ity, we need only observe your subsequent con- the present, you may safely resume that style of duct, to see upon what motives you acted. Ap-insult and menace, which even a private gentleparently united with Mr. Grenville, you waited | man can not submit to hear without being conuntil Lord Rockingham's feeble administration temptible. Mr. Mackenzie's history is not yet should dissolve in its own weakness. The mo- forgotten, and you may find precedents enough ment their dismission was suspected, the moment of the mode in which an imperious subject may you perceived that another system was adopted signify his pleasure to his sovereign. Where in the closet, you thought it no disgrace to re- will this gracious monarch look for assistance, turn to your former dependence, and solicit once when the wretched Grafton could forget his ob more the friendship of Lord Bute. You begged ligations to his master, and desert him for a holan interview, at which he had spirit enough to low alliance with such a man as the Duke of treat you with contempt.13 Bedford? It would now be of little use to point out by Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the what a train of weak, injudicious measures it be- summit of worldly greatness.15 Let us suppose came necessary, or was thought so, to call you that all your plans of avarice and ambition are back to a share in the administration.14 The accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes friends, whom you did not in the last instance gratified, in the fear as well as the hatred of the desert, were not of a character to add strength people. Can age itself forget that you are now or credit to government; and at that time your in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make alliance with the Duke of Grafton was, I pre-folly venerable? and is there no period to be resume, hardly foreseen. We must look for other served for meditation and retirement? For stipulations, to account for that sudden resolu- shame, my Lord! Let it not be recorded of tion of the closet, by which three of your de- you, that the latest moments of your life were pendents (whose characters, I think, can not be dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the less respected than they are) were advanced to same busy agitations, in which your youth and offices, through which you might again control manhood were exhausted. Consider, that, althe minister, and probably engross the whole though you can not disgrace your former life, direction of affairs. you are violating the character of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigor of the passions. The possession of absolute power is now once more within your reach. The measures you have taken to obtain and confirm it are too gross to escape the eyes of a discerning, judicious prince. His palace is besieged; the lines of circumvallation are drawing round him; and unless he finds a resource in his activity, or in the attachment of the real friends of his family, the best of princes must submit to the confinement of a state prisoner, until your Grace's death, or some less fortunate event, shall raise the siege. For 13 A negotiation was opened between Lord Temple and Mr. Grenville on the one hand, and Lord Bute | on the other. Mr. Grenville, however, refused to go forward without the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Bute, as stated above, refused to have any connection with his Grace. Horace Walpole makes a similar state ment in his Memoirs of George III. 14 This refers to the call of the Duke of Bedford into the administration about a year before, which created so much disappointment to the Rockingham Whigs, and was probably the occasion, as already stated, of the first letter of Junius. The King is understood to have recommended that measure; and Junius intimates that the close existing alliance with the Duke of Grafton had not then been con templated. Three of the Duke of Bedford's depend ents, viz., Lords Weymouth, Gower, and Sandwich, were now placed in very important stations. The Duke of Bedford was also suspected of being again united in full confidence with Lord Bute. Thus Junius insinuates, a plan was formed for giving him the absolute control over the government in conjunction with the Duke of Grafton, but with authority over him. The whole paragraph was intended to alarm the people on the one hand, and those who were considered "the King's friends" on the other. It need not be repeated that these suspicions of Lord Bute's continued secret influence were, to a great extent, unfounded. Your friends will ask, perhaps, Whither shall this unhappy old man retire? Can he remain in the metropolis, where his life has been so often threatened, and his palace so often attacked? If he returns to Woburn [his country seat], scorn and mockery await him. He must create a solitude round his estate, if he would avoid the face of reproach and derision. At Plymouth, his destruction would be more than probable; at Exeter, inevitable. No honest Englishman will ever forget his attachment, nor any honest Scotchman forgive his treachery, to Lord Bute. At every town he enters, he must change his liveries and his name. Whichever way he flies, the Hue and Cry of the country pursues him. In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of his administration have been more sensibly felt; his virtues better understood; or, at worst, they will not, for him alone, forget their hospitality.i6 As well might Verres have returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, my Lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people, plundered, insulted, and oppressed as they have been, will not always be disappointed. 15 This and the remaining paragraphs are the most eloquent parts of the Letter. It is hardly necessary to remark how much there is in them of art, of passion, and of keen discernment into human character. There is a rapidity and glow of expression that is truly admirable. The several places are enumer ated where the Duke had formerly met with tokens of public aversion, and where he might expect agair to be received with reproach and derision. 16 The Duke had been once in Ireland as Viceroy, and again when he was appointed to the principal honorary office in the University of Dublin. had made a splendid provision for the son whom he lost, and afterward for his widow; and that he was distinguished for his bounty to his dependents and domestics." The most cruel charge in this Letter was that of insensibility to the loss of his son: a charge which Junius repeated with great vehemence on a subsequent occasion. Upon this subject, it will be sufficient to give a note of Sir Dennis Le Marchant, editor of Walpole's Memoirs of George III., vol. ii., p. 443. "The Duke's memory has been repeatedly vindicated from this cruel aspersion, and never with more generous and indignant eloquence than by Lord Brougham, in his Political Sketches, vol. It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene. You can no more fly from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my Lord, you may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger; and though you can not be safe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice of those pernicious friends with whose interests you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you have sacrificed every thing that ought to be dear to a man of honor. They are still base enough to encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. As little acquaint-iii. It has always been understood in the quared with the rules of decorum as with the laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last, and that, as you lived without virtue, you should die without repentance. JUNIUS. The Duke of Bedford died four months after the publication of this letter, and Junius has succeeded in handing down his character to posterity, as a monstrous compound of baseness and folly. It has been shown, however, in the preceding notes, that some of his statements were gross falsehoods, while others were equally gross exaggerations. The ters likely to be best informed, that he felt his son's loss deeply to the last hour of his life." Instead, however, of yielding to his grief, he endeavored to employ his thoughts upon public business, and the natural fervor of his disposition insensibly engaged him in the scenes before him, perhaps more deeply than he was aware. meeting he attended at the India House must, as appears from the Company's books, have been that of April 8th, which determined the course to be taken by the Company on the government propositions: a great question, in which he took a lively interest. The force of mind he thus displayed is noticed with commendation in a letter written at the time by David Hume, who, from his connection with Conway, is assuredly an impartial witness. The absurd charge brought by Junius [Letter xxix.] against the Duchess. of making money by her son Lord Tavistock's wardrobe, originated in its having been sold for the benefit of his valet and Lady Tavistock's maid, according to the general practice of that day." The Duke was certainly a very unpopular man. He did experience the public indignities mentioned in this Letter. He was mobbed by the Spitalfield weavers; his life was more than once put in danger; and his palace in Bloomsbury Square was assaulted by congregated thou- Horace Walpole, speaking of this subject, while sands. This was done because the price of silk he censures the Duke for going to the balloting goods fell greatly after the peace which he ne- at the India House, says he 66 was carried there gotiated with France in 1762, and men like Ju- by his creatures, Lord Sandwich, Earl Gower, nius taught those ignorant mechanics to believe and Mr. Rigby, to vote." He speaks also of that the Duke of Bedford was the cause, when these men and their associates, usually called the fault, if there was any, lay with Lord Bute. "the Bloomsbury gang," as having been shunned In like manner, his administration in Ireland was by Lord Tavistock, and says, "the indecent indifunfortunate. His manners were shy and cold;ference with which such a catastrophe [his sudhis temper was quick and imperious; he had den death] was felt by the faction of the family, bad friends and advisers. The Primate of Ire-spoke too plainly that Lord Tavistock had lived land united the factions of the country against a reproach and terror to them.” We have here him; and mobs were stirred up to break into the public buildings and set his authority at defiance. And yet Horace Walpole, who, from being his friend, had become his political enemy, states, without hesitation, that the Duke went to Ireland with the best intentions, and was really desirous to improve the condition of that miserable and distracted country. He was charged with meanness in his pecuniary concerns, and Junius sneers at his doing good "by stealth." Walpole adverts to this, and says, "his great economy was called avarice; if so, it was blended with more generosity and goodness than that passion will commonly unite with." A writer in his favor stated, without contradiction, that "he had paid his brother's debts to the amount of £100,000; the secret of a considerable portion of the Duke's misfortunes for life—those “pernicious friends" spoken of by Junius, who had “ a privilege to play on the easiness of his temper." He was a very ardent politician; and was reduced to “the necessity of engaging in the interest and intrigues of his dependents; of supplying their vices and relieving their beggary at the expense of his country." His ardor in politics led him into the borough-mongering alluded to in this Letter. It also made him "at one time rancorously persecute, and at another basely cringe to, the Favorite of the Sovereign." In connection 17 Walpole says that, "on hearing of his death, the Duke for a few days almost lost his senses." with the impetuosity of his feelings and his sud- ing upon every subject, and imagining he underden bursts of passion, it betrayed him into "in- stood it, as he must have done, by inspiration. decent violence in opposing or defending minis- He was always governed-generally by the ters." These were his real faults, and they were Duchess; though immeasurably obstinate when great ones; but they by no means imply that de- once he had formed or had an opinion instilled pravity of heart imputed to him by Junius; and it into him. His manner was impetuous, of which will be observed, that this writer, in all the bit- he was so little sensible, that, being told Lord terness of his satire, does not charge the Duke Halifax was to succeed him, he said, 'He is too with being personally an immoral man. Wal- warm and overbearing: the King will never enpole says "he was a man of inflexible honesty dure him.' If the Duke of Bedford would have and good will to his country." "His parts were thought less of himself, the world would probacertainly far from shining, and yet he spoke read-bly have thought better of him.”—Memoirs of ily, and upon trade, well. His foible was speak- George II., vol. i., p. 186. LETTER TO THE KING.1 WHEN the complaints of a brave and powerful | people are observed to increase in proportion to 1 Dated December 19th, 1769. The Whigs had Dow effected a union among themselves. Lord Chatham had so far recovered from his three years' illness as to make it certain that he would soon be able to appear in the House of Lords. A reconciliation had taken place between him and the Grenville and Rockingham Whigs; a new session of Parliament was about to commence; and that voice was again to be heard in its councils which had so often summoned the nation to the defense of its rights. Junius, though acting by himself, would of course be acquainted with these arrangements; and to prepare the way for the approaching struggle, he now turns from the ministry to the Throne, and endeavors at once to intimidate the King, and to rouse the people to a determined resistance of the govern ment. Let the wrongs they have suffered-when, instead The leading object of this Letter is to show the King, (1.) How great an error he had committed in making the Tories (the hereditary supporters of the Stuarts) the depositories of his power, and in choosing a Favorite from among them, while he rejected the Whigs, who had brought in the Hanover family, and thus far held them on the throne. (2.) How dishonorable was the contest he was then carrying on against a man of corrupt principles and abandoned life, whose cause good men were nevertheless compelled to take up against their sovereign, in defense of the dearest rights of the subject. (3.) That the breach of the Constitution in seating Mr. Luttrell, to the exclusion of Mr. Wilkes, in the House of Commons, was one which the nation could not long endure; that a contest was coming on between the King and the English people, in which all his reliances throughout the empire would certainly fail him; and that he ought in time to remember that "as his title to the throne was acquired by one rev. olution, it may be lost by another." Junius therefore exhorts him to turn from his ministers to the nation; to dissolve Parliament (a measure which the Whigs had now determined to press as their main point), and thus leave the people to decide the question by the choice of a new House of Commons. There is bat little that is false in this Letter, except the ridiculous charge that " England had been sold to France" in making the peace of 1762, and the at-ereign, are summed up and presented. He will obtempt to create a national animosity against the Scotch. The King had fallen into great errors, although there were palliating circumstances in his early education, and his strong aversion to Wilkes as a licentious and profligate man. Still, they were errors which involved the safety of the empire; it was right to expose them; and while Junius does it with the utmost plainness, he shows comparatively little of that insulting and malignant spirit which characterized his attack upon the King in his first Letter. 2 It will repay the student in oratory to review this introduction, and see how skillfully the reasons which justified so remarkable an address to the sov serve, too, how adroitly Junius assumes the air of one engaged in "a curious speculation" on a sup posed case, giving what follows as a niere fancy N SIR,It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the cause of every reproach and distress which has attended your government, that you should never have been acquainted with the language of truth until you heard it in the complaints of your people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error of your education. We are still inclined to make an indulgent allowance for the pernicious lessons you received in your youth, and to form the most sanguine hopes from the natural benevolence of your disposition.3 We are far from thinking you capable of a direct, deliberate purpose to invade those original rights of your subjects, on which all their civil sketch, in order to take off the appearance of intending any thing personally offensive to the King. He will be struck, also, with the dexterity shown in assuming just the requisite appearance of playing with the subject, when he says, "if an honest man were permitted to approach a King" and the delicacy and apparent respect with which he enters on the task of administering to his sovereign unsought for counsel and humiliating reproof. 3 Note by Junius. The plan of tutelage and future dominion over the heir-apparent, laid many years ago at Carlton House between the Princess Dowager and her favorite the Earl of Bute, was as gross and palpable as that which was concerted be tween Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin to govern Louis the Fourteenth, and in effect to prolong his minority until the end of their lives. That prince had strong natural parts, and used frequently to blush for his own ignorance and want of education, which had been willfully neglected by his mother and her minion. A little experience, however, soon showed him how shamefully he had been treat ed, and for what infamous purposes he had been kept in ignorance. Our great Edward, too, at an early period, bad sense enough to understand the nature of the connection between his abandoned mother and the detested Mortimer. But, since that time, human nature, we may observe, is greatly al tered for the better. Dowagers may be chaste, and minions may be honest. When it was proposed to settle the present King's household as Prince of Wales, it is well known that the Earl of Bute was forced into it, in direct contradiction to the late King's inclination. That was the salient point from which all the mischiefs and disgraces of the present reign took life and motion. From that moment, Lord Bute never suffered the Prince of Wales to be an instant out of his sight. We need not look farther. On this statement Mr. Heron makes the following remarks in his edition of Junins, vol. ii., 43: "There was, therefore, no dishonest plan for keeping the King in perpetual pupilage formed between his mother and the Earl of Bute. Neither had George the Second nor the Princess Dowager of Wales committed the education of the young Prince to the Jacobites and Tories. His education was not neglected, but managed with admirable success and care. Not the young King, but their incapacity and unpopularity, drove the Newcastle party from power. Not the King, but his own arrogance, and the opposition and dislike of the Newcastle party and others, dismissed Mr. Pitt from the administration. The union of parties, and the breaking down of the great Whig party, was originally the measure of Pitt, and arose from the natural progress of things. So unjust are the imputations with which this Let ter commences." The truth lies between the twe. and political liberties depend. Had it been possible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonorable to your character, we should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance very distant from the humility of complaint. The doctrine inculcated by our laws, that the King can do no wrong, is admitted without reluctance. We separate the amiable, good-natured prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the private virtues of the man from the vices of his government. Were it not for this just distinction, I know not whether your Majesty's condition, or that of the English nation, would deserve most to be lamented. I would prepare your mind for a favorable reception of truth. by removing every painful, offensive idea of personal reproach. Your subjects, sir, wish for nothing but that, as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your person from your gov ernment, so you, in your turn, should distinguish between the conduct which becomes the permanent dignity of a King, and that which serves only to promote the temporary interest and miserable ambition of a minister. You ascended the throne with a declared, and, I doubt not, a sincere resolution of giving universal satisfaction to your subjects. You found them pleased with the novelty of a young prince, whose countenance promised even more than his words, and loyal to you not only from principle, but passion. It was not a cold profession of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a partial, animated attachment to a favorite prince, the native of their country. They did not wait to examine your conduct, nor to be determined by experience, but gave you a generous credit for the future blessings of your reign, and paid you in advance the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, sir, was once the disposition of a people, who now surround your throne with reproaches and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some interested persons have labored to possess you. Distrust the men who tell you that the English are naturally light and inconstant; that they complain without a cause. your confidence equally from all parties-from ministers, favorites, and relations; and let there be one moment in your life in which you have consulted your own understanding. 4 Withdraw When you affectedly renounced the name of Englishman, believe me, sir, you were persuad ed to pay a very ill-judged compliment to one part of your subjects, at the expense of another. While the natives of Scotland are not in actual rebellion, they are undoubtedly entitled to protection; nor do I mean to condemn the policy Junius here lays hold of and perverts the language used by the King in his first speech after coming to the throne: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton," &c. The prevailing hostility to the Scotch led many to com ment on this avoidance of the word Englishman, as probably dictated by Lord Bute, and as indicating too much anxiety to conciliate the people of Scot land. of giving some encouragement to the novelty of their affections for the house of Hanover. I am ready to hope for every thing from their newborn zeal, and from the future steadiness of their allegiance. But hitherto they have no claim to your favor. To honor them with a determined predilection and confidence, in exclusion of your English subjects, who placed your family, and, in spite of treachery and rebellion, have supported it upon the throne, is a mistake too gross even for the unsuspecting generosity of youth. In this error we see a capital violation of the most obvious rules of policy and prudence. We trace it, however, to an original bias in your education, and are ready to allow for your inexperi ence. 5 the most irregular character may not be redeemed. The mistakes of one sex find a retreat in patriotism; those of the other in devotion. Mr. Wilkes brought with him into politics the same liberal sentiments by which his private conduct had been directed, and seemed to think, that, as there are few excesses in which an English gentleman may not be permitted to indulge, the same latitude was allowed him in the choice of his political principles, and in the spirit of maintaining them. I mean to state, not entirely to defend his conduct. In the earnestness of his zeal, he suffered some unwarrantable insinuations to escape him. He said more than moderate men would justify, but not enough to entitle him to the honor of your Majesty's personal resentment. The rays of royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to illuminate, and could not consume. Animated by the favor of the people on one side, and heated by persecution on the other, his views and sentiments changed with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an enthusiast. The coldest bodies warm with opposition, the hardest sparkle in collision. There is a wholly mistaken zeal in politics as well as religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves. The passions are engaged, and create a maternal affection in the mind, which forces us to love the cause for which we suffer. Is this a contention worthy of a King? Are you not sensible how much the meanness of the cause gives an air of ridicule to the serious difficulties into which you have been betrayed? The destruction of one man has been now, for many years, the sole object of your government; and, if there can be any thing still more disgraceful, we have seen, for such an object, the utmost influence of the executive power, and every ministerial artifice, ex To the same early influence we attribute it, that you have descended to take a share not only in the narrow views and interests of particular persons, but in the fatal malignity of their passions. At your accession to the throne, the whole system of government was altered, not from wisdom or deliberation, but because it had been adopted by your predecessor. A little personal motive of pique and resentment was sufficient to remove the ablest servants of the Crown; but it is not in this country, sir, that such men can be dishonored by the frowns of a King. They were dismissed, but could not be disgraced. Without entering into a minuter discussion of the merits of the peace, we may observe, in the imprudent hurry with which the first overtures from France were accepted, in the conduct of the negotiation, and terms of the treaty, the strongest marks of that precipitate spirit of concession with which a certain part of your subjects have been at all times ready to purchase a peace with the natural enemies of this country. On your part we are satisfiederted without success. Nor can you ever suothat every thing was honorable and sincere, and if England was sold to France, we doubt not that your Majesty was equally betrayed. The conditions of the peace were matter of grief and surprise to your subjects, but not the immediate cause of their present discontent. ceed, unless he should be imprudent enough to forfeit the protection of those laws to which you owe your crown, or unless your ministers should persuade you to make it a question of force alone, and try the whole strength of government in opposition to the people. The lessons he has received from experience will probably guard him from such excess of folly; and in your Majesty's virtues we find an unquestionable assurance that no illegal violence will be attempted. Hitherto, sir, you had been sacrificed to the prejudices and passions of others. With what firmness will you bear the mention of your own? A man, not very honorably distinguished in the world, commences a formal attack upon your Far from suspecting you of so horrible a deFavorite, considering nothing but how he might sign, we would attribute the continued violation best expose his person and principles to detest- of the laws, and even this last enormous attack ation, and the national character of his country-upon the vital principles of the Constitution, to men to contempt. The natives of that country, an ill-advised, unworthy personal resentment. sir, are as much distinguished by a peculiar From one false step you have been betrayed into character as by your Majesty's favor. Like another, and, as the cause was unworthy of you, another chosen people, they have been conduct-your ministers were determined that the prued into the Land of Plenty, where they find dence of the execution should correspond with themselves effectually marked, and divided from the wisdom and dignity of the design. They mankind. There is hardly a period at which have reduced you to the necessity of choosing out of a variety of difficulties-to a situation so unhappy, that you can neither do wrong without ruin, nor right without affliction. These worthy servants have undoubtedly given you many singular proofs of their abilities. Not contented with making Mr. Wilkes a man of importance, Note by Junius. One of the first acts of the present reign was to dismiss Mr. Legge, because he had some years before refused to yield his interest in Hampshire to a Scotchman recommended by Lord Bute. This was the reason publicly assigned by bis Lordship. |