VORITE had some apparent influence upon every administration; and every set of ministers preserved an appearance of duration as long as they submitted to that influence.2 But there were 2 If the reader wishes to understand the true state of parties at this time, and the real merits of the so much agitated question of favoritism, he will be aid ed by a consideration of the following facts: certain services to be performed for the Favorite's security, or to gratify his resentments, which your predecessors in office had the wisdom or the virtue not to undertake. The moment this refractory spirit was discovered, their disgrace was determined. Lord Chatham, Mr. Grenville, and Lord Rockingham have successively had the honor to be dismissed, for preferring their duty, as servants of the public, to those compliances which were expected from their station. A submissive administration was at last gradually collected from the deserters of all parties, interests, and connections; and nothing remained but to find a leader for these gallant, well-disciplined troops. Stand forth, my Lord, for thou art the man! source of dependence or security in the proud, imposing superiority of Lord Chatham's abilities, the shrewd, inflexible judgment of Mr. Grenville, nor in the mild but determined integrity of Lord Rockingham. His views and situation required a creature void of all these properties; and he all parties as he considered best fitted to adminis-lution, composition, and refinement of political was forced to go through every division, resoter the government. If he had thrown himself into William III. was placed on the throne in the revolution of 1688, by a union of the great Whig families; and his successors were held there against the efforts of the Jacobites by the same power. Hence the government of the country "on Revolution principles," so often spoken of, was really, to a great extent, the government of the King himself as well as the country, by a union of these families powerful enough to control Parliament. Junius has very graphically described, in the preceding Letter, the process by which George II., "under the happy in fluence of a connection between his ministers, was relieved of the cares of government." When George III. came to the throne, he determined to break away from these shackles, and to rule according to his own views and feelings, selecting such men from the hands of Lord Chatham for the accomplishment of this design, he would probably have succeeded. That great statesman, by the splendor of his abili ties, and his unbounded influence with the body of the people, might have raised up a counterpoise against the weight of those great family combinations in the peerage. But George III. disliked the Great Commoner, and had no resource but his early friend, Lord Bute. But this nobleman had neither the abilities nor the political influence which were necessary for the accomplishment of such a scheme. As a Scotchman, particularly, he had to encounter the bitterest jealousy of the English. After a brief effort to administer the government, he gave up the attempt in despair. Still, there was a wide-spread suspicion that he maintained an undue influence over the King by secret advice and inter course. It seems now to be settled, however, that such was not the fact. The complaint of his continuing to rule as Fovorite, is now admitted to have been chiefly or wholly unfounded. But the King. if he persevered in his plan, must have some agents and advisers. Hence, it was maintained by Mr. Burke, in his celebrated pamphlet entitled Thoughts on the Present Discontents, that there was a regular organization, a "cabinet behind the throne," which overruled the measures of the ostensible ministry. Such, substantially, were the views of Junius, though he chose to give prominence to Lord Bute as most hated by the people. He represents one ministry after another to have been sacrificed through the influence of his Lordship. He treats the Duke of Grafton as the willing tool of this system of favoritism. All this was greatly exagger ated. Private influence did probably exist to a limited extent; but the King's frequent changes of ministers resulted partly from personal disgust, and partly from his inability to carry on the government without calling in new strength. The great Whig families, in the mean time, felt indignant at these, attempts of the King to free himself from their control. Junius represented the feelings of these men; and there was much less of real patriotism in his attack on the King than he pretends. It was a struggle for power. "There were many," says an able writer," among the Whig party, who rejoiced at the, Lord Bute found no re Flat and in chemistry, before he happily arrived at the caput rights of the people. But these are rights, my Lord, which you can no more annihilate than you can the soil to which they are annexed. The question no longer turns upon points of national honor and security abroad, or on the degrees of expediency and propriety of measures at home. It was not inconsistent that you should abandon the cause of liberty in another country [Corsica], which you had persecuted in your own; and in the common arts of domestic corruption, we miss no part of Sir Robert Walpole's system except his abilities. In this humble, imitative line you might long have proceeded, safe and contemptible. You might probably never have risen to the dignity of being hated, and you might even have been despised with moderation. But, it seems, you meant to be distinguished; and to a mind like yours there was no other road to fame but by the destruction of a noble fabric, which you thought had been too long the admiration of mankind. The use you have made of the military force, introduced an alarming change in the mode of executing the laws. The arbitrary appointment of Mr. Luttrell invades the foundation of the laws themselves, as it manifestly transfers the right of legislation from those whom the people have chosen to those whom they have rejected. With a succession of such appointments, we may soon see a House of Commons collected, in the choice of which the other towns and counties of England will have as little share as the devoted county of Middlesex. Yet I trust your Grace will find that the people of this country are neither to be intimidated by violent measures, nor deceived by refinement. When they see Mr. Luttrell seated in the House of Commons by mere dint of power, and in direct opposition to the choice of a whole county, they will not listen to those subtleties by which every arbitrary exertion of authority is explained into the law and privilege of Parliament. It requires no persuasion of argument, but simply the evidence of the senses, to convince them, that to transfer the right of election from the collective to the representative body of the people, contradiets all those ideas of a House of Commons which they have received from their forefathers, and which they had already, though vainly, perhaps, delivered to their children. The principles on which this violent measure has been defended have added scorn to injury, and forced us to feel that we are not only oppressed, but in sulted. With what force, my Lord, with what protection, are you prepared to meet the united detestation of the people of England? The city of London has given a generous example to the kingdom, in what manner a King of this country ought to be addressed; and I fancy, my Lord, it is not yet in your courage to stand between your sovereign and the addresses of his subjects. The injuries you have done this country are such as demand not only redress, but vengeance. vain shall you look for protection to that venal vote which you have already paid for another must be purchased; and, to save a minister, the In House of Commons must declare themselves not only independent of their constituents, but the determined enemies of the Constitution. Consider, my Lord, whether this be an extremity to which their fears will permit them to advance; or, if their protection should fail you, how far you are authorized to rely upon the sincerity of those smiles, which a pious court lavishes without reluctance upon a libertine by profession. It is not, indeed, the least of the thousand contradictions which attend you, that a man, marked to the world by the grossest violation of all ceremony and decorum, should be the first servant of a court, in which prayers are morality, and kneeling is religion.3 Trust not too far to appearances, by which your predecessors have been deceived, though they have not been injured. Even the best of princes may at last discover that this is a contention in which every thing may be lost, but nothing can be gained; and, as you became minister by accident, were adopted without choice, and continued without favor, be assured that, whenever an occasion presses, you will be discarded without even the forms of regret. You will then have reason to be thankful if you are permitted to retire to that seat of learning, which, in contemplation of the system of your life, the comparative purity of your manners with those of their high steward [Lord Sandwich], and a thousand other recommending circumstances, has chosen you to encourage the growing virtue of their youth, and to preside over their education. Whenever the spirit of distributing prebends and bishoprics shall have departed from you, you will find that learned seminary perfectly recovered from the delirium of an installation, and, what in truth it ought to be, once more a peaceful scene of slumber and meditation. The venerable tutors of the university will no longer distress your modesty by proposing you for a pattern to their pupils. The learned dullness of declamation will be silent; and even the venal muse, though happiest in fiction, will forget your virtues. Yet, for the benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your retreat might be deferred until your morals shall happily be ripened to that maturity of corruption at which, philosophers tell us, the worst examples cease to be contagious. JUNIUS. 3 This attack on the moral and religious character of the King was wholly unmerited. A sovereign can not always find ministers able to carry on the government, whose private character he approves. George III. had no grimace in his religion; he was sincere and conscientious; and he at last wrought a surprising change in the outward morals of the higher classes, by the purity of his own household. All Eugland has borne testimony to the wide-spread and powerful influence of his reign in this respect. Chancellor of the University of Cambridge with great * The Duke of Grafton had recently been installed pomp. The poet Gray, who owed his professorship to the unsolicited patronage of the Duke, had composed his Ode for Music, to be performed on that occasion, commencing, Hence! avaunt! 'tis holy ground! LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD.1 MY LORD,-You are so little accustomed to of your established character, and perhaps an receive any marks of respect or esteem from the insult to your understanding. You have nice public, that if, in the following lines, a compli- feelings, my Lord, if we may judge from your ment or expression of applause should escape resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving ofme, I fear you would consider it as a mockery fense, where you have so little deserved it, I 1 Dated September 19th, 1769. The Bedford fam-shall leave the illustration of your virtues to Your friends have a privilege to ily was at this time the richest in England, and, other hands. through its borough interest and wide-spread alli- play upon the easiness of your temper, or posances, stood foremost in political influence. The sibly they are better acquainted with your good present Duke was now sixty years old, and had qualities than I am. You have done good by spent half his life in the conflicts of party. He first stealth. The rest is upon record. You have held office under Lod Carteret, then under Mr. Pel- still left ample room for speculation, when panham, and was made Viceroy of Ireland by Lord Chategyric is exhausted. ham in his first administration. Thus far he had acted as a Whig. But when Lord Bute drove out Lord The ported you with meaner abilities than I think you You are indeed a very considerable man. Chatham in 1761, he took the office of Privy Seal, highest rank, a splendid fortune, and a name, glomade vacant by the resignation of Chatham's broth-rious till it was yours, were sufficient to have super-in-law Lord Temple, and was now considered as uniting his interests to those of the Favorite. When Lord Bute resigned in 1763, the influence of the Duke became ascendant in the cabinet, and the administration, though ostensibly that of Mr. Grenville, has often been spoken of as the Duke of Bedford's. It was extremely unpopular, from the gen. eral belief that Lord Bute still ruled as Favorite; and in 1765 it gave way to the administration of Lord Rockingham, which threw the Duke of Bedford wholly into the back-ground. The Duke of Grafton, when he became minister in 1767, through the illness of Lord Chatham and the death of Charles Townsend, found it necessary to call in new strength, and opened negotiations, as already mentioned, with Lord Rockingham on the one hand and the Duke of Bedford on the other. The Rockingham Whigs had the strongest hopes of prevailing in these new ar rangements, and of being made virtual masters of The eminence of your station gave you a commanding prospect of your duty. The road, which led to honor, was open to your view. You could not lose it by mistake, and you had no temptation to depart from it by design. Compare the natural dignity and importance of the richest peer of England; the noble independence which he might have maintained in Parlia the government. But the influence of the Duke of Bedford prevailed. Three of his dependents, Lords Weymouth, Gower, and Sandwich, were received into the ministry; and the Duke of Bedford drew upon himself the bitterest resentment of the Rock-ment; and the real interest and respect which he ingham Whigs for thus depriving them of power, and becoming, as they conceived, the savior of Lord Bute and the Tories, and thus re-establishing the system of secret influence in the closet. These events, might have acquired, not only in Parliament, but through the whole kingdom; compare these glorious distinctions with the ambition of holding a share in government, the emoluments of a place, the sale of a borough, or the purchase of a cor virtues which create respect, you may see, with anguish, how much real importance and authority you have lost. Consider the character of an independent, virtuous Duke of Bedford; imagine as stated above, were the immediate cause which led the writer of these Letters to come out under a new signature, and in a bolder style of attack. Aft-poration; and, though you may not regret the er assailing the Duke of Grafton, as we have seen in the preceding letters, he now turns upon the Duke of Bedford in a spirit of still fiercer resentment. He reviews the whole public and private conduct of his Grace, and endeavors to call up all the odium of past transactions to enkindle new jealousies against him, as about to give increased effect to a system of favoritism in the closet; and seeks at the same time to overwhelm the Duke himself with a sense of dishonor, baseness, and folly, which might make him shrink from the public eye. There is nothing in all the writings of Junius that is more vehemently eloquent than the close of this letter. It is proper to add, that this eloquence is, in far too many cases, un supported by facts. 2 This and the next three paragraphs are among the finest specimens of composition to be found in Junius. Nowhere has he made so happy a use of contrast. Commencing with a natural and expressive image, he first sketches with admirable discrim ination the character and conduct to be expected in the first peer of England, and then sets off against it an artful and exaggerated representation of the political errors and private weaknesses of the Duke of Bedford during the preceding thirty years. what he might be in this country, then reflect | long life, have invariably chosen his friends from one moment upon what you are. If it be possi- among the most profligate of mankind. His own ble for me to withdraw my attention from the honor would have forbidden him from mixing his fact, I will tell you in theory what such a man private pleasures or conversation with jockeys, might be. gamesters, blasphemers, gladiators, or buffoons. He would then have never felt, much less would he have submitted to the dishonest necessity of pendents-of supplying their vices, or relieving their beggary at the expense of his country. He would not have betrayed such ignorance or such contempt of the Constitution as openly to avow, in a court of justice, the purchase and sale of a borough. He would not have thought it consistent with his rank in the state, or even with his personal importance, to be the little tyrant of a little corporation. He would never have been insulted with virtues which he had labored to extinguish, nor suffered the disgrace of a mortifying defeat, which has made him ridiculous and contemptible, even to the few by whom he was not detested. I reverence the afflictions of a good man-his sorrows are sacred. But how can we take part in the dis Conscious of his own weight and importance. his conduct in Parliament would be directed by nothing but the constitutional duty of a peer.engaging in the interests and intrigues of his deHe would consider himself as a guardian of the laws. Willing to support the just measures of government, but determined to observe the conduct of the minister with suspicion, he would oppose the violence of faction with as much firmness as the encroachments of prerogative. He would be as little capable of bargaining with the minister for places for himself or his dependents, as of descending to mix himself in the intrigues of Opposition. Whenever an important question called for his opinion in Parliament, he would be heard, by the most profligate minister, with deference and respect. His authority would either sanctify or disgrace the measures of government. The people would look up to him as to their protector, and a virtuous prince would have one honest man in his dominions, in whose in-tresses of a man whom we can neither love nor tegrity and judgment he might safely confide. esteem, or feel for a calamity of which he himIf it should be the will of Providence to afflict self is insensible? Where was the father's him with a domestic misfortune, he would sub-heart when he could look for, or find an imme. init to the stroke with feeling, but not without dignity. He would consider the people as his children, and receive a generous, heart-felt consolation in the sympathizing tears and blessings of his country. Your Grace may probably discover something more intelligible in the negative part of this illustrious character. The man I have described would never prostitute his dignity in Parliament by an indecent violence either in opposing or defending a minister. He would not at one moment rancorously persecute, at another basely cringe to the Favorite of his sovereign. After outraging the royal dignity with peremptory conditions, little short of menace and hostility, he would never descend to the humility of soliciting an interview with the Favorite, and of offering to recover, at any price, the honor of his friendship. Though deceived, perhaps, in his youth, he would not, through the course of a diate consolation for the loss of an only son in consultations and bargains for a place at court, and even in the misery of balloting at the India House ?7 Admitting, then, that you have mistaken or deserted those honorable principles which ought to have directed your conduct; admitting that you have as little claim to private affection as to public esteem, let us see with what abilities, with what degree of judgment you have carried your own system into execution. A great man, in the success, and even in the magnitude of his crimes, finds a rescue from contempt. Your Grace is every way unfortunate. Yet I will not look back to those ridiculous scenes, by which, in your earlier days, you thought it an honor to be distinguished; the recorded stripes, the publie infamy, your own sufferings, or Mr. Rigby's fortitude. These events undoubtedly left an im who had so basely betrayed him." Horace Wal 5 This he did in an answer in Chancery, when sued for a large sum paid him by a gentleman, whom he had undertaken (but failed) to return as a mem ber of Parliament. He was obliged to refund the money. The Duke had lately lost his only son, Lord Tav-pole confirms this statement. istock, by a fall from his horse. There is great beauty in the turn of the next sentence, "he would consider the people as his children," which might well be done by a descendant of Lord William Russell, whose memory was venerated by the people as a martyr in the cause of liberty. This thought gives double severity to the contrast that follows, in which the character and conduct of the Duke are presented in such a light, that, instead of being able to repose his sorrows on the bosom of the people, he had made himself an object of their aversion or contempt. As to the justice of these insinuations respecting a want of "feeling" and "dignity" under this calamity, see the remarks at the end of this Letter. It is stated in a note by Junius, "At this interview, which passed at the house of the late Lord Eglintonn, Lord Bute told the Duke that he was dete med never to have any connection with a man The town of Bedford had been greatly exasper ated by the overbearing disposition of the Duke. To deliver themselves from the thraldom in which he had held them, they admitted a great number of strangers to the freedom of the corporation, and the Duke was defeated. As to the justice of this cruel attack, see the remarks at the end of the present Letter. Note by Junius. "Mr. Heston Humphrey, a country attorney, horsewhipped the Duke, with equal justice, severity, and perseverance, on the course at Litchfield. Rigby and Lord Trentham were also cudgeled in a most exemplary manuer. This gave character to think it possible that so many public sacrifices should have been made without some private compensation. Your conduct carries with it an interior evidence, beyond all the legal proof of a court of justice. Even the cal pression, though not upon your mind. To such a mind, it may perhaps be a pleasure to reflect, that there is hardly a corner of any of his Majesty's kingdoms, except France, in which, at one time or other, your valuable life has not been in danger. Amiable man! we see and acknowl-lous pride of Lord Egremont was alarmed. He edge the protection of Providence, by which you have so often escaped the personal detestation of your fellow-subjects, and are still reserved for the public justice of your country. Your history begins to be important at that auspicious period at which you were deputed to represent the Earl of Bute at the court of Versailles. It was an honorable office, and executed with the same spirit with which it was accepted. Your patrons wanted an embassador who would submit to make concessions without daring to insist upon any honorable condition for his sovereign. Their business required a man who had as little feeling for his own dignity as for the welfare of his country; and they found him in the first rank of the nobility. Belleisle, Goree, Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, Martinique, the Fishery, and the Havana, are glorious monuments of your Grace's talents for negotiation. My Lord, we are too well acquainted with your pecuniary rise to the following story: When the late King heard that Sir Edward Hawke had given the French a drubbing, his Majesty, who had never received that kind of chastisement, was pleased to ask Lord Chesterfield the meaning of the word. 'Sir,' said Lord Chesterfield, the meaning of the word-But here comes the Duke of Bedford, who is better able to explain it to your Majesty than I am.' saw and felt his own dishonor in corresponding with you; and there certainly was a moment at which he meant to have resisted, had not a fatal lethargy prevailed over his faculties, and carried all sense and memory away with it. I will not pretend to specify the secret terms on which you were invited to support an administration which Lord Bute pretended to leave in full possession of their ministerial authority, and perfectly masters of themselves.10 He was not of a temper to relinquish power, though he retired from employment. Stipulations were certainly made between your Grace and him, and certainly violated. After two years' submission, you thought you had collected a strength sufficient to control his influence, and that it was your turn to be a tyrant, because you had been a slave." When you found yourself mistaken in your opinion of your gracious master's firmness, disappointment got the better of all your humble discretion, and carried you to an excess of outrage to his person, as distant from true spirit, as from all decency and respect. After robbing him of the rights of a King, you would not permit him to preserve the honor of a gen tleman. It was then Lord Weymouth was nominated to Ireland, and dispatched (we well remember with what indecent hurry) to plunder the treasury of the first fruits of an employment which you well knew he was never to execute.12 Soon after Lord Chatham was driven from office in the midst of his glorious ministry, Lord Bute sent the Duke of Bedford to negotiate a treaty of peace with France, which was signed November 3d, 1762. This sudden declaration of war against the FaThe concessions then made, which are here enumer vorite might have given you a momentary merit ated by Junius, were generally considered as highly with the public, if it had been either adopted dishonorable to the country. They were not, how-upon principle, or maintained with resolution. ever, chargeable to the Duke of Bedford personally, Without looking back to all your former servilthough he may have been liable to censure for consenting to negotiate such a treaty. 10 Junius here refers to the time when Lord Bute resigned, April 8th, 1763, and the Duke of Bedford and his friends came into power in connection with Mr. George Grenville. It was at this period that the Duke compelled the King, as mentioned in a former letter, to displace Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, brother of Lord Bute, who had received the royal promise of never being removed. This arose out of the Duke's jealousy of Lord Bute at that time, and a determination to show that he was not governed by him. The insinuation which follows, respecting the Duke's having received "some private compensation," refers to a report in circulation soon after the treaty was signed, that the Duke had been bribed by the French, in common with the Princess Dowager of Wales, Lord Bute, and Mr. Henry Fox. The story was too ridiculous to be seriously noticed, but the matter was investigated by a committee of the House of Commons, and found to rest solely on the statement of a man named Musgrave, who had "no credible authority for the imputations of treachery and corruption which he was willing to propa gate."-See Heron's Junius, i., 269. Still, Junius revived the story at the end of six years, and, when called upon for proof, had nothing to allege, except that the Duke was understood to love money. "I combined the known temper of the man with the ex-hypocrisy-repeatedly gave him the lie, and left travagant concessions of the embassador." There was another and perfectly well-known reason for these "concessions." Lord Bute could not raise funds to carry on the war. The moneyed men would not trust him. He was, therefore, compelled to make peace on such terms as he could obtain. The downright dishonesty of Junius in this case naturally leads us to receive all his statements with distrust, unless supported by other evidence. 11 Note by Junius. "The ministry having endeav ored to exclude the Dowager out of the Regency Bill, the Earl of Bute determined to dismiss them. Upon this the Duke of Bedford demanded an audience of the King-reproached him in plain terms with his duplicity, baseness, falsehood, treachery, him in convulsions." How far there is any truth in this statement, it is not easy now to say. It is prob able there was a rumor of this kind at the time; but no one will believe that the King would ever have invited the Duke of Bedford again into his service (as he afterward did), if a tenth part of these indig nities had been offered him. 12 He received three thousand pounds for plate and equipage money. |