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JUNIUS UNMASKED; 
 
 OR 
 
 LORD GEORGE SACKVILLE 
 
 PROVED TO BE JUNIUS. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX, 
 
 SHOWING, 
 
 THAT THE AUTHOR OF THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS 
 
 WAS ALSO 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF ' THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III,' 
 
 AND AUTHOR OF ' THE NORTH BRITON,' 
 
 ASCRIBED TO MR. WILKES. 
 
 EMBELLISHED WITH A PRINT OF SACKVILLE. 
 
 Movet Urna JVomen. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 HILLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE, AND WILKINS. 
 
 1828. 
 
NO 7 
 
 
 DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit: 
 
 District Clerk's Office. 
 BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twenty-third day of April, 
 A. D. 1828, in the fifty-second year of the Independence of the 
 United States of America, Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, of the 
 said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right 
 whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit : 
 — " Junius Unmasked ; or Lord George Sackville proved to be Ju- 
 nius. With an Appendix, showing, that the Author of the Letters 
 of Junius was also the Author of ' The History of the Reign of 
 George III,' and Author of ' The North Briton,' ascribed to Mr. 
 Wilkes. Embellished with a Print of Sackville. Movet Urna JVo- 
 men." — In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United 
 States, entitled " An act for the encouragement of learning, by secur- 
 ing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and pro- 
 prietors of such copies, during the times therein menioned : " and 
 also to an act, entitled " An act supplementary to an act, entitled, 
 ' An act for the encouragement of learning, by seeming the copies of 
 maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies 
 during the times therein mentioned ; ' and extending the benefits 
 thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and 
 other prints. JNO. W. DAVIS, 
 
 Clerk of the District of Massachusetts, 
 
 HSNRV MORSE STKFHCBS 
 
 c 
 
 ■dx^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 HILLIARD, METCALF, AND COMPANY. 
 
 *• • ♦. 
 
 • • « • 
 
 ••a' •• f •* ••« •*< 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Preface 1 
 
 Chapter. 
 
 I. History of the Letters of Junius and sup- 
 posed Authors 7 
 
 II. Memoir of Sackville - - - - 20 
 
 ' III. Presumptive Argument - - - 46 
 
 IV. Argument from Sackville' s " Address " - 69 
 
 V. Argument from the " Considerations " - 75 
 
 VI. Argument from the " Reply to Burgoyne " 97 
 
 VII. Argument from Sackville's Speeches - 103 
 
 VIII. Concluding Remarks - - - - 107 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 I. Junius the Author of " The History of the 
 
 Reign of George III." - - - 119 
 II. Junius the Author of " The North Briton " 142 
 
 Notes --..-.- 169 
 
 509654 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 57, line 16, lor note read vote. 
 " 107, " 6, " destruction read detraction. 
 " 113, " 17, " TAis read if is. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is now some years, since I was convinced by 
 what may be called internal evidence, that lord 
 George Sackville, otherwise called lord George 
 Germain, was the author of the celebrated Letters 
 of Junius. The comparison of a short piece, writ- 
 ten by him before those letters were published, ex- 
 hibited such a co-incidence in some striking peculiari- 
 ties of style, as left with me no doubt on the subject. 
 The reasons of my opinion, then committed to 
 writing, are now before me. A subsequent perusal 
 of Woodfall's edition of Junius confirmed my per- 
 suasion by a great variety of considerations, which 
 I also recorded at the time. Having this impression, 
 I lately procured the " Critical Enquiry " of Mr. 
 Coventry, published at London, 1825; in which 
 
 1 
 
ii PREFACE. 
 
 he endeavors to prove, that Sackville was the author 
 of the letters of Junius ; — a point, which, I think, he 
 has proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Yet, 
 however strong and unanswerable may be the argu- 
 ment of Mr. Coventry, there is a class of proofs, 
 yet stronger and more irresistible, which he has in 
 a great measure overlooked ; — I mean the internal 
 proofs, derived from habits of thought and pecuhari- 
 ties of style. 
 
 My original narrow field of comparison I have re- 
 cently greatly enlarged, not only by the letters and 
 speeches of lord Sackville, contained in Mr. Cov- 
 entry's book ; but more especially and chiefly by two 
 considerable pamphlets, written, as I am persuaded 
 and shall attempt to prove, by lord Sackville ; — 
 works, of which ]Mr. Coventry was ignorant. While 
 therefore I shall not fail to present to the reader the 
 substance of Mr. Coventry's argument, I shall bring 
 forward an entirely new argument, constituting the 
 greater part of my work. 
 
 It ought to be considered, that there are different 
 kinds of proof; — some demonstrative, founded on 
 
PREFACE. Ill 
 
 definitions, and proceeding link by link with intui- 
 tive evidence ; others prohcible, founded on a com- 
 bination of circumstances, yet perhaps amounting to 
 moral certainty and producing the most unshaken 
 persuasion. There may be such '' a conjugation of 
 probabilities," as will strike the mind with the force 
 of a mathematical demonstration. For instance, 
 there is no more doubt, that the letters of Junius, 
 which we now read, were first published in London 
 in the years 1769, 1770, &ic., than there is, that the 
 three angles of a triangle are equal to two right an- 
 gles. I hope, therefore, it w^ill not be thought, that 
 there is any thing unbecoming or presumptuous in 
 the title of this book, — * Sackville proved to be Ju- 
 nius.' I am satisfied the proof is made out ; and, 
 I flatter myself, others will be satisfied. 
 
 In the comparison as to style, I am aware, that it 
 will be easy to take out a single supposed co-inci- 
 dence, and to say, that it amounts to nothing, because 
 the same ivoi'd or phrase may be found in other wri- 
 ters. The argument rests on the whole resemblance ; 
 yet the whole must be made up of particular instan- 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 ces. If in a court of justice I should endeavor to 
 prove, that the prisoner was the murderer, and should 
 begin with alleging, that the prisoner's eyes were 
 black, as the murderer's eyes were known to be ; — 
 the man, who should limit his attention to this single 
 proof, might indeed cavil at my argument. He 
 might exclaim, — ' This is absurd ! The eyes of ten 
 thousand people are black.' But if I should go on 
 to show, that the prisoner has the same cast or squint 
 of his eyes, the same features throughout, the same 
 stature, the same gait, and the same limp with the 
 murderer ;— that he was at the place, in the time, 
 when and where the murder was committed ; — 
 and that he had been previously engaged in a quarrel 
 with the deceased, and had a strong interest in put- 
 ting him out of the way ; — if he never even denied 
 his guilt and asserted his innocence ; — and if at a 
 time, when he thought he was dying, he had sent for 
 a son of the deceased, with whom he had never 
 quarrelled, and in a mysterious speech asked his 
 forgiveness for any possible injury ; — If these and 
 other numerous corresponding circumstances should 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 all be established ; it would then be seen, that what 
 was trifling in itself, yet was of weight in its connex- 
 ions; and that a multiplicity of co-inciding circum- 
 stances amounted, if not to demonstration, yet to 
 something higher, than the positive testimony of a 
 witness, or even the prisoner's confession. 
 
 If the authorship of Junius be established. It may 
 prevent for the future much Idle speculation on the 
 subject. Nor can It fail to be considered as a very 
 extraordinary circumstance, that the English politi- 
 cal writer, most generally admired by Americans, 
 should prove to be the inveterate enemy of Ameri- 
 can liberty, — the stern British Minister, who devised 
 and ordered the murderous, savage inroads, which 
 covered with desolation and Indescribable horrors 
 some of the fairest villages of the American frontier. 
 
 B , Dec. 1827. 
 
 1^ 
 
> > 
 I J 
 
 1 ,» J ' • 
 
 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The History and supposed Authors of the Letters of 
 
 Junius. 
 
 The first public letter of Junius, contained in the 
 edition prepared by the author, was published at 
 London, in the Public Advertiser, of which Mr. 
 Henry Sampson Wood fall was the proprietor, Janu- 
 ary 21, 1769; his last letter was published January 
 21, 1772. But among the miscellaneous letters of 
 the same writer, found in Woodfall's edition, there 
 is one, with the signature of Junius, dated Novem- 
 ber 21, 1768. Among his other signatures were 
 those of Poplicola, Mnemon, Atticus, Lucius, 
 Junius, Philo-Junius, Nemesis, Domitian, Vindex, 
 and Veteran. The first public address, received 
 from him by Mr. Woodfall, was dated April 28, 
 1767. The last private letter was dated January 
 19, 1773; so that he was a correspondent of Mr. 
 
8 JUNIUS UNRU^KED. 
 
 Woodfall for nearly six years. Early in 1772 the 
 Letters of Junius were collected in a volume, under 
 the direction of the author, and published with the 
 motto — " Stat Nominis Umbra." 
 
 The letters of Junius, folded small, with an envel- 
 ope, were sent by the hands of some chairman or 
 ticket-porter to the office of Mr. Woodfall. The 
 original copies of the letters were returned to the 
 author, as soon as they were done with, addressed 
 to Mr. William Middleton or Mr. John Fretly, and 
 left at a coffee-house, a hint being given in the 
 Advertiser, as ' C. at the usual place.'' They were 
 called for by a chairman or ticket-porter, and deliv- 
 ered either to the author or his agent, in waiting in 
 some part of the city. Mr. Jackson " 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 of Junius', w^iich 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." 
 
 The private letters of Junius being written in the 
 same hand with the public letters, it is probable, 
 from the interlineations in the letters, that no aman- 
 uensis was employed. Indeed the writer's liand 
 was evidently disguised. The return of the letters 
 provided in a great degree for his safety. 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 9 
 
 It is probable, that Junius had an agent in con- 
 veying the letters, so as not to expose his own per- 
 son. He says to Woodfall — " The gentleman, who 
 transacts the conveyancing part of our correspond- 
 ence, tells me, there was much difficulty last night. 
 For this reason, and because it could be no way 
 material for me to see a paper on Saturday, which 
 is to appear on Monday, 1 resolved not to send for 
 it." — Yet it is possible, that Junius in disguise, at 
 first if not afterwards, repaired to the bar of the 
 coffee-house for his letters, for he says of a coffee- 
 house ; — " Where it is absolutely impossible / should 
 be known." 
 
 The letters of Junius have been ascribed to a 
 multitude of individuals. I am not sure, that the 
 following list includes all the supposed authors : — 
 Horace Walpole, Charles Lloyd, private secretary 
 of Mr. Grenville, John Roberts, Samuel Dyer, 
 W. G. Hamilton, Dr. Butler, bishop of Hereford, 
 Rev. P. Rosenhagen, Thomas Hollis, W. H. C. Ben- 
 tinck, J. P. De Lolme, Dr. Wilmot, J. Home Tooke, 
 Hugh Macauley Boyd, lord Shelburne, colonel 
 Barre, Dr. Gilbert Stuart, John Wilkes, John Dun- 
 ning, Richard Glover, the earl of Chatham, Sir 
 William Jones, Edward Gibbon, Henry Flood, Ed- 
 mund Burke, and Sir Philip Francis. I think it 
 wholly unnecessary to beat down the shght preten- 
 
10 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 sions, set up in favor of almost all these claimants. 
 Dr. Johnson declared, that he knew no person, ex- 
 cept Burke, who was capable of writing the letters 
 of Junius. Yet the temper, the sentiments, the style, 
 and the voluntary disclaimer of Burke have, I be- 
 lieve, produced a general persuasion, that he could 
 not be the author. The case of Sir Philip Francis 
 is set forth ingeniously by Mr. John Taylor in his 
 work, entided, " The Identity of Junius with a distin- 
 guished living Character ; " yet his mass of evidence 
 dwindles down before an exact scrutiny, and is 
 overpowered completely by the evidence in favor 
 of lord Sackville. 
 
 Mr. Bisset says, that " most of the writers against 
 Junius, in the periodical publications of the times, 
 address him as an Irishman." It is almost certain, 
 that the author of Junius received his education in 
 Ireland. He uses the term collegian, in the sense 
 of an academic or gownsman, differently, it is said, 
 from its use at Oxford and Cambridge : — " the 
 little sneering sophistries of a collegian." The 
 phrase ' so far forth ' I find in bishop Berkeley of 
 Ireland, but I doubt whether it is found in any good 
 writer in 1769, unless he had been educated in 
 Ireland : — " So far forth, as it operates, it constitutes 
 a house of commons." The following use of shall 
 and should is hardly pure English : — " In vain shall 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 11 
 
 you look for protection to that venal vote : " — " If 
 from the profoundest contempt, I should ever rise 
 into anger, he should soon find, that all I have 
 already said of him was lenity and compassion." 
 
 I am satisfied no man, who had not been conver- 
 sant ehher with Ireland or Scotland, would have 
 employed the word mean in this manner : — '' They, 
 who object to detached parts of Junius' letter, either 
 do not mean him fairly, or have not considered, &z;c." 
 — " I meant the cause and the public ; both are 
 given up." — "You are satisfied, that I mean you 
 well." — ^" By all, that 's honorable, I mean nothing 
 but the cause." The bitterness of Junius towards 
 the Scotch proves, that he was not a Scotchman. 
 
 There are other reasons for considering the author 
 of Junius as well acquainted with Ireland. It is, then, 
 altogether probable, tliat either Burke, Sir Philip 
 Francis, or lord Sackville was the author. In re- 
 spect to Burke, a late writer, Mr. Charles Butler, 
 says — " It is known, that Sir Wilham Draper at first 
 divided his suspicions of the authorship of Junius be- 
 tween Burke and lord George Sackville, and that, on 
 Burke's unequivocal denial of it, he transferred them 
 wholly to his Lordship." Now, as Sir William Dra- 
 per entered personally into a conflict with Junius, he 
 was much interested to know the author. He was 
 intimate with lord Granby, commander in^chief, and 
 
12 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 could hear the suggestions of the men in power in 
 regard to the supposed author. It is probable there- 
 fore, that his suspicions were transferred to the 
 right person. — Mr. Bosvvell, in his Life of Johnson, 
 remarks — " He said, 1779, I should have believed 
 Burke to be Junius, because I know no man but 
 Burke, who is capable of writing these letters ; but 
 Burke spontaneously denied it to me. The case would 
 have been different, had I asked him, if he was the 
 author ; a man so questioned, as to an anonymous 
 publication, may think he has a right to deny it." 
 This denial, taking into view the moral character of 
 Burke, will probably be deemed decisive. There 
 are certainly many points of resemblance in the style 
 of Junius and Burke 5 but there are also striking 
 diversities. The resemblance may be owing to an 
 Irish education and to the study of the same models 
 of style ; the diversities are hardly reconcileable 
 with the identity of Burke and Junius. 
 
 Mr. Bissett has stated various reasons for and 
 against considering Mr. Burke as the author of the 
 letters of Junius. In his political principles gener- 
 ally, but particularly in hostility to the Grafton ad- 
 ministration and to the doctrines of lord Mansfield, 
 Burke agreed with Junius. Burke had also the 
 requisite talents and genius. But the considerations 
 on the other side appear to be unanswerable. The 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 13 
 
 Intellectual character of Junius differs exceedingly 
 from that of Burke. "In Junius we have more of 
 perspicuity than of expansion ; more of pungency 
 than of force. — He rapidly penetrates into particu- 
 lars, but does not rise to general views, — Junius 
 keeps directly to his subject : the rapidly associadng 
 mind of Burke pursues his thoughts through a train 
 of combinations. — The style of Junius is clear, cor- 
 rect, and precise, with no great variety : the style 
 of Burke copious, brilliant, forcible, with wonderful 
 variety." — Besides this diversity, the sentiments of 
 Junius differ from the known sentiments of Burke. 
 Junius speaks of lord Rockingham's administration, 
 as " dissolving in its own weakness : " of that admin- 
 istration Burke had been a member and was a stren- 
 uous supporter. Lord Rockingham was his patron 
 and friend, and had advanced, towards the purchase 
 of his villa, ten thousand pounds. Junius was in 
 favor of triennial parliaments : Burke was uniformly 
 averse to the project. Junius disapproves of the 
 opposition to Mr. Grenville's laws respecting Amer- 
 ica : Burke constantly opposed American taxation. 
 — Burke also himself, in one of his speeches, speaks 
 thus of Junius, — "How comes Junius to have 
 broke through the cobwebs of the law, and to range 
 uncontrolled and unpunished through the land ? 
 The myrmidons of the court pursue him in vain. 
 2 
 
14 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 They will not spend their time on me or you ; they 
 disdain such vermin, when the mighty hoar of the 
 forest, that has broke their toils, is before them. 
 When I saw his attack upon the king, my blood run 
 cold ; not, that there are not in that composition 
 many bold truths, by which a prince might profit : 
 it was the rancor and venom, with which I was 
 struck. When I expected from his daring flight his 
 fall and final ruin, I behold him soaring higher, and 
 coming souse upon both houses of parliament 5 nor 
 has he dreaded the terrors of your brow. Sir. [Sir 
 Fletcher Norton.] King, Lords, and Commons 
 are the sport of his fury." 
 
 It is hardly credible, that Burke would speak 
 thus of Junius, if he was himself the writer of the 
 letters of Junius. And indeed, I think, from read- 
 ing the writings of Burke, that he was incapable of 
 the venom and rancor, certainly in respect to pubhc 
 men in England, with which Junius is chargeable. 
 Besides, it is known, that Mr. Burke prosecuted 
 Mr. Woodfall for a libel in 1784, and obtained a 
 verdict of one hundred pounds damages. It is hard- 
 ly possible, that the author of Junius, the[friend of Mr. 
 Woodfall, giving him all the profits from the sale of 
 his letters, should have prosecuted for a libel the 
 printer of all his own libels. 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 15 
 
 In respect to Sir Philip Francis, so far as style is 
 concerned, it is not impossible, that he was the author 
 of Junius. Though he left Ireland, when he was ten 
 years of age ; yet from his father he might afterwards 
 have derived a tinge of the Irish idiom. Sir Philip 
 was born in 1740. The first letter from the author of 
 Junius, imder a different signature, was dated April 
 28, 1767. At this period, at the age of twenty-six, 
 is it probable, that Sir Philip could have been quali- 
 fied to commence those writings, for the production of 
 which Dr. Johnson knew no one to be competent 
 excepting Mr. Burke ? But Sir Philip at this time 
 held an important post in the war office, which he 
 retained till 1772. In the discharge of its duties it 
 is impossible, that he should have found leisure for 
 the great labors of Junius. 
 
 In a private letter, Nov^ember 27, 1771, Junius 
 says — " After long experience of the world I affirm 
 before God, I never knew a rogue, who was not 
 unhappy." Sackville might say this at the age of 
 fifty-six ; but how could Sir Philip at the age of 
 thirty-one ? Two years before this Junius said — 
 " Long habit has taught me to pass by all the 
 declamation, with which champions parade. I look 
 upon it as no better than those flourishes of the 
 back sword, with which the great masters of my time 
 in the amphitheatre entertained the spectators." 
 
 / 
 
16 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 June 17G9, — "I remember seeing Busembaum, Sua- 
 rez, Molina, and a score of othci Jesuitical books, 
 burnt at Paris for their sound casuistry by the hands 
 of the common hangman. Lett. Apr. 1768." If 
 this occurrence was in 17G4, when the order of 
 Jesuits was put down in France, it is utterly improb- 
 able, that Sir Philip, who had just entered, in 1763, 
 upon his labors in the war office, could have found 
 time to visit Paris : if, as has been thought, the 
 occurrence was many years before, then Sir Philip 
 was too young to have gone abroad. Sackville 
 accompanied his father, the duke of Dorset, to 
 Paris ill 1738, when he was twenty-one years of 
 age. When Sir Philip was questioned on this sub- 
 ject in 1813 by the editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
 he rc[)licd — " Whether you will assist in giving cur- 
 rency to a silly, malignant/a/^eAoo^ is a question for 
 your own discretion. To me it is a matter of per- 
 fect indifTerence." 
 
 In respect to any similarity of style between Sir 
 Philip and Junius, to show which a long array of 
 passages is produced ; it is easily accounted for by 
 the admiration, with which the letters of Junius must 
 have been studied by Sir Philip, and by his diligent 
 imitation, of their supposed excellencies. Mr. Tay- 
 lor has shown a co-incidence of thought and style. 
 If he could have produced some writing of Sir Phil- 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 17 
 
 ip antecedent to the letters of Junius, his argument 
 might have been of some value. 
 
 The resemblance in respect to hand-writing, on 
 which Mr. Taylor places some reliance, I think on 
 careful examination amounts to nothing. Sack- 
 ville's writing, though twenty-five years earlier, has 
 a strong resemblance to that of Junius. In my 
 judgment it is the same hand. That Sir Philip 
 wrote tho\ and wihance, zngross, znforce, iVislave, 
 &tc. instead of though^ e?ihance, &ic. in the manner 
 of Junius, proves nothing of itself, for Sackville 
 wrote in the same manner. Probably both adopted 
 the method of writing i/diance &ic. from Dr. Fran- 
 cis' Demosthenes, — a work, which, I doubt not, Ju- 
 nius diligently studied, and from which he trans- 
 planted many words and phrases into his own 
 writings. 
 
 How could Mr. Francis say, in the midst of his 
 labors at the war-office, as Junius said August 15, 
 1771, — " Is there no merit in dedicating my life to 
 the information of my fellow subjects ? — What pub- 
 lic question have I declined ? — What villain have 1 
 spared ? — Is there no labor in the composition of 
 these letters ? Mr. Home, I fear, is partial to me ; 
 and measures the facility of my writings by tiie 
 fluency of his own." 
 2* 
 
 / 
 
18 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 I am therefore satisfied, beyond a doubt, that Sir 
 Philip was not the author of Junius. Yet I am not 
 certain, that he was not a friend of lord Sackville, 
 joatronized by him, and employed by him as his 
 agent in his secret correspondence. Junius says, 
 January 18, 1772, — ^^ The gentleman, who transacts 
 the conveyancing part of our correspondence, tells 
 me there was much difficulty last night." This 
 gentleman, who was once observed, was tall, as were 
 both Sackville and Sir Philip ; but the danger of 
 performing his own errand must to lord Sackville 
 have been extreme. Therefore he might have 
 employed a confidential agent, and that agent, 1 
 believe, was Sir Philip; especially as the letters of 
 Junius exhibit a minute acquaintance with the affairs 
 of the war office, which could have been obtained 
 only from one of the clerks of the office. It was in 
 1763, that Sir Philip was appointed to a considerable 
 post in the war office by the secretary. Lord Bar- 
 rington compelled him to resign in March 1772. 
 Junius, under the signature of Veteran, immediately 
 published a letter on the subject, manifesting his 
 friendship to Mr. Francis, and violently assailing 
 lord Barrington. 
 
 In the same month Junius wrote to his printer, 
 Woodfall, that his labors were at an end : — " The 
 difficulty of corresponding arises from situation and 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 19 
 
 necessity, to which we must submit." — In May he 
 requested a copy of the letters, bound. Junius 
 wrote no more till January 1773. If Francis was 
 his sole agent, this silence can be explained, be- 
 cause, it is known, that he was absent during the 
 greater part of the year 1772, travelling on the con- 
 tinent. About the time of his return Woodfall 
 received a private letter from Junius. Signals had 
 been thrown out for some time in the newspaper ; 
 but till then Junius could not write : — " I have had 
 good reason for not complying with them." At 
 this time Junius was able to receive the books from 
 Woodfall, which for more than half a year he was 
 not able to receive. It is then very supposable, 
 that Mr. Francis was the " gentleman " employ- 
 ed by lork Sackville in the '' conveyancing depart- 
 ment." He might have received such obligations, 
 as would bind him to a silence, which, if he was 
 entrusted with the secret, he sacredly preserved. 
 If Mr. Francis did not assist Junius, Mr. D'Oyley, a 
 clerk, who was dismissed about the same time, and 
 who became afterwards private secretary of Sack- 
 ville, might have furnished the information, with 
 which Junius was supplied, and have been the con- 
 veyancer of the letters. 
 
CHAPTER n. 
 
 Memoir of Sackville. 
 
 That lord George Sackville was the author of 
 the letters of Junius is in my opinion completely 
 established by such a combination of circumstances, 
 as have almost the force of demonstration. These 
 circumstances it will be my business to arrange. 
 
 It may be convenient, first, to advert to the history 
 of his life. He was the third son of the first Duke of 
 Dorset, and was born June 26, 1716. He was 
 sent to Westminster school. In 1730, at the age 
 of fourteen, he accompanied his father to Ireland, 
 and was educated at Trinity college, Dubhn, where 
 he had a high reputation for his literary attainments. 
 At the age of twenty-one he obtained a commission 
 in the army. In 1738 he accompanied his father to 
 Paris, where he acquired a perfect knowledge of 
 the French language. In 1740 he was heutenant 
 colonel. In 1742 he went with George II. to 
 Hanover. He distinguished himself at the bat- 
 tle of Dettingen in 1743, and at that of Fontenoy 
 in 1744, in which he received a bullet in his breast. 
 He was at the battle of Culloden in Scotland in 
 
 \ 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 21 
 
 1746. He afterwards served on the continent. In 
 1749 he was a member of parliament. He was- 
 secretary to his father in Ireland in 1751. In Sep- 
 tember 1754 he married Miss Diana Sambrook of 
 Dover street, by whom he had two sons, Charles 
 and George, and three daughters. In 1755 he was 
 appointed major general, and in 1758 heutenant 
 general. August 1, 1759, was fought the battle of 
 Minden, at which he was accused of disobeying 
 the orders of prince Ferdinand. He was degraded 
 from office by a court martial, and abused by the 
 king. 
 
 Before his trial came on, many pamphlets were 
 published on the two sides of the question. One of 
 them, entitled ' A Letter to a late noble commander 
 of the British forces in Germany,' printed at Edin- 
 burgh, and also at London for R. Griffiths, 1759, 
 pages 74, must have had great influence in preju- 
 dicing the public against him, as it is written with 
 great ability and elegance. It may well bear a 
 comparison with the most polished and eloquent 
 letters of Junius, ten years afterwards. The writer 
 says : — " The command of those brave bands 
 devolved upon your lordship. Had the public 
 choice directed the appointment, perhaps no one 
 could have been found more likely to discharge the 
 important duty with honor, skill, and fidelity. De- 
 
22 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 scended from one of the noblest stocks in the king- 
 dom, one eminently distinguished for loyalty, and 
 yourself honored with the confidence of your sove- 
 reign, — who w^ould suspect you of disaffection ^ 
 Having been tried in action, and your firmness ex- 
 tolled, — who could doubt your courage ? of which 
 you are said to bear honorable marks where it is a 
 soldier's pride to show them — in your breast. From 
 the proofs you had given of your abilities here, and 
 in a neighboring kingdom more especially, who 
 could question your capacity ? — Noble from your 
 birth, great in your endowments, every thing great 
 and noble was expected from your conduct. 
 
 " To your country's detriment, and your own 
 dishonor, the expectations of the public are disap- 
 pointed. We looked for a commander, and we find 
 a commentator. We depended upon an active 
 warrior, and we meet with an idle disputant ; one, 
 who in the field of battle debates upon orders with 
 all the phlegm of an academic, when he ought to 
 execute them with all the vigor and intrepidity of an 
 hero." 
 
 Speaking of Sackville's aged father, the WTiter 
 says — " Though we lament his feelings, we admire 
 his fortitude. Moved with the affection of a tender 
 parent, he adheres to justice with a Roman vigor, 
 and nobly scorns to interpose between an offending 
 son and injured country." 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 23 
 
 The writer of this masterly letter is unknown. I 
 doubt not that by the study of it Sackville improved 
 his style, however little it may have mended his 
 temper. 
 
 The court for the trial of lord Sackville consisted 
 of Sir Charles Howard, president, lieutenant gene- 
 ral Campbell, lords Delaware, Cholmondely, Stuart, 
 earls of Panmure, Ancram, Harrington, Abercrom- 
 bie, Albemarle, major generals Leighton and Carr, 
 earls of Effingham and Belford, lords Robert 
 Manners and Robert Bertie, and Julius Caesar : 
 Charles Gould, judge advocate. Witnesses against 
 him were prince Ferdinand's Hessian aid de camp, 
 colonel Fitzroy, colonel Sloper, and lord Granby; 
 in his favor, his aid captain Smith, colonel Hotham, 
 captain G. Williams, captain Macbean. At the 
 close of his defence Sackville said, that '' those, 
 who had sworn falsely, must feel the ill effects in 
 their own breasts : that he was always ready to obey 
 orders and discharge his duty : and with respect to 
 the present charge, he said, till the court has said 
 I am guilty, I stand here with a conscience inno- 
 cent, asserting that innocence, which bears testimo- 
 ny for me." The sentence of the court, March or 
 April 1760, was as follows — " The court, upon due 
 consideration of the whole matter before them, is of 
 opinion, that lord George Sackville is guilty of hav- 
 
24 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 ing disobeyed the orders of prince Ferdinand of 
 Brunswick, whom he was by his commission and 
 instructions directed to obey, as commander in chief 
 according to the rules of war : and it is the farther 
 opinion of this court, that the said lord George Sack- 
 ville is, and he is hereby adjudged, unfit to serve his 
 Majesty in any military capacity whatever." 
 
 This sentence w^as confirmed in orders April 
 23, 1760, as follows: — "It is his Majesty's plea- 
 sure, that the above sentence be given out in public 
 orders, that officers being convinced, that neither 
 high birth, nor great employments can shelter 
 offences of such a nature ; and that seeing they are 
 subject to censures, much worse than death, to a 
 man, who has any sense of honor, they may avoid 
 the fatal consequences, arising from disobedience of 
 orders." On the 25th April his Majesty ordered 
 the name of lord Sackville to be struck out of the 
 list of privy counsellors. May 2d, John, marquis of 
 Granby, was appointed a member of the privy coun- 
 cil. 
 
 The most important witnesses were the marquis of 
 Granby, colonel Fitzroy, brother to the duke of 
 Grafton, and colonal William Augustus Pitt. These 
 families were assailed by Junius. 
 
 The defence of Sackville was this, that contra- 
 dictory orders were brought to him by the two aids 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 25 
 
 of prince Ferdinand, and that in this dilen:iina he 
 immediately repaired to the prince himself in order 
 to ascertain which of the orders he was to obey. 
 
 He was in parliament from 1760 till he was call- 
 ed to the House of Lords in 1782 ; from 1768 he 
 represented the borough of East Grinstead, which 
 he purchased. From 1760 to 1765 he made only 
 one speech. In 1765 he was a member of the 
 Privy Council and appointed one of the vice-treasur- 
 ers of Ireland. In 1769 he took the name of Ger- 
 main in consequence of the will of lady Betty 
 Germain, who bequeathed to him £20,000 in per- 
 sonal property, besides valuable estates at Drayton 
 in Northamptonshire, although she was not related 
 to him. 
 
 Early in the session of 1770 he became distin- 
 guished. " His talents as a declaimer, his elo- 
 quence as an orator, his sound reasoning and forcible 
 language soon gained him the applause of the 
 house, although a violent oppositionist to the meas- 
 ures of ministers." 
 
 January 22, 1770, he supported for speaker 
 
 Thomas Townsend, afterwards lord Sydney, his 
 
 most intimate friend, against Sir Fletcher Norton, 
 
 the ministerial candidate, who was elected : — " I 
 
 beg leave to second the noble lord's motion. Mr. 
 
 Townsend, while the other gentleman has been 
 
 3 
 
26 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 practising in the courts below, has been learning 
 business of a superior kind ; the business of the 
 nation and this house. — Forms of practice are 
 things very different from rules of right. — A man 
 may be well acquainted with the face of a country, 
 and its divisions, as laid down in a map, without 
 knowing a step of the road to a single market 
 town ; and he, that has been used to travel the 
 turnpike road, on journeys of business, may be 
 less acquainted with the shorter cuts through parks, 
 forests, and privileged places, than those, whose 
 situations and connexions have admitted them to 
 the chase, which is regulated by rules very different 
 from paying toll at a turnpike, or bills at an inn. 
 Upon the whole, I should think a minute acquaint- 
 ance with the practice of courts of law rather a 
 disqualification for the chair in this house." 
 
 On a motion, December 6, 1770, in the House 
 of Commons to inquire into the administration 
 of criminal justice, Sackville made an eloquent 
 speecli. He said — " Consider, gentlemen, what 
 will be tlie consequence of refusing this demand, 
 this debt, which you owe to the anxious expectation 
 of the public. The people, seeing his [lord Mans- 
 field's] avowed defenders so loth to bring him forth 
 on the public stage, and to make him plead his 
 cause before their tribunal, will naturally conclude. 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 27 
 
 that he could not bear the light, because his deeds 
 were evil ; and that, therefore, you judged it advis- 
 able to screen him behind the curtain of a majority. 
 Though his conduct was never questioned in Parlia- 
 ment, mark how he is every day, and every hour, 
 pointed out in print and conversation, as a perverter 
 of the law, and an enemy of the constitution. No 
 epithet is too bad for him. Now he is the subtile 
 Scroggs, now, the arbitrary Jeffries. All the re- 
 cords of our courts of law and all the monuments 
 of our lawyers are ransacked, in order to find suffi- 
 ciently odious names, by which he may be christen- 
 ed. The hbellous and virulent spirit of the times 
 has overleaped all the barriers of law, order, and 
 decorum. The judges are no longer revered, and 
 the laws have lost all their salutary terrors. Juries 
 will not convict petty delinquents, when, they sus- 
 pect, grand criminals go unpunished. Hence libels 
 and lampoons, audacious beyond the example of alt 
 other times ; libels, in comparison of which the 
 North Briton, once deemed the ne plus ultra of 
 sedition, is perfect innocence and simplicity. The 
 sacred number, forty-five, form.erly the idol of the 
 multitude, is eclipsed by the superior venom of 
 every day's defamation : all its magical and taHs- 
 manic powers are lost and absorbed in the gen- 
 eral deluge of scandal, which pours from the 
 
28 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 press. When matters are thus circumstanced, 
 when the judges in general, and hord Mansfield in 
 'particular, are there hung out to public scorn 
 and detestation, now that libellers receive no coun- 
 tenance from men high in power, and in the public 
 esteem ; what will be the consequence, when it is 
 publicly known, that they have been arraigned, and 
 that their friends quashed the inquiry, which it was 
 proposed to make upon their conduct ? The con- 
 sequence is more easily conceived than expressed. 
 I foresee, that the imps of the press, the sons of 
 ink, and the printers' devils will be all in motion, 
 and they w^ill spare you as little as they will the 
 judges. 
 
 " Like the two thieves in the Gospel, both will be 
 hung up and gibbetted, with the law crucified be- 
 tween you, for the entertainment of coffee-house 
 politicians, greasy carmen, porters, and barbers in 
 tippling houses and night cellars. I cannot help 
 thinking, that it is the wish of lord Mansfield him- 
 self to have his conduct examined, nay, I collect 
 as much from the language of a gentleman, who 
 may be supposed to know his sentiments. What 
 foundation then is there for obstructing the inquiry ? 
 None at all. It is a pleasure to me to see my no- 
 ble friend discovering such symptoms of conscious 
 innocence. His ideas perfectly co-incide with my 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 29 
 
 own. I would never oppose the minutest scrutiny 
 into my behavior. However much condemned by 
 the envy or malice of enemies, I would at least 
 show, that I stood acquitted in my own mind. Qui 
 fugit judicium, ipso teste, reus est,'''' 
 
 Junius said December 12, in reference to this 
 speech, — " Let it be known to posterity, that when 
 lord Mansfield was attacked with, so much vehe- 
 mence in the House of ConuiionSj not one of the 
 ministry said a word in his defence." 
 
 In 1773 he concurred with the ministry in regard 
 to the East India affairs. Early in this year the 
 last letter of Junius to Mr. Woodfall was written. 
 
 In a speech on American affairs March 28, 1774, 
 he pointed out the measures necessary to be adopt- 
 ed, and was publicly thanked for his suggestions by 
 lord North, who said — " they were worthy so great 
 a mind." The speech chiefly related to the gov- 
 ernment of Massachusetts ; the following are ex- 
 tracts from it : — " I could have wished, that the 
 noble lord, when he was framing this scheme of 
 salvation, would have at least considered, that there 
 were other parts of the internal government, neces- 
 sary to be put under some regulation. I mean 
 particularly the internal government of Massachu- 
 setts Bay. I wish to see the council of that 
 
 country on the same footing as other colonies. 
 
 3* 
 
30 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 There is a degree of absurdity at present in the 
 election of the council. I cannot, Sir, disagree with 
 the noble lord, nor can I think he will do a better 
 thing, than to put an end to their town meetings. 
 I would not have men of a mercantile cast consider 
 themselves as ministers of that country. I would 
 not have such men every day collecting themselves 
 together, and debating about political matters. I 
 would have them follow their occupations as mer- 
 chants, and not consider themselves as ministers. — 
 You have, Sir, no government — no governor ; the 
 whole are the proceedings of a tumultuous and 
 riotous rabble, who ought, if they had the least pru- 
 dence, to follow their mercantile employments, and 
 not trouble themselves with politics and govern- 
 ment, which they do not understand. 
 
 " We are told by some gentlemen, ' Oh ! do not 
 break the charter ! do not take away their rights, 
 that are granted to them by the predecessors of the 
 crov/n ! ' Whoever, Sir, wishes to preserve such 
 charters, without a due correction and regulation — 
 whoever wishes for such subjects, I wish them no 
 worse than to govern them. Put this people. Sir, on 
 a free footing of government ; do not let us be ev- 
 ery day asserting our rights by words, and they de- 
 nying our authority, and preventing the execution 
 of our laws, Let us persevere in refuiing that gov-' 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 31 
 
 ernment, which cannot support itself, and proceed 
 in the manner we have begun, and I make no doubt, 
 but by a manly and steady perseverance things may 
 be restored from a state of anarchy and confusion 
 to peace, quietude, and a due obedience to the laws 
 of this country." 
 
 As Sackville thus supported the measures of the 
 administration in regard to America, and as he had 
 talents and firmness, lord North solicited his aid in 
 the ministry, and he was appointed Secretary for 
 the American department September 7, 1775, in 
 the place of lord Dartmouth removed. Sackville 
 soon appointed Richard Cumberland the under 
 secretary instead of Mr. Pownall, and Mr. D'Oyley 
 his confidential secretary. 
 
 That to lord Sackville must be ascribed, in the 
 American revolutionary war, the employment of 
 the Indians, reckless of their barbarous mode of 
 warfare, there is conclusive evidence. Mr. Bisset, 
 in his History of the Reign of king George III, says, 
 — " The plan of the expedition through the wilds 
 of America was concerted in London between gen- 
 eral Burgoyne and lord George Germain. It was 
 agreed, that besides regular troops, Indian savages 
 should be employed by the British commander. " * — 
 
 * Bisset, ii, 324. 
 
32 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 " The force required by Burgoyne, was 8000 reg- 
 ulars, 2000 Canadians, and 1000 Indians." 
 
 After the defeat of Burgoyne Mr. Burke in 1778 
 moved an inquiry concerning the employment of 
 the Indians. In a debate in the House of Commons 
 December 0, 1779, colonel Barre said, — " He had 
 information, that colonel Butler had been defeated 
 and taken, and the remains of his army and the 
 vanquished Indians had fled for shelter into Niaga- 
 ra ; that the Indian towns had been burnt, and 
 probably, that the consequence would be, the total 
 extirpation of the Indians in that part of America. 
 [Here lord George Germain 'shook his head.] 
 The noble lord might shake his head, if he pleas- 
 ed, but the fact was, as he had stated it; and now 
 that he was up, he would tell the noble lord another 
 particular, which was, that the horrid and cruel wai', 
 urged by colonel Butler, was planned at a house in 
 Pall Mall [meaning his lordship's], at the instigation 
 of a certain agent ; and what was more extraordi- 
 nary, to that instant had never been regularly com- 
 municated to the cabinet council, or, if it had, not 
 till long after order had been given to carry it into 
 execution. [Lord George Germain shook his head 
 again.] The noble lord was at liberty to give what 
 tokens of dissent he thought proper ; but he was 
 ready to make his assertions good. He knew colo- 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 33 
 
 nel Butler, when he served in America ; he was a 
 good officer and a worthy man. He did not know, 
 how he had been prevailed upon to undertake so 
 infamous a service, as that of carrying fire and 
 sword into the settlements of his fellow subjects, 
 and permitting those horrid acts, which are the con- 
 comitants of this species of war, when savages are 
 gratified with their cruel pastimes and their thirst of 
 human blood." 
 
 To this Germain made no answer. It is not easy 
 to reconcile bis silence with his innocence. It may 
 be just therefore to associate the name of Sackville 
 and the fame of Junius with the horrors of Wyoming. 
 As Sackville planned the Indian incursions on 
 our frontier settlements, we may suffer William Pitt, 
 the younger, to crown him with merited laurels ; — 
 " He was persuaded and would affirm, that it was an 
 accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, un- 
 just, and diabolical war. It was conceived in injus- 
 tice ; it was nurtured and brought forth in folly ; 
 its footsteps w^ere marked with blood, slaughter, 
 persecution, and devastation ; in truth, every thing, 
 which went to constitute moral depravity and human 
 turpitude, were to be found in it." * 
 
 ■^ Pitt's Speech, 1781. — Horace Walpole, in his Correspon- 
 dence, says, January 15, 1775, he does not wish — 'to 
 
34 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 As minister, Sackville was immoveable in his pur- 
 pose of prosecuting the American war to the last 
 extremity in accordance with the views of his sove- 
 reign, and determined never to acknowledge the 
 independence of the colonies. In fact his continu- 
 ance in office and that of North depended on the 
 result of the war. On Sunday November 25, 
 1781, he received intelligence of the surrender of 
 the British forces at York Town. He immediately 
 rode to lord North's, who received the intelligence 
 ' as he would have taken a ball in his breast,' for he 
 paced his apartment, exclaiming wildly many times, 
 and profanely, not devoutly, — ' Oh ! — it is all over ! ' 
 We may well smile at this grief of the prime minis- 
 ter on the loss of his office ; for the event, which 
 occasioned his agony, gave independence to Amer- 
 ica. 
 
 Early in February 1782 lord George Germain re- 
 signed his office, on which occasion the king,' in 
 reward of his faithful services, raised him to the 
 dignity of the peerage, and created him ' Viscount 
 Sackville and Baron Bolebrook.' In consequence 
 of this honor lord Osborne, the Marquis of Car- 
 marthen, made a motion in the House of Lords to 
 
 breathe out fire and sword against the Americans, like 
 that second duke of Alva — the inflexible lord G . . . . G . . . . 
 [George Germain.] ' 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 35 
 
 prevent Sackville from taking his seat, on account 
 of the censure of the court martial, deeming his 
 admission a disgrace to the house. The motion 
 was supported by the earl of Sherburne, the duke 
 of Grafton, the earl of Abingdon, and the duke of 
 of Richmond, but was lost by a vote of 75 to 28. 
 
 On this occasion the earl of Abingdon said — 
 " The person, who was the subject of this m.otion, 
 had been the greatest criminal this cou^ try ever 
 knew. He had been the author of all the calami- 
 ties of the war, and all the distresses, which Great 
 Britain now groaned under. It was to his blood- 
 thirstiness, his weakness, his wickedness, and his 
 mismanagement, that the war had been prosecuted 
 at so large a waste of blood and treasure, and with 
 such a miserable repetition of ill successes. He 
 ought not therefore to be suffered to come into that 
 house and to contaminate the peerage." 
 
 A second motion of the marquis of Carmarthen 
 to censure the ministers, who advised his Majesty 
 to bestov/ the peerage on Sackville, was supported 
 by the duke of Grafton, his brother, lord South- 
 ampton (formerly colonel Fitzroy), the earl of 
 Abingdon, the earl of Derby, and the duke of Rich- 
 mond ; but was lost by a great majority. Nearly 
 all who were in the minority, had been attacked by 
 Junius. 
 
36 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 The speech of Sackville was powerful, and, as 
 was admitted by his enemies, a speech as dignified, 
 as was ever made whhin the walls of the house. 
 The following are extracts from it : — '' To bestow 
 honors was the peculiar, the indisputable, the admit- 
 ted prerogative of the crown, when the person, on 
 whom those honors were bestowed, was competent 
 to receive them. He held himself to be in every 
 way competent to receive the honors, he had been 
 so fortunate as to experience at the hands of his 
 royal master, and he was ready to rest the whole of 
 the question on his being able to prove in any man- 
 ner, in any place, and on any occasion whatever, 
 that he was the person so competent. The motion 
 stated the sentence of the court martial, as the 
 ground of objection to his being made a peer : 
 he was ready to meet the argument on that point, 
 and to contend, that the sentence amounted to no 
 disqualification whatever. The court martial, which 
 pronounced that sentence, had sat two and twenty 
 years ago, and he conceived those of their lord- 
 ships, and the public in general, who were at all ac- 
 quainted with the peculiarly hard and unfair cir- 
 cumstances, that had attended his being tried at all, 
 had long been accustomed to see the whole of that 
 business in its true point of view. What had been 
 the temper of those times ? Faction and clamor 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 37 
 
 predominated : they both ran against him, and he 
 Iiad been made the victim of the most unexampled 
 persecution, that ever a British officer had been 
 pursued with. In the first place, he had been con- 
 demned unheard, punished before trial. Stripped 
 of all his mihtary honors and emoluments upon 
 mere rumor, upon the malicious suggestions of his 
 enemies, without their having been called upon to 
 exhibit the smallest proof of their loose asserdon 
 and acrimonious invective : he stood pointed out to 
 the world, as a man easy to be run down by clamor, 
 and to fall a sacrifice to faction. Thus cruelly 
 circumstanced, thus made to suffer in a manner 
 equally unparalleled and unjust ; what had been his 
 conduct? Had he fled, like a guilty man, and hid 
 himself from the world ? IVIany of their lordships 
 well knew, that he had acted in a manner directly 
 opposite. He had challenged his accusers to come 
 forward ; he had provoked enquiry ; he had insist- 
 ed upon a trial. — What could their lordships ima- 
 gine induced him to persevere in this step with so 
 much firmness, but a consciousness of his innocence ? 
 It was that and that alone, which bore him up un- 
 der the cruel difficulties he had to encounter, and 
 that made him submit patiently to the consequence." 
 — " In 1765 he had been called to the Privy Coun- 
 cil, and brought into office. Previous to his ac- 
 
 4 
 
 fe 
 
38 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 cepting the offers, that were then made to him, of 
 taking a part in the administration of that day, it 
 had been agreed, that he should be first called to 
 the Council-board, which he had ever considered 
 as a virtual repeal of the sentence of the court- 
 martial. He had continued a member of the Privy 
 Council for ten years without hearing a word of the 
 court-martial, or its being thought by any means a 
 disqualification. Several years ago his Majesty had 
 honored him so far, as to appoint him to the high 
 office of Secretary of State, an office, which he 
 had filled ever since, without hearing a word of the 
 sentence. Let their lordships then consider the 
 hardship of that sentence being urged against him, 
 as a disqualification for a seat in that house, which 
 had been deemed no disqualification whatever of 
 his being a privy counsellor and a secretary of 
 state ; two situations surely of more dignity and of 
 more importance, considering the form of the Brit- 
 ish constitution, than even a peerage, high and dig- 
 nified as the honor undoubtedly was : nor did the 
 matter of hardship merely consist in bringing the 
 sentence forward now, but the making it a ground 
 of censure. Would their lordships sanction, con- 
 firm, and aggravate a sentence, pronounced by a 
 court-military, without having the whole of the case 
 before them ? That would be to make the military 
 
JUNIUS unmasked: 
 
 39 
 
 law, sufficiently severe as it confessedly was at 
 present, ten times more severe, by annexing to its 
 judgment the censure of a civil court of judi- 
 cature. 
 
 " From the time he was called to the Privy 
 Council to the present moment, and especially since 
 he had accepted of that high office, he had en- 
 deavored to serve his king and country to the best 
 of his judgment. He would not pretend to cope 
 with any man in respect to abilities : there were 
 many, he was persuaded, more able than himself; 
 but there were points, in which he would not yield 
 to all, who had before been in the service of the 
 crown. He defied any man to prove, that the 
 public ever had a servant, who had showed more 
 unremitting assiduity, more close attention to the 
 duties of his situation, or more zeal for promoting 
 the interests of the country, than he had done, 
 from the moment of his accepting the high office, 
 he had lately filled till his resignation of it. 
 
 " With regard to the court-martial, it was im- 
 possible for him to procure a revision of the pro- 
 ceeding : it happened two and twenty years since, 
 and every member, who sat upon it, excepting two 
 very respectable characters, lord Robert Manners 
 and lord Bertie, had been dead and buried long 
 ago : any attempt to investigate the motives, which 
 
40 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 actuated the several members of the court, was now 
 impracticable ; but after what he had said, he 
 flattered himself, their lordships, in general, would 
 agree with him, that he was a person competent to 
 receive the honors his Majesty had been graciously 
 pleased to bestow upon him ; — and that it was 
 neither expedient, necessary, nor becoming for that 
 house to fly in the face of the indisputable prerog- 
 ative of the crown, merely because the crown 
 thought proper to bestow a reward on an old 
 servant." 
 
 It was with difficulty Sackville was restrained 
 from challenging the marquis of Carmarthen. Cum- 
 berland says — " The well known circumstances, 
 that occurred upon the event of his elevation to the 
 peerage, made a deep and painful impression on his 
 feeling mind ; and if his seeming patience under 
 the infliction of it should appear to merit, in a 
 moral sense, the name of virtue, that he had no 
 title to be credited for, inasmuch as it was entirely 
 owing to the influence of some, who overruled his 
 propensities, and made themselves responsible for 
 his honor, that he did not betake himself to the 
 same abrupt, unwarrantable mode of dismissing this 
 insult, as he had resorted to in a former instance." 
 
 He yielded to the remonstrances of some of his 
 nearest friends, particularly of lord Amherst. Cum^ 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 41 
 
 berland adds, with a mixture of absurdity and truth, 
 — " Though possessing one of the best and kindest 
 hearts^ that ever beat within a human breast, he was 
 with difficulty diverted from resorting a second time 
 to that desperate remedy, which modern empirics 
 have prescribed for wounds of a peculiar sort, often- 
 times imaginary and always to be cured by pa- 
 tience." 
 
 During the remainder of his davs Sackville lived 
 at Drayton in Northamptonshire, or at Bolebrook 
 near Tunbridge Wells, but principally at his beauti- 
 ful mansion, Stoneland Park, now Buckhurst Park, 
 near the parish of Withyham in Sussex. Though 
 suffering much by a painful malady, the stone, he 
 was very punctual in all his domestic arrangements. 
 According to Mr. Cumberland — " As sure as the 
 hand of the clock pointed to the half hour after nine, 
 did the good lord of the castle step into his break- 
 fast room, accoutred at all points, according to his 
 own invariable costume, with a complacent coun- 
 tenance, that prefaced his good morning to each 
 person there assembled. — He allowed an hour and 
 an half for breakfast, and regularly at 11 took 
 his morning's circuit on horseback at a foot's-pace, 
 for his infirmity would not allow of a strong gesta- 
 tion. He never rode out without preparing him- 
 self with a store of sixpences in bis waistcoat pocket 
 
 4* 
 
42 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 for the children of the poor, who opened gates and 
 drew out sliding bars for him in his passage through 
 the enclosures." 
 
 He was very kind to the poor cottagers, his ten- 
 ants, replacing their losses, and furnishing relief in 
 sickness. 
 
 " To his religious duties this good man was not 
 only regularly but respectfully attentive. On the 
 Sunday morning he appeared in gala, as if he were 
 dressed for a drawing-room ; he marched out his 
 whole family in grand cavalcade to his parish 
 church, leaving only a centinel to watch the fires at 
 home, and mount guard upon the spits. His de- 
 portment in the house of prayer was exemplary, 
 and more in character of times past than of time 
 present. He had a way of standing up in sermon 
 time, for the purpose of reviewing the congregation 
 and awing the idlers into decorum, that never failed 
 to remind me of Sir Roger de Coverley at church. 
 Sometimes, when he has been struck with passages 
 in the discourse, which he wished to point out to the 
 audience as rules for moral piactice worthy to be 
 noticed, he would mark his approbation of them 
 with such cheering nods and signals of assent to the 
 preacher, as were often more than my muscles could 
 withstand. — -In his zeal to encourage a very young 
 preacher,, the Rev. Henry EatofT, I heard him cry 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 4^ 
 
 out, to the overthrow of all gravity, in the middle of 
 the sermon, ' Well done, Harry ! ' It was irresistible. 
 Yet he had an unmoved sincerity of manner ; and 
 was surprised, that any thing provoked laughter." 
 
 "He had nursed up with no small care and cost, 
 in each of his parish churches, a corps of rustic 
 psalm-singers, to whose performances he paid the 
 greatest attention, rising up, and with his eyes di- 
 rected to the singing-gallery, marking time, which 
 was not always rigidly adhered to ; and once, when 
 his ear, which was very correct, had been tortured 
 by a tone most glaringly discordant, he set his mark 
 upon the culprit by calling out to him by name, and 
 loudly saying, ' Out of tune, Tom Baker ! ' Now 
 this faulty musician, Tom Baker, happened to be his 
 lordship's butcher ; but then, in order to set names 
 and trades upon a par, Tom Butcher was his lord- 
 ship's baker ; which, I observed to him, was much 
 such a reconcilement of cross-partners, as my illus- 
 trious friend, George Faulkner, hit upon, when in 
 his Dublin Journal he printed, — ^ Erratum in our 
 last — For His Grace the Duchess of Dorset, read, 
 Her grace the Duke of Dorset.* 
 
 " He died August 26, 1785, at Stoneland, aged 69 
 years. It was not long after he had made an able 
 speech on the Irish question. A few days before 
 his death, he inquired '^ if lord Mansfield was then at 
 
44 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 the Wells,' and solicited an interview. Being visit- 
 ed by Mansfield, he, as a dying man, very solemnly 
 asked his forgiveness. A becoming and satisfac- 
 tory reply was made ; and the visiter departed. 
 
 " As I knew he had been some time meditating 
 upon his preparations to receive the sacrament, and 
 death seemed near at hand, I reminded him of it ; 
 he declared himself ready ; in one instance only, he 
 confessed, it cost him a hard struggle. What that 
 instance was, he needed not to explain to me, nor 
 am I careful to explain to any. I trust, according 
 to the infirmity of man's nature, he is rather to be 
 honored for having finally extinguished his resent- 
 ment, than condemned for having fostered it too 
 long. A Christian saint would have done it sooner; 
 how many men would not have done it ever ! 
 
 " The Rev. Mr. Sackville Bayle, his worthy par- 
 ish priest, and ever faithful friend, administered the 
 solemn ofiice of the sacrament to him, reading at his 
 request the prayers for a communicant at the point 
 of death. He had ordered all his bed curtains to 
 be opened and the sashes thrown up, that he might 
 have air and space to assist him in his eflx3rts ; what 
 they were, with what devotion he joined in those 
 solemn prayers, that warn the parting spirit to dis- 
 miss all hopes, that centre in this world, that rever- 
 end friend can witness. 1 also was a witness and a 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 45 
 
 partaker : none else was present at that holy cere- 
 mony." 
 
 A brass plate on his coffin in the vault of the 
 church is the only record of " George Viscount 
 Sackville and Baron Bolebrook." No monumental 
 marble is entrusted with his name ; yet, if it shall be 
 proved, that he was the author of the letters of 
 Junius, his name may have an imperishable honor 
 in the memory of the admirers of intellect and 
 genius, and an imperishable infamy in the memory 
 of all, who detest the malignant passions and the 
 struggles of misguided and low ambition. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Presumptive Argument to show, that SacJcville was 
 
 Junius. 
 
 1. The suspicion of being the author of Junius 
 rested at the tinae more on lord George SacJcville, 
 than on any other person. — It has already been sta- 
 ted, that on the denial of Burke, Sir William Draper 
 transferred his suspicions entirely to Sackville. Mr. 
 Woodfall, the printer, at times suspected Sackville. 
 Others entertained the same belief. An able writer, 
 under the signature of Titus, in defending the mar- 
 quis of Granby against Junius, says of him — " He 
 knows how to obey : he knows, that a good soldier 
 never disputes the commands of his superior.''^ — Also, 
 — " It matters not, whether the malicious dart be 
 pointed from the closet of a disgraced soldier," &ic. 
 " You know, Junius, that he feared not to lead on 
 the cavalry at Mind en." Here are obvious intima- 
 tions, that the writer believed lord Sackville to be 
 the author of the letters of Junius. This general 
 suspicion ought to be considered as of much weight, 
 inasmuch as many grounds for the belief may have 
 existed at the time, which are now lost, and as con- 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 47 
 
 temporaries were the best judges of talents and mo- 
 tives and of all the probabilities of the case. 
 
 2. Lord George SacJcville possessed the requisite 
 talents and learning. — I am aware, that Richard 
 Cumberland, who was secretary under Sackville, 
 has expressed his belief, that his lordship was defi- 
 cient in classical attainments and was incapable of 
 writing the letters of Junius. But of his quahfica- 
 tions others, who knew his lordship at an earlier 
 period, were more competent to judge. Educated 
 at Trinity College, Dublin, and having afterwards 
 much leisure, no one can imagine, that lord Sack- 
 ville could not easily have made that acquaintance, 
 with the classical waiters of antiquity, which Junius 
 exhibits. As to his intellectual powers the testimo- 
 ny is ample. Lord Orford, speaking of Sackville 
 in 1758, says — he was " now rising to a principal 
 figure. His abilities in the House of Commons and 
 his interest with Pitt gave him great weight in gov- 
 ernment." — He said also — " Lord G. Sackville was 
 a man of very sound parts, of distinguished bravery, 
 and of as honorable eloquence : " — and speaking of a 
 commission of inquiry, in which Sackville was asso- 
 ciated in 1757 with the duke of Marlborough and 
 general Waldegrave, he remarks, that he " was more 
 than a balance to the other two in abilities." — Sir 
 N. Wraxall says, "Mr. Pitt styled lord George 
 
48 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 Germain the Agamemnon of the day ; " — also in 
 regard to his speech on a motion relating to his be- 
 ing created a viscomit — " His enemies confessed, 
 that never was a more able, dignified, or manly ap- 
 peal made within the walls of the House of Peers, 
 than lord Sackville pronounced on that occasion." 
 A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, September 
 1785, speaks of him as " a man of extraordinary 
 talent," — his pen is said to be "all-powerful;" — 
 " he had the art of painting in words to a very 
 eminent degree, and which afforded the finest orna- 
 ments in either poetry, history, or elocution." In 
 the debates in the House of Commons from 1775 
 to 1782 he displayed signal abilities. He entered 
 the lists with Fox. Even Mr. Cumberland re- 
 marks, that he " never suffered the clearness of his 
 conceptions to be clouded by any obscurity of ex- 
 pressions." 
 
 Mr. Bisset says of Sackville, — " This nobleman, 
 after his retirement from military life, had devoted 
 himself to political affairs ; he was an acute reason- 
 er, and a respectable speaker, distinguished for 
 closeness of argument, precision, and neatness of 
 language. He had been principally connected with 
 Mr. Grenville, supported him when he was minister, 
 and followed him into opposition. He had vindicat- 
 ed the supremacy of parliament, voted against the 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 49 
 
 Stamp act, and against its repeal ; and had shown 
 himself extremely inimical to the Grafton adminis- 
 tration. From that circumstance, together with his 
 reputed abilities, he was by many deemed the au- 
 thor of Junius. For several years after Mr. Gren- 
 ville's death he had continued in opposition ; but in 
 1773 he joined the ministry in the East India affairs, 
 and took a decided part in the coercive measures 
 of 1774 and 1775."^ 
 
 Lord Walsingham, in defending the elevation of 
 Germain to the peerage, said of him — " His abilities 
 are equal to those of most men and I believe infe- 
 rior to none." Lord Shelburne charged him with 
 having failed as to the war, but gave him credit for 
 having held a " more manly style of language, than 
 any other minister, and with having acted uniformly 
 with the nicest feelings, the strictest honor, the most 
 unimpeachable integrity, and the most distinguished 
 abilities.'''' 
 
 Sir N. Wraxall says — " In business lord George 
 Germain was rapid, yet clear and accurate ; rather 
 negligent in his style, which was that of a gentleman 
 and a man of the world, unstudied and frequently 
 careless, even in his official despatches. But there 
 was no obscurity or ambiguity in his compositions." 
 
 * Bisset, ii, 219. 
 5 
 
50 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 3. Lord George Sackville felt the Influence of 
 those strong Motives, which only can account for 
 the letters of Junius. — The writer was evidently 
 stimulated by bitter personal hostility towards those, 
 whom he assailed, — by keen indignation, arising 
 from a sense of wrong, — and at the same time by 
 an irrepressible ambition and desire of gaining for 
 himself office or rank. The hostility and indigna- 
 tion are everv where seen in the letters. The am- 
 bition and thirst for power must be supposed in 
 order to account for his persevering attempt to 
 overthrow the ministry ; but it is betrayed in his 
 private letters. In one to Woodfall he says — " I 
 doubt much, whether I shall ever have the pleasure 
 of knowing you ; but, if things take the turn I ex- 
 pect, you shall know me hy my works.''^ — " It is 
 true I have refused offers, which a more prudent or 
 a more interested man w^ould have accepted." — 
 The expected turn was doubtless a revolution in the 
 ministry ; and the works alluded to may be the 
 great things he should accomplish, after he should 
 gain a high office. In his first letter to Wilkes he 
 says — " Though I do not disclaim the idea of some 
 personal views to future honor and advantage, yet I 
 can truly say, that neither are they little in them- 
 selves," &;c. 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 51 
 
 The natural temper of Sackville was irascible, 
 and after his unjust degradation from military rank 
 and service, he would feel indignant towards all, 
 who contributed in any way to his disgrace. 
 
 The marquis of Granby, who is attacked in the 
 first letter of Junius, was under Sackville at the 
 battle of Minden. He was commended by prince 
 Ferdinand at the expense of Sackville : — " I re- 
 gret, that the marquis of Granby had not the com- 
 mand of the British cavalry. Had he commanded 
 I make no doubt the success of the day had been 
 much more complete and brilliant." — The duke of 
 Grafton is assaulted by Junius with the utmost vio- 
 lence ; the principal witness against lord Sackville 
 was colonel Fitzroy, brother of the duke of Graf- 
 ton. — Junius assails lord Mansfield ; — the judge 
 was the legal adviser of lord Sackville before his 
 trial, and assured him, that he could not be con- 
 demned. He was mistaken in his opinion, and 
 Sackville might even suspect him of treachery. — 
 Junius maintained the necessity of impeaching 
 Mansfield ; and Sackville in a speech, December 
 6, 1770, supported a motion to inquire into the 
 administration of criminal justice. — Junius had an 
 embittered hostility towards Scotchmen ; it appears, 
 that a majority of the officers, constituting the court 
 martial for the trial of lord George, were Scotch- 
 
52 
 
 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 men. He had also passed a year in Scotland in 
 the campaign against the rebels. — The most con- 
 spicuous persons attacked by Junius, are the men, 
 who were the agents in Sackville's disgrace, or 
 who succeeded to the places, which he held, or 
 gained the offices, which he might well expect : 
 — the marquis of Granby, colonel Fitzroy, lord 
 George Townsend, lord Charles Manners, the 
 duke of Bedford, and others. — Of Sackville's am- 
 bition nothing need be said. 
 
 4. The author of Junius had been a soldier, 
 as Sackville had been. — In a private letter, Au- 
 gust 25, 1767, Junius says of the Townsends — 
 " I am not a stranger to this par nobile fratrum, 
 I have served under the one and have been forty 
 times promised to be served by the other." It 
 is known, that he served with lord Townsend at 
 Dettingen. — The perpetual military allusions in 
 Junius prove, that the writer had been a soldier. 
 Of instances the following may be given : — " That 
 was the salient point, from which all the mis- 
 chiefs and disgraces of the present reign took 
 life and motion." — " Place them in the post of 
 danger, to prevent desertion.'^'' — " The wary Wed- 
 derburne, the pompous Suffolk, never threw away 
 the scabbard, nor ever went upon a forlorn hopeJ'^ 
 — " If you consider the dignity of the post he 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 53 
 
 deserted, you will hardly think it decent to quarter 
 him on Mr. Rigby." — " I may quit the service, 
 but it would be absurd to suspect me of deser- 
 tion." — " We cannot hinder their desertion, but 
 we can prevent their carrying over their arms to 
 the service of the enemy." — '' Not daring to attack 
 the main body of Junius' last letter, he triumphs 
 in having, as he thinks, surprised an outpost and cut 
 off a detached argument, a mere straggling propo- 
 sition. But even in this petty warfare he shall find 
 himself defeated.^'' — "His palace is besieged; the 
 lines of circumvallation are drawing round him." — 
 I could exhibit many more such military allusions, 
 were it necessary. I think these prove the writer 
 to have been a soldier. This is also proved by the 
 intimate acquaintance of Junius with the affairs of 
 the war office and the concerns of the army. Who 
 but a soldier could possibly feel, as Junius felt, on 
 the appointment of Mr. Luttrell as adjutant gen- 
 eral : — " The insult offered to the army in general 
 is as gross, as the outrage intended to the people 
 of England. What ! lieutenant colonel Luttrell 
 adjutant general of an army of sixteen thousand 
 
 men ! "- 
 
 5. Lord Sackville had the friendships and ani- 
 mosities, which are indicated by the letters of Ju- 
 nius. — By the letter of September 20, 1768 and other 
 
 5* 
 
54 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 letters it appears, that Junius was the friend of Sir 
 Jeffery Amherst : — " You have sent Sir JefFery Am- 
 herst to the plough," he. It is understood, that 
 Sackville and Amherst were intimate from child- 
 hood ; they lived together in Ireland ; and, after 
 Sackville became secretary of state Amherst was 
 appointed commander in chief and created a baron. 
 Sir JefFery had a brother, to whom the name of 
 Sackville was given. 
 
 From Junius' letter of August 22, 1770, it ap- 
 pears, that he was the friend of colonel Cunning- 
 hame, adjutant general of Ireland. — Lord Sackville 
 became acquainted with Cunninghame during the 
 campaign in Scodand, and, it is believed, was al- 
 ways friendly to him. 
 
 Junius, as appears by his letters August 6, 1768, 
 and December 15, 176S, and January 21, 1770, 
 was an admirer of Mr. Grenville. Lord Sackville, 
 if not personally acquainted with Mr. Grenville, yet 
 had for him a political friendship. He said Feb- 
 ruary 25, 1774, in a speech — " The author of this 
 bill, Mr. G., had preserved a good name, while in 
 office, and when out : and he sincerely hoped the 
 noble lord would endeavor to have his name handed 
 down to posterity, with the same honor, as Mr. 
 Grenville had." 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 55 
 
 Junius expresses a respect for the character of 
 Mr. Sawbridge, and recommends his appointment 
 as lord mayor, in a letter to Wilkes. On the suc- 
 cess of Mr. Nash he says in a letter to Mr. Wood- 
 fall — " What an abandoned, prostituted idiot is your 
 lord mayor ?" 
 
 Now it is known, that Sackville was on terms of 
 friendship with Mr. Sawbridge. Their estates were 
 contiguous in Kent, adjoining that of lord Amherst. 
 Sackville represented Hythe from 1760 to 1768, 
 when he resigned in favor of Mr. Sawbridge, and by 
 his exertions procured his election. 
 
 Junius in February, 1772, speaks of " general 
 Fowke as a brave and worthy man." It is known, 
 that Sackville was the friend of the general. 
 
 Junius was at first very hostile to the earl of 
 Chatham, although he at last bestowed upon him 
 his high commendation. It appears, that Sackville 
 had offended Mr. Pitt : — for having been sent, with 
 the duke of Marlborough, on an expedition to the 
 coast of France, and afterwards being offered by 
 Mr. Pitt the command of the expedition to St. Cas, 
 he replied imprudently — " he was tired of hucca- 
 neering." He insisted upon going to Germany ; 
 but his sarcasm was remembered. It was during 
 the administration of Mr. Pitt, that his disgrace oc- 
 curred. Mr. Pitt immediately adopted the senti* 
 
56 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 ments of prince Ferdinand, and prosecuted the Ger- 
 man war with vigor. Sackville regarded the war as 
 utterly ineffectual and foolish. 
 
 Junius violently attacked the duke of Bedford. 
 One cause of Sackville's enmity to the family is al- 
 luded to by lord Orford : — " The house of Bedford, 
 from reasons of family, were not his well-wishers. 
 The sister of the duchess of Bedford had married 
 lord John Sackville, and had quarrelled with lord 
 George. " Another reason was, that on the duke 
 ^)i^s bestowed an office in Ireland, of which Sack- 
 ville, at the time of his disgrace, was deprived. 
 
 The hostility of Junius to the princess Dowager 
 and lord Bute is evident from the letter of 19 De- 
 cember, 1769 and other letters. After Sackville's 
 disgrace, although he had been familiar with the 
 prince of Wales, afterwards George III., yet he was 
 prohibited from seeing him by the princess Dowager 
 and lord Bute. The attack of lord Bute by the 
 North Briton shortly afterwards is in correspon- 
 dence with the indignant feelings of Sackville. 
 
 6. It can hardly be doubted, that Junius was a 
 member of the House of Commons, as was Sack- 
 ville. — Junius says, 28 May, 1770 — "The speaker 
 began with pretended ignorance, and ended with 
 deciding for the ministry. We were not surprised 
 at the decision ; but he hesitated and blushed at his 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 57 
 
 own baseness, and every man was astonished." — 
 22 April, 1771. — "Yet we have seen him in the 
 House of Commons overwhelmed with confusion 
 and almost bereft of his faculties." — 13 December, 
 1770 — "The exclusion is made general 5 their lord- 
 ships very properly considering, that the members 
 of the House of Commons are no more fit to be 
 trusted with the debates of a public assembly, than 
 the spies or emissaries of a foreign ambassador, or 
 so many Jesuits in disguise." — 19 November, 1770 
 — " A few days ago I was in a large public compa-. 
 ny, where there happened some curious conversa- 
 tion. — He [the secretary at war] assured us, that 
 after having carefully, &;c. — and for fear we should 
 not believe him, repeated and enforced his assertion 
 five several times." August 15, 1771 — " J% note 
 will hardly recommend him to an increase of his 
 pension, or a seat in the cabinet." — October 5, 
 1771. — " I willingly accept of a sarcasm from colo- 
 nel Barre, or a simile from Mr. Burke ; even the 
 silent vote of Mr. Calcraft is worth reckoning in a 
 division." 
 
 7. Lord Sackville held the political sentiments, 
 expressed by Junius. — That Junius was an advocate 
 of triennial parliaments appears by his letter of Sep- 
 tember 7, 1771. A motion for triennial parliaments 
 was lost in the House of Commons March 4, 1772, 
 
58 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 by a large majority , but Sackville voted in favor of 
 it. — Junius supported the American stamp act ; of 
 which he says in his letter December 19, 1767, — 
 " The people, who were most clamorous against it, 
 either never understood, or wilfully misrepresented 
 every part of it." Lord Sackville, in reply to Burke 
 March 7, 1774, said — The honorable gentleman 
 has extolled " those, who advised the repeal of the 
 stamp act. For my part-—/ was of opinion, that it 
 should not he repealed, and voted accordingly.''^ — 
 " The people there must and would have returned 
 to their obedience, if the stamp act had not been 
 unfortunately repealed." (Cobbett's Pari. Deb.) — 
 Junius was in favor of repealing the duty on tea : — 
 " It ought to be repealed as an impolitic act, not as 
 an oppressive one." Letter to Wilkes 7 Septem- 
 ber, 1771. Lord Sackville said January 26, 1775 
 — " If the Americans would petition for their repeal, 
 he would stretch forth the first hand to present it ; 
 but, on the contrary, if they claimed such a repeal 
 as a right, thereby disputing the authority of the 
 mother country, which no reasonable man ever 
 called in question, he wished it might be enforced 
 with a Roman severity." — Junius was opposed " to 
 cutting away the rotten boroughs." Letter Septem- 
 ber 7, 1771. It is probable, lord Sackville was of 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 59 
 
 the same opinion, for he sat in parliament for his 
 own borough of East Grinstead. 
 
 8. Junius was not an Irishman, yet had lived in 
 Ireland, — as was the case with lord Sackville. — 
 Junius speaks of the Irish as " a barbarous people" 
 in his letter September 16, 1767. — He says also — 
 " a blush seldom tinges those happy countenances, 
 which have been bathed in the Liffey," June 16, 
 1769. He speaks also of Englishmen and dedi- 
 cates his letters to the English nation. After men- 
 tioning the people of England, he adds — our coun- 
 trymen. — He alludes also ironically to ^ Irish virtue,^ 
 November 27, 1771. 
 
 Some reasons for believing, that Junius had lived 
 in Ireland, have already been given. In respect to 
 his language he had himself been dipped in the 
 waters of " the LifFey." He was tinged so early, 
 that with all his care he could not get rid entirely of 
 the hue. Sackville in the use of the w^ord so is 
 rather Irish than English : — " We have had no let- 
 ters from Holland for some days, so we do not know, 
 whether the French have attempted any thing." — 
 Letter January 15, 1748. 
 
 9. Junius was not a lawyer, but a gentleman of 
 rank and independent fortune ; which may be af- 
 firmed of lord Sackville. — " Though I use the 
 terms of art, do not injure me so much, as to sus- 
 
 i^- 
 
60 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 pect I am a lawyer, — I had as lief be a Scotch- 
 man." Letter to Wilkes September 18, J771. He 
 has other keen remarks concerning lawyers. — In his 
 letter of April 12, 1769, Junius says — " You, I think, 
 may be satisfied, that my rank and fortune place me 
 above a common bribe." This letter, for some rea- 
 son, though signed by the name of Junius, was omit- 
 ted on the publication of the letters in a volume ; 
 probably because it might awaken suspicions as to 
 the rank of the writer. — In his letter to Sir William 
 Draper he says — " I should have hoped, that even 
 my name might carry some authority with it, if I had 
 not seen," &ic. — Now, would a person, whose name 
 was actually of no weight in the world, be likely to 
 write in this manner ? — I think it also incredible, 
 that any person should speak of king George III., 
 as Junius spake of him, unless he was a man of 
 rank, who had lived in personal intercourse with 
 him, if not when king, yet before : — " I know that 
 man much better than any of you. Nature intend- 
 ed him only for a good-humored fool. A systemat- 
 ical education, with long practice, has made him a 
 consummate hypocrite." Letter 24 July, 1771. 
 Mr. Coventry states, that Sackville had " an oppor- 
 tunity of knowing the disposition, talents, and char- 
 acter of the young king, from having been so much 
 in his company previous to his disgrace." If lord 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 61 
 
 George Sackvllle had a few years before repaired 
 very humbly to court to kiss the hands of this fool 
 and hypocrite^ " whom every honest man should de- 
 test," h will be more easy to find an explanation in 
 the temper of a courtier and the meanness of ambi- 
 bition, than to account for such language concerning 
 his king from a person, who had never had inter- 
 course with him. 
 
 As to \{\s fortune, Junius would never receive any 
 of the profits of the Letters, though offered by 
 Woodfall. He said — " I am far above all pecunia- 
 ry views." He also assured Woodfall, in reference 
 to a prosecution, — "in point of money be assured 
 you shall never suffer." 
 
 10. One of the letters of Junius had written upon 
 it, near the signature, the words Pall Mall; in 
 which street, it is known, was the house of lord 
 Sackville. A letter of Sackville to lord Viscount 
 Bateman is dated thus — "Pall Mall, September 18, 
 1759." The letter of Junius, referred to, is dated 
 May 8, 1772, addressed to Woodfall. It was doubt- 
 less through inadvertence, and not by intention, that 
 he wrote Pall Mall ; which evidently betrays the 
 place of his residence. Who else lived in Pall Mall, 
 that has ever been suspected of writing the letters of 
 Junius ? 
 
 6 
 
64 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 But why should an aged man, just sinkmg into 
 the grave, be inclined to jest at all ; or why should 
 he, if not the writer, recur to an unfounded suspicion 
 of having written those letters a dozen or fifteen 
 years before ? But if he was the writer ; then, as 
 he was about to carry with him the grand secret, 
 which had been the burden of his heart for so many 
 years, it would occupy many of his thoughts ; and 
 he might wish to know once more, whether any sus- 
 picion in regard to him lingered in the world ; — and 
 therefore might have spoken on the subject to Cum- 
 berland. If Cumberland uttered to him, what he 
 has said in his book, concerning the " savage heart" 
 and " hypocrisy " of the author ; the dying, old man 
 would have derived very little consolation from his 
 remarks. With right views he must have felt, that 
 he had purchased his peerage very dearly, and ef- 
 faced from his character one blot by means of one 
 still deeper. Yet amidst the commingling of mo- 
 tives and passions in human conduct, the author of 
 Junius, while his first aim was his own elevation, 
 might have experienced very just sentiments of in- 
 dignation, if not of contempt, towards men, whose 
 profligacy he knew ; and might also have been in- 
 fluenced by soine fixed principles of politics. Yield- 
 ing him all, that can be allowed, I have however 
 formed a poor estimate of the moral character of 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 65 
 
 lord Sackville. I cannot envy his feelings, as the 
 vanities of the world were disappearing from before 
 his eyes. 
 
 14. Lord Sackville's last interview with lord 
 Mansfield is in my opinion a proof, that he was the 
 author of the letters of Junius. 
 
 Sackville had not been on terms of intimacy with 
 Mansfield for some years. Yet hearing, that he was 
 at Tunbridge Wells, he requested an interview at 
 his own house before he died. Accordingly lord 
 Mansfield repaired to Stoneland. As lord Sackville 
 came in from riding and entered the room, he stag- 
 gered, and there was such a death-like character in 
 his countenance, as disturbed lord Mansfield and 
 seemed to strike him with horror. Sackville made 
 an apology for the trouble, he had given him, but 
 said he, — " My good lord, though I ought not to 
 have imposed upon you the painful ceremony of 
 paying a last visit to a dying man ; yet so great was 
 my anxiety to return you my unfeigned thanks for 
 all your goodness to me, all the kind protection you 
 have shown me through the course of my unprosper- 
 ous fife, that I could not know you was so near me, 
 and not wish to assure you of the invariable respect, 
 I have entertained for your character, and now in the 
 most serious manner to solicit your forgiveness, if 
 ever in the fluctuations of politics or the heats of 
 
 6^ 
 
66 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 party I have appeared in your eyes, at any moment 
 of my life, unjust to your great merits or forgetful of 
 your many favors." — Lord Mansfield made a be- 
 coming and satisfactory reply ; and then withdrew. 
 
 This speech, which Mr. Cumberland wrote down 
 at the time, must be allowed to be a very extraordi- 
 nary and mysterious one, especially as it is not 
 known, that Sackville had received favors from 
 Mansfield, But if we regard lord Sackville as the 
 author of Junius, the mystery will be cleared up. 
 
 Let us say, that Sackville, in the letters of Junius, 
 had attacked lord Mansfield widi the utmost vehe- 
 mence. — " The designs of Mansfield are more 
 subtle, more effectual, and secure. — Who attacks 
 the liberty of the press ? — Lord Mansfield. — Who 
 invades the constitutional power of juries ? — Ijord 
 Mansfield. — What judge ever challenged a juryman 
 but lord Mansfield ?" he. — At the close of his long 
 letter to Mansfield he says, — " Considering the situ- 
 ation 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 endeavoring to 
 bring him to punishment. But mine is an inferior 
 ministerial ofllce in the temple of justice. — 1 have 
 bound die victim, and dragged him to the altar." — 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 67 
 
 Such was the attempt to cause him to be impeached 
 and ruined. And now the author of this attack, a 
 behever in Christianity, perceives, that he is about 
 to appear before God, who has forbidden the emo- 
 tions and acts of hostility and the language of revil- 
 ing, — and he feels it to be a duty to make some 
 concessions to the man, whom he had ferociously at- 
 tacked and deeply injured, and to ask his forgive- 
 ness. He sends for him. Yet he cannot explain 
 the precise thing, which lies as a burden on the 
 mind. He deals. in generalities, and asks his par- 
 don, ' if he has ever appeared in his eyes to be unjust 
 to his great merits ! ' If Mansfield had no suspicion, 
 that lord Sackville was the author of the letters of 
 Junius, such a speech from the dying man must 
 have overwhelmed him with astonishment. 
 
 I think, there was here an amazing struggle be- 
 tween stern pride and the dread of the future, 
 founded on a belief of the truth and some view of 
 the nature of the Christian religion. But unless 
 Sackville was Junius, it is not known, that he had 
 any clamorous occasion to reconcile himself to lord 
 Mansfield. 
 
 If the circumstances, which have been mentioned, 
 be now brought together, they will, I am convinced, 
 be found to make a very strong case, and to render 
 it extremely probable, that lord George Sackville 
 
68 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 was the author of the letters of Junius. Let any 
 other man be supposed to be the writer, and 1 be- 
 lieve it will be impossible to bring together circum- 
 stances, which will create any thing of a probability 
 like this. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Argument from the Comparison of Sackville^s 
 ^^ Address ^^ with the Letters of Junius. 
 
 I NOW proceed to an argument, which has never 
 been touched upon and is entirely new ; an argu- 
 ment of still greater weight, if possible, than the cir- 
 cumstances stated, but, when combined with them, 
 rendering it, in my opinion, certain beyond any rea- 
 sonable doubt, that Sackville's secret, though he 
 kept it faithfully, is no longer such. The argument, 
 I speak of, is founded on co-incidences of style be- 
 tween lord Sackville and Junius so striking, as to 
 compel conviction. 
 
 In September, 1759, lord Sackville published a 
 " Short Address" to the public, which I read many 
 years ago in Smollett's Continuation of Hume's His- 
 tory of England. Short as this address is, I found 
 in it many indications of the pen of Junius, and 
 drew up then a paper on the subject, which is now 
 before me, and from which I take the following 
 comparison. I am sensible, that the whole should 
 be viewed together ; and then the inquiry be made, 
 
70 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 whether the co-incidence is not remarkable? A 
 modern writer may imitate Junius and adopt his 
 phrases. Junius, if he was not Sackville, would not 
 have studied his Address for the purpose of imbibing 
 its style. The Address, it must be remembered, 
 preceded the Letters of Junius about ten years. 
 
 Address. " I had rather, upon this occasion, 
 submit myself io all the inconveniences," &;c. 
 
 Junius. " You are partial, perhaps, to the mili- 
 tary mode of execution, and had rather see a score 
 of these wretches butchered." — " Willingly submit 
 myself to the judgment of my peers." 
 
 Address. " Torrent of calumny and abuse, 
 which has been so maliciously thrown out against 
 me." 
 
 Junius. " Scandalous imputations, thrown out 
 by the abettors of lord Mansfield." 
 
 Address. *' Had he condescended to have in- 
 quired into my conduct." 
 
 Junius. " To have supported your assertion you 
 should have proved." 
 
 Address. " Prove my innocence, beyond the 
 possibility of a doubt. ''^ 
 
 Junius. " When he sees, beyond the possibility 
 of a doubt, that" &tc. 
 
 Address. " Though I am debarred at present 
 from stating my case to the public.''^ 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 71 
 
 Junius. " Examine your conduct as a minister 
 and stating it fairly to the public.'*'' — " The follow- 
 ing fact, — has not yet been clearly stated to the 
 public.^'' 
 
 Address. " The oaths of witnesses, whose ve- 
 racity cannot he called in question.^^ 
 
 Junius. ^^ You will not question my veracity ." 
 
 Address. " As I should have done, had 1 not 
 assurances." 
 
 Junius. "Will run the hazards, that he has 
 done.^^ 
 
 Address. " When real facts are truly stated 
 and fully proved." 
 
 Junius. " The truth of his facts is of more im- 
 portance." — " False in argument, true in fact,^^ — 
 " Your first fact is false.''^ — " To inquire into the 
 truth of the facts." — " Found every circumstance 
 stated, to be literally time." 
 
 Address. " I had either failed in, or neglected 
 my duty." — " W^hat can an injured officer have re- 
 course to, but claiming that justice," he. 
 
 Junius. " Dreadful battles, which he might have 
 been engaged in, and the dangers," &£C. — " A 
 weakness we may indulge in, if," he. — " Would 
 then have known what they had to trust to, and 
 would never," &ic. — " Is at least as much as you 
 
72 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 are equal <o." — " Strictly conformable to, and 
 founded upon the ancient law." 
 
 Address. " The many falsehoods, which have 
 been asstrtedy 
 
 Junius. " Convinced of the falsehood of his as- 
 sertionsy — " Let sophistry evade, let falsehood as- 
 sertJ^ 
 
 Address. " I had rather submit — to inconveni- 
 ences, that may arise from the want of style, than 
 borrow assistance from the pens of others." 
 
 Junius. " I will not contend with you in point of 
 composition ; you are a scholar, Sir William." — 
 " As for his style, t shall leave it to the critics." — 
 " He may want eloquence to amuse." — " It does not 
 appear, that Junius values himself upon any superior 
 skill in composition." 
 
 Address. " That if I am guilty, I may suffer 
 such punishment, as 1 may have deserved ; and, if 
 innocent, that I may stand acquitted in the opinion 
 of the world ; but it is really too severe to have been 
 censured unheard, to have been condemned before 
 I was tried, and to be informed neither of my crime 
 nor my accusers." 
 
 " But if plans of a battle are to be referred to, 
 which can give no just idea of it ; if dispositions of 
 the cavalry and infantry are supposed, which never 
 existed ; if orders for attacks and pursuits are quoi- 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 73 
 
 ed, which never were delivered ; and if disobedi- 
 ence to those imaginary orders are asserted as a 
 crime ; what can an injured officer, under such cir- 
 cumstances, have recourse to, but claiming that jus- 
 tice, which is due to every Englishman, of being 
 heard before he is condemned ? 
 
 Junius. " 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 you became minister by accident, were adopted 
 without choice, trusted without confidence, and con- 
 tinued without favor, be assured, that, whenever an 
 occasion presses, you will be discarded without even 
 the forms of regret." — " 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." — " To write for profit with- 
 out taxing the press ; to wTite for fame and to be 
 unknown ; to support the intrigues of faction and to 
 be owned as a dangerous auxihary by every parly 
 in the kingdom ; are contradictions, which the minis- 
 ter must reconcile, before I forfeit my credit with the 
 public." 
 
 In the last sentences, quoted from Sackville's 
 Address, I am persuaded every one, who is accus- 
 tomed to observe peculiarities of style, will see the 
 very spirit of Junius. Doubtless some one of the 
 
 7 
 
/^ 
 
 74 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 antecedent phrases and constructions may be found 
 in other writers. But can all of them be found in 
 any writer of that period, especially in so short a 
 piece as the Address, combined with the antithesis, 
 point, and force of the quoted sentences, so charac- 
 teristic of Junius ? 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Argument from the Comparison of the " Consider- 
 ations.^^ 
 
 In 1760 there was published at London a pam- 
 phlet of 144 pages, entitled, " Considerations on the 
 Present German War," which there is every reason 
 to believe was written by lord Sackville. It appear- 
 ed the year after the battle of Minden, and exposes 
 the folly of the German war, presenting such views, 
 as lord Sackville would be likely to entertain. It 
 was very popular and soon reached a third edition. 
 Many answers to it were published : in one of them 
 the author is addressed as " Mr., or my lord, Con- 
 siderer," which perhaps is an intimation, that lord 
 Sackville was regarded as the author. The Critical 
 Review for January 1761, in reviewing one of these 
 answers, bestows some praise upon it, but adds — - 
 " We doubt not, however, but the Considerer will 
 be able to weather this storm with the same facility 
 he has hitherto withstood all the blasts of popular 
 clamor, and the destruction aimed at his head by an 
 incensed multitude.'* Here is, doubdess, a refer- 
 
76 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 erice to lord Sackville. — The same Review warmly 
 commends the work, as containing " a great fund 
 of entertainment, instruction, curious intelligence, 
 shrewd observation, laudable spirit, and real knowl- 
 edge 5 " and two years afterwards says, that not 
 one iact or argument has been yet disproved or 
 refuted. 
 
 I propose to point out some peculiarities of style, 
 proving, that the author of the ^' Considerations," 
 which was written before the letters of Junius, was 
 also the author of those letters. 
 
 Nothing will follow from the use of single words 
 and phrases, unless they are uncommon or frequent- 
 ly occur ; but when thus employed in an unusual 
 manner in two productions, they suggest, that the 
 productions came from one pen. 
 
 Considerations. " France has for a century 
 past been formidable to the rest of Europe." — " By 
 attacking the French in their islands, by which only 
 they can ever be formidable to Great Britain." — 
 " Will soon grow formidable.^^ — " Might have made 
 them formidable to us." — " Would the crown of 
 France be so veiy formidably ijinched by the acqui- 
 sition?" — " In any de^\:ee foi'midable to Britain." 
 
 Junius. " Finds him, at last, too strong to be 
 commanded, and too formidable to be removed." — 
 " The most formidahle minister, that ever was em- 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 77 
 
 ployed, under a limited monarch, to accomplish the 
 ruin of a free people." — " Armed with the sovereign 
 authority, their principles are formidable, ^^ 
 
 In my opinion there is something peculiar in the 
 use of this word, which is seldom used by writers of 
 that period. A soldier is the character most likely 
 to employ it. Junius uses it in other instances be- 
 sides those quoted. 
 
 Considerations. " That must commit them in 
 eternal quarrels \vith every member of the Germanic 
 body." 
 
 Junius. "Without committing the honor of your 
 sovereign, or hazarding the reputation of his govern- 
 ment." 
 
 Considerations. " What the amount of this is, 
 / confess I do not know." 
 
 Junius. " When I see questions, Sic. without 
 argument or decency, / confess I give up the cause in 
 despair." — " Here, I confess, you have been active." 
 — " And, / confess, I have not that opinion of their 
 knowledge." — " But now, I confess, they are not ill 
 exchanged." — " I confess I give you some credit for 
 your discretion." — " Oppose their dissolution, upon 
 an opinion, I confess, not very unwarrantable ;" and 
 so in a dozen other instances. 
 
 Considerations. " They are driven out of 
 
 Germany. Be it so : was any one of the towns, 
 
 7* 
 
78 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 which they shall quit in their retreat, their's before?" 
 — '' He might beat the French out of Hanover. Be 
 it so. Still Britain must be at the expense." — 
 " But be it 50, let them both come to our aid." 
 
 Junius. " 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." — " Amounts to a high misdemeanor. 
 Be it so : and if he deserves it, let him be punish- 
 ed." — " Ought not to pass unpunished. Be it so." 
 
 Considerations. "They found it impractica- 
 ble to go any where else." — " Impracticable at- 
 tempt." — " To confound a diminutive, defensive, 
 ruinous, and impracticable measure." — " Impracti- 
 cable task." — " Both nations see the impracticable- 
 ness of bringing them over." — " Absolutely impraC" 
 ticable for them to raise their navy to an equality 
 with ours." 
 
 Junius. " Let us try whether these fatal dissen- 
 sions may not yet be reconciled ; or, if that be im- 
 practicable, let us."—-" There is no practicable re- 
 treat." 
 
 Considerations. " And who very candidly 
 stated the subject, and left his hearers, if they had 
 pleased, to draw the consequences." — " Though 
 every thing was stated with the greatest fairness and 
 precision.*' 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 79 
 
 Junius. " In continuing to examine your con- 
 duct as a minister, and stating it fairly to the pub- 
 lic." — " If the question had been once stated with 
 precision." — " Stating and refuting the objections." 
 — " I mean to state, not entirely to defend his con- 
 duct." 
 
 Considerations. " J^ot to mention, that in the 
 present case." 
 
 Junius. " JVot to mention a multitude of prerog- 
 ative writs." 
 
 Considerations. " Indangered, intire, intrust- 
 ed, indured, inriched, imploy, intail," instead of 
 " endangered," &ic. 
 
 Junius, edhion of 1783. " Intrusted, intitles," 
 
 Considerations. " They ought to declare no 
 more than they really intend." — " Not that any 
 thing of diis nature really would happen." — " If we 
 really think ourselves strong enough." — " Not as 
 really matter of their opinion." — " But do we really 
 transport troops into Germany upon as cheap terms 
 as France." — " What the quantity of these really is, 
 may not be easy to determine." 
 
 Junius. " If he really be, what I think him, hon- 
 est."—" Whose character I really respect." — '' But 
 really, Sir, this way of talking." — " Which affect in- 
 dividuals only, is really unworthy of your under- 
 
80 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 Standing." — " But really, Sir, my honest friend's 
 suppositions." — " But really, Sir, the precedent with 
 respect to the guards." — " It is time for those, who 
 really mean well to the cause." — " For really, Sir 
 William, I am not your enemy." — " Do you then 
 really think," &ic. 
 
 Considerations. " In short, if we are to per- 
 sist in this ruinous and impracticable German war." 
 — " In short, this is which France never can be 
 hurt by, and never can be weary of." — " In short, 
 there has never any reason yet been given." — " In 
 short, either there is such a thing." — " In short, men 
 may talk big about the public faith, but every one 
 knows what is meant by a resolution of the house." 
 — " In short, the two houses are committed in an 
 eternal war." 
 
 Junius. " Or, in short, if these arguments should 
 be thought insufficient, we may fairly deny the fact." 
 — " In short. Sir, to collect a thousand absurdities 
 into one mass." — " Or, in short, did they attempt to 
 produce any evidence of his insanity?" 
 
 Considerations. " I will leave the reader to 
 picture to himself what must happen long before 
 we have gone such a length^ — " It is the property 
 of error to fly out into endless lengths, without re- 
 specting any common point or centre." 
 
 Junius. " Supposes, that the present House of 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 81 
 
 Commons, in going such enormous lengths, have 
 been imprudent to themselves." — " Where shall we 
 find the man, who, with purer principles, will go the 
 lengths, and run the hazards, that he has done ? " — 
 " When a man, who stands forth to the public, has 
 gone that length, from which there is no practicable 
 retreat." 
 
 Considerations. "Providence has been pleas- 
 ed to present to our view the means of sohd peace 
 and independence : and to have reserved, for the pe- 
 culiar glory of his Majesty's reign, the placing our 
 island in a state of happiness." 
 
 Junius. " To have supported your assertion, 
 you should have proved, that the present ministry." 
 
 Considerations. "We had Prussian caps to 
 make our ladies look fine, and Prussian cross-bones 
 to shew their men the more frightful ; and, which 
 was more than both, we had Prussian ale for the 
 mob to get drunk with." — " The thoughtless mob 
 may be instantaneously converted in his favor." 
 
 Junius. " Lord Chatham very properly called 
 this the act of a mob, not of a Senate." 
 
 Considerations. " It will by no means follow, 
 that every continental connection must therefore be 
 right : else we must read our logic backwards, and 
 say, Omne minus includit majus,^^ 
 
82 JUNITTS UNMASKED. 
 
 Junius. " He changes the terms of the proposi' 
 tion.^^ — " His logic seems to have been studied un- 
 der Mr. Dyson. That miserable pamphleteer, di- 
 viding the only precedent in point, and taking as 
 much of it, as suited his purpose, had reduced his 
 argument to something like the shape of a syllo- 
 gism." — " If I admitted the premises, I should agree 
 in all the consequences drawn from them." — " This 
 is the very logic, taught at St. Omer's." — " In this 
 article, your first fact is false — I could wish you 
 would pay a greater attention to the truth of your 
 premises, before you suffer your genius to hurry you 
 to a conclusion." — " 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." — " This may be logic 
 at Cambridge, or at the treasury." 
 
 Considerations. " If from reasoning we recur 
 to facts »^^ 
 
 Junius. " It depends upon a combination of 
 facts and reasoning. ^^ — " By reconciling absurdities, 
 and making the same proposition, which is false and 
 absurd in argument, true in /ad." 
 
 Considerations. " And the Dutch and Danes 
 have given no proof of their wishing success to our 
 cause. / do not mean the defence of Hanover, but 
 the war, in which we are supporting the king of 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 83 
 
 Prussia."* — " I do not mean to say, that these subsi- 
 dies did not afterwards grow larger." 
 
 Junius. " I would have the manners of the peo- 
 ple purely and strictly republican. / do not mean 
 the licentious spirit of anarchy and riot. / mean a 
 general attachment to the commonweal." — " The 
 question to those, who meaii fairly to the Hberty of 
 the people." — " Do you mean to desert that just and 
 honorable system." — " They, who object to detach- 
 ed parts of Junius' last letter, either do not mean him 
 fairly." — " They, who w^ould carry the privileges of 
 parliament farther than Junius, either do not mean 
 well to the public, or know not what they are do- 
 ing." — ii It is time for those, who really mean well 
 to the cause." — " Without meamng an indecent 
 comparison I may venture to foretel." — " I do not 
 mean to decline the question of right." 
 
 Considerations. " It is not now the business 
 of France to exert its whole force,''^ 
 
 Junius. " Exert their utmost abilities in the dis- 
 cussion of it." — " Gave us no promise of that un- 
 common exertion of vigor,^^ — " He must now exert 
 the whole power of his capacity." 
 
 " Considerations. " Many persons, I know^ 
 will think it strange." — '' / knowj it is said, we have 
 money enough." — " / know, that it has been said, 
 
84 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 that England paid." — " / know, it has been said, 
 that our allies." 
 
 Junius. " My premises, / know, will be denied 
 in argument." — " I know it has been alleged in your 
 favor." — " A courtier, / know, will be ready to 
 maintain the affirmative." 
 
 Considerations. " To contribute he is capable 
 of to the public service." — " This was an august al- 
 liance, worthy of a king of England to fight at the 
 head of." — " Which England can be indangered 
 hy ; and the only state, which England is now at war 
 withy — " Proves the immense height of power, 
 which that kingdom may arrive at, and," &ic. — 
 " Practising less of its religious tyranny over its Pro- 
 testant subjects, than it had been ordinarily used to." 
 — " Which in every other case is allowed to be the 
 best rule to found a judgment upon." — " Whither 
 could they wish to transfer the war, rather than into 
 Germany, where they have nothing to lose, or be in 
 fear for ; and where could they wish to have us 
 meet them, rather than in a country, where we have 
 nothing to hope for ? " — " But what is the benefit, 
 which this much greater sum is the purchase o/"?" 
 — " A specific renunciation, which in our future 
 treaty cannot be thought of." — " A greater expense 
 for the German war, than it had then the least idea 
 of." — *' To carry them to an infinitely greater 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 85 
 
 height, than any other men could have thought o/*." 
 — ^" Cannot build them a single frigate to annoy our 
 coast with.'^'' — " Which from the nature of their quar- 
 rel they can never be free from.^^ — " And what is 
 all this slaughter of German protestgnts to end in .' " 
 — "To fight in a cause, which all the powers of 
 Europe are averse ^o." — " Finding our enemy a 
 field to beat us in." — " France has Switzerland, 
 Italy, Germany, and Flanders to recruit out of." — 
 " In short, this is a war, which France never can be 
 hurt by, and never can be weary of." — " Have no 
 other ground to meet us on." 
 
 Junius. " Before you had obliged lord Granby 
 to quit a service he was attached to." — " Have noth- 
 ing to regret, but that it has never been adhered to." 
 — " He was entided to it by the house he hves in." 
 — " An early conviction, that no serious resentment 
 was thought of and that," he. — " But was there no 
 other person of rank and consequence in the city, 
 whom government could confide m, but a notorious 
 Jacobite?" — ^' When the party, he wishes well to, 
 has the fairest prospect of success." — " What a piti- 
 ful detail did it end in ! — some old clothes, — a 
 Welch poney," he. — " If any coarse expressions 
 have escaped me, I am ready to agree, that they 
 are unfit for Junius to make use of" — " To rail at 
 him for crimes he is not guilty of." — *• In whatever 
 8 
 
86 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 departments their various abilities are best suited to^ 
 — " When lord Camden supposes a necessity (which 
 the king is to judge o/);" — "No remedy for the 
 grievance complained of; for if there were," &tc. — 
 " A whole life of deliberate iniquity is ill atoned yb?', 
 by doing now and then a laudable action." — " But 
 they did more than people in general were aware 
 ofy — " Are the real cause of all the public evils we 
 complain q/*." — " And truly, Sir William, the part 
 you have undertaken is at least as much as you are 
 equal ^o." — " Presume to intrude yourself, unthought 
 of, uncalled /or, upon the patience of the public ?" — 
 '^ Avail yourself of all the unforgiving piety of the 
 court you live in, and bless God, that 'you are not 
 as other men are.' " — " Should have forbidden you 
 to make use q/l" — " Let us look back to a scene, in 
 which a mind like yours will find nothing to repent 
 o/*." — " An acquisition, the importance of which you 
 liave probably no conception o/*." — " W^ould then 
 have known what they had to trust to, and would 
 never," &tc. — " Would never have felt, much less 
 would he have submitted to, the dishonest necessi- 
 ty." — " To sacrifice ourselves is a weakness we may 
 indulge in, if we think proper." — " The man, I 
 speak of, has not a heart," &tc. — " A multitude of 
 political ofl^ences to atone /or." 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 87 
 
 Considerations. " The only chance we have 
 however for such an union, and the only means of 
 accelerating it, is to leave the French to themselves ; 
 not to conquer Germany, for that is impossible ; but 
 to harass it as much as they please, and make them- 
 selves as odious as we can desire." — " Whither 
 could they wish to transfer the war, rather than into 
 Germany, where they have nothing to lose or be in 
 fear for ; and where could they wish to have us meet 
 them, rather than in a country, where we have noth- 
 ing to hope for?" — " The sums given seem not cal- 
 culated to purchase a defence, so much as to keep 
 off an attack." — " It would have been placed under 
 the guard of our front, and not out of the reach 
 even of our hands." — " If we could be persuaded to 
 use that power more, and talk of it less, we might 
 perhaps be acting a wiser part." — " Being obliged to 
 pay him money to enable him to fight his own bat- 
 tles against enemies, which Britain has no quarrel 
 with." — " When we had got it, would we keep it, if 
 we could ? Could we keep it if we would ?" — " Al- 
 lowing it not impossible to take a town, it would be 
 absolutely so to know what to do with it."- — " A war, 
 which France never can be hurt by, and never can 
 be weary of." — " The channel and our fleet would 
 keep the peace ; we should not want to get any 
 thing from them ; and they would not be able to get 
 
88 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 any thing from us." — "And is it not the usual policy 
 of men in such circumstances to secure their ene- 
 mies as soon as they have wearied their friends?" — 
 " Artfully laid upon us the burden of bribing one 
 half of Germany and fighting the other. — His de- 
 mands will rise with his greatness, and the time will 
 come when our money or our patience will be ex- 
 hausted : sooner or later he will be wanting some- 
 thing more of us than we shall be able to pay for its 
 immunity. Will then the prey, which he has so 
 long watched for, appear the less inviting, for Brit- 
 ain's being obliged to give up the protection of it ? 
 Or will the morsel be the less delicious, for our hav- 
 ing spent there so many millions in the defence of 
 it?" — " Is either the payment of fear, to buy off the 
 evil of suffering ; or it is the purchase of good, to 
 procure the benefit of assistance." — " It forms con- 
 tinental connections : that is, it contentedly lavishes 
 away its treasures for a something, which it can 
 draw no troops from, called by a fine name, to 
 which it can put no meaning." — " When all that 
 continent is connected with France in an alliance 
 against us, and the cause we would espouse ; the 
 sending our troops thither in such a case, and upon 
 such a pretence, is little better than the running our 
 head against a wall, and saying we must have a 
 connection with it." — " To consider where it can 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 89 
 
 make war to greatest advantage ; where it is it- 
 self strongest, and its enemy weakest ; where it has 
 itself least to lose, and its enemy most ; and where 
 its victories are like to have the best effect, and 
 soonest bring its enemy to peace." — " The only ac- 
 quisitions it would be of any advantage to us to gam, 
 and the only ones, which it is practicable for us to 
 keep." — " Is by much too expensive an affair to be 
 chosen upon any account as a French diversion ; 
 and by much too serious an affair to be considered 
 in any sense as an English one." 
 
 I think no one, conversant with Junius, can read 
 the foregoing extracts from the " Considerations," 
 without perceiving the very spirit and style of Ju- 
 nius : let him compare them with the following. 
 
 Junius. " 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 ri- 
 diculous." — " 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." — 
 "You began with betraying the people; you con- 
 clude with betraying the king." — "They have relin- 
 quished the revenue, but judiciously taken care to 
 preserve the contention." — " The duke, it seems, 
 had contracted an obhgation he was ashamed to ac- 
 knowledge and unable to acquit. You, my lord, 
 
 8* 
 
90 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 had no scruples. You accepted the succession 
 with all its incumbrances, and have paid Mr. Lut- 
 trell his legacy, at the hazard of ruining the estate." 
 — " You shall be called upon to answer for the ad- 
 vice, which has been given, and either discover your 
 accomplices, or fall a sacrifice to their security." — 
 " He determined to quit a court, whose proceedings 
 and decisions he could neither assent to with honor, 
 nor oppose with success." — " Their constituents 
 would have a better opinion of their candor, and, I 
 promise you, not a worse opinion of their integrity." 
 — " The honor of a nobleman is no more consider- 
 ed than the reputation of a peasant ; for, with differ- 
 ent liveries, they are equally slaves." — " The mo- 
 tions of a timid, dishonest heart, which neither has 
 virtue enough to acknowledge truth, or courage to 
 contradict it." — " The impostor employs force in- 
 stead of argument, imposes silence where he cannot 
 convince, and propagates his character by die 
 sword." — "He became minister by accident; but 
 deserting the principles and professions which gave 
 him a moment's popularity, we see him from every 
 honorable engagement to the public an apostate by 
 design." — " His reputation, like that unhappy coun- 
 try to which you refer me for his last military 
 achievements [Hanover], has suffered more by his 
 friends than his enemies." — " These are the gloomy 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 91 
 
 companions of a disturbed imagination ; the melan- 
 choly madness of poetry without the inspiration." — 
 " As you are yourself 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." — ^' From one extreme you suddenly 
 start to another, without leaving between the weak- 
 ness and the fury of the passions one moment's 
 interval for the firmness of the understanding." — 
 " Whose views can only be answered by reconcihng 
 absurdities, and making the s^me proposition, which 
 is false and absurd in argument, true in fact." — " It 
 is not, that you do wrong by design, but that you 
 should never do right by mistake." — " Having sold 
 the nation to you in gross, tliey will undoubtedly pro- 
 tect you in the detail ; for, while they patronise your 
 crimes, they feel for their own." — " The rays of 
 royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to 
 illuminate, and could not consume." — " To a situa- 
 tion so unhappy, diat you can neither do wrong 
 without ruin, nor right without affliction." — " The 
 prince, who imitates their conduct, should be warn- 
 ed by their example ; and, while he plumes himself 
 upon the security of his title to the crown, should 
 remember, that, as it was acquired by one revolu- 
 tion, it may be lost by another." 
 
92 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 Considerations. " An army is a many-headed 
 monster, that must be fed ; and the defending army 
 ought to have as many mouths as die attacking; and 
 each will get but all they can from the poor inhabit- 
 ants." — " The French have already been in posses- 
 sion of this country. Did the sun refuse to shine, or 
 the rivers to flow, upon that account?" — "We con- 
 fess he lives by miracle, and are wondering every 
 year, that he does not fall : and yet this is the prince, 
 that we have placed our only dependence on." — 
 " Instead of attacking this bull by the horns on his 
 German frontier, let us rather gore him in his flank, 
 or pierce him to the heart." — " Draw down good 
 troops for another army, I had almost said, out of 
 the moon ; for upon this earth, I have shown, they 
 are not to be had." — " Why take so immensely 
 wide a circuit, to come at a point which lies straight 
 before us ? " — " Do the resentments even of private 
 men subside so soon, after the most premeditated 
 rancor ? The operations of fear may be instantane- 
 ous : but love and friendship are plants of a slower 
 growth." — " All the connections, therefore, which 
 we can have at present with these, must, I fear, be 
 at the muzzles of our musquets." — " For a moment 
 let us lament the fate of our island, that having so 
 long remained above water, it must now sink, unless 
 chained and moored by some connection to the con- 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 93 
 
 tinent." — " But not to lose sight of this subject in 
 this unmeaning smoke-ball of a pompous phrase." — 
 " And how would the mighty statesman's ghost stalk 
 indignant by the man," &ic. — " Is little better than 
 running our head against a wall, and saying we must 
 have a connection with it." 
 
 Junius. " Private credit is wealth ; — public 
 honor is security. The feather, that adorns the 
 royal bird, supports his flight. Strip him of ~ his 
 plumage, and you fix him to the earth." — " Ample 
 justice has been done, by abler pens than mine, to 
 the separate merits of your life and character. Let 
 it be my humble office to collect the scattered 
 sweets till their united virtue tortures the sense." — 
 " Not daring to attack the main body of Junius' last 
 letter, he triumphs in having, as he thinks, surprised 
 an outpost, and cut off a detached argument, a mere 
 straggling proposition. But even in this petty war- 
 fare he shall find himself defeated." — " If you deny 
 him the cup, there will be no keeping him within 
 the pale of the ministry." — " My zeal for his service 
 is superior to neglect, and, like Mr. Wilkes' patriot- 
 ism, thrives by persecution." — " When that noxious 
 planet approaches England, he never fails to bring 
 plague and pestilence along with him." — " The 
 flaming patriot, who so lately scorched us in the 
 meridian, sinks temperately to the west, and is 
 
94 JUNIUS UNMASKES. 
 
 hardl}^ felt as he descends;" — " The wary Wedder- 
 burne, the pompous Suffolk, never threw away the 
 scabbard, nor ever went upon a forlorn hope."—" In 
 the shipwreck of the state, trifles float, and are 
 preserved ; while every thing solid and valuable 
 sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever."—" The 
 very sun-shine you Hve in is a prelude to your 
 dissolution. When you are ripe, you shall be 
 plucked." 
 
 Considerations. " But shall we suffer the Pro- 
 testant interest to be oppressed ? This is a question 
 put into the mouths of many good people, and there- 
 fore deserves a particular answer." — " But shall 
 France be suffered to conquer Hanover ? No one, 
 who is in the least acquainted," &c. — " But the 
 poor people, it may be said, deserve our compas- 
 sion. True, they do so ; and for that reason we 
 ought to let them alone, and not make their country 
 the theatre of a war, which must ruin them." — "But 
 the empress Queen refused to defend the Electo- 
 rate. True, she alleged her own danger, and there- 
 fore she increased that danger." — " Does he then 
 supply our army with troops ? " — " But is he not a 
 man of great abilities ? Doubtless he is so ; and 
 one of the clearest proofs of it is his obliging us to 
 pay him six hundred and seventy thousand pounds 
 for nothing. In that respect he is certainly the 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 95 
 
 greatest prince ever known to Britain before." — 
 " But he is certainly a very great prince. So we 
 read in our papers about three hundred times a 
 year." — " But the truth is, all the diversion, which 
 Britain can make to France in Germany, is by 
 sending fewer troops, at double the expense, to act 
 against a greater number of the French. Thus it 
 has been every year of the war hitherto, and thus it 
 will continue." 
 
 Junius. "But after all. Sir, where is the injury? 
 You assure me, that my logic is puerile and tinsel." 
 — " But, it seems, 1 have outraged the feelings of a 
 father's heart. — Am I indeed so injudicious?" — 
 " What then, my lord ? Is this the event of all the 
 sacrifices you have made to lord Bute's patronage, 
 and to your own unfortunate ambition ? " — " After 
 all. Sir, to what kind of disavowal has the king of 
 Spain at last consented?" — ''Who attacks the lib- 
 erty of the press ? — Lord Mansfield. — Who invades 
 the constitutional power of juries ? — Lord Mans- 
 field." — " You ask me. What juryman was chal- 
 lenged by lord Mansfield ? — I tell you, his name is 
 Benson." — " But, it seems, ' the liberty of the press 
 may be abused, and the abuse of a valuable privi- 
 lege is the certain means to lose it.' The first I 
 admit." — " But I could venture, for the experi- 
 ment's sake, even to give this writer the utmost he 
 
96 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 asks." — " But I have a charge of a heavier nature 
 against Sir William Draper. He tells us," &lc. — 
 " Has this gentleman heen called to a court martial 
 to answer for his conduct ? No. Has it been cen- 
 sured ? No." — " Will your majesty interfere in a 
 question, in which you have properly no immediate 
 concern ^ It would be a step equally odious and 
 unnecessary. Shall the lords be called upon to de- 
 termine the rights and privileges of the commons ? — 
 They cannot do it without a flagrant breach of the 
 constitution." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Argument from the Comparison of the " Reply 
 
 to BurgoyneJ'^ 
 
 In the year 1779 there was published in London 
 a pamphlet in 46 pages, entitled — " A Reply to 
 Lieutenant General Burgoyne's Letter to his Con- 
 stituents. — Expende Hannibalem. Juv." — As an 
 inquiry was made in parliament concerning Bur- 
 goyne's campaign, and as he endeavored to throw 
 the blame of its failure on lord Sackville, whose in- 
 structions, as he maintained, he followed, it is evi- 
 dent, that Sackville was the person most interested 
 in defending the Secretary for the American de- 
 partment and in endeavoring to beat down the de- 
 fence of general Burgoyne. The pamphlet is also 
 written in such a cool and dignified manner, with 
 such pretensions to candor, as betrays its author- 
 ship. Its correspondence in style with the ' Consid- 
 erations ' on the German war is another proof, that it 
 came from the pen of Sackville. Believing it can- 
 not be made a question, that this was his produc- 
 
 9 
 
98 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 tion, I shall endeavor to prove, that it bears the very- 
 features of Junius. 
 
 I shall first present a few words and phrases, such 
 as are common in Junius, or peculiar to him. 
 
 Reply. " Difficulties were crowding upon you 
 no less formidable, than numerous." — " / confess, I 
 am ignorant of the mode of justification." — " / con- 
 fess, that were I an elector of Preston, I should 
 entertain strong doubts." — " As this is impractica- 
 
 hU:' '' Surely'' " True'' "It is true"— 
 
 " Really." 
 
 " Positive and precise as the oracle of Delphos, 
 you pronounce upon the plans and principles of min- 
 isters ; upon, the wrongs of injured merit ; upon the 
 dreadful situation of public affairs." 
 
 " You sate out with stating, that," &z:c. 
 
 " Your authority cannot have that weight upon 
 the present occasion, which upon all other occasions 
 it is justly entitled to." 
 
 " Yet, in spite of this opinion, &ic. you still con- 
 tinue," &iC. 
 
 " You complain very bitterly of the Court eti- 
 quette, invented, you allege, ujjoii your occasion, 
 which excluded you from the royal presence." — 
 '' If he wished to have suppressed your information, 
 whether he took the means," he. — " Your informa- 
 tion, it is true, would be immediately told in the 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 99 
 
 royal ear." — " He could not imagine, that your 
 facts would be weakened." 
 
 " I will prove, that to have granted it to you 
 would have been folly and injustice." 
 
 The author of the Reply usually writes in the 
 first person singular : in the following sentence he 
 falls into the ministerial manner of the plural. " If 
 you tell us, that it is the privilege of anger to rail, 
 we will agree with you, that it is a privilege, which 
 anger too frequently assumes ; but if you mean se- 
 riously to bring forward these charges, you must 
 support them with other evidence than your own." 
 The spirit of the latter part of the sentence proves a 
 personal interest on the part of the writer. 
 
 Towards the close of the Reply, a very ingenious 
 parallel is instituted between Marcus Attilius Regulus 
 and lieutenant general Burgoyne. Tt concludes 
 with saying, in reference to Burgoyne's letter, — 
 " This letter was received with a difference of opin- 
 ion. Some thought it a patheUc representation of 
 unnecessary severity ; some considered it as a justi- 
 fication of his conduct ; and there were not wanting 
 some who pronounced it a libel upon the king's 
 
 GOVERNMENT." 
 
 Reply. " We admire the morality of the senti- 
 ment, and only lament, that it should be so little 
 observed." — " Whatever may have been the con- 
 
100 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 duct of Ministers, you stand alike with them before 
 the tribunal of the public, and it is not by the accu- 
 sation of others, that you will be permitted to justify 
 yourself." — " This country has seen commanders 
 whom Ministers, in vain, would have labored to dis- 
 grace ; whom it was not in the power of calumny 
 to defame ; whom it was not within the reach of 
 malice to hurt. — Instead of depending for their 
 lustre upon Ministers, they reflected glory upon Ad- 
 ministration." — " The truly great commander rests 
 not upon such uncertain grounds. He lays in a 
 stock of reputation, which a legion of pilferers may 
 labor in vain to diminish ; and, secure in the opinion 
 of his country, he sets at defiance both the insidious 
 whisper, and the professed attack." — " The mob 
 form their opinion of an orator from the strength of 
 his lungs, and the muscle of his arm. Noisy vo- 
 ciferation and vehement gesture pass with them 
 for the warmth of conviction and the authority of 
 truth." — " In order to induce our belief of an im- 
 probable circumstance with regard to you, you tell 
 us first to believe it of five hundred others ; as if 
 incredulity decreased, in proportion as the improb- 
 able verges towards the marvellous." — " The same 
 mark of distinction may be conferred upon one, 
 v/ho, under your circumstances, will not observe 
 your conduct 5 who being equally unfortunate will 
 
> > i J J 
 
 < ■> ■)■> 
 
 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 101 
 
 not be equally upright." — " It was easier for a 
 whole people to be treacherous, than for Regulus 
 to be false. He knew the punishment, that awaited 
 him at Carthage : but stern and inflexible, he pre- 
 ferred his duty to his safety ; and his countenance, 
 which upon his arrival expressed a thousand mixed 
 emotions, was serene and settled at his departure." 
 — " This charge, therefore, does not appear to have 
 any foundation in iruth ; and certainly it has none 
 in reason.^'' — " While his rank would secure him 
 respect, the consideration that he was called to that 
 rank from an opinion of his abilities, would give 
 hope to his troops, and confidence to his country." 
 — " Tliey gave freedom to your tongue in the sen- 
 ate, but not liberty to your arm in the field ; and it 
 would have been neither honorable in you to have 
 drawn your sword, nor in this country to have ac- 
 cepted of your services." — " I shall now. Sir, take 
 my leave of you with a very sincere wish, that your 
 retreat from the public service may appease the 
 malice of your enemies, and that your retirement 
 may be undisturbed by reproach." 
 
 I flatter myself, that no one can read these ex- 
 tracts from the Reply to Burgoyne, without recog- 
 nising the author of Junius and the author of Con- 
 siderations on the German War. It may indeed be 
 said, that the Reply was written six years after the 
 
 9^ 
 
102 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 letters of Junius, and that Sackville, the author of it, 
 might have imitated the manner of Junius. But I 
 think no one will confide in such a suggestion, who 
 considers, that Sackville, when the letters of Junius 
 were finished, was fifty-six years of age, and that 
 long before that period his style of writing, whatever 
 it was, must in its great characteristics have been 
 fixed and unalterable. In 1779, when he had reach- 
 ed his first grand climacteric, he was not likely to be 
 employed in the study of Junius as a model of com- 
 position. If not an imitator, he is the original. 
 
 We have thus seen a strong resemblance, inexpli- 
 cable except from the identity of the authors, be- 
 tween the style of Junius and that of Sackville in his 
 writings both before and after Junius. Our persua- 
 sion of this identity will, I think, be confirmed by 
 the perusal of tlie following extracts from the 
 Speeches and Letters of lord Sackville, which are 
 stamped with the style and spirit of Junius. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Argument from the Comparison of the Speeches and 
 Letters of Sackville, 
 
 Sackville. "I am extremely obliged to you for 
 your letter ; though ivrote to me in English, it must 
 have been," &:c. Letter, 1745. "I should have 
 wrote to you sooner," he. Letter, 1748. 
 
 Junius. " The letters of your masterly corre- 
 spondent Lucius have drove his lordship." Cleo- 
 phas, September, 1768. 
 
 Sackville. 1770. ^^ Mark, how he is every 
 day and every hour pointed out in print, &c. No 
 epithet is too bad for him." 
 
 Junius to Garrick, 1771. " Now mai^k rae, vag- 
 abond. Keep to your pantomimes, or, be assured, 
 you shall hear of it." 
 
 Sackville. " Remote, as it is, from those, I am 
 used to live with, and different as the country and 
 climate are from those I might expect to be ?'n." — 
 " Such is the climate, that we are sending our troops 
 ^0." — '" If he did not like the quarters the regiment 
 was ordered ^o." — " It is a fault I am not often 
 
104 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 guilty o/"." — " Inconveniences, which an alteration of 
 any standing law may be attended ?mVA." — " What a 
 nonplus might a colonel be put /o, when his regi- 
 ment was just going to be reviewed." — " Such de- 
 mands, I believe, very few colonels would be able to 
 comply with.'''' — " Superior to those we may now 
 meet them with.^^ 
 
 Junius. " As much as you are equal ^o." — 
 " Battles, which he might have been engaged in, 
 and the dangers," he. — " Would have known what 
 they had to trust to, and would never," he. 
 
 Sackville. January, 1770. " The freedom of 
 election is the sacred palladium of English liberty." 
 
 Junius. Dedication, ] 772. " The liberty of the 
 press is the palladium,'''' he. 
 
 Sackville. 1748. "We have had no letters 
 from Holland for some days, so we do not know," 
 &£c. — " A long time before 1 can have the pleasure 
 of being taken measure of by him ; so, if you please, 
 do not wait for me." 
 
 Junius. " I have no doubt of what you say 
 about David Garrick ; so drop the note."—" And so 
 direct to Mr. John Fretly." 
 
 Sackville. " Supported the ministry in the 
 address to the king ; so that Mr. Hume Campbell," 
 he, — " Such as a rich wife, large legacy, or the 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 105 
 
 like ; so that even this bill passed into law," he, — 
 The same phrase is often used by Sackville. 
 
 Junius. " Until they should be demanded by 
 the civil power ; so that, while the officers," he. — 
 " He warned them to hold up and inhance the 
 price ; so that the plan of reducing," he, 
 
 Sackville. 1770. " Adviseable to screen him 
 behind the curtain of a majority." 
 
 Junius. " Which you endeavor to screen by 
 
 suddenly dropping," he, " Who screened lord 
 
 Mansfield?" 
 
 Sackville. 1781. " Although insinuations had 
 been thrown out with respect to the past," he, 
 
 Junius. " Deceived by the appearances thrown 
 
 out by your grace." " Fallacious insinuations 
 
 thrown out by men," he. 
 
 Sackville. 1779. " He despised that honor- 
 able member, but would level himself with his 
 wretched character and malice." — " Perish in the 
 tumult with honester men." 
 
 Junius. " That Swinney is a ivreiched but a 
 dangerous fool." — " The tvretched conduct of the 
 ministry." — " This Scsevola is the wretchedest of all 
 fools, and dirty knave." 
 
 Sackville. " Suppose the allegation true, yet 
 stUl it can be here no reasonable objection." — " A 
 
106 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 body of men interested to support them ; yet still 
 the force of truth finally surmounts the obstacle." 
 
 Junius. In letter of Veteran. — " Yet still, some 
 of them, though in your wise opinion not qualified to 
 command, are entitled to respect." — " Still however 
 your opinions," &ic. 
 
 Sackville. January, 1770. ''And though his 
 Majesty, in the generous, unsuspecting frankness of 
 his nature, may not perceive to what an unhappy 
 catastrophe the perfidy of his ministers may lead, 
 yet surely it is the duty of his parliament to guard 
 him against the insidious artifices of those, who hav- 
 ing rendered themselves odious by their conduct, 
 
 h^Ve nothing more to do, but to render themselves 
 secure by their cunning." 
 
 Junius. August, 1770. "As for you, my lord, 
 who perhaps are no more than the blind, unhappy 
 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." 
 
 " Their constituents would have a better opinion 
 of their candor, and, I promise you, not a worse 
 opinion of their integrity." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Concluding Remarks, 
 
 If, as I trust has been proved, Sackville be the 
 author of the letters of Junius, he deserves to be re- 
 membered, not as a great benefactor of the human 
 race, but as a bold, keen, malignant accuser of his 
 brethren, who has taught multitudes to shoot from a 
 dark corner the arrows of destruction and slander. 
 He has probably had more admirers and imitators, 
 than any political writer w^hatever. Warm partizans 
 aim to wield the bow of Junius ; and we have seen 
 truth and charity falling in the streets. If we should 
 for a moment study the grand features of Christian 
 goodness, — the meekness, the humility, the forbear- 
 ance, the ardent benevolence, which beam forth in 
 the countenance of the disciple of Jesus, — and then 
 contemplate the dark, malignant visage of Junius, 
 the stern pride, the irrepressible disdain, the deep 
 hostility, the unsated revenge, the barbarous ferocity, 
 by which he is marked, — we shall see somewhat of 
 the difference between an angel of light and a fallen 
 spirit of evil. 
 
108 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 The general admiration of Junius by our country- 
 men is greatly to be deplored, inasmuch as it tends 
 to foster the malignant passions of the human heart, 
 and to introduce into the political disputes of brethren 
 all the ferocity, which in Junius is to be traced to 
 the indignation of a degraded soldier and the deter- 
 mined ambition, which builds its structure on the 
 ruins, it has created. 
 
 Sackville's whole life, after the dishonor of his 
 court martial, was a hfe of imposture. He perpetu- 
 ally wore a mask. He shrouded himself in dark- 
 ness. His real aims were never avowed ; and the 
 measures, adopted for obtaining those ends, were 
 secret and mysterious. When there was wanting 
 the consciousness of sincerity and of love to truth, 
 his support even of correct principles loses its value. 
 In considering some of the sentiments of Junius as 
 coming from the haughty, imperious minister of 
 George III, I cannot avoid thinking of commenda- 
 tions of chastity from the lips of a libertine. I ask 
 for republican principles only from a real republi- 
 can, and not from a devoted servant of royalty. I 
 will accept however from Lord Sackville his de- 
 scription of the characters and manners of the illus- 
 trious nobles of Great Britain. He knew them 
 well ; and speaking from intimate acquaintance he 
 carries conviction to the mind. 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 109 
 
 Happy will it be for Americans, who have the 
 privilege of electing their own rulers, if they commit 
 power only to the hands of the virtuous ; if they 
 never by their suffrages elevate to high dignity and 
 wide influence men, whose hands are red with 
 crime, and whose examples will shed a pestilence 
 through the land. Without private, how can we 
 expect public virtue ? The unplumed eagle, though 
 we place him among the stars, will yet sink to the 
 ground. 
 
 Of the irritable temper and proud, indignant feel- 
 ings of lord Sackville, perfectly according with the 
 character of Junius, there is very ample evidence. 
 
 In 1770 lord Sackville made a motion in the 
 House of Commons, on which Governor John- 
 stone, in reply, remarked, " that he wondered that 
 noble lord should interest himself so deeply in the 
 honor of his country, when he had hitherto been so 
 regardless of his own." In consequence Sackville 
 challenged and fought him with pistols. 
 
 After the capture of Burgoyne a motion was made 
 in parliament to inquire into the convention of Sara- 
 toga. In the debate Mr. Luttrell alluded to the 
 censure of the court martial on lord Sackville, — 
 who replied — '•' that he never was personal in the 
 house to any one ; never, by any conduct of his, 
 merited such an attack ; he despised ihat honorable 
 
 10 
 
110 ~ JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 member, but would level himself with his wretched 
 character and malice ; old as he was, he would meet 
 that fighting gentleman and be revenged." The 
 house was thrown into confusion. It was with great 
 difficulty, that lord George was induced to acknowl- 
 edge his irregularity and to make an apology. 
 
 Mr. Burke said in a speech May 6, 1779, con- 
 cerning lord North, — " He is sometimes more angry, 
 than his noble friend (lord George Sackvilie,) and 
 when he pleases, he can be almost as witty." 
 
 In a debate at the opening of parliament in 1780, 
 after a speech by Mr. Fox, lord Sackvilie said — 
 " as the honorable gentleman, in the course of his 
 speech, had thought proper to throw out allusions, 
 which he could not but see were directed at him, 
 the house might possibly expect, that he should 
 make some reply ; he rose therefore, to say, once for 
 all, that whenever gentlemen chose to descend to the 
 meanness of dealing in personal invectives, and to 
 single him out as their object, he was prepared to 
 treat the invectives and the author of them with the 
 contempt they deserved." 
 
 Mr. Cumberland says — '* The well known cir- 
 cumstance, that occurred upon his elevation to the 
 peerage, made a deep and painful impression on his 
 feeling mind ; and if his seeming patience under 
 the infliction of it should appear to merit, in a moral 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. Ill 
 
 sense, the name of virtue, I must candidly acknowl- 
 edge it as a virtue, that he had no title to be credit- 
 ed for, inasmuch as it was entirely owing to the in- 
 fluence of some, who overruled his propensities, that 
 he did not betake himself to the same abrupt, un- 
 warrantable mode of dismissing this insult, as he 
 had resorted to in a former instance." Cumberland 
 then states, that Sackville had prepared an invitation, 
 and was about to send it by Sir Edward Sackville, 
 when the remonstrances of lord Amherst and other 
 friends put him by from his resolve. He also re- 
 marks — " Many men, in other respects wise and 
 just and temperate, not having the resolution to be 
 right in their own consciences, have set aside both 
 reason and religion, and in compliance with the 
 evil practice of the world about them, performed 
 their bloody sacrifices, and immolated human victims 
 to the idol of false honor." 
 
 It is a melancholy consideration, that at the age 
 of sixty-six he should thus have resolved on a duel 
 with the marquis of Carmarthen. We see how em- 
 bittered were those honors, for the attainment of 
 which he had toiled so long and so incessantly, and 
 the attainment of which he survived only three 
 short years. Had the same mental effort and the 
 same unwearied industry, instead of being wasted in 
 political controversy, or prostituted to the indulgence 
 
112 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 of personal animosities, or degraded by subserviency 
 to ambitious views, been employed in the noble pur- 
 suits of virtue and religion ; Sackville would have 
 received from the king of heaven an unwithering 
 crown of righteousness. He gained the title of 
 Viscount and a seat in the House of Peers j but he 
 did not gain tranquillity and repose. He will have, 
 as I believe, the mingled credit and infamy of being 
 the author of the letters of Junius ; and the undivid- 
 ed reproach of employing the American savages as 
 instruments of terror and of carnage in conducting 
 the American war. While the war-whoop and the 
 scalping-knife are remembered, the " perishable in- 
 famy " of his name shall be kept alive. 
 
 To my mind there is something very impressive 
 and monitory in the death of Sackville. I cannot 
 apply to him the words of the poet of the 
 
 grave : — 
 
 " Sure the last end 
 Of the good man is peace. How calm his exit ! 
 Night dews fall not more gently to the ground, 
 Nor weary, worn-out winds expire more soft. 
 Behold him ! in the evening-tide of life, 
 A life well spent, whose early care it was. 
 His riper years should not upbraid his green ; 
 By unperceived degrees he wears away ; 
 Yet, hke the sun, seems larger at his setting 1" 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 113 
 
 Almost the whole life of Sackville was a perpetual 
 combat, a struggle for office and for the honors de- 
 rived from royal friendship. After possessing those 
 honors for two or three short years he found him- 
 self sinking into the grave. It is an interesting in- 
 quiry, what was the foundation of his hopes in regard 
 to a future world. He believed the christian reli- 
 gion. Among its requisitions he knew was the de- 
 mand of forgiveness of injuries and reconciliation to 
 an injured brother. This world was fading away 
 from his sight, and the future was rising upon his 
 vision. After a great struggle he brought his mind 
 to the point of forgiving one, who had deeply 
 wounded his pride, and whom a few years before 
 he had resolved to fight. Whether this was real 
 christian charity and noble benevolence, I will not un- 
 dertake to say. This interview with lord Mansfield, 
 wiiom he had injured, has been already described. 
 A short time before he expired, he said to Mr. 
 Cumberland, his secretary, — pressing his hand — 
 •' You see me now in those moments, when no dis- 
 guise wnll serve, and when the spirit of a man must 
 be proved. I have a mind perfectly resigned, and 
 at peace within itself. I have done with this world, 
 and wiiat I have done in it I have done for the best ; 
 I hope and trust, 1 am prepared for the next. Tell 
 not me of all, that passes in health and pride of heart ; 
 
 10* 
 
114 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 these are the moments, in which a man must be 
 searched ; and remember, that I die, as you see 
 me, with a tranquil conscience and content." 
 
 Mr. Cumberland also says — " I never heard, that 
 my friend, lord George Germain, was amongst the 
 suspected authors of Junius, till by way of jest he 
 told me so not many days before his death : I did 
 not want him to disavow it, for there could be no 
 occasion to disprove an absolute impossibility. The 
 man, who wrote it, had a savage heart, for some of 
 his attacks are execrable : he was a hypocrite, for he 
 disavows private motives, and makes pretensions to 
 a patriotic spirit." 
 
 If Cumberland is right in his estimate of Junius, 
 and if Sackville was Junius; then, what he had done 
 in the world, he had not " done for the best." 
 Were his "hypocrisy and execrable attacks" for the 
 best? Was the duel with Johnstone for the best? 
 And was the later projected duel for the best ? It 
 ill becomes a man to utter the language of Sackville, 
 unless he approaches the disinterested benevolence, 
 strong faith, and ardent devotion of St. Paul. I 
 deem it no breach of charity to assert, that, if in the 
 review of his past life Sackville's conscience was 
 tranquil ; yet there was no reason for the tranquilli- 
 ty. To a great offender I would not deny the pos- 
 sibility of dying in peace and even in triumph, pro- 
 
JUNIUS UNaiASKED. 115 
 
 vided, that with a penitent spirit and the love of 
 holiness he, even in his last hours, confides in the 
 mercy of the Savior, that he may ,be " justified by 
 faith in Christ," and find " redemption through his 
 blood." But he must come with the temper of the 
 publican, saying, " God, be merciful to me, a sin- 
 ner ! " and not in the boastful confidence of a proud 
 pharisee. I recollect, that Rousseau, steeped in 
 crime, declared, that he would go before the throne 
 of God and demand heaven as the reward of his 
 virtue. 
 
 There is truth in the following remarks of Adam 
 Smith in the first edition of his Theory of Moral 
 Sentiments, though afterwards, as he approached the 
 faith of Rousseau or imbibed the miserable skepti- 
 cism of Hume, he expunged them, as if he too 
 intended to demand heaven as the reward of his 
 moral excellence, instead of imploring eternal life as 
 the gift of mercy through Jesus Christ, " the propi- 
 tiation for the sins of the world." 
 
 " If we consult our natural sentiments, we are apt 
 to fear, lest before the holiness of God vice should 
 appear more worthy of punishment, than the weak- 
 ness and imperfection of human nature can ever 
 seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear 
 before a being of infinite perfection, can feel but 
 little confidence in his own merit, or in the imper- 
 
116 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 feet propriety of his own conduct. In the presence 
 of his fellow creatures he may often justly elevate 
 himself, and may often have reason to think highly 
 of his own character and conduct, compared to the 
 still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is 
 quite different, when about to appear before his infi- 
 nite Creator. To such a being he can scarcely 
 imagine, that his littleness and weakness should 
 ever seem to be the proper object either of esteem 
 or reward. But he can easily conceive, how the 
 numberless violations of dut}^, of which he has been 
 guilty, should render him the object of aversion and 
 punishment. Neither can he see any reason, why 
 the divine indignation should not be let loose, with- 
 out any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as, he is 
 sensible, that he himself must appear to be. If he 
 w^ould still hope for happiness, he is conscious, that 
 he cannot demand it from the justice, but that he 
 must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repent- 
 ance, sorrow, humiliation, contrition at the thought 
 of his past conduct are, upon this account, the senti- 
 ments, which become him, and seem to be the only 
 means, which he has left for appeasing that wrath, 
 which, he knows, he has justly provoked. He even 
 distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally fears, 
 lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weak- 
 ness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime 
 
JUNIUS UNMASKED. 117 
 
 by the most importunate lamentations of the crim- 
 inal. Some other intercession, some other sacrifice, 
 some other atonement, he imagines, must be made 
 for him, beyond what he himself is capable of mak- 
 ing, before the purity of the divine justice can be 
 reconciled to his manifest offences." 
 
 These are indeed the natural sentiments of man- 
 kind, as is proved by the history of the world. For 
 the removal of these fears and anxieties the Gospel 
 discloses an expiation, atonement, sacrifice, made by 
 Jesus Christ in his death upon the cross. But here 
 another error is to be guarded against, as fatal as 
 that of rejecting the method of redemption by the 
 Savior's blood ; and that is, the hope of being saved 
 by that expiation and sacrifice, in some mysterious 
 manner, by a kind of extreme unction, by a late 
 participation of the Lord's supper, by the efficacy of 
 some religious rite, without feeling towards Jesus 
 Christ the real Sentiments of admiration, gratitude, 
 love, and fahh, which the Gospel exacts ; without 
 taking him as a Teacher and Master, whose moral 
 precepts are to be obeyed, as well as a Sacrifice for 
 the sins, that are past, and a Refuge in that solemn 
 hour, when human pride has reason to tremble. If 
 the approach of death tries the spirit and courage of 
 a man ; yet in the solemn moments, which precede 
 dissolution, no tranquillity is to be desired, unless it 
 
118 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 
 
 be a tranquillity, which will abide after death. 
 There is a sweet calmness at the close of a sum- 
 mer's day, when all nature smiles upon the beholder 
 and gives him the promise of a bright and glorious 
 morning : — there is also a portentous calmness, 
 which precedes the shock of the earthquake, and is 
 followed by tumult and desolation. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. The " History of the Reign of George IIV^ 
 written by the Author of Junius, 
 
 There was published at London in 1770 a work, 
 entitled, " The History of the Reign of George III. 
 to the Conclusion of the Session of Parliament end- 
 ing in May, 1770, to which is prefixed a Review of 
 the late War," a considerable work of more than 
 400 pages, ' printed for the Author, and sold by T. 
 Evans.' This book, being one of the books in my 
 library, I had the curiosity to examine, in order to 
 see, if it was not free from the peculiarities of style, 
 which I supposed I had discovered in Junius ; for I 
 had been accustomed to regard it as a work of 
 Burke. Being written or at least published at the 
 very time, when the letters of Junius were coming 
 out, and discussing the same subjects, treated of in 
 those letters, if the work, as I expected, should not 
 exhibit the characteristics, which seemed to be com- 
 mon to the " Considerations" on the German War 
 and to the Letters of Junius ; then it would strength- 
 en my conclusion, that the author of the Considera- 
 
120 APPENDIX. 
 
 tions and of the Letters was the same. But to my 
 surprise I found in the History the same peculiari- 
 ties. Here then my theory was in danger of being 
 nipped in the bud. My difficulties however were 
 soon removed by discovering, that the History was 
 7iot written, as I had erroneously believed, by 
 Burke. It is not contained in his works ; it is not 
 mentioned in his life ; I know not, that it was ever 
 ascribed to him ; and there is no reason to regard it 
 as his production. Indeed Bur Ice, in one of his 
 Speeches, speaks of this work as an " everlasting 
 monument of the folly, incapacity, and pernicious 
 politics of our late and present ministers." The 
 suggestion instantly occurred to me, that it was a 
 production of lord George Sackville, the author of 
 Junius. Of this fact my conviction has been strength- 
 ened by careful examination. The grounds of my 
 persuasion I will now exhibit. 
 
 I have already stated the frequent use of the word 
 formidable in Junius and in the Considerations. It 
 is also habitually employed by the author of the 
 History. — I will present a few instances. " Look- 
 ing on France as the most constant and most formi- 
 dable enemy of this kingdom." — " Rendered him- 
 self formidable to Walpole and his venal depend- 
 ents." — " Overawed by a confederacy the most 
 formidable, that the world had ever seen." — " He 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 121 
 
 became more and more formidable every day." 
 — " An army, that was in the morning so great and 
 formidable.'''' — " In order to fight an army still more 
 formidable.'''' — " Made the enemy soon feel, that 
 they were still more formidahle.'^ — " The French 
 power, which was more formidable than any Na- 
 bob." — " Reason to apprehend, that each of these 
 formidable powders would become still more formi- 
 dable by an accession of French territory." 
 
 When it is considered, that the above instances 
 occur in about 20 pages, no one will question the 
 fondness of the writer for the word. It is true, that 
 in Dr. Johnson's False Alarm, and in his Thoughts 
 concerning the Falkland Islands, written in 1770 
 and 1771, and containing SO pages, the word formi- 
 dable occurs three or four times ; but I am not 
 aware, that he often uses the word in his writings. 
 Besides, this circumstance is to be considered in 
 combination with other circumstances, and not as a 
 solitary argument. 
 
 The phrase, ' Be it so,^ has been exhibited both 
 in the Considerations and in Junius. It is also 
 found in the History : — " But he must, forsooth, be 
 considered as the great protector of the reformed 
 religion. Be it so ; while his writings testify how 
 little he values any religion." — Now this is a re- 
 markable phrasCo I doubt whether it can be found 
 
 11 
 
122 APPENDIX. 
 
 in all the writings of Dr. Johnson. I have noticed 
 it, however, once or twice in the writings of Burke. 
 The phrase, in effect, is by no means common in 
 the writers of the period referred to. It occurs 
 often in Junius ; as, " They, in effect, gave up that 
 constitutional check." — " In effect he has contrived 
 to make it the interest of the proprietor." — " When 
 you invade the province of the jury, in matter of 
 libel, you, in effect, attack the liberty of the 
 press." — " For, in effect, both objects have been 
 equally sacrificed." — " That greater abilities would 
 not, in effect, be an impediment to a design." — 
 " The form of the constitution leaves rather more 
 than enough to the popular branch ; while, in effect, 
 the manners of the people," &:c. — " Shortening the 
 duration of parliaments (which, in effect, is keeping 
 the representative under the rod of the constitu- 
 ent.)" — The letter, in which the two first instances 
 are found, was written at the end of May, 1770, at 
 the very time, when the writer of the History was 
 engaged in his work, which was reviewed in Sep- 
 tember of that year. In the History the same 
 phrase presents itself : — " The resolution does, in 
 effect, aflirm, that all men without exception," &lc. — 
 *^ And, in effect, they retreated as far as Lands- 
 perg." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 123 
 
 The phrase, Yet still, is an uncommon one. I 
 suspect it is seldom used, except by writers educat- 
 ed in Ireland. It is about as good, as ' Yet yet,^ or 
 ^ JYotwithstanding notwithstanding.^ It is not in- 
 deed found in the Letters under the signature of 
 Junius ; but the same writer assumed the name of 
 Veteran, as Woodfall has shown. In Veteran's let- 
 ter to lord Barrington of January 28, 1772, is the 
 following sentence — " Yet still some of them, though 
 in your wise opinion not qualified to command, are 
 entitled to respect." 
 
 The same phrase is often found in the History : 
 — " Yet still it was necessary, that he should act." 
 — " Yet still his coffers remained empty." — " Yet 
 still the ministry weathered the storm." — " Yet still, 
 finding a resource in his own steadiness and cour- 
 age, he resolved not to fall in an inglorious man- 
 ner." — " Yet still no flag of truce was hung out 
 upon the walls." — " Yet still, thougli that was the 
 object of his last movement, he could not prevent," 
 &c. — " Yet still the majority of the lower house 
 was obsequious." — " Yet still, the comparison will 
 not hold." 
 
 In a speech of lord Sackville February, 1772, in 
 the House of Commons I find the following : — 
 " Suppose the allegation true, yet still it can be 
 
124 APPENDIX. 
 
 here no reasonable objection." — Also, ^^yet still the 
 force of truth finally surmounts every obstacle." 
 
 I have met with this phrase once in Francis' De- 
 mosthenes, — a work, which I doubt not was much 
 studied by lord Sackville ; Dr. Francis lived in Ire- 
 land till, I believe, 1750. 
 
 1 proceed to another remarkable phrase, found 
 both in Junius and in the History. 
 
 Junius. May 1769. " There is something in 
 both, which distinguishes 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 indolence 
 and your activity have been equally misapplied, but 
 that," &c. — Also October 1769; — "If these gen- 
 tlemen were better soldiers, I am sure they would 
 be better subjects. It is not, that there is any in- 
 ternal vice or defect in the profession itself, but that 
 it is the spirit," he. 
 
 History. " It is not, that we think it unexcep- 
 tionable in this respect : on the contrary." — " It is 
 not, that the commons did not claim the sole right." 
 — " It is not, that the writer is conscious of any 
 blameable partiality." — " It is not, that there was 
 not a numerous division against them on this occa- 
 sion. It was indeed so considerable," &tc. — " It is 
 not, that the ministerial advocates had not on this 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 125 
 
 occasion many arguments, or rather sophisms to ad- 
 vance in support of this decision." — " It is not, that 
 their numbers were not sufficiently great, and their 
 inclinations good." — " It is not, that the people are 
 averse to pay off the debts of the crown. Show, 
 that they were fairly contracted, and they will not 
 
 murmur." 
 
 The History was published in the summer of 
 1770, and the letters of Junius, above quoted, were 
 written in 1769. 
 
 I do not recollect, that I ever met with the phrase 
 ^ It is not, that^ in any book whatever, except in 
 Junius and in the History of the reign of George 
 III. ; and also twice in a work of Burke, written in 
 1791. Burke may have adopted it from Junius. 
 These instances are as follows : — " It is not, that I 
 consider," Sic. — " It is not, that as this strange se- 
 ries, &;c. — I have not indulged," he. 
 
 Junius. " With what color of truth can he pre- 
 tend." — " Neither can it be said, with any color of 
 truth, to be," he. — " For the rest, there is no color 
 of palliation or excuse." — " Every color, every 
 character became you." — '^ When his character and 
 conduct are frequently held forth in odious or con- 
 temptible colors.^^ — " Not to furnish any color or 
 pretence for violating or evading." — " Defy him to 
 fix any colorable charge of inconsistency upon me." 
 
 11^ 
 
126 APPENDIX. 
 
 In all these instances the letters were written after 
 the publication of the History. 
 
 History. " Under color of a judicial proceed- 
 ing." — "With what co/or of justice can you take the 
 affair under your own cognizance?" — " Under color 
 of censuring certain obnoxious parts." — " The fol- 
 lowing arguments were the colorable pretexts for 
 this vote." 
 
 Junius. " In spite of this evidence, — in defiance 
 of the representations." — " In spite of all your 
 grace's ingenuity." 
 
 History. " Yet, in spite of all these untoward 
 circumstances." — " In spite of all the obstacles." — 
 " Chatham, it is true, exerted himself, in spite of 
 age and infirmity, with all the fire of youth." — Thus 
 frequently. 
 
 Junius. " Beyond which they would scruple to 
 proceed." — " You affected to have scruples.'^'' — ■" I 
 will not scruple to say, that the very being of that 
 law." — " I do not scruple to affirm, with tlie most 
 solemn appeal." — " As to the game laws, he never 
 scrupled to declare his opinion." 
 
 History. " Many made no scruple of retiring to 
 dinner, when the most material evidences were ex- 
 amined." 
 
 Junius. " In the name of decency and common 
 sense, what are your grace's merits?" This was 
 written after the History. 
 
APPENDIX. 1^ 
 
 History. " If this be not the case, why, in 
 the name of wonder, were the three estates consti- 
 tuted ? " 
 
 Junius has been already quoted, as using the 
 phrase go a length, he. 
 
 History. " The offence is carried to the utmost 
 length.'^'' — '^ They proceeded to an unjustifiable length 
 in attacking," &:c. 
 
 Junius. " To pronounce fairly upon their con- 
 duct, it was necessary." — (May 28, 1770.) — " We 
 may safely pronounce, that a conjuncture," &ic. — 
 1771. 
 
 History. " To sit in judgment on all the repre- 
 sentatives of the people, and to pronounce upon the 
 choice." 
 
 Junius. " At a most unseasonable /wwc^Mre." 
 
 History. " If they went astray at that junc- 
 ture,''^ — " On whose concord and unanimity the 
 safety of the nation at this juncture depends." — 
 " We ought to interfere at this/wnc^wre." 
 
 Junius. " Which you endeavor to screen by sud- 
 denly dropping your prosecution." — " Who screened 
 lord Mansfield ? " 
 
 History. " In screening the earl of Orford from 
 public justice." — "It was made indeed not to screen 
 criminals." — " A treasurer screens him by issuing 
 illegal warrants." 
 
128 APPENDIX. 
 
 Junius. Having sold the nation to you in gross, 
 they will undoubtedly protect you in the detail,^^ 
 
 History. " Which should never have been 
 touched but in the gross ; because the purchase of 
 it thus in the detail warns the public creditors," &;c. 
 
 Junius. March, 1770. " When his Majesty 
 had done reading his speech the lord mayor, &ic. 
 had the honor of kissing his Majesty's hand : after 
 which, as they were withdrawing, his Majesty in- 
 stantly turned round to his courtiers, and burst out a 
 laughing. — JYero fiddled, while Rome was burning, 
 John Horne.^^ 
 
 History. " After the citizens had kissed his 
 hand, and were retiring, he instantly turned round to 
 his courtiers, and burst out a laughing : a circum- 
 stance, which made the people recollect, that JVero 
 fiddled, when he had set Rome onfireJ'^ 
 
 Junius. " I know you both — and the people of 
 England shall know you as well as I do^ — " That 
 great lawyer, that honest man, saw your whole con- 
 duct in the light, that / do^ — " Done their duty to 
 the public with the same zeal and perseverance, 
 that i did, I will not assert, that government would 
 have recovered its dignity." — " You feel, as you 
 ought to do, for the reputation of your friend." 
 
 History. " Some do, and are not exempted." 
 — "Ventured no farther, than the members fre- 
 
APPENDIX. 129 
 
 quently do in parliament." — "A person of sense 
 will pin his faith upon the sleeve of no man : yet 
 this is what the supporters of the commission Jo." 
 
 Junius. " They would have it understood, that 
 they did their duty completely in confining a Ser- 
 jeant and four private soldiers, until they should be 
 demanded by the civil power 5 so that, while the of- 
 ficers, who ordered or permitted the thing to be 
 done," &ic. — " Has warned them to hold up and 
 enhance the price ; — so that the plan of reducing," 
 &c. 
 
 History. " They had used to sell them adul- 
 terated rum, and to decoy their children away into 
 slavery. So that, when they built a fort," Sic. — 
 " So that, the ministry, who were not free from the 
 general contagion of fear," Sic. — " In consequence 
 of this declaration the courts of London and Berlin 
 came to an eclaircissement, and matters were soon 
 explained ; so that a treaty, which had the peace of 
 Germany for its sole object, was framed." — " Re- 
 solved with great prudence to return without mak- 
 ing any attempt ^ so that this great and expensive 
 armament," &ic. — '^ Left his retreat unmolested ; so 
 that, to all irue judges of merit, he appeared as 
 great in his defeat as in the most brilliant of his vic- 
 tories." — " But while he pursued the fugitives, fresh 
 
130 APPENDIX. 
 
 troops pressed upon his rear ; so that he was con- 
 tinually harassed." 
 
 Lord Sackville, in a speech in the House of 
 Commons; — "Let it be which of them you will, 
 the same cause, that made him enlist, will make 
 him continue in the army as long as he can, unless 
 he meets with some extraordinary good fortune, 
 such as a rich wife, large legacy, or the like ; so 
 that even this bill, passed into law, as it would pro- 
 duce no alteration in the nature of mankind, recruit- 
 ing would remain as difficult and expensive, as it 
 is now." 
 
 Lord Sackville, it seems, early employed the 
 word so in a peculiar way. Thus in his letter to 
 major Younge, January, 1748 — " There are so ma- 
 ny general officers want to employ the boot-maker 
 in Pall Mall, that I fear it will be a long time, before 
 I can have the pleasure of being taken measure of 
 by him ; so, if you please, do not wait for me," &;c. 
 — " We have had no letters from Holland for some 
 days, so we do not know, whether the French have 
 attempted any thing." 
 
 Junius. "You seem to have dropped the affair; 
 so let it rest." 
 
 Even in 1745 Sackville wrote — " The opposition 
 began to look big, but Mr. Pitt, Mr. Littleton, the 
 Grenvilles, and several others, instead of joining in 
 
 \ 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 131 
 
 it, as it was imagined they intended, supported the 
 ministry in the address to the king ; so that Mr. 
 Hume Campbell, Sir Watkin Williams, he. were 
 the only persons, that gave any obstruction to what 
 was proposed." 
 
 It is doubtful whether a sentence thus construct- 
 ed, in the use of so that, can be found in all the 
 writings of Johnson. 
 
 Junius. " Our dearest interests are at stake J^^ 
 
 HisTOKY. " If their property were at stake, they 
 would prefer to the judicature of the commons a 
 jury of porters, chairmen, or even pickpockets." — 
 " When their fundamental liberties were at stake, 
 they would hear of no equivalent." — " The despe- 
 rate bravery of men, who knew their lives to be at 
 stake.'''' 
 
 Junius. 1769. " The people are seldom wrong 
 in their opinions ; in their sentiments they are never 
 mistaken." 
 
 History. " Their [the populace] intention is 
 always good, and 1 believe it will be hard to find an 
 instance in history, where they exercised their au- 
 thority but in opposition to injustice and oppres- 
 
 5J 
 
 sion. 
 
 Junius. " Instead of striking one decisive blow." 
 History. " The war with Spain made it neces- 
 sary to strike some blow, which might check her 
 
132 APPENDIX. 
 
 pride and presumption." — " The ministry would not 
 delay so mortal a blow for a moment." — " They re- 
 ceived another blow." 
 
 Junius. " Outraged and oppressed as we are, 
 this nation will not bear," &ic. — " Recovered from 
 the errors of his youth, &;c. behold him." — "Touch- 
 ed with your generosity, I freely forgive the excess- 
 es, into which it has led you." — " Unacquainted 
 with the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliv- 
 er his sentiments with dignity and firmness." — " An- 
 imated by the favor of the people, &ic., his views 
 and sentiments changed with his situation." — "Vers- 
 ed, as your Majesty undoubtedly is, in the English 
 history, it cannot easily escape you." — " Accustom- 
 ed to the language of courtiers, you measure their 
 affections," he. — " Grateful, as I am, to the Good 
 Being, &lc., I hold myself." — " Dictated by the 
 same spirit, they deserve the same attention."- — 
 " Struck by the principal figure, we do not suffi- 
 ciently mark in what manner the canvass is filled 
 up," &ic. 
 
 History. " Satisfied with having rendered, &:c., 
 he left count Dohna with a small army." — " Filled 
 with these generous sentiments, he sought every op- 
 portunity of engaging the enemies." — " Sunk thus 
 into want and impotence, he commenced various 
 negotiations." — " Besieged rather than engaged ; 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 133 
 
 attacked without interruption, and without decision ; 
 capable neither to advance nor retreat, they saw noth- 
 ing before them but the melancholy prospect of crum- 
 bling away by degrees, and perishing without re- 
 venge, without honor in those dreadful forests." — 
 " Baffled in all his milhary schemes, Sujah Doula 
 formed a resolution worthy of the spirit," &ic. — 
 " Ignorant, that the riot act had been read, the mul- 
 titude increased." — " Unsupported by any personal 
 connections, he triumphed over the whole power of 
 the court." — " Hurried on by their zeal, they did 
 not see, that justice always attends the victor and is 
 measured by his sword : the event being the sole 
 criterion, that determines on which side loyalty or 
 rebellion He. Influenced by passion more than by 
 prudence, they did not perceive," &:c. — " Deeply 
 affected by the tragedy of the preceding night, the 
 principal inhabitants held a town meeting." — 
 " Overawed by the people, whose idol he was, — 
 they had not courage," &ic. — " Roused with indigo 
 nation at such unworthy treatment, the injured 
 Wilkes immediately renounced, and exposed the 
 duplicity and hollowness of his heart to the scorn 
 and detestation of the whole nation." — " Heated by 
 mutual commotion, they proceeded to the most 
 enormous excesses." — " Blessed with concord at 
 home, and victory abroad, it saw its trade and influ- 
 
 12 
 
134 APPENDIX. 
 
 ence extended beyond the example of any former 
 period." 
 
 In respect to this construction of a sentence I 
 think Mr. Burke differs from Junius. In his elo- 
 quent and long speech on American Taxation in 
 1774, there are but one or two instances, and not 
 more than two or three, as I believe, in his Reflec- 
 tions on the Revolution in France. This is not 
 then a peculiarity in his style, as it is in that of Ju- 
 nius. Indeed, in his learned Essay on the Sublime 
 and Beautiful, written before the letters of Junius, 
 there is not, I believe, in the whole volume one in- 
 stance of a sentence, constructed like those now un- 
 der consideration. 
 
 The sarcastic manner, in which the writer of this 
 history speaks of general Abercrombie, indicates a 
 personal pique : — " Two thousand men were miss- 
 ing. Another officer would upon the arrival of his 
 artillery have led such a superior force again to the 
 charge ; but this prudent gentleman gained, on the 
 very evening of the action, his former camp to the 
 southward of Lake George. So much for Aber- 
 crombie's generalship ! " — The indignant feelings of 
 Sackville can be accounted for, when it is recollect- 
 ed, that Abercrombie was one of the officers, consti- 
 tuting the Court for the trial of Sackville in 1 760. I 
 think no one, undertaking to write an Impartial his- 
 
APPENDIX. 135 
 
 toiy, could, without the influence of personal feel- 
 ings, have uttered the words — " So much for Jlher- 
 crombie's generalshijp ! " 
 
 It may strengthen the proofs brought forward to 
 consider the points of resemblance between the Re- 
 ply to Burgoyne, evidently a production of lord 
 Sackville, and ' The History of the Reign of George 
 III.' I find in those works one mode of expression, 
 which I have never elsewhere met with, excepting 
 once in a speech ascribed to Mr. Wilkes, May 5, 
 1763; and that, I am persuaded, was sent to the 
 press by Sackville, the author of the North Briton. 
 
 History. " Was ever independent Majesty af- 
 fronted with a proposition of such arrogance and 
 despotism?" — "All these circumstances rushed upon 
 the mind, and forced it to form conclusions not very 
 favorable to Majesty.'''' 
 
 Reply. " That I may not violate that respect, 
 which I feel for Majesty, I will not be so arrogant as 
 to enquire upon what grounds, it is probable, that the 
 royal judgment was formed." 
 
 The Speech of Mr. Wilkes. " Throw every 
 odious charge from themselves upon Majesty,'''' 
 This speech was published in St. James Chronicle 
 May 5, 1763, introduced thus — " It is said, the fol- 
 lowing speech." In Chronicle, May 24, are twenty 
 Queries, relating to the General Warrant, &;c. which 
 
 f.\ 
 
136 APPENDIX. 
 
 surely Wilkes never wrote. In that I find the ex- 
 pression — " the sacred dignity of Royalty.^'' 
 
 History. " We will be ruined, it seems, by 
 victories, as well as defeats ; we will be a singular 
 example," &c. — will for shall, being a tinge of the 
 Irish. 
 
 Reply. "If you tell us, that it is the privilege of 
 anger to rail, we ivill agree with you," &ic. 
 
 The following points of resemblance have oc- 
 curred between the Considerations and the Reign of 
 George III. 
 
 Considerations. " That Britain should thus 
 move heaven and earth and risk every danger to pre- 
 vent it." 
 
 History. " Would return to their respective 
 constituents, and in moving heaven and earth to gain 
 their election would augment the ill humor, which is 
 already too prevalent. 337. 
 
 Considerations. " They are driven out of 
 Germany. Be it so^ S3. 
 
 History. " But he must, forsooth, be consider- 
 ed as the great protector of the reformed religion.' 
 Be it so:' 104. 
 
 Considerations. Who would emhroil the Elec- 
 torate with the Empire." — 59. "Raised him up to 
 embroil one part of Germany." — 72. " And em- 
 broilino; our allies." 97. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 137 
 
 History. " Whose highest wish, at present, was 
 to embroil the empire." — " The embroiled state of 
 their affairs." 
 
 Considerations. " JS'ot to mention, that in the 
 present case it seems to be exhausting." &lc. 135. 
 
 History. " JVot to mention the privilege of 
 parliament, which was flagrantly violated." 171. 
 
 Considerations. "Employed in enabling those, 
 who should be our allies, to cut each other'^s throats ; 
 and it is right, for this only reason, that Britain must 
 have its continental connections." 118. 
 
 History. "The ruffian ordered the Indians un- 
 der his command to cut their throats." 
 
 I am aware it may be said, that if Sackville was 
 the author of the History of the Reign of George 
 III., he would not have censured himself in speak- 
 ing of the battle of Minden. Let us examine his 
 words : — " Six British regiments with the Hanoveri- 
 an guards gained the battle of Minden. Seeing their 
 center discomfited, and their right making no im- 
 pression on Wangenheim, they thought of nothing 
 but a retreat. At this critical moment had lord 
 Sackville according to orders poured in his cavalry 
 upon the dismayed French, they would in all proba- 
 bility have been left without an army in Germany. 
 By some unaccountable fatality he did not execute 
 this essential service, and missed a fair opportunity 
 
 12^ 
 
 *». 
 
138 APPENDIX. 
 
 of being ranked with the Marlboroughs and Bruns- 
 wicks." p. 57. 
 
 On the supposition, that Sackville was the author 
 of this book, which was written with precisely the 
 object of Junius, — that of overthrowing the minis- 
 try, — it was important, that Sackville should keep 
 concealed. If he should apparently censure him- 
 self, he would not be suspected. Yet what is the 
 amount of this censure? A court martial had ten 
 years before decided, that he had disobeyed orders. 
 But even this is not allowed by the historian ; and 
 the affair is left in the darkness of " some unaccount- 
 able fatality." Had it not been for this, Sackville 
 might have been ranked with Marlborough ! Surely 
 this is not severe rebuke. It is no more, than might 
 be expected to be said by Sackville, if Sackville was 
 the historian. 
 
 That he was, is confirmed by several circumstan- 
 * ces. If Burke was the writer, why should he seek 
 concealment ? The motives of Sackville are obvi- 
 ous. He wished to displace the obstacles to his 
 own advancement, and at the same time not to 
 create enemies, who would prevent it. It was ne- 
 cessary then to shoot his arrows from an unseen 
 place. 
 
 The writer says in the preface — " Unconnected 
 mill any party, he has given vent to the spontaneous 
 
APPENDIX. 139 
 
 dictates of his heart." Who could say this so truly 
 as Sackville ? He was operating only for himself. 
 Yet almost his last words in the book, showing his 
 aim in writing it, are — " Before all is lost, let us act 
 with vigor and bring home the charge to individu- 
 als 5 LET us IMPEACH THE GUILTY MINISTERS." 
 
 The follovi^ing is an extraordinary sentence in the 
 preface. " The character and conduct of our late 
 ministers have been such, that a man of any feeling, 
 or soul, can hardly contain his indignation. The 
 compiler of these pages confesses, that in suppressing 
 many reflections upon them, he has done violence 
 to his own nature. Had he not considered what 
 was due to his own character, more than what their 
 measures deserved, he would have painted them in 
 stronger colors. Instead of complaining of his as- 
 perity, they ought to thank him for his lenity." 
 
 Now, if the anonymous historian was an untitled, 
 literary drudge, who intended to keep in conceal- 
 ment ; is it conceivable, that he would speak in this 
 manner ? Are there not here indications of a man 
 of rank and eminence, — regarding himself as on a 
 level with the king's ministers or superior to them ; 
 — a man of strong passions, inflamed with bitter 
 hostility, yet pretending to be under the restraints, 
 which every gentleman imposes upon himself ? Do 
 not all these traits belong to lord Sackville ? 
 
140 APPENDIX. 
 
 It is not a consideration to be utterly neglected in 
 this survey of circumstantial evidence, that in the 
 title page is a long quotation from Tacitus, and in 
 the book various classical allusions. Junius also 
 quotes this writer and says — " The text is in Taci- 
 tus — you best know where to look for the com- 
 mentary." — The author of the Considerations also 
 quotes Cicero and Seneca. 
 
 In respect to the sentiments of the Historian of 
 the Reign of George III., they correspond with the 
 sentiments of Junius and of the author of the Con- 
 siderations. He was evidently opposed to German 
 connexions and to a continental war. He had no 
 regard for the Scotch. He says — " It is certain, 
 that one may live for years in Scotland without 
 hearing the word liberty pronounced by the popu- 
 lace." He supports Wilkes, on public reasons, and 
 blames Chatham for abandoning him. In short, the 
 sentiments of the book are those of Junius, and such 
 as are suitable to lord Sackville. 
 
 I must confess, that I do not find in the History 
 such an accordance with Junius, as I expected, in 
 the use of the preposition and conjunction after a 
 verb and at the close of a sentence. Possibly 
 the publisher may have removed such imperfec- 
 tions, as he might deem them, or the inspector of 
 the press might have interposed in such slight chan- 
 
APPENDIX. 141 
 
 ges. I find however the following — " Is not then 
 every member of parliament, who has committed, 
 who is falsely accused o/*, these acts." — " They 
 were 50." — " This house has done so in former 
 instances." — " If the disgrace, which ensues, be not 
 thought an adequate punishment, we presume the 
 majority will allow the expense of a second election 
 is 50." — " At this rate, were the house to resolve, 
 that London has no right to send four members to 
 parliament, and then to declare, that this was law ; 
 it must be 50." 
 
II. Junius the Author of " The JVorth Briton. ^^ 
 
 The first number of the celebrated political pa- 
 per, ^ The North Briton,' was published June 5, 
 1762; the last, the number 45, was published April 
 23, 1763. There was however a solitary number, 
 12 November. The publisher was Mr. George 
 Kearsly, London. For suspicion of being the au- 
 thor of number 45, containing keen remarks on the 
 King's speech, a General Warrant was issued against 
 Mr. Wilkes, which led to the great discussion con- 
 cerning General Warrants. On the ground of priv- 
 ilege, as a member of the House of Commons, Mr. 
 Wilkes escaped, by decision of chief justice Pratt, 
 afterwards lord Camden ; but for setting up a press 
 in his own house at a subsequent period, and re- 
 printing the obnoxious number, he was prosecuted 
 and had a sentence of outlawry passed against him, 
 as he had fled to France. 
 
 That Junius, or lord Sackville, was the author of 
 ' The North Briton,' and particularly of No. 45, is, 
 in my judgment, for reasons which I shall allege and 
 
APPENDIX. 143 
 
 submit to the judgment of others, placed beyond a 
 doubt. 
 
 In the first place there is no evidence, that Mr. 
 Wilkes ever publicly claimed to be the author of the 
 North Briton. It has been considered as a work, 
 written by various hands, or by a club of politicians. 
 The Editor of the Letters to and from Mr. Wilkes, 
 ] 769, says — *' Some of the numbers have been as- 
 cribed to Mr. Wilkes, others to Mr. Churchill, and 
 Mr. Lloyd." I am satisfied, that neither of these 
 gentlemen wrote any part of the w^ork, unless per- 
 haps Mr. Wilkes was the writer of a solitary com- 
 munication, not the number 45. 
 
 Mr. Wilkes was not the author of the North 
 Briton. The author, at the request of Mr. Wilkes, 
 inserted his letter to Dr. Burton, and the answer, in 
 No. 2], but would not insert other letters, which 
 Mr. Wilkes wished to have inserted. That number 
 begins thus, — " As the attack, w^hich was made on 
 the 30th of September by my good friend the Au- 
 ditor, on a Gentleman of knoivn reputation [Mr. 
 Wilkes], took its rise entirely from a supposition of 
 that Gentleman's being concerned in this paper, — 
 we think it our duty to take every occasion, which 
 offers, of giving the injured party the most public 
 opportunities of vindicating his innocence," he. 
 
144 APPENDIX. 
 
 This number was published November 23. Ear- 
 ly in the preceding month Mr. Wilkes had fought a 
 duel, of which the following is the history. 
 
 In the North Briton, No. 12, published August 
 21 J lord Talbot was exposed to derision, in conse- 
 quence of which he challenged Mr. Wilkes. This 
 circumstance may account for the friendship of Ju- 
 nius, if Junius was Sackville, to Mr. Wilkes. The 
 writer said — " Not only real services, but every 
 species of elegance and refinement in the polite arts 
 may, I think, without censure, be rewarded with a 
 pension. A politeness equal to that of lord Talbot's 
 — Jwrse, ought not to pass unnoticed. At the coro- 
 nation he paid a new, and, for a horse, singular re- 
 spect to his sovereign. I appeal to applauding mul- 
 titudes, who were so charmed, as to forget every 
 rule of decency, and to clap even in the royal pres- 
 ence, whether his or his lord^s dexterity on that day 
 did not surpass any courtiers. Caligula's hoi'se had 
 not half the merit. We remember how nobly he 
 was provided for." 
 
 Now this was a circumstance, to which Mr. 
 Wilkes would not have been likely to attach any 
 importance, but which one, conversant with eti- 
 quette, like Sackville, would have seized upon. 
 Talbot, having heard, that Wilkes had claimed to 
 be one of the writers of the North Briton, required 
 
APPENDIX. 145 
 
 him to acknowledge or disclaim the offensive paper. 
 He refused to do either, saying, " I must first insist 
 on knowing your lordship's right to catechise me 
 about an anonymous paper." 
 
 At the time the paper w^as published, Mr. Wilkes 
 was at Winchester, sixty miles from London. He 
 was also there, when several subsequent numbers 
 were published. There is no reason to think, that 
 a man of pleasure and business could find leisure 
 for writing the North Briton every week. In his 
 letter to Talbot, dated Winchester, September 21, 
 he says — " You are pleased to say, that it is my own 
 declaration before men of truth and honor, that I 
 occasionally assisted the paper, called the North 
 Briton. I wish your lordship had been more expli- 
 cit, and had mentioned the name of any one gentle- 
 man, before whom I made that declaration. Was it 
 made in public ? or was it in private conversation ? " 
 — " I intend to make a tour on Thursday (23d) to 
 the Isle of Wight." 
 
 I am persuaded, the fact is, as the appearance 
 seems to be, that Mr. Wilkes had boasted of what 
 was not true, — of being a contributor to the North 
 Briton. In this dilemma I believe he the next day 
 wrote a long letter to the author of the North Brit- 
 on, dated September 22, signed William Temple, 
 and which the author says he received from Trow- 
 
 13 
 
146 APPENDIX. 
 
 bridge in Wiltshire, a place, which Mr. Wilkes 
 might have taken in his tour. This was published 
 in No. 19, and would enable Mr. Wilkes to say 
 what he could not say before, that he was a contrib- 
 utor. The letter is not in the style of the North 
 Briton, though commended by the author as glow- 
 ing " throughout with the true spirit of liberty." As 
 Wilkes had fought a duel between the writing and 
 the publication of it, on account of the North Brit- 
 on, the author w^ould naturally praise him. Another 
 circumstance is w^orth consideration. To this num- 
 ber there is appended a letter from Mr. Wilkes him- 
 self, asserting the falsehood of a certain story in the 
 Auditor concerning him. 
 
 The author of the North Britain, in introducing 
 the letter of William Temple, has the peculiar or- 
 thography of Junius, ' intire for entire ' ; but Mr. 
 Wilkes, at the end of the same number, writes ' en- 
 tire.' Doubdess the printer followed the manu- 
 script. The writer of this letter uses certain words 
 and phrases, never, 1 am persuaded, found in the 
 North Briton nor in Junius ; — as " we must con- 
 fess," instead of the invariable phrase, " / must con- 
 fess." Also, 'Well;'— 'by the bye ;'—' remark 
 liini ! ' — ' wriggle themselves into power,' three or 
 four times ; — and some other expressions, which the 
 superior taste and decorum of the author of the 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 147 
 
 North Briton could not have permitted him to em- 
 ploy. Besides, the author, I think, could have no 
 motive to represent the letter as coming from Trow- 
 bridge, unless it had actually come from Wiltshire. 
 
 The letter of William Temple, I am persuaded, 
 is the only article, which Mr. Wilkes wrote for the 
 North Briton. 
 
 In respect to Mr. Churchill, the author in 
 No. 11 expressly denies, that he was concerned in 
 the North Briton, but speaks of him in high terms ; 
 " the literary world is indebted to that manly genius 
 for some of the noblest productions of our age and 
 language, which will live and be admired by posteri- 
 ty, after all our short-lived political offspring have 
 perished." 
 
 As to Mr. Lloyd, the author has inserted his 
 poem, " The Poetry Professors " in Nos. 22 and 
 26 ; but tlie author of the North Briton is very dif- 
 ferent from the poet, whom he praises, and whose 
 poetry he introduces for the purpose of ridiculing 
 the ' versemanship' on account of the birth of a 
 prince, of Oxford and Cambridge. 
 
 Every reader of the North Briton must perceive, 
 that the author was one, and that he had one steady 
 aim — to overthrow the ministry and raise himself to 
 office. The first sentence is in the very spirit of 
 Junius — " The liberty of the press is the birth-right 
 
148 APPENDIX. 
 
 of a Briton, and is justly esteemed the firmest bul- 
 wark of the liberties of this country. It has been 
 the terror of all bad ministers," he. In the first 
 number, lord Mansfield, to whom Sackville and 
 Junius bore an inveterate enmity, is attacked : 
 " Let me beg of you, Mr. Monitor, do commit trea- 
 son : pray be taken up by Carrington and tried by 
 Mansfield : his regard to the liberty of the subject 
 is known, and his lender mercies will not be cruel- 
 ty." In the 7th number he is called lord ' Womans- 
 meadow.' In the 14th number: — " I should like to 
 see this very moral Codex Buteanus, illustrated with 
 the German commentaries of count Mansfeldt, that 
 accomplished civilian, and justly renowned, not so 
 much indeed for nervous, manly sense, as for spin- 
 ning the most curious webs of artful sophistry, finer 
 and slighter than the very gossamer." He is after- 
 wards assaulted. Let. it now be asked, what ordi- 
 nary political writer would have felt this inveterate 
 hostility to lord Mansfield ? 
 
 The author of the North Briton had evidently 
 ]nuch at stake, and had taken the most prudent 
 measures in order to avoid detection. In No. 27 
 he says — " Not content with thus basely flying from 
 their colors themselves, they tempt mo to follow the 
 infamous example ; and as an inducement thereto, 
 propose the consideration of my own safety. — Let 
 
APPENDIX. 149 
 
 them point out, if they can, and if they dare, from 
 whom, and on what account, I am in danger, before 
 they produce it as a motive to affect my conduct ; 
 and plainly shall they prove, that I have deserved 
 punishment, before they shall oppress me with the 
 fear of it." 
 
 The author was evidently alarmed, from the con- 
 finement of some persons concerned in the Monitor, 
 of which he was doubtless the author of Nos. 357, 
 and 360, published May 22, and June 12, 1762. 
 Again he speaks of ' the liberty of the press, that 
 bulwark of the liberties of the people.' In No. 32 
 the North Briton speaks as an individual, and claims 
 the credit, merited " by a faithful and close regard 
 to truth, the great object of all his political enqui- 
 ries." In No. 37 he says — " professing always a 
 regard to decency, as well as to my own safety,''^ 
 In No. 44, " Inclination there is, no doubt, to silence 
 the North Briton, but a consciousness of guilt pre- 
 vents its being carried into execution -, and however 
 they may deal out large promises, and thunder forth 
 empty threats, that impudent libeller, as they are 
 pleased to call, but cannot, or dare not prove him, 
 shall still pursue the path, in which he has hitherto 
 trod ; and whilst he finds the opposition, which is 
 now gathering over the minister's head," &z;c. — 
 '' The laws of my country are my protection ; my 
 
 13* 
 
150 APPENDIX. 
 
 only patron is the Public, to which 1 will ever 
 make my appeal, and hold it sacred." 
 
 Mr. Wilkes never expressly claimed to be the 
 author of the celebrated number 45. On the con- 
 trary, in his petition to the King, March 4, 1768, he 
 speaks of the ministers, who had " imagined him to 
 be the principal author" of their overthrow, — allud- 
 ing to the North Briton — and adds — " I have been 
 the innocent but unhappy victim of their revenge." 
 
 In a speech, which Mr. Wilkes made at the bar 
 of the Court of Common Pleas, May, 1763, he said 
 — " I am accused of being the author of the JVortk 
 Briton, No. 45. — The author of this paper, whoever 
 he may be, has, upon constitutional principles, done 
 directly the reverse, and is therefore, in me, the sup- 
 posed author, meant to be persecuted accordingly." 
 
 In the third place, I think Mr. Wilkes was incapa- 
 ble of writing that paper. I mean, that it has some 
 peculiarities of style, not found in his productions; 
 some excellencies of style, which he could not 
 reach. The longest undoubted paper of Mr. 
 Wilkes, which I have seen, is an Introduction to the 
 History of England, &ic. in 34 pages. I cannot 
 find in this Introduction any of the characteristics of 
 North Briton No. 45 ; but in this number I do find 
 striking indications of the pen of Junius ; — the same 
 selection of words and phrases, and the same point- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 151 
 
 ed and polished sentences. I will first exhibit some 
 of the words and phrases, and then a few sentences, 
 which, I think, to every one conversant with the 
 letters of Junius, will present strong features of re- 
 semblance. 
 
 " He is really fearful of falling into involuntary- 
 errors." — " Govern by the three vjretched tools of 
 his power, w^ho to their indelible infamy have sup- 
 ported the most odious of his measures, the late ig- 
 nominious peace,^^ &ic. — " Seems dear to a demon- 
 stration — I mean the dictating," &z;c. — " Pledged 
 himself a firm and intrepid assertor of the rights,^^ — 
 " Abandoned instance of ministerial effrontery ever 
 attempted to be imposed upon mankind." — " Not to 
 be paralleled^ — " I am in doubt whether," he. — 
 " / am sure — will hold the minister in contempt and 
 abhorrence. ^^ — " The infamous fallacy of this whole 
 sentence." — "Meanly arrogate to himself a share in 
 the fame," he. — "Our wre^cAec? negotiators." — "So 
 vainly boasted o/*." — " I will venture to say he must 
 by this time be ashamed of." — " The creatures of 
 the minister." — " Lord Ligonier is now no longer at 
 the head of the army ; but lord Bute in effect is : I 
 mean, that every preferment," &c." — " Enormous 
 influence." — " Creatures of the Scottish faction." — 
 " In point of military force complimented away." 
 — " See the honor of the crown religiously assert- 
 
153 APPENDIX. 
 
 ec?." — " The prerogative of the crown is to exert 
 the constitutional powers entrusted to it." 
 
 " Every friend of his country must lament, that a 
 prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom 
 England truly reveres, can be brought to give the 
 sanction of his sacred name to the most odious 
 measures, and to the most unjustifiable public de- 
 clarations, from a throne ever renowned for truth, 
 honor, and unsullied virtue." — "They have sent the 
 spirit of discord through the land, and I will prophe- 
 cy, that it will never be extinguished, but by the ex- 
 tinction of their power." — " The spirit of concord 
 hath not gone forth among them ; but the spirit of 
 liberty has, and a noble opposition has been given to 
 the wicked instruments of oppression." — " The min- 
 istry are not ashamed of doing the thing in private ; 
 they are only afraid of the publication." 
 
 I might proceed with quotations ; but I deem any 
 more unnecessary. If by the diligent study of Ju- 
 nius I have acquired any skill in discerning his spirit 
 and style, I see them in this No. 45 ; — and of the 
 power of writing this number the known productions 
 of Wilkes furnish no promise. 
 
 The mysterious manner, in which the name of 
 
 Sackvilh is introduced into this number, has much 
 
 the appearance of a purpose of removing from him 
 
 the suspicion of being the author. — " Was it a ten- 
 
APPENDIX. 153 
 
 der regard for the honor of the late king, or of his 
 present niajesty, that invited to court lord George 
 Sackville in these first days of peace, to share in the 
 general satisfaction, which all good courtiers receiv- 
 ed in the indignity offered to lord Ligonier?" Sic. — 
 On the accession of George the III., the earl of 
 Bute invited Sackville to court ; but his appearance 
 there caused a great excitement, and he appeared 
 no more during that administration. He thought 
 himself duped in the affair by the earl of Bute, 
 against whom he felt a strong indignation. Junius 
 espouses the cause of lord Ligonier. 
 
 Let us now see in what manner lord Sackville 
 speaks of the North Briton. In an elegant speech 
 in the House of Commons, December, 1770, he 
 says — " Juries will not convict petty delinquents, 
 when, they suspect, grand criminals go unpunished. 
 Hence libels and lampoons, audacious beyond the 
 example of all other times ; libels in comparison of 
 which the North Briton, once deemed the ne plus 
 ultra of sedition, is perfect innocence and simplicity. 
 The sacred number, forty-jive, formerly the idol of 
 the multitude, is eclipsed by the superior venom of 
 every day's defamation : all its magical and talis- 
 manic powers are lost and absorbed in the general 
 deluge of scandal, which pours from the press. 
 When matters are thus circumstanced, when the 
 
154 APPENDIX. 
 
 judges in general, and lord Mansfield in particular, 
 are there hung out to public scorn and detestation," 
 &:c. 
 
 Now this speech was on a motion to inquire into 
 the administration of criminal justice ; and it urged 
 the inquiry, and under a pretence of friendship to 
 lord Mansfield it was evidently hostile to him, par- 
 taking of the spirit of Junius' letter to Mansfield, 
 written in the preceding month. I cannot doubt, 
 that here was the author of the Sacred Number 45 
 and the author of Junius' letter to lord Mansfield, 
 alluding, in his conscious security and in proud ela- 
 tion of mind, to both those productions, and under 
 th^ disguise of candor still pursuing his stern and 
 determined aim, to urge his way to oflice and rank. 
 I much doubt, whether in the history of the world 
 a more striking example can be found of steadfast, 
 immoveable purpose, and of persevering and singu- 
 lar toil in the chase of a shadow. He began his 
 attack on the ministry by his " Considerations on the 
 German War" in 1760. The North Briton began 
 June 5, 17G2, and continued till November 12, 
 1763. The History of the Reign of George III. 
 appeared in 1770. The letters of Junius extended 
 from 1769 to 1773. He doubtless published many 
 other pamphlets and addresses to the public. Junius 
 says, 15 August, 1771 — ^' I cannot recall to my 
 
APPENDIX. 155 
 
 memory the numberless trifles, that I have written ; 
 — but I rely upon the consciousness of rny own in- 
 tegrity, and defy him to fix any colorable charge of 
 inconsistency upon me." 
 
 Through all the numbers of the North Briton I 
 have found, as I believe, the peculiarities of style, 
 which belong to lord Sackville and to Junius ; of 
 which I will furnish a few specimens, referring the 
 reader to the corresponding passages already quoted 
 from Sackville and Junius. 
 
 "The insinuations thrown out;'''' — "thrown out 
 much abuse;" — ^' to have thrown out thoughts;" 
 — " able to screen such evil counsellors ; " — " to 
 screen themselves behind the throne ; " — " such a 
 man will go all lengths to raise a laugh ; " — " to run 
 all lengths;^'' — "i confess ;^^ — "I must confess,''^ 
 frequently ; — " I own ; " — " 1 affirm ;" — " I venture 
 to say;" — "their navy was so formidable;'''' — 
 "make the badness of his heart more formidable ;^^ 
 — "struck a blow;" — the constant use of the words 
 " assert, assertion, exert, exertion, scruple, really, 
 surely, enormous, infamous, wretch, wretched ;" — 
 " mtitle, inclose, mtire," for entitle, &£c. ; — " beyond 
 all doubt;" — -" juncture ;'''' — "practicable, imprac- 
 ticable ; " — " the trial by jury — the sacred palladi- 
 um of liberty." — " Enquiry," whereas Wilkes writes 
 "Inquiry." Sackville, in a letter, 1745, of which 
 
156 APPENDIX. 
 
 Coventry gives a fac-simile, has " enquired, enquir- 
 ing." In Woodfall's edition of Junius the words are 
 found promiscuously, " enquire and inquire, enquiry 
 and inquiry." It is probable, that the author of the 
 letters of Junius wrote in both ways. 
 
 Even the defects as to grammar are such, as be- 
 long to Sackville and Junius : " dissensions have 
 arose ;^^ — "a Roman spirit has rose against them 
 here;" — "is from necessity drove to ask peace;" — 
 "has broke through;" — "the earl of Mar too had 
 wrote the warmest letter ;" — " I wish were wrote in 
 letters of gold;" — "an Englishman would have 
 wrote.'^'' 
 
 From the frequent military allusions, there is rea- 
 son to believe the author was a soldier, who had 
 seen real service ; and from repeated mention of 
 occurrences in a " certain great assembly, " there is 
 reason to believe he was a member of the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 But beyond all these separate probabilities the 
 sentiments, the antithesis, and the sentences of the 
 North Briton prove, that he was Junius. 
 
 Take the following instances : — " Give them more 
 reason to complain of our being rich, than ever they 
 had to reproach us w^ith our being poor." — "The 
 same consideration of interest, which then made us 
 false, would now make us true." — " As we have 
 
APPENDIX. 157 
 
 had the address to obtain, I trust we shall have the 
 resolution to preserve them." No. 4. — " Such 
 comparisons, as no man of sense could and no true 
 Briton ought to draw." — " To his enemies it is mat- 
 ter of triumph, though to his friends it shall never be 
 the cause of shame." Speaking of Mr. Pitt — " Our 
 enemies were convinced he would make a good 
 peace or none at all ; he was so jealous of his minis- 
 terial reputation, and so envious of those, who should 
 succeed him, that in order to prevent their doing of 
 any thing, he left litde or nothing for them to do." 
 No. 8. — " A rank and infamous falsehood, which he 
 hath neither courage to maintain, nor honesty to ac- 
 knowledge." No. 21.—" Can we weigh their prin- 
 ciples, and not suspect their actions?" — "Instead of 
 evidencing a change of principles, declares, that they 
 have no principles at all." No. 33. — " They show- 
 ed their strength as well as their venom." No. 36. 
 — " They may for a short time endanger our little 
 world ; but their own ruin will be the certain conse- 
 quence." — " Their fall will be unpitied ; their mem- 
 ories forever detested." — " The very great and ex- 
 cessive complaisance of the associates in power, if 
 he will suffer them to be called associates, whom he 
 never suffers to act as such, in embracing his perni- 
 cious doctrines, and falling in implicitly with his fatal 
 measures ; their joining to give up in peace what we 
 
 14 
 
158 APPENDIX. 
 
 had gained in war ; their taking such steps, as not 
 only partially affect the property, but strike deeply 
 at the liberty of the subject, have weaned the affec- 
 tions of the people from those few members in the 
 administration, in whom they had reposed some lit- 
 tle confidence, and encreased their suspicions in re- 
 gard to those, whose former behavior had not enti- 
 tled them to any confidence at all." No. 44. — 
 *' Stupidity may not apprehend, or sophistry may 
 sometimes seem to elude the strongest reasonings, 
 but the evidence of facts is irresistible." No. 9. 
 
 In examining the writings of Mr. Wilkes I cannot 
 find any trace of the footsteps of the lion. Over 
 those sands the king of the desart never walked. 
 
 " The North Briton speaks of clergymen in the 
 very style of Junius : " The ecclesiastics are an art- 
 ful, subtle, and powerful body in all countries : tbeir 
 eyes, however dim to other things, are remarkably 
 quick to every thing, which concerns their own in- 
 terests : they are generally proud, revengeful, and 
 implacable." — " Safer indeed will our nation always 
 find it to attack a Savior, than a Surplice, to rase 
 out the four evangelists than to shew an inclination 
 for plucking one spiritual ear of English corn." 
 No. 10. 
 
 Compare this with Junius : " The resentment of 
 a priest is implacable ; no sufferings can soften, no 
 
APPENDIX. 159 
 
 penitence can appease him." — "No, my lord, it was 
 the solitary, vindictive malice of a monk, he. Now 
 let him go back to his cloister. The church is a 
 proper retreat for him. In his principles he is al- 
 ready a bishop." Compare also the following : 
 
 North Briton. " A doctrine, which many pre- 
 ceding monarchs had endeavored to establish by 
 cmmins;, but which the Stuarts first ooenlv avowed, 
 and would have confirmed by force." No. 33. 
 
 Sackville's Speech, 1770. " Surely it is the 
 duty of his parliament to guard him against the in- 
 sidious artifices of those, who, having rendered 
 themselves odious by their conduct, have nothing 
 more to do, but to render themselves secure by 
 their cunning." 
 
 As Junius sometimes wrote under the signature 
 of Lucius, the following extract from North Briton, 
 number 36, is worth consideration : — " The younger, 
 Brutus, who delivered Rome from the tyranny of 
 Caesar, was descended from the patriot stem of Lu- 
 cius Junius Brutus, who expelled the Tarquins. 
 His countrymen were continually making a kind of 
 family claim on him to stand forth their deliverer, 
 and to emulate the glories of his godlike ancestor." 
 
 Junius says, September 7, 1771, — " 1 have serv- 
 ed Mr. Wilkes, and am still capable of serving him." 
 But when had Junius done this, unless he was the 
 
160 APPENDIX. 
 
 North Briton, who published Mr. Wilkes' letter to 
 Burton, and, particularly, who defended him in re- 
 gard to the general warrant by writing the Queries 
 in St. James' Chronicle, May 24, 1763, and by 
 preparing for that paper the Speeches, ' said to he 
 made ' by Mr. Wilkes ? Surely Junius had not serv- 
 ed Mr. Wilkes by speaking ironically of his ' patriot- 
 ism, as thriving by persecution,' nor by these terms 
 in the letter to the king December 19, 1769 ; — 
 " Pardon this man the remainder of his punishment. 
 — He will soon fall back into his natural station; — a 
 silent senator, and hardly supporting the weekly elo- 
 quence 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." 
 
 Of this discipline Wilkes himself piteously said in 
 his letter to Junius, September 12, 1771 — " He has 
 poured balm into my wounds, the deepest of which 
 I sigh, when I recollect, were made by that now 
 friendly hand. I am always ready to kiss his rod, 
 but I hope its destination is changed," &ic. 
 
 The North Briton, No. 12 says — ^" The word^e??- 
 sion has of late much puzzled our politicians. I do 
 not recollect, that any one of them has ventured at a 
 definition of it. Mr. Johnson, as he is now a pen- 
 sioner, one should naturally have recourse to for the 
 
APPENDIX. 161 
 
 truest literary information on this subject. His de- 
 finition then of a pension is, An allowance made to 
 any one imthout an equivalent. In England it is 
 generally understood to mean^ pay given to a state 
 hireling for treason to his country. And under the 
 word pensioner we read, 1. a dependant } 2. a slave 
 of state J hired by a stipend to obey his master. But, 
 with submission to this great prodigy of learning, 1 
 should think both definitions very erroneous. Is the 
 said Mr. Johnson a dependant? or is he a slave of 
 state, hired by a stipend to obey his master ? " The 
 writer then ironically represents Johnson as deserv- 
 ing a royal pension, on account of his gentleman- 
 like compliments to his majesty's grandfather and 
 his decent treatment of the parliament. " No man, 
 who has read only one poem of his, London, but 
 must congratulate the good sense and discerning 
 spirit of the minister, who bestows such a part of the 
 public treasure on this distinguished friend of the 
 public, of his master's family, and of the constitution 
 of this country." 
 
 In another part he says — " Neither of you have 
 reached the force and closeness of expression in the 
 great lexicographer, Mr. Johnson, who defines a 
 Favorite to be a mean wretch, whose whole business 
 is by any means to please. But whether the word 
 has been well defined or not, in former periods of 
 
 14^ 
 
163 APPENDIX. 
 
 the English history, the effect of it has been vety 
 fully felt, and even at this hour it is never uttered 
 without the most unjust passion and ill founded re- 
 sentment, as if the nation was now smarting from 
 the sad consequences of its reality and exertion in 
 pride and insolence." 
 
 The reasons for believing this number of the 
 North Briton to have been written by Sackville are 
 the violent attack on the earl of Bute, — references 
 to mathematical definitions and to books of fortifica- 
 tion, which are not very Hkely to have come from 
 Mr. Wilkes, though he was a colonel, — the reference 
 to " the memorable year 1746," when Sackville 
 fought against the rebels — but of vviiich year Wilkes 
 could have known but little, then but 18 years of 
 age, — the ridicule of lord Litchfield for his re- 
 missness at that period, — and the terms, in which 
 Mr. Pitt is spoken of. 
 
 I am persuaded, that Sackville also wrote ' A 
 North Briton Extraordinary,' which was printed, 
 but not pubhshed April 17, 1763. Junius, in writing 
 to Mr. Woodfall, speaks of one of his letters as being 
 worth ' a whole North Briton Extraordinary.' Be- 
 sides this uncommon remark, the style is that of 
 Junius. "Mr. Pitt's resolution arose from conscious 
 virtue, and the earl of Bute's from conscious pow- 
 er;" &ic. 
 
APPENDIX. 163 
 
 Of Junius Dr. Johnson says, in bis ' Thoughts on 
 the Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands,' 1771 
 — " This thirst of blood, however the visible promot- 
 ers of sedition ma}^ think it convenient to shrink from 
 the accusation, is loudly avowed by Junius, the 
 writer, to whom his party owes much of its pride, 
 and some of its popularity. Of Junius it cannot be 
 said, as of Ulysses, that he scatters ambiguous ex- 
 pressions among the vulgar ; for he cries havock 
 without reserve, and endeavors to let slip the dogs of 
 foreign or 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 vigor of the bow. 
 
 " Junius burst into notice with a blaze of impu- 
 dence, which has rarely glared upon the world be- 
 fore, 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. 
 
 " Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which 
 some have gazed with w^onder 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 
 
164 APPENDIX. 
 
 from its flaming hair shook pestilence and war, in- 
 quiry will find to be only a meteor, formed by the 
 vapors of putrefying democracy, and kindled into 
 flame by the eflervescence of interest struggling with 
 conviction ; which after having plunged its followers 
 in a bog, will leave us inquiring why we regard 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 never 
 have stationed him where he has placed himself, 
 had I not rated him by his morals rather than his 
 facuhies. What, says Pope, must be the priest, 
 where a monkey is the god? What must be the 
 drudge of a party, of which the heads are Wilkes 
 and Crosby, Sawhidge and Townsend ? " 
 
 It will be considered a curious circumstance, if 
 Junius, whom Johnson thus assails, should prove to 
 be the North Briton, who had previously endeavor- 
 ed to overwhelm '' Pensioner Johnson " with ridi- 
 cule. Nor will it be the less curious, that " the 
 meteor, formed by the vapors of a putrefying democ- 
 racy,^'' as Johnson deemed in 1771, should, in 1775, 
 
 the year in which Johnson wrote his 'Taxation 
 
 no Tyranny,' — be a chosen Minister of his Majesty, 
 and the adviser and stern supporter of all the meas- 
 ures, which were adopted to maintain the claims of 
 royalty and to subjugate the rebellious colonics. In 
 
APPENDIX. 165 
 
 Johnson's eyes this '' meteor of democracy." — lord 
 Sackville, — was in 1775 doubtless a bright planet, 
 revolving around the dazzling luminary of Royalty. 
 
 If Sackville was the author of the History of the 
 Reign of George III., Dr. Johnson was not alone in 
 forming a mistaken judgment of the political senti- 
 ments of the writer of the letters of Junius, and in 
 ascribing to Democratic or Republican principle 
 what is to be attributed to the rancor of party, or the 
 violence of ambition. The Monthly Review says of 
 the author of the History — " He appears to be inti- 
 mately acquainted with what the Authors of antiqui- 
 ty have written concerning liberty and government. 
 — We should imagine, that he may have imbibed 
 from them too large a proportion of that love of 
 equality and independence, which, though of the 
 greatest advantage in a pure repuMic, is not alto- 
 gether so suitable to the genius and spirit of a limit- 
 ed monarchy." 
 
 This indiscreet republican and great lover of in- 
 dependence, as he was deemed by the wise Re- 
 viewer, was shortly afterwards, as I am persuaded, 
 the inflexible minister of royalty and stern foe of 
 American liberty, firmly resolved never to acknowl- 
 edge the independence of brave colonies, struggling 
 for their invaluable, unalienable rights. 
 
166 APPENDIX. 
 
 Regarding Sackville as the author of the various 
 works, which have now been ascribed to him, I have 
 not formed a very high opinion of his morality. 
 There was one steady object in most of them, — to 
 overthrow the existing ministry, that he might ele- 
 vate himself to office ; and this object was united 
 with the indulgence of a spirit of revenge. His 
 strong passions were exhibited in the employment of 
 the bitterest sarcasms and the most contumelious 
 language. His irreverent use of the name of God 
 is hardly reconcileable with any well founded prin- 
 ciples of morals ; as when he says to his printer, 
 December 19, 1769, " For material affection, for 
 God's sake, read maternal.'''* So again, March 18, 
 1770. "This letter is written wide. — For God's 
 sake let it appear to-morrow." Also the idle words, 
 * God only knows.' Whether a man, accustomed to 
 speak and write in this manner, as unhappily is the 
 case with many gentlemen, can be an habitual wor- 
 shipper of God and daily influenced in his conduct 
 by the fear of the Almighty, or by a regard to his 
 approbation, — the only stable principle of morals, — 
 I leave it to the intelligent reader to judge. 
 
 One of the letters of Junius was so shamefully 
 indecent, that he had the good sense to exclude it 
 from his edition. One can hardly attach much 
 credit to his apology for it, if he was the sole depos- 
 
APPENDIX. 167 
 
 itory of his own secret : " The last letter you print- 
 ed was idle and improper, and I assure you printed 
 against my own opinion. The truth is, there are 
 people about me, whom I would wish not to contra- 
 dict, and who had rather see Junius in the paper 
 ever so improperly, than not at all. I wish it could 
 be recalled. Suppose you were to say — We have 
 some reason to suspect, that the last letter, signed 
 Junius in this paper, was not written by the real 
 Junius." In this suggestion there is little of candor 
 and honesty. 
 
 His indulgence to Wilkes indicates but httle of 
 stoic virtue : " I too am no enemy to good fellow- 
 ship, and have often cursed that canting parson [Mr. 
 Home] for wishing to deny you your claret. It is 
 for him, and men like him to beware of intoxication. 
 Though I do not place the little pleasures of life in 
 competition with the glorious business of instructing 
 and directing the people, yet I see no reason why a 
 wise man may not unite the public virtues of Cato 
 with the indulgence of Epicurus." But alas, where 
 shall we find public virtue without private ? Is it in 
 Wilkes, who made a trade of patriotism, and who, 
 deeming " the public a goose," regarded the man as 
 a fool, who should hesitate in plucking a feather? 
 Or is it in Junius himself, the once flaming patriot, 
 and glorious teacher of the people, forgetting in the 
 
168 APPENDIX. 
 
 capacity of minister every thing but the interests and 
 wishes of his royal master, who might reward him 
 
 with a peerage ? 
 
 Do we find the dignity and calmness of virtue in 
 the opprobrious terms of ' wretch, idiot, rascal, fool, 
 and viliain,' which are scattered through the letters 
 of Junius ? 
 
 On what a sandy foundation must that system of 
 morals be built, which admits of duelling ? Yet it 
 does not appear, that Sackville felt any compunction 
 for his violation once, in a private combat, of the 
 laws of God and man, nor for the purpose of vio- 
 lating them a second time. In that mind, which 
 dreads the laugh of a mortal more than the displeas- 
 ure of the Almighty, there must be a miserable per- 
 version of intellect and of passion. There may be 
 a claim to worldly honor ; but the pretension to vir- 
 tue, to morals, to principle is ridiculous. It is the 
 glittering bubble, which is borne along by every 
 wave ; the rock remains immoveable amidst the 
 fluctuations of the sea. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 I. 
 
 Since the foregoing work was written, it has been 
 stated in the newspapers, copied from the London 
 Globe, that " Five letters are deposited in the archives 
 of the Grenville family at Stow, which establish, be- 
 yond the possibility of doubt, the real author of Junius. 
 This eminent individual was politically connected with 
 Mr. George Grenville, the grandfather of the present 
 Duke of Buckingham, from whom these autograph 
 proofs have descended to the present possessor. The 
 venerable statesman, nearly allied to the duke of 
 Buckingham, has requested the discovery should not 
 be published during his life time. — It is however confi- 
 dentially asserted, that in all the controversies relating 
 to these celebrated letters the author of them has not 
 been named." 
 
 Such is the last and newest report; and it deserves 
 just as much credit, as many other stories, which have 
 had their day and are now forgotten. — If in this notice 
 it is intended to suggest, that the author of the letters 
 of Junius is now living ; — then he must be indeed a 
 "venerable" man, for as it is now more than sixty 
 years since Junius began to write, if we allow, that 
 when he spoke of his "long experience" he was fifty 
 
 15 
 
170 N0TE8. 
 
 years of age, the venerable statesman is now one hun- 
 dred and ten years old ! 
 
 As to the political connexion of Junius with Mr. 
 George Grenville ; Junius declared in his letter of July 
 29, 1769, that he had not " the honor of being person- 
 ally known to him." — There is in fact no evidence, 
 that Sackville was personally acquainted with Gren- 
 ville. — In respect to autograph letters of Junius being 
 in possession of the Grenville family, it is altogether 
 improbable, for the letters were generally returned by 
 Woodfall to the author. And if some letters of Junius 
 are now in the possession of that family, they can be of 
 no more value in determining the author, than the auto- 
 graph letters, of which fac-similes have long since been 
 published by Woodfall. 
 
 However, it is very likely, that in some great families 
 in England there are autograph letters of lord George 
 Sackville ; nor can I doubt, that if fac-similes of such 
 letters, written about the year 1770, were given to the 
 public, they would exhibit the same hand-writings 
 which is presented in Woodfall's specimens of Junius. 
 
 It is worthy of remembrance, that when, within three 
 or four years past, Mr. Coventry applied to the Duke of 
 Dorset, the son of lord Sackville, for permission to ex- 
 amine some letters of his father, written from Culloden 
 and Mindcn, the duke observed, that he had not " any 
 of his father's letters in his possession." It is very 
 probable the duke suspected the inquiry of Mr. Coven- 
 try to relate to the author of the letters of Junius. He 
 
NOTES. 171 
 
 more than once remarked, during the interview with 
 Mr. Coventry, " that his father was an injured man ; 
 but he believed there never existed one, who naturally 
 possessed a better or more susceptible heart." 
 
 Yet the autography of the letters of Junius is not de- 
 cisive in the inquiry concerning the author, except on 
 the supposition, to which I cannot refuse my assent, 
 that he did not employ an amanuensis, unless perhaps 
 in the case of the letter to the King. But, if it could 
 be proved, that the letters of Junius were not in the 
 hand-writing of Sackville ; it would not affect the gen- 
 eral argument of this book. It may still be clear, be- 
 yond a reasonable doubt, that he was the author of 
 those letters. 
 
 Since the foregoing work was written, the following 
 extract from the Baron De Stael's Letters on England 
 has appeared in the North American Review for Janu- 
 ary, 1828 : — " When I took charge of the North Brit- 
 on," — said the noted John Wilkes, — " I found it in the 
 hands of Churchill and Lloyd, who were men of taste 
 and wit. I soon saw, that this would not answer ; and 
 giving up all pretensions to elegance of style, I began 
 to cry out with all my might, Down with the Scotch- 
 man ! Down 7mth the Scotchman ! In this way I pretty 
 soon despatched lord Bute." — The authority for ascrib- 
 ing this speech to Mr. Wilkes does not appear ; but if 
 correctly ascribed, it will strengthen the argument 
 against his being the author of the North Briton. It is 
 here intimated, that the first numbers of that paper did 
 
172 NOTES. 
 
 not attack lord Bute, and that they are written v/ith 
 greater elegance of style, than the latter numbers ; 
 neither of which suggestions is founded in truth. The 
 original and great object of the North Briton was to 
 pull down the Scotchman, or to overthrow the existing 
 administration. The very first number ridicules the 
 eloquence of the Scot, and obviously refers to him as an 
 " insolent, weak, and treacherous minister." The sec- 
 ond number is chiefly devoted to the " Scotsman, plant- 
 ed at the head of the English treasury." The fourth 
 number says, " the Earl of Bute, John Stuart, a 
 name ever dear to us, — possesses the first post in the 
 state." The fifth number is a most violent attack on 
 the " Favorite " in the character of Mortimer, ending 
 with the wish, that when power is acquired by profliga- 
 cy, and a "court-minion" rules, the prince will, like 
 Edward, " crush the aspiring wretch, who mounts to 
 power by such ignoble means." Surely this is crying 
 out lustily enough — " Down with the Scotchman ! " 
 
 There is such a close relation between the fifth num- 
 ber and the thirty-ninth, — such a resemblance in argu- 
 ment and the method of attacking lord Bute, — that 
 probably no one will doubt, that they both proceeded 
 from the same pen ; so that, if Mr. Wilkes did not 
 write the early numbers, he did not write the thirty- 
 ninth. Indeed, by comparing the various numbers of 
 the North Briton, the intelligent reader will not fail to 
 be convinced, that with possibly a very few exceptions, 
 in which the author made use of the papers sent to 
 
NOTES. 
 
 173 
 
 him, they all bear the evident stamp of the same mind. 
 To the same person must be ascribed the '' Dedication, 
 prefixed to the Fall of Mortimer, to the right honorable 
 John, Earl of Bute." 
 
 There are other considerations, tending to prove, 
 that Mr. Wilkes did not vi^rite the North Briton. — 
 Would he, whose profligacy was notorious, have been 
 solicitous on account of the pernicious effect of lotte- 
 ries ? Would he have written in No. 42 — " Lotteries 
 have always been objected to, as promoting a spirit of 
 gaming, so peculiarly pernicious to a commercial coun- 
 try?" 
 
 The North Briton indicates an intimate acquaintance 
 with the state of the finances of the country, the affairs 
 of the East India company, the condition of the army, 
 and with the political history of England and of other 
 countries, which can hardly be ascribed to Mr. Wilkes 
 at so early a period of his life, — and much less to Mr. 
 Churchill, who had just abandoned the church and de- 
 voted himself to profligacy and poetry, or to his friend, 
 young Mr. Lloyd ; but which are very appropriate to 
 the known character of lord Sackville. 
 
 If it should be asked, how came Churchill to receive 
 the profits of the North Briton, as, it is said, was given 
 in evidence by the Bookseller, it may be replied, that 
 this fact is fatal to the pretensions, as commonly under- 
 stood, of Mr. Wilkes to be author and proprietor. If 
 lord Sackville was the author, as he could not, without 
 danger of detection, receive the profits himself, and 
 
 15* 
 
 ■* 
 
174 NOTES. 
 
 could not wish for them ; there is nothing to account 
 for, but why he should give them to Mr. Churchill, 
 rather than to some other person. And here it is easy 
 to suppose various motives ; — admiration of his talents, 
 — sympathy with him in his rancorous hostility to the 
 Scotch, as manifested by his " Prophecy of Famine," — 
 compassion for his poverty, as he had just escaped the 
 terrors of a prison by compounding with his creditors, — 
 and the desire of enlisting his powers in the attack on 
 the ministry. The praise of Churchill in No. 11 has 
 already been alluded to. On the supposition, that 
 Sackville conducted the North Briton, all obscurities 
 and difficulties vanish. The hostility, the rancor, the 
 extensive political knowledge, the zeal, the determina- 
 tion, the unity of the work are all accounted for. And 
 as Mr. Wilkes, after the general warrant issued against 
 him as the author, ever afterwards plumed himself with 
 the feathers of the noble bird, which did not belong to 
 him, it is no wonder, that lord Sackville, who alone was 
 acquainted with the secret, should as Junius speak 
 contemptuously of the talents of Mr. Wilkes even in 
 the height of his fame, and should even tutor him, as 
 he did in one of his letters to him, on his making him- 
 self too cheap, and lowering his dignity, by showing 
 himself so frequently in the streets of the city. 
 
 Mr. Charles Butler, in speaking of Mr. Wilkes, in 
 reference to the letters of Junius, says, — " No one, ac- 
 quainted with his style, can suspect for a moment, that 
 he was the author of them ; the merit of his style was 
 
NOTES. 175 
 
 simplicity ; he had both gaiety and strength, but to the 
 rancorous sarcasm, the lofty contempt, with which 
 Junius' Letters abound, no one was a greater stranger, 
 than Mr. Wilkes." * But if he was incapable of writ- 
 ing the letters of Junius, he was also incapable of writ- 
 ing the numbers of the North Briton, which are filled 
 with the same sarcasm and the same rancor. 
 
 Mr. Butler and Mr. Wilkes had many conversations 
 between the years 1776 and 1784 on the subject of 
 Junius' Letters, and made great efforts to discover the 
 author. " Mr. Wilkes scouted the notion of Mr. 
 Burke's being the author of the letters. His suspicions 
 fell on Dr. Butler, bishop of Hereford." But for rea- 
 sons very unsatisfactory to Mr. Butler — " Arguing syn- 
 thetically, we determined, that Junius must be a resi- 
 dent in London, or its environs, from the immediate 
 answers, which he generally gave his adversaries ; that 
 he was not an author by profession, from the visible 
 improvement, which from time to time was discernible 
 in his style ; that he was a man of high rank, from the 
 tone of equality, which he seemed to use quite naturally 
 in his addresses to persons of rank, and in his expres- 
 sions respecting them ; that he was not a profound 
 lawyer, from the gross inaccuracy of some of his legal 
 expressions ; that he had a personal animosity against 
 the king, the duke of Bedford, and lord Mansfield, 
 from the bitterness of his expressions respecting them ; 
 
 * Butler's Reminiscences, p. 68. 
 
176 NOTES. 
 
 that he had lived with military men from the propriety 
 of his language on military subjects." * All these con- 
 ditions, it has been seen, are answered by the situation 
 and character of lord Sackville; and from these cir- 
 cumstances Mr. Butler seems inclined to think the evi- 
 dence is stronger in his favor, than in favor of any 
 other person. Yet the evidence he deems defective ; 
 and upon the whole appears disposed, without evidence, 
 to ascribe the authorship of the letters to Mr. Charles 
 Lloyd, private secretary of Mr. George Grenville. Dr. 
 Parr and others regarded him as the author. The only 
 argument in his favor is, that when he died, Junius 
 ceased to write. He died January 23, 1773, four days 
 after the date of the last letter of Junius. But surely 
 this solitary circumstance ought to have very little 
 weight. Junius had ceased to write for the public 
 long before January 19, the date of his last private 
 letter. In some of the letters of Junius, under differ- 
 ent signatures, lord Chatham was attacked in a man- 
 ner, which could not have proceeded from the secreta- 
 ry of Mr. George Grenville, who was the brother-in- 
 law and at that time the political friend of lord Chat- 
 ham. The Miscellaneous Letters of 16 February and 
 23 April, 17G8, and October 19, 1770, may be referred to 
 on this point. There are yet other insuperable difficul- 
 ties in the way of tracing the Letters of Junius to the in- 
 stigation of Mr. Grenville. He died November, 1770, 
 
 * Butler's Reminiscences, p. 71. 
 
NOTES. 177 
 
 when the Letters of Junius were but half written. — 
 Having been the associate in office with the duke of 
 Bedford, after the resignation of lord Bute, the vehe- 
 ment attack of the duke would not have proceeded 
 from him. — Mr. Lloyd could not have felt the influence 
 of those motives, which only can account for the writ- 
 ings of Junius. Besides, Junius, with apparent hones- 
 ty, disclaimed any personal acquaintance with Mr. 
 Grenville. — Lord Sackville adopted Mr. Grenville's 
 views as to America ; and he might have hoped, if Mr. 
 Grenville were restored to the ministry, to take office 
 with him. 
 
 Junius requested of Woodfall a set of his letters ; — 
 " let me have a set, bound in vellum, gilt and lettered, 
 as handsome as you can — the edges gilt — let the sheets 
 he well dried before binding ^ There is very little rea- 
 son to suppose these two vellum volumes are in the 
 Grenville family, as Mr. Butler, though a lawyer, sup- 
 poses without reason and proof; but, if the argument 
 of this book is not fallacious, probably they might be 
 found, if they have not been destroyed, in a secret cab- 
 inet of the present Duke of Dorset, the son of lord 
 George Sackville. 
 
 IL 
 
 The author has unexpectedly, since writing the pre- 
 ceding note,, obtained additional proof in favor of his 
 views concerning the origin of the North Briton and of 
 the Letters of Junius. The limits of a note will not 
 
178 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 allow him fully to explain this confirmatory evidence ; 
 but he cannot forbear alluding to it and giving a brief 
 account of it, 
 
 " The Political Register," a monthly political Jour- 
 nal, was publishsd at London by Almon in May, 1767, 
 and was continued till June, 1771, or later. This 
 work has been ascribed to Wilkes and Lloyd, but erro- 
 neously ; for Lloyd was dead, and Wilkes was an out- 
 law at Paris, and did not return till 1768. Besides, in 
 some of the numbers the character of Mr. Wilkes was 
 attacked, though from public views he was generally 
 supported. It is certain, then, that Mr. Wilkes was 
 not the editor; yet he may have been an occasional 
 contributor. 
 
 In this work many of the letters of Junius were re- 
 published, and without any intimation, that they had 
 been printed in the Public Advertiser. Several of the 
 miscellaneous letters of the same writer, under differ- 
 ent signatures, were also republished ; as Poplicola, in 
 the first number. There are also various communica- 
 tions in the Register, evidently from the same pen. 
 
 In the number for March, 1768, there is a piece of 
 fourteen pages, called " A Fragment, containing 
 many interesting and constitutional remarks on the 
 case of Mr. Wilkes, written in the summer of 1763 ; 
 and now first published." This was evidently written 
 by the author of the North Briton, and it affords evi- 
 dence also of coming from the author of the letters of 
 Junius. Had Wilkes written it, he would have pub- 
 
NOTES. 179 
 
 lished it before his trial in 1764. It was doubtless put 
 to press in 1768, before Mr. Wilkes returned from 
 Paris. 
 
 It begins with the very military allusions of Junius, 
 — " The ministers were the aggressors in the political 
 warfare of defamatory writings : Their great cham- 
 pions first took up arms ; but neither abilities, false- 
 hoods, nor pay could keep the mercenaries in the field. 
 They were fairly beat, and retired. Then their mas- 
 ters, pricked with pungent retaliation, armed with irre- 
 sistible evidence of fact, used the corps de reserve of 
 power, and called for the artillery of the law to defeat 
 their adversaries, on whom they could make no im- 
 pression by answers, argument, nor by corruption." 
 
 The following sentences seem to intimate, that the 
 North Briton had not been correctly ascribed to Mr. 
 Wilkes : — " Can the strongest prejudices carry any 
 man, who will use his own eyes and understanding, to 
 believe, that the author of the North Briton, number 
 forty-five, be he who he will, meant an insult to the 
 King ? All, he has said, is levelled against the minis- 
 ters, and he expresses, in a variety of sentences, the 
 utmost respect for his Sovereign ; a heart-felt duty and 
 affection to his person ; a high veneration for his quali- 
 ties ; and an undissembled attachment to his royal 
 house, and the succession to the crown in the protes- 
 tant line." — '* It was therefore very artful to raise a 
 cry against the alleged author of the North Briton." 
 
180 NOTES. 
 
 The following passage will lead one to believe, that 
 the author was not Mr. Wilkes, but a member of a 
 great Whig family, who had a personal interest, as 
 Sackville had, in the distribution of the royal patron- 
 age : — " The author has waged perpetual war with 
 Toryism and disaffection. Nothing has been more 
 complained of in the whole course of the paper, than 
 that, ever since the Favorite's influence became pre- 
 dominant, the staunch, known, and tried friends of the 
 royal family have been depressed ; and the avowed 
 enemies of it unreasonably elevated, rather than sin- 
 cerely converted ; a thing very desirable, but of which 
 their insolence towards the natural stock, that needed 
 no conversion, which they have remarkably shown, 
 since they found themselves in favor, is but a sad 
 proof. It is not reasonable to think, that such a writer 
 should mean to give a personal affront to the king. — It 
 is impossible to torture it into an insult to Majesty, 
 unless the word minister is the same with the word 
 king.'''' 
 
 The antithesis of Junius is seen in the following : — 
 " But to stir up royal anger with fictitious affronts is 
 the injury of an enemy, not the kindness of a friend, — 
 the art of a sycophant, not the fidelity of a minister." 
 
 We find also the defects of Junius as to grammar : — 
 " his locks were broke open, and his papers carried 
 away ;" — " In short, every barrier has been hy-oke 
 through ;" and also a frequent metaphor of Junius : — 
 " State their conduct in its true colors to his majesty: " 
 
NOTES. ' 181 
 
 — " under color of making his majesty resent an insult 
 to himself." 
 
 Sackville is alluded to as follows : — " Part of his 
 indignation against the minister is for not shewing a 
 due regard for the honor either of our late gracious 
 sovereign, or of his present majesty, — ' Was it (says 
 he) a tender regard for the honor of the late king, or 
 of his present majesty, that invited to court lord 
 George Sackville ? ' " 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought, that if Sackville himself 
 was the author of the Fragment, he would not have 
 quoted the North Briton apparently in derogation of 
 his own honor. But at this period, when Sackville 
 was in the ranks of the opposition to the ministry, if 
 Mr. Wilkes was the author, he would not have insert- 
 ed the name of Sackville, with the probability thereby 
 of creating an enemy to his own cause ; especially as 
 he was about to return to England and to offer himself 
 as a candidate for election to parliament. But Sack- 
 ville might thus quote the North Briton for the very 
 purpose of obviating suspicion towards himself 
 
 In the same volume of the Register (II. 408) a 
 writer in the St. James' Chronicle, whose signature is 
 A. B., May 2, 1768, also vindicates the North Briton 
 No. 45 : — he is probably the very author of the Frag- 
 ment. It would seem, that he was a member of par- 
 liament : — " Lord North could not find one wox^ false 
 in that whole paper, although he was challenged to it 
 in express words by Mr. Wilkes, in the House of Com- 
 
 16 
 
182 NOTES. 
 
 mons, when his lordship almost choaked himself, as 
 well as stunned his audience, on the first day of the 
 session, in 1763. / was present^ I saw him foam at 
 the mouth, and heard him guggle in the throat, that I 
 thought he would have been strangled." 
 
 This use of the word that is not English ; but is in 
 the manner of the Scotch and Irish. — The writer then 
 proceeds to state some facts relating to the German 
 war, which can hardly be attributed to Mr. Wilkes, but 
 which would have been familiar to Sackville. He says 
 also — " I heard lord Bute declare in a great assembly, 
 that the dominions of the King of Prussia were to he 
 scrambled for ; the most indecent, vulgar, and infa- 
 mous expression for an ally of the crown of England, 
 which any minister ever uttered." Would Mr. Wilkes 
 have been likely to recollect and repeat this remark of 
 Bute ; and to have felt so warmly on the subject ? 
 
 The same writer, A. B. also, at the same time, wrote 
 for the Public Advertiser, and says, — " The famous 
 No. 45 being now triumphant, and every objection to it 
 having been fully answered." From Woodfall's edition 
 it appears, that Junius wrote a note November 5, 1768, 
 under the signature of A. B. 
 
 The first piece in the first number of the Political 
 Register bears the stamp of Junius ; — entitled, " Re- 
 marks on the Principles of the British Government." 
 The writer says, — " A minister, whose maiden political 
 talents had not yet been fleshed,^^ This was published 
 May, 1767. In October, 1768, the author of the letters 
 
NOTES. 183 
 
 of Junius writes, — '* His Grace had honorably fleshed 
 his maiden sword in the field of opposition." Did Ju- 
 nius condescend to borrow the phrase from the Regis- 
 ter ; or are Junius and the writer for the Register the 
 same person ? 
 
 This writer also speaks of "planting thorns in the 
 king's crown ; " and Junius alludes to Mr. Wilkes, 
 July, 1771, as " a thorn in the king's side." 
 
 This writer, in the Register for September, 1767, 
 speaking of " Prerogative," says, " It is, in reality, no 
 more than that share of the government, which is vest- 
 ed in the crown as the balance of the constitution, and 
 for the general welfare of the community. It is in 
 itself, in every part, a trust for the people, not a per- 
 sonal or patrimonial property or estate of the prince." 
 Junius says, in his Dedication, " 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." 
 
 This writer says, — " There is no fear, that a sove- 
 reign, embued with the principles, and enamored with 
 the glories of this constitution, — will ever think of 
 plucking away the smallest part of so rich a plumage.'''' 
 Was this the origin of the unequalled metaphor of 
 Junius 1 — " Private credit is wealth ; — public honor is 
 security. — The feather that adorns the royal bird, sup- 
 ports his flight. Strip him of his plumage^ and you fix 
 him to the earth." 
 
184 NOTES. 
 
 The writer of notes on the works of Mr. Churchill in 
 the first volume of the Register, says, that Mr. Wilkes 
 had been some months at Winchester, guarding the 
 French prisoners, when a friend wrote to him, that Mr. 
 Hogarth was preparing his abusive print of The Times. 
 Mr. Wilkes replied, that if he thought the North Briton 
 would insert what he should send, he would appeal to 
 the public on the Saturday following the publication of 
 the print. The Times soon appeared, and the next 
 Saturday the seventeenth number of the North Briton. 
 " If Mr. Wilkes did write that paper, he kept his 
 word." This number was printed at London, Septem- 
 ber 25, 1762. At that time Mr. Wilkes was far distant 
 from London ; either at Winchester, or on a journey 
 to the Isle of Wight. Of course, it is altogether im^ 
 probable, that he wrote No. 17 ; and although, after 
 one fire, in the duel with Talbot, he prudently " avow- 
 ed " the offensive No. 12, and thus escaped the repeti- 
 tion of the hazardous trial of skill, yet it seems very 
 clear also, that he could not have written that number, 
 dated August 21, inasmuch as he was then a resident 
 at Winchester. 
 
 It has been stated, that A. B. was written by Junius 
 in 1768, and hence inferred, that A. B. in the Register 
 was from the same pen. But it may be thought an ob- 
 jection to this conclusion, that Junius, November, 1769, 
 disclaimed being the author of a piece, then published 
 with the signature of A. B. Nothstanding this disclaim- 
 er, there is reason to believe, that Junius did actually 
 
NOTES. 185 
 
 write A. B. among the Miscellaneous Letters, published 
 November 10th. It is in his style : it was printed by 
 his desire. Would he have requested the publication, 
 if he had not been the author ? It is true, Mr. Wood- 
 fall was directed to deny it ; but Junius had in the pre- 
 ceding month directed the denial of one of his unques- 
 tioned letters ; that to Junia. Among the reasons for 
 the denial of A. B. one is obvious, — that as he had in- 
 advertently employed the signature, which he frequent- 
 ly used in the Political Register, and as Messala had 
 expressly ascribed A. B. to Junius, the danger of the 
 detection of Junius would be increased, if the identity 
 of A. B. and Junius were admitted, or were not denied. 
 
 There are yet other proofs, that Junius was a con- 
 tributor to the Political Register, His first public Let- 
 ter of January 21, 1769, appeared in the Register for 
 February as an original communication ; introduced 
 thus — ''For the Political Register;" and there is no 
 intimation, that it had been printed in the Advertiser. 
 
 A writer in the Register for January, 1768, speaks of 
 lord Bute as " the mighty Thane. So also B. F. in the 
 Register for September, 1768, publishes an ''account of 
 the flight of the Scottish Thane.'^ Now Junius applies 
 the same term to the earl in his letter of April 5, 1768, 
 — " Let the Thane look to himself" 
 
 In the Register for March, 1768, the first miscellane- 
 ous letter of Junius, as given by Woodfall, dated Febru- 
 ary 16th, is republished, headed thus, " On putting the 
 Privy Seal into Commission. (See the Political Barom- 
 
186 NOTES. 
 
 eter in this number.)" This title is absent from Wood- 
 fall's edition ; it was doubtless given by the author, and 
 renders it probable, that Junius wrote the Political Ba- 
 rometer. The first number of the Barometer was for 
 September, 1767, furnished by one of the Editor's cor- 
 respondents, who promised a continuation, and said, 
 " only such occurrences will be inserted, as are strictly 
 political, or are of importance to the public, or in some 
 degree affect the administration of government ; and 
 many facts loill here make their first appearance in 
 print." This intimates a writer conversant with the 
 court and engaged in public affairs. As a specimen of 
 his chronology, take the following : — " September 9. 
 Lord Mansfield was at court, and had the honor of a 
 conference in the closet. — His lordship was appointed 
 chancellor, — 10. A great lady paid a long visit to a 
 great personage. All hopes of an able and permanent 
 administration vanished. — 12. Lord Bute came to 
 town. 15. Lord Barrington came to town." — " Octo- 
 her 5. Lord North appointed chancellor." November. 
 Extract of a letter from Corke ..." The late commoner 
 was longer the idol of this country, than of yours . . . We 
 now despise and contemn him . . . Lord Temple is the 
 idol of this country for his steady opposition to the 
 Thane and faithful attachment to liberty." — ''February, 
 1768. Such is the divided and inharmonious state of 
 the ministers, that those, who know most of their situa- 
 tion, make no scruple of asserting, they cannot stand 
 six months as they are." — Many pages of the Barome- 
 
NOTES. 
 
 187 
 
 ter for July and August, 1768, are devoted to the affairs 
 of Mr. Wilkes, and A. B. is reprinted in it from the St. 
 James' Chronicle. ^45 a part of the Barometer, in the 
 Register for October, 1768, the letters of Lucius (Ju- 
 nius under that signature) are republished. So the let- 
 ters of Atticus (by Junius) are a part of the Barometer 
 
 for November, 1768. 
 
 How then can it be doubted, that Junius wrote the 
 Barometer, and A. B., as well as the North Briton ? 
 And as A. B. in June or July, 1768, speaks of the " in- 
 solent Scot as trampling on the ancient nohility of this 
 kingdom," it is probable the writer belonged to a nohle 
 family. 
 
 Various other considerations, which cannot in this 
 note be explained, have led to the undoubted conclu- 
 sion, that lord Sackville was the principal writer for 
 the Political Register. By his own acknowledgment to 
 Mr. Home in 1771, he had written "numberless trifles." 
 
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