 
 February 25. 3 Dinners, mutton, &c. 076 
 
 Port, 4 bottles 10 
 
 Sherry, 2 ditto 040 
 
 4 Teas . ...... 3 4 
 
 6 Suppers, fowls and mutton chops . . . 10 6 
 
 Beer 030 
 
 26. 3 Breakfasts 030 
 
 8 Dinners, stewed beef and fowl . . .100 
 
 Sherry, 2 bottles 040 
 
 Brandy 020 
 
 7 Teas 5 10 
 
 6 Suppers, fowls and chops . . . 10 6 
 
 Beer 040 
 
 27. 3 Breakfasts 030 
 
 6 Dinners, beef and tart 0180 
 
 Sherry, 3 bottles 060 
 
 Port, 4 ditto 10 
 
 6 Teas 050 
 
 3 Suppers 030 
 
 Beer and tobacco . . . . " . 3 10 
 
 28. 3 Breakfasts 030 
 
 5 Dinners, mutton and sauce . . . 0106 
 
 Port, 3 bottles 076 
 
 Sherry, 2 ditto 040 
 
 Beer 030 
 
 4 Suppers, cold beef, &c. . . . . .050 
 
 March 1. 3 Breakfasts 030 
 
 5 Dinners, veal and brocoli . . . . 12 6 
 
 4 Teas 034 
 
 Port, 1 bottle . 026 
 
 4 Suppers, mutton chops and sallat . . .050 
 
 Beer 036 
 
 2. 3 Breakfasts 030 
 
 5 Dinners, mutton, &c 10 
 
 Sherry, 1 bottle 020 
 
 Beer ... .016 
 
 35 9 3 
 Deduct for fowl, overcharged 050 
 
 35 4 3 
 
 Use of room and linen 1 11 6 
 Servants 110 
 
 37 16 9 
 Fees 29 14 C 
 
 Carried forward t * . 17 19
 
 VIOLATION OF PAUTJAMENTAB1 PRIVILEGES. 477 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Brought forward 67 10 9 
 
 The barber and messenger 2 11 6 
 
 70 2 3 
 Messenger, &c. 1 17 9 
 
 Beceived, March 7, 1774, the above contents in full 72 
 (Signed) JOHN BELLAMY. 
 
 MB. WOODFAIL to THOS. BARRAT D r . 
 
 For seven times shaving 036 
 
 To teren times shaving .036 
 
 070 
 Servants 026 
 
 096 
 Gave Wood, messenger 2 2 * 
 
 OKIGINAL LETTER OF DAVID GABRICK. 
 
 " BT what dropt yesterday from our friend Beckets, I imagine that I am 
 but a poor caput mortuum among my brethren of the Publick Advertiser, and 
 what is worse, I have a property the very reverse of that of a boy's top, for 
 the more I am whipped the less I spin. I must therefore desire you to dis- 
 pose of my share to any Gentleman * * * 
 Paper and the Publisher, though no one wish better to both than 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 Tour most 
 
 Humble servant 
 (Signed) DAVID GARRICK. 
 
 Outside. 
 To MR. WOODFALL, 
 
 Publisher of 
 
 The Publick Advertiser." 
 
 N.B. The top of the above note is torn off, which accounts for the hiatus. 
 
 * The celebrated Mr. Wilkes, who was nearly contemporary in duress 
 with the printer of the Public Advertiser, was more fortunate in the publk 
 sympathy he excited, and received numerous largesses during tis incarcera* 
 tion. The subjoined extract is from ALMON: 
 
 ' When Mr. Wilkes was confined in the King's Bench prison, he received 
 many private presents. The Duchess of Queensbery (patroness of Gay, &c.^ 
 sent him 1001.; and Lady Elizabeth Germain also transmitted to him a 
 similar donation. Wine of all sorts, game and wild fowl, fruit, turkeyg, 
 poultry, &c., were sent to him daily from most parts of England." COTT+ 
 spondence of John WiUces with his Friendt, vol. 7. p. 44. ED.
 
 478 APPENDIX. 
 
 REVERSAL OF THE OUTLAWRY OP MR. WILKES.* 
 
 As JUMCS xvas extremely severe in his censures on Lord Mansfield, it it 
 deemed a mere act of justice to extract a part of his lordship's speech on th< 
 teversal of Mr. Wilkes's outlawry, by which it will appear, such was the 
 temper of the times, that the Chief Justice was even privately threatened 
 upon the occasion, should his decision of the cause be in opposition to the 
 popular opinion of the day. The extract is well worthy the reader's perusal, 
 ss a specimen of eloquence not often equalled, and rarely excelled ; it forms 
 the conclusion of his address. 
 
 " I have now gone through the several eiiors assigned by the defendant, 
 and which have been ingeniously argued, and confidently relied on by his 
 counsel at the bar ; -I have given my sentiments upon them, and if upon the 
 whole, after the closest attention to what has been said, and with the 
 strongest inclination in favour of the defendant, no arguments which have 
 been urged, no cases which have been cited, no reasons that occur to me, are 
 sufficient to satisfy me in my conscience and judgment that this outlawry 
 should be reversed, I am bound to affirm it and here let me make a pau^e. 
 
 " Many arguments have been suggested, both in and out of court, upon the 
 consequences of establishing this outlawry, either as they may affect the de- 
 fendant as an individual, or the public in general. As to the first, whatever 
 they may be, the defendant has brought them upon himself; they are in- 
 evitable consequences of law arising from his own act; if the penalty, to 
 which he is thereby subjected, is more than a punishment adequate to the 
 crime he has committed, he should not have brought himself into this unfor- 
 tunate predicament, by flying from the justice of his country ; he thought 
 proper to do so, and he must take the fruits of his own conduct, however 
 bitter and unpalatable they may be ; and although we may be heartily sorry 
 for any person who has brought himself into this situation, it is not in our 
 power, God forbid it should ever be in our power, to deliver him from it; we 
 cannot prevent the judgment of the law by creating irregularity in the pro- 
 ceedings; we cannot prevent the consequences of that judgment by pardon- 
 ing the crime; if the defendant has any pretensions to mercy, those preten- 
 sions must be urged, and that power exercised in another place, where the 
 constitution has wisely and necessarily vested it : the crown will judge for 
 itself; it does not belong to us to interfere with punishment, we have only to 
 declare the law; none of us had any concern in the prosecution of this 
 business, nor any wishes upon the event of it ; it was not our fault that the 
 defendant was prosecuted for the libels upon which he has been convicted ; I 
 took no share in another place in the measures which were taken to prosecute 
 him for one of them ; it was not our fault that he was convicted ; it was not 
 our fault that he fled ; it was not our fault that he was outlawed ; it was not 
 our fault that he rendered himself up to justice ; none of us revived the pro- 
 secution against him, nor could any one of us stop that prosecution when it 
 was revived ; it is not our fault if there are not any errors upon the record, 
 nor is it in our jower to create any if there are none; we are bound by our 
 pur oath and in our consciences, to give such a judgment as the law will wa> 
 
 
 The occasion of this address is itferred to in Letter 11, p. 147,
 
 REVERSAL OF THIS OUTLAWRY OF MB. WILKES. 479 
 
 rant, and as oui reason ctn prove; such a judgment as we must stand cr fal. 
 by, in the opinion of the present times, and of posterity ; in doing it, there- 
 fore, we must have regard to our reputation as honest men, and men of skill 
 and knowledge competent to the stations we hold ; no considerations what- 
 soever should mislead us from this great object, to which we ever ought, and 
 I trust ever shall, direct our attention. But consequences of a public nature, 
 reasons of state, political ones, have been strongly urged, (private anonymous 
 letters sent to me, I shall pass over,) open avowed publications which have 
 been judicially noticed, and may therefore be mentioned, have endeavoured 
 to influence or intimidate the court, and so prevail upon us to trifle and pre 
 varicate with God, our consciences, and the public : it has been intimated 
 that consequences of a frightful nature will flow from the establishment of 
 this outlawry ; it is said the people expect the reversal, that the temper of 
 the times demand it ; that the multitude will have it so ; that the continuation 
 of the outlawry in full force, will not be endured ; that the execution of the 
 law upon the defendant will be resisted : these are arguments which will not 
 weigh a feather with me. If insurrection and rebellion are to follow our 
 determination, we have not to answer for the consequences, though we should 
 be the innocent cause we can only say, Fiat justitia, mat ccelum ; we 
 shall discharge our duty, without expectations of approbation or the appre- 
 hensions of censure; if we are subjected to the latter unjustly, we must 
 submit to it ; we cannot prevent it, we will take care not to deserve it. He 
 must be a weak man indeed who can be staggered by such a consideration. 
 
 " The misapprehension, or the misrepresentation of the ignorant or wicked, 
 the Mendax Infamia, which is the consequence of both, are equally in- 
 different to, unworthy the attention of, and incapable of making any impres- 
 sion on men of firmness and intrepidity. Those who imagine judges are 
 capable of being influenced by such unworthy, indirect means, most grossly 
 deceive themselves ; and, for my own part, I trust that rny temper, and the 
 colour and conduct of my life, have clothed me with a suit of armour to 
 shield me from such arrows. If I have ever supported the king's measures ; 
 if I have ever afforded any assistance to government ; if I have discharged 
 my duty as a public or private character, by endeavouring to preserve pure 
 and perfect the principles of the constitution, maintaining unsullied the 
 honour of the courts of justice, and, by an upright administration of, to give 
 a due effect to, the laws, I have hitherto done it without any other gift or 
 reward than that most pleasing and most honourable one, the conscientious 
 conviction of doing what was right. I do not affect to scorn the opinion of 
 mankind; I wish earnestly for popularity; I will seek and will have popu- 
 larity ; but I will tell you how I will obtain it ; I will have that popularity 
 which follows, and not that which is run after. It is not the applause of a 
 day it is not the huzzas of thousands, that can give a moment's satisfaction 
 to a rational being ; that man's mind must indeed be a weak one, and his 
 ambition of a most depraved sort, who can be captivated by such wretched 
 ullurements, or satisfied, with such momentary gratifications. I Sfy with the 
 Roman orator, and can say it with as much truth as he did, ' Ego hoc aninc 
 le.nper fui, ut invidiam virtute partam, gloriam non infamiam putareni, 
 But the threats have been carried further; personal violence has been 
 denounced, unless public humour be complied with ; I do not fear such 
 threats I do not believe there is any reason to fear them ; i: is not tb.i
 
 480 APPENDIX 
 
 genius of the worst of men in the worst of times, to proceed to such shocking 
 extremities : but if such an event should happen, let it be so ; even suet an 
 event might be productive of wholesome effects ; such a stroke might rocse 
 the better part of the nation from their lethargic condition to a state of 
 activity, to assert and execute the law, and punish the daring and impious 
 hands which had violated it ; and those who now supinely behold the danger 
 which threatens all liberty, from the most abandoned licentiousness, might, 
 by such an event, be awakened to a sense of their situation, as drunken men 
 are oftentimes stunned into sobriety. If the security of our persons and our 
 property, of all we hold dear and valuable, are to depend upon the caprice of 
 a giddy multitude, or to be at the disposal of a giddy mob ; if, in compliance 
 with the humours, and to appease the clamours of those, all civil and political 
 institutions are to be disregarded or overthrown, a life somewhat more than 
 sixty is not worth preserving at such a price, and he can never die too soon 
 who lays down his life in support and vindication of the policy, the govern 
 tent, and the constitution of his country." ED. 
 
 BND OP VOL I. 
 
 LONDON: PBISTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AKD soxs, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET 
 
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