eign, I doubt not, rejoices at this first appear- saw the weakness of a distracted ministry, and ance of union among his servants. His late were justified in treating you with contempt. Majesty, under the happy influence of a family They would probably have yielded in the first connection between his ministers, was relieved instance rather than hazard a rupture with this from the cares of government. A more active country; but, being once engaged, they can not prince may, perhaps, observe with suspicion, by retreat without dishonor. Common sense forewhat degrees an artful servant grows upon his sees consequences which have escaped your master, from the first unlimited professions of Grace's penetration. Either we suffer the French duty and attachment to the painful representa- to make an acquisition, the importance of which tion of the necessity of the royal service, and you have probably no conception of, or we opsoon, in regular progression, to the humble inso- pose them by an underhand management, which lence of dictating in all the obsequious forms of only disgraces us in the eyes of Europe, without peremptory submission. The interval is care- answering any purpose of policy or prudence. fully employed in forming connections, creating | From secret, indiscreet assistance, a transition interests, collecting a party, and laying the foun- to some more open, decisive measures becomes dation of double marriages, until the deluded unavoidable, till at last we find ourselves principrince, who thought he had found a creature pros-pals in the war, and are obliged to hazard every tituted to his service, and insignificant enough to be always dependent upon his pleasure, finds him at last too strong to be commanded, and too formidable to be removed. Your Grace's public conduct, as a minister, is but the counterpart of your private historythe same inconsistency, the same contradictions. In America we trace you, from the first opposition to the Stamp Act, on principles of convenience, to Mr. Pitt's surrender of the right; then forward to Lord Rockingham's surrender of the fact; then back again to Lord Rockingham's declaration of the right; then forward to taxation with Mr. Townsend; and, in the last instance, from the gentle Conway's undetermined discretion, to blood and compulsion with the Duke of Bedford. 10 Yet, if we may believe the simplicity of Lord North's eloquence, at the opening of next sessions you are once more to be patron of America. Is this the wisdom of a great minister, or is it the vibration of a pendulum? Had you no opinion of your own, my Lord? Or was it the gratification of betraying every party with which you had been united, and of deserting every political principle in which you had concurred? thing for an object which might have originally been obtained without expense or danger. I am not versed in the politics of the North; but this I believe is certain, that half the money you have distributed to carry the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes, or even your secretary's share in the last subscription, would have kept the Turks at your devotion.12 Was it economy, my Lord? or did the coy resistance you have constantly met with in the British Senate make you despair of corrupting the Divan? Your friends, indeed, have the first claim upon your bounty; but if five hundred pounds a year can be spared in pension to Sir John Moore, it would not have disgraced you to have allowed something to the secret service of the public.13 You will say, perhaps, that the situation of affairs at home demanded and engrossed the whole of your attention. Here, I confess you have been active. An amiable, accomplished prince ascends the throne under the happiest of all auspices, the acclamations and united affections of his subjects. The first measures of his reign, and even the odium of a Favorite, were not able to shake their attachments. Your services, my Lord, have been more successful. Since you were permit Your enemies may turn their eyes without re-ted to take the lead, we have seen the natural gret from this admirable system of provincial government they will find gratification enough in the survey of your domestic and foreign policy. If, instead of disowning Lord Shelburne, the British court had interposed with dignity and firmness, you know, my Lord, that Corsica would never have been invaded." The French was understood), to dismiss Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, brother of Lord Bute. Mr. Mackenzie was restored as soon as the Duke retired; and Junius here describes, in the most graphic manner, the way in which the same man and his associates might be expected to go on again, till he reached "the humble insolence of dictating in all the obsequious forms of peremptory submission," as was done to George II. 10 This is substantially true. "The Duke of Grafton," says a well-informed writer, " occasionally favored Mr. Pitt's opinion, occasionally the Marquess of Rockingham's, and at last sided with Charles Townsend in a determined resolution to carry the system of taxation into effect at all hazards." 11 Lord Shelburne, then Secretary of Foreign Af fairs, had instructed the English embassador at the effects of a system of government at once both odious and contemptible. We have seen the laws sometimes scandalously relaxed, sometimes violently stretched beyond their tone. We have court of France to remonstrate in spirited terms against the occupation of Corsica by the French. But Grafton and the rest of the ministry disavowed the instructions of their own secretary, and Lord Shelburne resigned on the 21st of October, 1768, under a sense of injury. 12 It was the policy of Great Britain, touching "the politics of the North," to prevent Russia from being weakened by Turkey in the war then existing between them. French officers were aiding the Turks and disciplining their troops. Junius intimates that a small sum comparatively might have prevented this, and served not only to curtail the growing power of the French in the Divan, but to have transferred the ascendency to the English. 13 Sir John Moore was an old Newmarket acquaintance of the Duke, who had squandered his private fortune, and had recently obtained from his Grace a pension of £500 a year. seen the sacred person of the sovereign insulted; and, in profound peace, and with an undisputed title, the fidelity of his subjects brought by his own servants into public question.14 Without abilities, resolution, or interest, you have done more than Lord Bute could accomplish with all Scotland at his heels. Your Grace, little anxious, perhaps, either for present or future reputation, will not desire to be handed down in these colors to posterity. You have reason to flatter yourself that the memory of your administration will survive even the forms of a constitution which our ancestors vainly hoped would be immortal; and as for your personal character, I will not, for the honor of human nature, suppose that you can wish to have it remembered. The condition of the present times is desperate indeed; but there is a debt due to those who come after us, and it is the historian's office to punish, though he can not correct. I do not give you to posterity as a pattern to imitate, but as an example to deter; and as your conduct comprehends every thing that a wise or honest minister should avoid, I mean to make you a negative instruction to your successors forever. JUNIUS. LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.1 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 judg 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. MY LORD,-If nature had given you an un- | derstanding 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 of the people upon their own most essential ment, 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 weakness 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 favorite 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 clamors of faction. A dark, ambig-man of abilities. It is the apprehension of your nous system might require and furnish the materials of ingenious illustration, and, in doubtful 14 As the King became unpopular through his persecution of Wilkes and for other causes, the Duke of Grafton had made exertions to procure addresses from various parts of the kingdom, expressive of the people's attachment to the Crown. In this he sig nally failed, except in Scotland, and thus brought the fidelity of his Majesty's subjects into "public question." Dated July 8th, 1769. This Letter is directed chiefly to one point-the daring step just taken by the ministry, of seating Mr. Luttrell in the House of Commons to the exclusion of Mr. Wilkes, when the former had received only 296 votes, and the latter 1143 votes, and had been returned by the sheriff of enter into the argument, for the case was too clear to admit of extended reasoning. His object was to convince the King and the ministry, that the people would not endure so flagrant an act of violence. Middlesex as the elected member. Junius does not 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 as synonymous terms, that the reverse of the proposition has grown into credit, and every villain fancies himself a 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 now carried things too far to retreat. You have plainly declared to the people what they 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 sovereign to the throne, we have seen a system of government which may well be called a reign of experiments. Parties of all denominations have been employed and dismissed. The advice of the ablest men in this country has been repeatedly called for and rejected; and when the royal displeasure has been signified to a minister, the marks of it have usually been proportioned to his abilities and integrity. The spirit of the FA VORITE had some apparent influence upon every administration; and every set of ministers preserved an appearance of duration as long as they submitted to that influence. But there were 2 If the reader wishes to understand the true state of parties at this time, and the real merits of the so much agitated question of favoritism, he will be aid The mo certain services to be performed for the Favor- ed by a consideration of the following facts: William III. was placed on the throne in the rev-ring their duty, as servants of the public, to those olution of 1688, by a union of the great Whig families; and his successors were held there against the efforts of the Jacobites by the same power. Hence the government of the country "on Revolution principles," so often spoken of, was really, to a great extent, the government of the King himself as well as the country, by a union of these families power ful enough to control Parliament. Junius has very graphically described, in the preceding Letter, the process by which George II., " under the happy in compliances which were expected from their station. A submissive administration was at last gradually collected from the deserters of all parties, interests, and connections; and nothing remained but to find a leader for these gallant, well-disciplined troops. Stand forth, my Lord, for thou art the man! Lord Bute found no resource of dependence or security in the proud, imposing superiority of Lord Chatham's abilities, the shrewd, inflexible judgment of Mr. Grenville, nor in the mild but determined integrity of Lord Rockingham. His views and situation required a creature void of all these properties; and he was forced to go through every division, resoall parties as he considered best fitted to adminis-lution, composition, and refinement of political ter the government. If he had thrown himself into fluence of a connection between his ministers, was relieved of the cares of government." When George III. came to the throne, he determined to break away from these shackles, and to rule according to his own views and feelings, selecting such men from the hands of Lord Chatham for the accomplishment of this design, he would probably have succeeded. That great statesman, by the splendor of his abili ties, and his unbounded influence with the body of the people, might have raised up a counterpoise against the weight of those great family combinations in the peerage. But George III. disliked the Great Commoner, and had no resource but his ear ly friend, Lord Bute. But this nobleman had neither the abilities nor the political influence which were necessary for the accomplishment of such a scheme. As a Scotchman, particularly, he had to encounter the bitterest jealousy of the English. After a brief effort to administer the government, he gave up the attempt in despair. Still, there was a wide-spread suspicion that he maintained an undue influence over the King by secret advice and interIt seems now to be settled, however, that course. chemistry, before he happily arrived at the capul mortuum of vitriol in your Grace. Flat and insipid in your retired state, but, brought into ac tion, 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 labors, 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, dishonorable competition with Mr. Wilkes, nor had you abilities to such was not the fact. The complaint of his continuing to rule as Favorite, is now admitted to have carry even this last contemptible triumph over a been chiefly or wholly unfounded. But the King, private man, without the grossest violation of if he persevered in his plan, must have some agents the fundamental laws of the Constitution and and advisers. Hence, it was maintained by Mr. King's resolute determination to free himself from Burke, in his celebrated pamphlet entitled Thoughts the thraldom in which 'the great Revolution famion the Present Discontents, that there was a regu- lies' were prepared to bind him. They felt that the lar organization, a "cabinet behind the throne," reign of a haughty oligarchy was not merely degradwhich overruled the measures of the ostensible mining to the sovereign, but ruinous to the claims of istry. Such, substantially, were the views of Ju- 'new men' endowed with genius and capacity for nius, though he chose to give prominence to Lord affairs." The King, however, had not the requisite Bute as most hated by the people. He represents largeness or strength of understanding to carry out one ministry after another to have been sacrificed the design, and he had rejected the only man who through the influence of his Lordship. He treats could have enabled him to do it. He therefore the Duke of Grafton as the willing tool of this sys- threw himself into the hands of the Tories. But his tem of favoritism. All this was greatly exagger- quarrel with Wilkes was the great misfortune of ated. Private influence did probably exist to a lim- his life. He seems at first to have been ignorant of ited extent; but the King's frequent changes of the law on the points in question, and his ministers ministers resulted partly from personal disgust, and had not the honesty and firmness to set him right. partly from his inability to carry on the government On the contrary, they went forward, at his bidding, without calling in new strength. The great Whig into the most flagrant violations of the Constitution. families, in the mean time, felt indignant at these The great body of the nation became alienated in attempts of the King to free himself from their con- their affections. On these points the attacks of Jutrol. Junius represented the feelings of these men; nius were just, and his services important in defendand there was much less of real patriotism in his at- ing the rights of the people. The King was defeattack on the King than he pretends. It was a strug-ed; he was compelled to give up the contest; and gle for power. There were many," says an able subsequent votes of Parliament established the prin writer, "among the Whig party, who rejoiced at the ciples for which Junius contended. rights of the people. But these are rights, my | House of Commons must declare themselves not Lord, which you can no more annihilate than only independent of their constituents, but the deyou can the soil to which they are annexed. termined enemies of the Constitution. Consider, The question no longer turns upon points of na- my Lord, whether this be an extremity to which tional honor and security abroad, or on the de- their fears will permit them to advance; or, if grees of expediency and propriety of measures their protection should fail you, how far you are at home. It was not inconsistent that you should authorized to rely upon the sincerity of those abandon the cause of liberty in another country smiles, which a pious court lavishes without re[Corsica], which you had persecuted in your own; luctance upon a libertine by profession. It is and in the common arts of domestic corruption, not, indeed, the least of the thousand contradicwe miss no part of Sir Robert Walpole's system tions which attend you, that a man, marked to except his abilities. In this humble, imitative the world by the grossest violation of all cereline you might long have proceeded, safe and con- mony and decorum, should be the first servant temptible. You might probably never have risen of a court, in which prayers are morality, and to the dignity of being hated, and you might even kneeling is religion.3 Trust not too far to aphave been despised with moderation. But, it pearances, by which your predecessors have been seems, you meant to be distinguished; and to a deceived, though they have not been injured. mind like yours there was no other road to fame Even the best of princes may at last discover but by the destruction of a noble fabric, which that this is a contention in which every thing you thought had been too long the admiration may be lost, but nothing can be gained; and, as of mankind. The use you have made of the you became minister by accident, were adopted military force, introduced an alarming change in without choice, and continued without favor, be the mode of executing the laws. The arbitrary assured that, whenever an occasion presses, you appointment of Mr. Luttrell invades the founda- will be discarded without even the forms of retion of the laws themselves, as it manifestly gret. You will then have reason to be thanktransfers the right of legislation from those whom ful if you are permitted to retire to that seat the people have chosen to those whom they have of learning, which, in contemplation of the sysrejected. With a succession of such appoint-tem of your life, the comparative purity of your ments, we may soon see a House of Commons collected, in the choice of which the other towns and counties of England will have as little share as the devoted county of Middlesex. Yet I trust your Grace will find that the people of this country are neither to be intimidated by violent measures, nor deceived by refinement. When they see Mr. Luttrell seated in the House of Commons by mere dint of power, and in direct opposition to the choice of a whole county, they will not listen to those subtleties by which every arbitrary exertion of authority is explained into the law and privilege of Parliament. It requires no persuasion of argument, but simply the evidence of the senses, to convince them, that to transfer the right of election from the collective to the representative body of the people, contradiets all those ideas of a House of Commons which they have received from their forefathers, and which they had already, though vainly, perhaps, delivered to their children. The principles on which this violent measure has been defended have added scorn to injury, and forced us to feel that we are not only oppressed, but in sulted. With what force, my Lord, with what protection, are you prepared to meet the united detestation of the people of England? The city of London has given a generous example to the kingdom, in what manner a King of this country ought to be addressed; and I fancy, my Lord, it is not yet in your courage to stand between your sovereign and the addresses of his subjects. The injuries you have done this country are such as demand not only redress, but vengeance. In vain shall you look for protection to that venal vote which you have already paid for another must be purchased; and, to save a minister, the : manners with those of their high steward [Lord Sandwich], and a thousand other recommending circumstances, has chosen you to encourage the growing virtue of their youth, and to preside over their education. Whenever the spirit of distributing prebends and bishoprics shall have departed from you, you will find that learned seminary perfectly recovered from the delirium of an installation, and, what in truth it ought to be, once more a peaceful scene of slumber and meditation. The venerable tutors of the university will no longer distress your modesty by proposing you for a pattern to their pupils. The learned dullness of declamation will be silent; and even the venal muse, though happiest in fiction, will forget your virtues. Yet, for the benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your retreat might be deferred until your morals shall happily be ripened to that maturity of corruption at which, philosophers tell us, the worst examples cease to be contagious. JUNIUS. 3 This attack on the moral and religious character of the King was wholly unmerited. A sovereign can not always find ministers able to carry on the Hence! avaunt! 'tis holy ground! LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD.1 of your established character, and perhaps an The ported you with meaner abilities than I think you MY LORD,-You are so little accustomed to receive any marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if, in the following lines, a compliment or expression of applause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery 1 Dated September 19th, 1769. The Bedford family was at this time the richest in England, and, through its borough interest and wide-spread alliances, stood foremost in political influence. The present Duke was now sixty years old, and had spent half his life in the conflicts of party. He first held office under Lord Carteret, then under Mr. Pelham, and was made Viceroy of Ireland by Lord Chatham in his first administration. Thus far he had actYou are indeed a very considerable man. ed as a Whig. But when Lord Bute drove out Lord Chatham in 1761, he took the office of Privy Seal, highest rank, a splendid fortune, and a name, glomade vacant by the resignation of Chatham's broth-rious till it was yours, were sufficient to have super-in-law. Lord Temple, and was now considered as uniting his interests to those of the Favorite. When Lord Bute resigned in 1763, the influence of the Duke became ascendant in the cabinet, and the administration, though ostensibly that of Mr. Grenville, has often been spoken of as the Duke of Bedford's. It was extremely unpopular, from the general belief that Lord Bute still ruled as Favorite; and in 1765 it gave way to the administration of Lord Rockingham, which threw the Duke of Bedford wholly into the back-ground. The Duke of Grafton, when he became minister in 1767, through the illness of Lord Chatham and the death of Charles Townsend, found it necessary to call in new strength, and opened negotiations, as already mentioned, with The eminence of your station gave you a comLord Rockingham on the one hand and the Duke of manding prospect of your duty. The road, Bedford on the other. The Rockingham Whigs had which led to honor, was open to your view. the strongest hopes of prevailing in these new arrangements, and of being made virtual masters of You could not lose it by mistake, and you had the government. But the influence of the Duke of no temptation to depart from it by design. ComBedford prevailed. Three of his dependents, Lords pare the natural dignity and importance of the Weymouth, Gower, and Sandwich, were received richest peer of England; the noble independinto the ministry; and the Duke of Bedford drew ence which he might have maintained in Parliaupon himself the bitterest resentment of the Rock- ment; and the real interest and respect which he ingham Whigs for thus depriving them of power, and might have acquired, not only in Parliament, but becoming, as they conceived, the savior of Lord Bute through the whole kingdom; compare these gloand the Tories, and thus re-establishing the system rious distinctions with the ambition of holding a of secret influence in the closet. These events, as stated above, were the immediate cause which share in government, the emoluments of a place, led the writer of these Letters to come out under a the sale of a borough, or the purchase of a cornew signature, and in a bolder style of attack. Aft-poration; and, though you may not regret the er assailing the Duke of Grafton, as we have seen in the preceding letters, he now turns upon the Duke of Bedford in a spirit of still fiercer resentment. He reviews the whole public and private conduct of his Grace, and endeavors to call up all the odium of past transactions to enkindle new jealousies against him, as about to give increased effect to a system of favoritism in the closet; and seeks at the same time to overwhelm the Duke himself with a sense of dishonor, baseness, and folly, which might make him shrink from the public eye. There is nothing in all the writings of Junius that is more vehemently eloquent than the close of this letter. It is proper to add, that this eloquence is, in far too many cases, unsupported by facts. 2 virtues which create respect, you may see, with anguish, how much real importance and authority you have lost. Consider the character of an independent, virtuous Duke of Bedford; imagine 2 This and the next three paragraphs are among the finest specimens of composition to be found in Junius. Nowhere has he made so happy a use of contrast. Commencing with a natural and expressive image, he first sketches with admirable discrim ination the character and conduct to be expected in the first peer of England, and then sets off against it an artful and exaggerated representation of the political errors and private weaknesses of the Duke of Bedford during the preceding thirty years. |