Junius Unmasked Or Thomas Paine,
the Author of the Letters of Junius and the Declaration of
Independence
Joel Moody
[The Preface through the first of the Letters of Junius,
from the book published by John Gray & Co., 1872]
PREFACE
One hundred years ago to-day, Junius wrote as follows:
"The man who fairly and completely answers this
argument, shall have my thanks and my applause. ...Grateful as I
am to the good Being whose bounty has imparted to me this
reasoning intellect, whatever it is, I hold myself proportionably
indebted to him from whose enlightened understanding another ray
of knowledge communicates to mine. But neither should I think the
most exalted faculties of the human mind a gift worthy of the
Divinity, nor any assistance in the improvement of them a subject
of gratitude to my fellow-creatures, if I were not satisfied that
really to inform the understanding corrects and enlarges the
heart."
These were the concluding words of his last Letter. So say I now,
and I make them the preface to an argument which now sets the great
apostle of liberty right before the world. They serve, like a
literary hyphen, to connect the two ages- his own with this ; and
the two lives -- the masked with the open one; in both of which ages
and lives he did good to mankind, and that mightily.
"Washington, D.C, January 21, 1872.
PART I
INTRODUCTION
The literary work which survives a century has uncommon merit. Time
has set the seal of approval upon it. It has passed its probation
and entered the ages. A century has just closed upon the work of
Junius. The causes which produced it, either in act or person, have
long since passed away. The foolish king, the corrupt minister, and
the prostituted legislature are forgotten, or only recalled to be
despised; but the work of Junius, startling in thought, daring in
design, bristling with satire, a consuming fire to those he
attacked, remains to be admired for its principles, and to be
studied for its beauty and strength.
The times in which Junius wrote were big with events. The Seven
Years' War had just closed with shining victories to Prussia and
England. Frederic, with an unimpaired nation and a permanent peace,
it left with a good heart and much personal glory ; but George III.,
with India and America in his hands, with the plunder of a great
conquest to distribute to a greedy and licentious court, it left
pious, but simple.
Great wars disturb the masses. They awaken them from the plodding,
dull routine of physical labor, and, thrusting great questions of
conquest and defense, of justice and honor, before them, agitate
them into thought. Conditions change; new ideas take the place of
old ones, and a revolution in thought and action follows. But a war
of ideas, starting from principles of peace, brings the enslaved
again to the sword, and this crisis is termed a revolution.
Junius wrote at the dawn of the age of revolutions. The war of
ideas was waged against priestcraft, and skepticism was the result.
Voltaire had struck fable from history with the pen of criticism,
and a scientific method here dawned upon history. Rousseau's
democracy had entered the hearts of the down-trodden in France, and,
a wandering exile, he had spread the contagion in England. George
Berkeley, the Irish idealist, had just died, and the Scotch Thomas
Reid arose with the weapon of common sense to test the
metaphysician's ideas. Common Sense was, in the strictest sense,
revolutionary, and, under the tyranny of king, lords, and commons,
meant war. It was not a phrase without meaning, but a principle
proclaimed, and it passed more readily into the understanding of the
common people because conveyed in common speech. When Reid said, "I
despise philosophy, and renounce its guidance; let my soul dwell in
common sense," he illuminated all Britain and America. The
philosophy of common sense entered the professor's chair, invaded
the pulpit, and, having passed thence into the humblest cottage,
soon took a higher range - it went immediately up and knocked at the
king's gate. It would be false to say it found admittance there. It
was only because there had been a new world opened as an asylum for
the oppressed of every land, that it did not sweep kings and
monarchs from all the high places in Europe.
At this time, too, Mr. Pitt, the great commoner, the friend of
common sense and English liberty, in his old age, war-worn and sick,
had compromised with his vanity for a title. In his great fall from
Pitt to Chatham, from the people to a peerage, he gained nothing but
lost his good name. He exchanged worth for a bauble, and a noble
respect for the contempt of nobles and the sorrows of the people.
Mr. Pitt had departed, Lord Chatham was passing away; and in any
assault by a trafficking ministry and corrupt legislature upon the
people's rights, there was no one left to bend the bow at the gates.
To tax the colonies became the settled plan of king, ministers, and
parliament. The tax was easily imposed, but c6uld not be enforced.
Freedom had long before been driven to America, and, in a line of
direct descent, her blood had been transmitted from mother to son.
The true sons of freedom now stood shoulder to shoulder, and,
looking forward to independence, claimed to have rights as men,
which king and lords would not concede to subjects. The Stamp Act
was passed and repealed, and a Test Act substituted. England refused
to compel the colonies to give up their money without their consent,
but menaced them, and consoled herself with these words: "The
king in parliament hath full power to hind the colonies in all
things whatsoever." Having surrendered the fact, she indulged
in declamation, and the world laughed at her folly. Like a fretful
and stupid mother demanding a favor of her son grown to manhood,
and, being refused, persists in scolding and shaking the fist at
him, as if he still wore a baby's frock.
At this juncture Junius wrote his Letters. The circumstances called
him forth. He was a child of fate. He spoke to the greatest
personages, assaulted the strongest power, and advocated the rights
of man before the highest tribunal then acknowledged on earth. This
he could not do openly, and what he said came as with the power of a
hidden god. There is no evidence that Junius ever revealed himself.
"I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it shall perish
with me." This he said and religiously kept. But his was the
age which demanded it. He also said: "Whenever Junius appears,
he must encounter a host of enemies." One hundred years have
passed since he said this, but this "host" is less to be
feared now than when he wrote. No one now can injure him, and there
are few who would assault his grave. It is time to unmask Junius,
and though still to be hated, I will reveal the enemy of kings and
the friend of man. The reforms he advocated for England are partly
accomplished, and the principles he taught, if not adopted there,
have been established in America. He left no child to bear his name,
but he was the father of a nation. The unimpaired inheritance was
his thoughts and principles; these he transmitted, not alone to this
nation, but to the world -- for the world was his country.
METHOD
In the investigation of a subject so startling and novel, and
especially when it leads to the criticism of a work which has found
favor with the public^ and now to be attributed to an author who has
been publicly condemned^ it becomes the critic to state clearly the
plan of his argument, what he designs to do, and how he intends to
do it. I therefore ask: Who was Junius? I answer: Thomas Paine. The
object of this book is to prove this, and possibly to demonstrate
it. To do this, I shall follow as closely as possible the order of
events, giving parallels and coincidences in character, conduct, and
composition of the masked and the open life.
I do not fear as to the proof of my proposition, but I shall aim
higher, I shall try to demonstrate by the overwhelming weight of
facts. Proof produces belief, demonstration knowledge. The innocent
have been hanged on the evidence of proof, but a fact is established
by demonstration. Demonstration follows proof, and knowledge follows
belief; and ascending from the individual to mankind, we find the
age of reason to succeed the age of faith. Science dwells in
demonstration, and establishes principles from observed facts. Why
may there not be a scientific criticism? To arrive at this the
writer must ascend to that eminence in feeling where the opposing
prejudices of mankind can not reach him; he must rise above praise
or censure, he must dwell alone in the light of reason, he must be a
child of Truth. Vain, however,' would it be to expect to find
himself or a public devoid of prejudice. This is impossible, for
prejudice is produced by strong conviction. It is a feeling which,
like a magnet, points as the electric force directs. To counteract
this force is to destroy the magnet. It is those who think deeply,
and have investigated thoroughly, who have an enlightened prejudice,
and those who take upon authority what others tell them, who have a
blind prejudice; but those who neither think nor investigate for
themselves may truly be said to have no prejudice. My object is to
convince the understanding and thereby build up a prejudice in favor
of my proposition, which shall have a foundation of fact and
argument, not to be removed, and to be but little disturbed. The
world is my jury, they shall decide upon the facts. Lord Bacon gave
the world a method, this method is also mine: Let FACTS REVEAL THE
INWARD TRUTH OF KATTJEE.
MYSTERY
There is a scarcity of facts, a painful obscurity connected with
that part of Mr. Paine's life before he removed to America. In fact,
history has given him to the world, as almost beginning life on his
arrival at Philadelphia, near the close of the year 1774. At this
time, in the full stature of manhood, a little less than forty years
of age, we find him without a personal history, without any events
in life sufficient to predicate his after life upon. Can the great
life to come rest on nothing? How came that mighty mind so fully
stored with history, so deeply analytic, so skilled in literature
and science, so perfect in the art of expressing ideas, so highly
disciplined and finely equipped, ready to do battle against kings
and ministers and in behalf of human rights? Whence came that mighty
pen, which has often been acknowledged to have done more for human
freedom than the .sword of Washington? Why this dumb silence of
history? There comes to us no thought of Mr. Paine worth recording
prior to this time. The proud and imposing superstructure stands on
a basis fit and substantial, but it rises out of the depths of
mystery. And what little we do know of him prior to this time, aside
from the great fact of his birth, is only a series of minor facts,
with great blanks not even capable of being filled up by the
imagination.
When a lad he went to school, but how long he went, or with what
proficiency he studied, nobody knows. At sixteen he went aboard a
privateer, but how long he served, or what made him quit the
service, nobody knows. At twenty-seven he enters the employ of the
English government as an exciseman, but was dismissed in a little
over a year, nobody knows why. He now teaches school in Loudon a
year, but nobody knows with what success, or what were his
accomplishments. He now quits London and letters, and the society of
the learned, to return to the same petty office from which he had
been dismissed, and for the trifling salary of less than fifty
pounds a year. This office he now holds eight years more. Only a
solitary ray of light illuminates this long period, when in the full
tide of life. The chronicler renders it insignificant by a single
dash of the j3en. It is closed with. another dismissal and dismal
mystery. He now forever separates from his wife upon amicable terms,
nobody knows why. During their after lives they neither of them
marry, and never speak disrespectfully of each other. He leaves her
all the property, and often sends her money during his after life.
This obscure and twice dismissed English exciseman, it is said, now
goes to talk with Benjamin Franklin, minister at the court of St.
James, for several of the colonies; and, by what means nobody knows,
obtains letters of the highest commendation, as an introduction to
America, from her greatest and most honored citizen. A few months
afterward Benjamin Franklin places in the hands of Mr. Paine
important documents, for him to write a history of the political
troubles and a defense of the colonies. A mighty work, worthy of a
greater than Franklin! These facts stagger credulity. An obscure
English exciseman, whose life is yet a blank, who has never been an
author, save perhaps of some fugitive pamphlet to demand more pay
for excise officers, is introduced to America, and is solicited and
intrusted by America's greatest writer, thinker, patriot, and
statesman, to do America's greatest work, and that work, too, which
shall decide forever the fate of a world. Franklin! by what
mysterious gift of divination hast thou found thy man? Is there no
child of America among all the sons of Freedom equal to the task?
Where art thou thyself? But the man Franklin found had no need of
books or his documents. This obscure Englishman had the facts in his
memory, the wrongs in his heart, the logic in his reason, and he
thought for himself. His work was half written before Franklin had
furnished him with the "necessary papers," and as a New
Year's gift surprised the learned doctor with the first pamphlet of
Common Sense.
The appearance of this greatest of political works which has
blessed a world, with all the attending circumstances -- the obscure
life of Paine, the few wild events connected with it, the
unprecedented action of Franklin, the introduction to the world of a
profound thinker and almost perfect writer in the full ripeness of
his intellect, and the beginning of an unceasing brilliant literary
life at its meridian, are mysteries, save in this instance, unknown
to history. Common Sense is a child of mystery. It is the best of
this great author's productions. He himself so considered it, for he
directs that his tombstone shall bear the simple inscription, Thomas
Paine, author of Common Sense.
That Thomas Paine should have lived an easy, idle life, without any
great effort in thought, study, or composition, for fifteen years
immediately preceding the appearance of Common Sense, is what no
writer, or thinker, or student, or statesman will believe. Great
works of genius do not come in this way, much less profound
political writings. Even inspiration would desert the connection.
And that the proud, ambitious, literary adventurer, who shall
dedicate his life to the good of mankind, who shall wrest the power
from priests and the scepter from kings, should content himself to
fill a poor and petty office under a king he despised, without some
nobler object in view, and at that age too when the mind of man is
the most aspiring, and drives to the greatest activity, is what no
one who knows the heart of man, and the secret springs of action,
will believe. But if it can be proven that Thomas Paine was Junius,
then will every blank be filled and every mystery dispelled.
There is no external evidence, direct in its nature, as to the
authorship of Junius; the evidence is internal. That the secret did
not perish with Junius, no one can gainsay. But that he told it to
no one, we are not at liberty to conclude. Time has sufficiently
removed us from the scene of conflict. We are not bewildered with a
multitude of claimants, with an army of witnesses for and against ;
nor are we disturbed by the clamors of the public, and the hearsay
evidence of belligerents. In this universal calm I will bring Junius
forth to speak for himself.
STATEMENT
The time occupied in writing the Letters of Junius was just three
years. The first one is dated January 21, 1769, and the last one
January 21, 1772. They were written for the Public Advertiser, a
newspaper printed in London, and were afterward revised and
corrected by Junius. The edition which he corrected "contains
all the letters of Junius, Philo Junius, and of Sir William Draper,
and Mr. Home to Junius, with their respective dates, and according
to the order in which they appeared in the
Public Advertiser. There are seventy-eight in all. Of these,
Junius wrote sixty; thirty the first year, five the second, and
twenty- five the third year. In these Letters Junius frequently
defends himself over the signature of Philo Junius, which he deemed
indispensably necessary in answer to plausible objections. On this
point Junius observes:
"The subordinate character is never guilty of the
indecorum of praising his principal. The fraud was innocent, and I
always intended to explain it."
These letters were an attack upon the king and minis- try, and a
defense of the people, whose original rights had been invaded. If
Thomas Paine wrote them, he was then an exciseman stationed at
Lewes, about forty miles south of London, and was just thirty-live
years old when he completed them.
I will now introduce to the reader Junius himself through his first
letter, which was one of his most finished productions, and contains
the germs of all the rest. I will give also the comments of Chauncey
A. Goodrich, D. D., formerly professor of Rhetoric in Yale College.
These comments are to be found in the doctor's work, entitled
British Eloquence. I do this for two reasons: to let the reader see
what high value is placed on Junius by the learned who teach
eloquence by example, and also that he may see the object, method,
and style of Junius. I shall afterward add my own comments on the
doctor's notes, setting him right when in error in matters of fact.
This will fully open the question and prepare the reader for my
argument.
Letter to the Printer of the Public Advertiser[1]
Sir, - The submission of a free people to the executive authority
of government is no more than a compliance with laws which they
themselves have enacted. While the national honor is firmly
maintained abroad, and while justice is impartially administered at
home, the obedience of the subject will be voluntary, cheerful, and,
I might say, almost unlimited. A generous nation is grateful even
for the preservation of its rights, and willingly extends the
respect due to the office of a good prince into an affection for his
person. Loyalty, in the heart and understanding of an Englishman, is
a rational attachment to the guardian of the laws. Prejudices and
passion have sometimes carried it to a criminal length, and,
whatever foreigners may imagine, we know that Englishmen have erred
as much in a mistaken zeal for particular persons and families, as
they ever did in defense of what they thought most dear and
interesting to themselves.
It naturally fills us with resentment to see such a temper insulted
and abused.[1] In reading the history of a free people, whose rights
have been invaded, we are interested in their cause. Our own
feelings tell us how long they ought to have submitted, and at what
moment it would have been treachery to themselves not to have
resisted. How much warmer will be our resentment, if experience
should bring the fatal example home to ourselves!
The situation of this country is alarming enough to rouse the
attention of every man who pretends to a concern for the public
welfare. Appearances justify suspicion; and, when the safety of a
nation is at stake, suspicion is a just ground of inquiry. Let us
enter into it with candor and decency. Respect is due to the station
of ministers ; and if a resolution must at last be taken, there is
none so likely to be supported with firmness as that which has been
adopted with moderation.
The ruin or prosperity of a state depends so much upon the
administration of its government, that, to be acquainted with the
merit of a ministry, we need only observe the condition of the
people. If we see them obedient to the laws, prosperous in their
industry, united at home, and respected abroad, we may reasonably
presume that their affairs are conducted by men of experience,
abilities, and virtue. If, on the contrary, we see a universal
spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction, a rapid decay of trade,
dissensions in all parts of the empire, and a total loss of respect
in the eyes of foreign powers, we may pronounce, without hesitation,
that the government of that country is weak, distracted, and
corrupt. The multitude, in all countries, are patient to a certain
point. Ill usage. may rouse their indignation and hurry them into
excesses, hut the original fault is in government.[3] Perhaps there
never was an instance of a change in the circumstances and temper of
a whole nation, so sudden and extraordinary as that which the
misconduct of ministers has, within these very few years, produced
in Great Britain. When our gracious sovereign ascended the throne,
we were a flourishing and a contented people. If the personal
virtues of a king could have insured the happiness of his subjects,
the scene could not have altered so entirely as it has done. The
idea of uniting all parties, of trying all characters, and
distributing the offices of state by rotation, was gracious and
benevolent to an extreme, though it has not yet produced the many
salutary effects which were intended by it. To say nothing of the
wisdom of such plan, it undoubtedly arose from an unbounded goodness
of heart, in which folly had no share. It was not a capricious
partiality to new faces; it was not a natural turn for low intrigue,
nor was it the treacherous amusement of double and triple
negotiations. No, sir; it arose from a continued anxiety in the
purest of all possible hearts for the general welfare.[4]
Unfortunately for us, the event has not been answerable to the
design. After a rapid succession of changes, we are reduced to that
change which hardly any change can mend. Yet there is no extremity
of distress which of itself ought to reduce a great nation to
despair. It is not the disorder, but the physician; it is not a
casual concurrence of calamitous circumstances, it is the pernicious
hand of government, which alone can make a whole people desperate.
Without much political sagacity, or any extraordinary depth of
observation, Ave need only mark how the principal departments of the
state are bestowed [distributed], and look no farther for the true
cause of every mischief that befalls us.
The finances of a nation, sinking under its debts and expenses, are
committed to a young nobleman already ruined by play.[5] Introduced
to act under the auspices of Lord Chatham, and left at the head of
affairs by that nobleman's retreat, lie became a 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. As for business,
the world yet knows nothing of his talents or resolution, unless a
wavering, wayward inconsistency be a mark of genius, and caprice a
demonstration of spirit. It may be said, perhaps, that it is his
Grace's province, as surely as it is his passion, rather to
distribute than to save the public money, and that while Lord North
is Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first Lord of the Treasury may
be as thoughtless and extravagant as he pleases. I hope, however, he
will not rely too much on the fertility of Lord North's genius for
finance. His Lordship is yet to give us the first proof of his
abilities.
It may be candid to suppose that he has hitherto voluntarily
concealed his talents; intending, perhaps, to astonish the world,
when we least expect it, with a knowledge of trade, a choice of
expedients, and a depth of resources equal to the necessities, and
far beyond the hopes of his country. He must now exert the whole
power of his capacity, if he would wish us to forget that, since he
has been in office, no plan has been formed, no system adhered to,
nor any one important measure adopted for the relief of public
credit. If his plan for the service of the current year be not
irrevocably fixed on, let me warn him to think seriously of
consequences before he ventures to increase the public debt.
Outraged and oppressed as we are, this nation will not bear, after a
six years' peace, to see new millions borrowed, without any eventual
diminution of debt or reduction of interest. The attempt might rouse
a spirit of resentment, which might reach beyond the sacrifice of a
minister. As to the debt upon the civil list, the people of England
expect that it will not be paid without a strict inquiry how it was
incurred.[6] If it must be paid by Parliament, let me advise the
Chancellor of the Exchequer to think of some better expedient than a
lottery. To support an expensive war, or in circumstances of
absolute necessity, a lottery may perhaps be allowable; but, besides
that it is at all times the very worst way of raising money upon the
people, I think it ill becomes the royal dignity to have the debts
of a prince provided for, like the repairs of a country bridge or a
decayed hospital. The management of the king's affairs in the House
of Commons can not be more disgraced than it has been. A leading
minister repeatedly called down for absolute ignorance - ridiculous
motions ridiculously withdrawn -- deliberate plans disconcerted, and
a week's preparation of graceful oratory lost in a moment, give us
some, though not an adequate idea of Lord North's parliamentary
abilities and influence.[7] Yet, before he had the misfortune of
being Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was neither an object of
derision to his enemies, nor of melancholy pity to his friends.
A series of inconsistent measures has alienated the colonies from
their duty as subjects and from their natural affection to their
common country. When Mr. Grenville was placed at the head of the
treasury, he felt the impossibility of Great Britain's supporting
such an establishment as her former successes had made
indispensable, and, at the same time, of giving any sensible relief
to foreign trade and to the weight of the public debt. He thought it
equitable that those parts of the empire which had benefited most by
the expenses of the war, should contribute something to the expenses
of the peace, and he had no doubt of the constitutional right vested
in Parliament to raise the contribution. But, unfortunately for this
country, Mr. Grenville was at any rate to be distressed because he
was minister, and Mr. Pitt and Lord Camden were to be patrons of
America, because they were in opposition. Their declaration gave
spirit and argument to the colonies; and while, perhaps, they meant
no more than the ruin of a minister, they in effect divided one-
half of the empire from the other.[8]
Under one administration the Stamp Act is made, under the second it
is repealed, under the third, in spite of all experience, a new mode
of taxing the colonies is invented, and a question revived, which
ought to have been buried in oblivion. In these circumstances, a new
office is established for the business of the Plantations, and the
Earl of Hillsborough called forth, at a most critical season, to
govern America. The choice at least announced to us a man of
superior capacity and knowledge. Whether he be so or not, let his
dispatches as far as they have appeared^ let his measures as far as
they have operated, determine for him. In the former we have seen
strong assertions without proof, declamation without argument, and
violent censures without dignity or moderation, but neither
correctness in the composition, nor judgment in the design. As for
his measures, let it be remembered that he was called upon to
conciliate and unite, and that, when he entered into office, the
most refractory of the colonies were still disposed to proceed by
the constitutional methods of petition and remonstrance. Since that
period they have been driven into excesses little short of
rebellion. Petitions have been hindered from reaching the throne,
and the continuance of one of the principal assemblies put upon an
arbitrary condition, which, considering the temper they were in, it
was impossible they should comply with, and which would have availed
nothing as to the general question if it had been complied with.[9]
So violent, and I believe I may call it so unconstitutional an
exertion of the prerogative, to say nothing of the weak, injudicious
terms in which it was conveyed, gives us as humble an opinion of his
Lordship's capacity as it does of his temper and moderation. While
we are at peace with other nations^ our military force may perhaps
be spared to support the Earl of Hillsborough's measures in America.
Whenever that force shall be necessarily withdrawn or diminished,
the dismission of such a minister will neither console us for his
imprudence, nor remove the settled resentment of a people, who,
complaining of an act of the legislature, are out- raged by an
unwarrantable stretch of prerogative, and, supporting their claims
by argument, are insulted with declamation.
Drawing lots would be a prudent and reasonable method of appointing
the officers of state, compared to a late disposition of the
secretary's office. Lord Kochford was acquainted with the affairs
and temper of the Southern courts; Lord Weymouth was equally
qualified for either department. By what unaccountable caprice has
it happened, that the latter, who pretends to no experience
whatsoever, is removed to the most important of the two departments,
and the former, by preference, placed in an office where his
experience can be of no use to him?* Lord Weymouth had distinguished
himself in his first employment by a spirited, if not judicious
conduct. He had animated the civil magistrate beyond the tone of
civil authority, and had directed the operations of the army to more
than military execution. Recovered from the errors of his youth,
from the distraction of play, and the bewitching smiles of Burgundy,
behold him exerting the whole strength of his clear, unclouded
faculties in the service of the crown. It was not the heat of
midnight excesses, nor ignorance of the laws, nor the furious spirit
of the house of Bedford; no, sir; when this respectable minister
interposed his authority between the magistrate and the people, and
signed the mandate on which, for aught he knew, the lives of
thousands depended, he did it from the deliberate motion of his
heart, supported by the best of his judgment.[11]
It has lately been a fashion to pay a compliment to the bravery and
generosity of the Commander-in-chief [the Marquess of Granby] at the
expense of his understanding. They who love him least make no
question of his courage, while his friends dwell chiefly on the
facility of his disposition. Admitting him to be as brave as a total
absence of all feeling and reflection can make him, let us see what
sort of merit he derives from the remainder of his character. If it
be generosity to accumulate in his own person and family a number of
lucrative employments; to provide, at the public expense, for every
creature that bears the name of Manners; and, neglecting the merit
and services of the rest of the army, to heap promotions upon his
favorites and dependents, the present Commander-in-chief is the most
generous man alive. Nature has been sparing of her gifts to this
noble lord; but where birth and fortune are united, we expect the
noble pride and independence of a man of spirit, not the servile,
humiliating complaisance of a courtier. As to the goodness of his
heart, if a proof of it be taken from the facility of never
refusing, What conclusion shall we draw from the indecency of never
performing? And if the discipline of the army be in any degree
preserved, what thanks are due to a man whose cares, notoriously
confined to filling up vacancies, have degraded the office of
Commander-in-chief into [that of] a broker of commissions.[12]
With respect to the navy, I shall only say that this country is so
highly indebted to Sir Edward Hawke, that no expense should be
spared to secure him an honorable and affluent retreat.
The pure and impartial administration of justice is perhaps the
firmest bond to secure a cheerful submission of the people, and to
engage their affections to government. It is not sufficient that
questions of private right or wrong are justly decided, nor that
judges are superior to the vileness of pecuniary corruption.
Jeffries himself, when the court had no interest, was an upright
judge. A court of justice may be subject to another sort of bias,
more important and pernicious, as it reaches beyond the interest of
individuals and affects the whole community. A judge, under the
influence of government, may be honest enough in the decision of
private causes, yet a traitor to the public. When a victim is marked
out by the ministry, this judge will offer himself to perform the
sacrifice. He will not scruple to prostitute his dignity, and betray
the sanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary point is to be
carried for government, or the resentment of a court to be
gratified.
These principles and proceedings, odious and contemptible as they
are, in effect are no less injudicious. A wise and generous people
are roused by every appearance of oppressive, unconstitutional
measures, whether those measures are supported openly by the power
of government, or masked under the forms of a court of justice.
Prudence and self-preservation will oblige the most moderate
dispositions to make common cause, even with a man whose conduct
they censure, if they see him persecuted in a way which the real
spirit of the laws will not justify. The facts on which these
remarks are founded are too notorious to require an application.[13]
This, sir, is the detail. In one view, behold a nation overwhelmed
with debt; her revenues wasted; her trade declining; the affections
of her colonies alienated; the duty of the magistrate transferred to
the soldiery; a gallant army, which never fought unwillingly but
against their fellow-subjects, moldering away for want of the
direction of a man of common abilities and spirit; and, in the last
instance, the administration of justice become odious and suspected
to the whole body of the people. This deplorable scene admits of but
one addition -- that we are governed by counsels, from which a
reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but death.
If, by the immediate interposition of Providence, it were [be]
possible for us to escape a crisis so full of terror and despair,
posterity will not believe the history of the present times. They
will either conclude that our distresses were imaginary, or that we
had the good fortune to be governed by men of acknowledged integrity
and wisdom. They will not believe it possible that their ancestors
could have survived or recovered from so desperate a condition,
while a Duke of Grafton was Prime Minister, a Lord North Chancellor
of the Exchequer, a Weymouth and a Hillsborough Secretaries of
State, a Granby Commander-in-chief, and a Mansfield chief criminal
judge of the kingdom.
NOTES
- Dated January 21, 1769.
There is a great regularity in the structure of this letter. The
first two paragraphs contain the exordium. The transition
follows in the third paragraph, leading to the main proposition,
which is contained in the fourth, viz., "that the existing
discontent and disasters of the nation were justly chargeable on
the king and ministry." The next eight paragraphs are
intended to give the proof of the proposition, by reviewing the
chief departments of government, and endeavoring to show the
incompetency or mal-administration of the men to whom they were
intrusted. A recapitulation follows in the last paragraph but
one, leading to a restatement of the proposition in still
broader terms. This is strengthened in the conclusion by the
remark, that if the nation should escape from its desperate
condition through some signal interposition of Divine
Providence, posterity would not believe the history of the
times, or consider it possible that England should have survived
a crisis " so full of terror and despair."
- We have here the starting
point of the exordium, as it lay originally in the mind of
Junius, viz., that the English nation was "insulted and
abused" by the king and ministers. But this was too strong
a statement to be brought out abruptly. Junius therefore went
back, and prepared the way by showing in successive sentences,
(1.) Why a free people obey the laws -- "because they have
themselves enacted them." (2.) That this obedience is
ordinarily cheerful, and almost unlimited. (3.) That such
obedience to the guardian of the laws naturally leads to a
strong affection for his person. (4.) That this affection (as
shown in their history) had often been excessive among the
English, who were, in fact, peculiarly liable to a "mistaken
zeal for particular persons and families." Hence they were
equally liable (this is not said, but implied) to have their
loyalty imposed upon; and therefore the feeling then so
prevalent was well founded, that the king in his rash counsels
and reckless choice of ministers, must have been taking
advantage of the generous confidence of his people, and playing
on the easiness of their temper. If so, they were indeed
insulted and abused. The exordium, then, is a complete chain of
logical deduction, and the case is fully made out, provided the
popular feeling referred to was correct. And here we see where
the fallacy of Junius lies, whenever he is in the wrong. It is
in taking for granted one of the steps of his reasoning. He does
not, in this case, even mention the feeling alluded to, in
direct terms. He knew it was beating in the hearts of the
people; his whole preceding train of thought was calculated to
justify and inflame it, and he therefore leaps at once to the
conclusion it involves, and addresses them as actually filled
with resentment "to see such a temper insulted and abused."
The feeling, in this instance, was to a great extent well
founded, and so far his logic is complete. In other cases his
assumption is a false one. He lays hold of some slander of the
day, some distorted statement of facts, some maxim which is only
half true, some prevailing passion or prejudice, and dexterously
intermingling them with a train of thought which in every other
respect is logical and just, he hurries the mind to a conclusion
which seems necessarily involved in the premises. Hardly any
writer has so much art and plausibility in thus misleading the
mind.
- Here is the central idea of
the letter -- the proposition to be proved in respect to the
king and his ministers. The former part of this paragraph
contains the major premise, the remainder the minor down to the
last sentence, which brings out the conclusion in emphatic
terms. In order to strengthen the minor, which was the most
important premise, he rapidly contrasts the condition of England
before and after the king ascended the throne. In doing this,
he dilates on those errors of the king which led to, and which
account for, so remarkable a change. Thus the conclusion is made
doubly strong. This union of severe logic with the finest
rhetorical skill in filling out the premises and giving them
their utmost effect, furnishes an excellent model for the
student in oratory.
- In this attack on the king,
there is a refined artifice, rarely if ever equaled, in leading
the mind gradually forward from the slightest possible
insinuation to the bitterest irony. First we have the "uniting
of all parties," which is proper and desirable; next "trying
all characters," which suggests decidedly a want of
judgment; then "distributing the offices of state by
rotation," a charge rendered plausible, at least, by the
frequent changes of ministers, and involving (if true) a
weakness little short of absolute fatuity. The way being thus
prepared, what was first insinuated is now openly expressed in
the next sentence. The word "folly" is applied to the
conduct of the king of England in the face of his subjects, and
the application rendered doubly severe by the gravest irony.
Still, there is one relief. Allusion is made to his "unbounded
goodness of heart," from which, in the preceding chain of
insinuations, these errors of judgment had been deduced. The
next sentence takes this away. It directly ascribes to the king,
with an increased severity of ironical denial, some of the
meanest passions of royalty, "a capricious partiality for
new faces," a "natural love of low intrigue," "the
treacherous amusement of double and triple negotiations!"
It is unnecessary to remark on the admirable precision and force
of the language in these expressions, and, indeed, throughout
the whole passage. There had been just enough in the king's
conduct, for the last seven years, to make the people suspect
all this, and to weaken or destroy their affection for the
crown. It was all connected with that system of favoritism
introduced by Lord Bute, which the nation so much abhorred.
Nothing but this would have made them endure for a moment such
an attack on their monarch, and especially the absolute mockery
with which Junius concludes the whole, by speaking of "the
anxiety of the purest of all possible hearts for the general
welfare!" His entire Letter to the king, with all the
rancor ascribed to it by Burke, does not contain so much
bitterness and insult as are concentrated in this single
passage. While we can not but condemn its spirit, we are forced
to acknowledge that there is in this and many other passages of
Junius, a rhetorical skill in the evolution of thought which was
never surpassed by Demosthenes.
- The Duke of Grafton, first
Lord of the Treasury. It is unnecessary to remark on the
dexterity of connecting with this mention of a treasury, "sinking
under its debts and expenses," the idea of its head being a
gambler loaded with his own debts, and liable continually to new
distresses and temptations from his love of play. The thought is
wisely left here. The argument which it implies would be
weakened by any attempt to expand it. Junius often reminds us of
the great Athenian orator, in thus striking a single blow, and
then passing on to some other subject, as he does here to the
apostasy of the Duke of Grafton, his inconsistency, caprice,
and irresolution.
- Within about seven years,
the king had run up a debt of £513,000 beyond the ample
allowance made for his expenses on the civil list, and had just
applied, at the opening of Parliament, for a grant to pay it
off. The nation were indignant at such overreaching. The debt,
however, was paid this session, and in a few years there was
another contracted. Thus it went on, from time to time, until
1782, when £300,000 more were paid, in addition to a large
sum during the interval. At this time a partial provision was
made, in connection with Mr. Burke's plan of economical reform,
for preventing all future encroachments of this kind on the
public revenues.
- Notwithstanding these early
difficulties, Lord North became at last a very dexterous and
effective debater.
- This attack on Lord Chatham
and his friend shows the political affinities of Junius. He
believed with Mr. Grenville and Lord Rockingham in the right of
Great Britain to tax America; and in referring to Mr.
Grenville's attempt to enforce that right by the Stamp Act, he
adopts his usual course of interweaving an argument in its favor
into the language used.[1] He thus prepares the way for his
censures on Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, affirming that they
acted on the principle that "Mr. Grenville was at any rate
to be distressed because he was minister and they were in
opposition," thus implying that they were actuated by
factious and selfish views in their defense of America. About a
year after this letter was written, Lord Rockingham was
reconciled to Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, and all united to
break down the Grafton ministry. Junius now turned round and
wrote his celebrated eulogium on Lord Chatham, contained in his
fifty-fourth letter, in which he says, "Recorded honors
shall gather round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a
solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it. I am
not conversant in the language of panegyric. These praises are
extorted from me; but they will wear well, for they have been
dearly earned." The last of his letters was addressed to
Lord Camden, in which he says, " I turn with pleasure from
that barren waste, in which no salutary plant takes root, no
verdure quickens, to a character fertile, as I willingly
believe, in every great and good qualification." Political
men have certainly a peculiar faculty of viewing the characters
of others under very different lights, as they happen to affect
their own interests and feelings.[2]
- The "arbitrary
condition" was that the General Court of Massachusetts
should rescind one of their own resolutions and expunge it from
their records. The whole of this passage in relation to
Hillsborough is as correct in point of fact, as it is well
reasoned and finely expressed.
- The changes here censured
had taken place about three months before. The office of Foreign
Secretary for the Southern Department was made vacant by the
resignation of Lord Shelburne.[3] Lord Rochford, who had been
minister to France, and thus made "acquainted with the
temper of the Southern courts," ought naturally to have
been appointed (if at all) to this department. Instead of this
he was made Secretary of the Northern Department, for which he
had been prepared by no previous knowledge; while Lord Weymouth
was taken from the Home Department, and placed in the Southern,
being "equally qualified" [that is, wholly unqualified
by any "experience whatsoever"] for either department
in the Foreign office, whether Southern or Northern.
- As Secretary of the Home
Department, Lord Weymouth had addressed a letter to the
magistrates of London, early in 1768, advising them to call in
the military, provided certain disturbances in the streets
should continue. The idea of setting the soldiery to fire on
masses of unarmed men has always been abhorrent to the English
nation. It was, therefore, a case admirably suited to the
purposes of this Letter. In using it to inflame the people
against Lord Weymouth, Junius charitably supposes that he was
not repeating the errors of his youth -- that he was neither
drunk, nor ignorant of what he did, nor impelled by "the
furious spirit" of one of the proudest families of the
realm -- all of which Lord Weymouth would certainly say -- and
therefore (which his Lordship must also admit) that he did, from
"the deliberate motion of his heart, supported by the best
of his judgment," sign a paper which the great body of the
people considered as authorizing promiscuous murder, and which
actually resulted in the death of fourteen persons three weeks
after. The whole is so wrought up as to create the feeling, that
Lord Weymouth was in both of these states of mind - that he
acted with deliberation in carrying out the dictates of headlong
or drunken passion.
.... All this, of course, is
greatly exaggerated. Severe measures did seem indispensable to
suppress the mobs of that day, and, whoever stood forth to
direct them, must of necessity incur the popular indignation.
Still, it was a question among the most candid men, whether
milder means might not have been effectual.
- The Marquess of Granby,
personally considered, was perhaps the most popular member of
the cabinet, with the exception of Sir Edward Hawke. He was a
warm-hearted man, of highly social qualities and generous
feelings. As it was the object of Junius to break down the
ministry, it was peculiarly necessary for him to blast and
destroy his popularity. This he attempts to do by discrediting
the character of the marquess, as a man of firmness, strength of
mind, and disinterestedness in managing the concerns of the
army. This attack is distinguished for its plausibility and
bitterness. It is clear that Junius was in. some way connected
with the army or with the War Department, and that in this
situation he had not only the means of very exact information,
but some private grudge against the Commander-in-chief."[4]
His charges and insinuations are greatly overstrained; but it is
certain that the army was moldering away at this time in a
manner which left the country in a very defenseless condition.
Lord Chatham showed this by incontestible evidence, in his
speech on the Falkland Islands, delivered about a year after
this Letter was written.
- It is unnecessary to say
that Lord Mansfield is here pointed at. No one now believes that
this great jurist ever did the things here ascribed to him by
Junius.[5] All that is true is, that he was a very high Tory,
and was, therefore, naturally led to exalt the prerogatives of
the crown ; and that he was a very politic man (and this was the
great failing in his character), and therefore unwilling to
oppose the king or his ministers, when he knew in heart they
were wrong. This was undoubtedly the case in respect to the
issuing of a general warrant for apprehending Wilkes, which he
ought publicly to have condemned; but, as he remained silent,
men naturally considered him, in his character of Chief Justice,
as having approved of the course directed by the king. Hence
Mansfield was held responsible for the treatment of Wilkes, of
whom Junius here speaks in very nearly the terms used by Lord
Chatham, as a man whose " conduct" he censured, but
with whom every moderate man must "make common cause,"
when he was "persecuted in a way which the real spirit of
the laws will not justify."
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