bourg. In 1760, through the same patronage, | on the point we have as yet no positive proofs he became secretary to the Earl of Kinnoul, and accompanied that nobleman in his embassy to Lisbon. In 1763 he obtained a considerable post in the war-office, which he resigned in 1772 in consequence of a difference with Lord Barrington. The greater part of this year was spent by Francis in a visit to the Continent, during which he had a long audience of the pope, a curious account of which in his own handwriting is among the manuscripts in possession of his grandson. On his return he was appointed by Lord North one of the civil members of council for the government of Bengal, aud sailed for India in June, 1773. His conduct at the council-board was marked by a constant and violent opposition to the policy of the governor-general Warren Hastings, which resulted in a duel with the latter, in which Francis was dangerously wounded. The resignation of his post, worth £10,000 a year, naturally followed. Shortly after his return to England in 1781 he was elected member of parliament for Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. In the house he supported Whig principles, joining the opposition then led by Fox. He actively promoted the proceedings which ended in the impeachment of Hastings, and afforded valuable information and advice to Burke and the other managers of the great trial. In 1807 he finally retired from parliament. His speeches whilst a member, notwithstanding a defect of utterance caused by an over-sensibility of temperament, are said to have been remarkable for refinement, simplicity, energy, and point. In 1806 he was created a Knight of the Bath, and in 1816, when the public curiosity on the subject of the Letters had greatly subsided, attention was directed towards Sir Philip Francis, in consequence of the appearance of a pamphlet by Mr. John Taylor, in which strong evidence was adduced as to his being their author. Francis denied the authorship in a somewhat equivocal way, and in 1818, while the question was still hotly discussed, he died in his seventy-ninth year. He published a number of political speeches, Remarks on the Defence of Warren Hastings, Letters on the East India Company, Reflections on the Currency, &c., which were only of temporary interest, and are now forgotten. Although fully a century has elapsed since the publication of the Letters-although volumes have been written on the subject, and the most prying curiosity and industrious ingenuity have been at work to collect evidence to decide the question who was their real author. Between forty and fifty names of eminent men living at the period have been brought forward and advocated at various times, including those of Lord Chatham, Burke, Gibbon, Grattan, Pownall, Rich, Horne Tooke, Wilkes, and more especially Lord George Sackville, but there can be little doubt that the claim of authorship for Sir Philip Francis still remains the strongest. The arguments for this view may be briefly stated ashis absence on a journey to the Continent coincides with an interruption in the letters; his departure for India with a high appointment, with their cessation; his receiving that appointment without any apparent cause, just after leaving the war-office; his station in the war-office, with all the details of which Junius is so familiar; his knowledge of speeches not reported; coincidences of thought and expression between passages of the letters and of speeches of Lord Chatham, reports of which had been furnished by Francis, and with his own speeches made after his return from India; his being known to be an able pamphleteer; and finally, peculiar modes of spelling and of correcting the press, and resemblance of handwriting. The Letters first appeared in Woodfall's Public Advertiser at a time of great political excitement, and were directed against the principal men of the day connected with the government, not sparing even royalty itself. Forty-four bear the signature of "Junius," the earliest of which is dated Jan. 21, 1769, the last Jan. 21, 1772. In the latter year they were collected (the collection including also fifteen letters signed "Philo-Junius,” really written by the same person), revised by Junius who added notes, and published by Woodfall, with a Dedication to the English Nation and a Preface by the Author. Another edition was afterwards issued, containing not only the letters of Junius proper, but also his private letters to Mr. Woodfall, his correspondence with Wilkes, and other communications to the Advertiser by the same author under different signatures, and relating to different subjects, but all marked with the same boldness, severity, and passion which characterize the Letters themselves. Numerous editions have since appeared, among others an enlarged and improved edition in 1850 in two volumes, edited by Mr. John Wade, who in an essay prefixed makes out a strong case in favour of the authorship of Sir Philip Francis. A recent work which supports the same view is The Handwriting of Junius professionally investigated by Mr. Charles Chabot, Expert, with preface and collateral evidence by the Hon. Edward Twistleton (London, 1871). Dr. J. Mason Good, in his Essay on Junius and his Writings, says: "The classic purity of their language, the exquisite force and perspicuity of their argument, the keen severity of their reproach, the extensive information they evince, their fearless and decisive tone, and, above all, their stern and steady attachment to the purest principles of the constitution, acquired for them, with an almost electric speed, a popularity which no series of letters have since possessed, nor perhaps ever will; and, what is of far greater consequence, diffused among the body a clearer knowledge of their constitutional rights than they had ever before attained, and animated them with a more determined spirit to maintain them inviolate. Enveloped in the cloud of a fictitious name, the writer of these philippics, unseen himself, beheld with secret satisfaction the vast influence of his labours, and enjoyed, though not always without apprehension, the universal hunt that was made to detect him in his disguise. He beheld the people extolling him, the court execrating him, and ministers, and more than ministers, trembling beneath the lash of his invisible hand."] LETTER XV.1 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. MY LORD,-If nature had given you an understanding qualified to keep pace with the wishes and principles of your heart, she would have made you perhaps the most formidable minister that ever was employed under a limited monarch to accomplish the ruin of a free people. When neither the feelings of shame, the reproaches of conscience, nor the dread of punishment, form any bar to the designs of a minister, the people would have too much reason to lament their condition if they did not find some resource in the weak ness of his understanding. We owe it to the bounty of Providence, that the completest depravity of the heart is sometimes strangely united with a confusion of the mind which counteracts the most favourite principles, and makes the same man treacherous without art and a hypocrite without deceiving. The measures, for instance, in which your grace's activity has been chiefly exerted, as they were adopted without skill, should have been conducted with more than common dexterity. But truly, my lord, the execution has been as gross as the design. By one decisive step you have defeated all the arts of writing. You have fairly confounded the intrigues of opposition and silenced the clamours of faction. A dark, ambiguous system might require and furnish the materials of ingenious illustration; and, in doubtful measures, the virulent exaggeration of party must be employed to rouse and engage the passions of the people. You have now brought the merits of your administration to an issue on which every Englishman of the narrowest capacity may determine for himself. It is not an alarm to the passions, but a calm appeal to the judgment of the people upon their own most essential interests. A more experienced minister would not have hazarded a direct invasion of the first principles of the constitution before he had made some progress in subduing the spirit of the people. With such a cause as yours, my lord, it is not sufficient that you have the court at your devotion, unless you can find means to corrupt or intimidate the jury. The collective body of the people form that jury, and from their decision there is but one appeal. Whether you have talents to support you at a crisis of such difficulty and danger should long since have been considered. Judging truly of your disposition, you have perhaps mistaken the extent of your capacity. Good faith and folly have so long been received for synonymous terms that the reverse of the proposition has grown into credit, and every villain fancies himself a man of abilities. is the apprehension of your friends, my lord, that you have drawn some hasty conclusion of this sort, and that a partial reliance upon your moral character has betrayed you beyond the depth of your understanding. You have In this letter Junius with unabated severity, but less have plainly declared to the people what they now carried things too far to retreat. You of personal crimination, renews in closer array of fact and argument his general attack on the Duke of Grafton. His eloquence, however, and political sagacity, did not succeed any more than the petition of the livery of London in obliging the king to alter his plan of government, or the ministry to retire.-Heron. It are to expect from the continuance of your administration. It is time for your grace to consider what you also may expect in return from their spirit and their resentment. Since the accession of our most gracious dishonourable competition with Mr. Wilkes; sovereign to the throne we have seen a system nor had you abilities to carry even this last of government which may well be called a contemptible triumph over a private man reign of experiments. Parties of all denomi- without the grossest violation of the funnations have been employed and dismissed. damental laws of the constitution and rights The advice of the ablest men in this country of the people. But these are rights, my lord, has been repeatedly called for and rejected; which you can no more annihilate than you and when the royal displeasure has been can the soil to which they are annexed. The signified to a minister, the marks of it have question no longer turns upon points of nausually been proportioned to his abilities and tional honour and security abroad, or on the integrity. The spirit of the favourite had degrees of expedience and propriety of measome apparent influence upon every adminis- sures at home. It was not inconsistent that tration; and every set of ministers preserved you should abandon the cause of liberty in an appearance of duration as long as they another country,' which you had persecuted in submitted to that influence. But there were your own: and, in the common arts of domestic certain services to be performed for the favour- corruption, we miss no part of Sir Robert ite's security, or to gratify his resentments, Walpole's system except his abilities. In this which your predecessors in office had the wis- humble imitative line you might long have dom or the virtue not to undertake. The proceeded safe and contemptible. You might moment this refractory spirit was discovered probably never have risen to the dignity of their disgrace was determined. Lord Chatham, being hated, and even have been despised Mr. Grenville, and Lord Rockingham have with moderation. But it seems you meant to successively had the honour to be dismissed be distinguished; and, to a mind like yours, for preferring their duty as servants of the there was no other road to fame but by the public to those compliances which were ex- destruction of a noble fabric, which you pected from their station. A submissive ad- thought had been too long the admiration of ministration was at last gradually collected mankind. The use you have made of the from the deserters of all parties, interests, and military force introduced an alarming change connections; and nothing remained but to find in the mode of executing the laws. The arbia leader for these gallant, well-disciplined trary appointment of Mr. Luttrell invades the troops. Stand forth, my lord; for thou art foundation of the laws themselves, as it manithe man. Lord Bute found no resource of festly transfers the right of legislation from dependence or security in the proud, imposing those whom the people have chosen to those superiority of Lord Chatham's abilities, the whom they have rejected. With a succession shrewd, inflexible judgment of Mr. Grenville, of such appointments we may soon see a House nor in the mild but determined integrity of of Commons collected, in the choice of which Lord Rockingham. His views and situation the other towns and counties of England will required a creature void of all these proper- have as little share as the devoted county of ties; and he was forced to go through every Middlesex. division, resolution, composition, and refinement of political chemistry before he happily arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol intimidated by violent measures nor deceived your grace. Flat and insipid in your retired state; but, brought into action, you become vitriol again. Such are the extremes of alternate indolence or fury which have governed your whole administration. Your circumstances with regard to the people soon becoming desperate, like other honest servants, you determined to involve the best of masters in the same difficulties with yourself. We owe it to your grace's well-directed labours that your sovereign has been persuaded to doubt of the affections of his subjects, and the people to suspect the virtues of their sovereign at a time when both were unquestionable. You have degraded the royal dignity into a base, Yet I trust your grace will find that the people of this country are neither to be in by refinements. 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 contradicts all those ideas of a House of Commons which they have received from their forefathers, and which they have already, though vainly 1 Corsica. |