the surface, neglected and unremoved. It is only the tempest that lifts him from his place. nineteen days the Duke of Grafton was compelled to resign. But Junius and his friends were bitterly disappointed. The King had, indeed, the wisdom to remove the great source of contention by pardoning Wilkes; but he clung to his Tory advisers; he placed Lord North at the head of affairs, and for twelve years persisted in his favorite measures, and especially his resolution to force taxation on America, until he drove her out of the empire. Before leaving this letter, it will be proper to Without consulting your minister, call together your whole council. Let it appear to the public that you can determine and act for yourself. Come forward to your people. Lay aside the wretched formalities of a King, and speak to your subjects with the spirit of a man, and in the language of a gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived. The acknowledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an honor to your understanding. Tell them you are determ-give a brief account of the celebrated trial to ined to remove every cause of complaint against your government; that you will give your confidence to no man who does not possess the confidence of your subjects; and leave it to themselves to determine, by their conduct at a future election, whether or no it be in reality the general sense of the nation, that their rights have been arbitrarily invaded by the present House of Commons, and the Constitution betrayed. They will then do justice to their representatives and to themselves. These sentiments, sir, and the style they are conveyed in, may be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed to the language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the vehemence of their expressions; and when they only praise you indirectly, you admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They deceive you, sir, who tell you that you have many friends, whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal attachment. The first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and may be returned. The fortune which made you a King forbade you to have a friend. It is a law of nature which can not be violated with impunity. The mistaken prince, who looks for friendship, will find a Favorite, and in that Favorite the ruin of his affairs. which it gave rise. Woodfall, the publisher, was prosecuted for a seditious libel, and brought before the Court of King's Bench on the 13th of June, 1770. Lord Mansfield, in charging the jury, told them "that there were only two points for their consideration: the first, the printing and publishing of the paper in question; the second, the sense and meaning of it. That as to the charges of its being malicious, seditious, &c., these were inferences of law. That, therefore, the printing and sense of the paper were alone what the jury had to consider of; and that, if the paper should really contain no breach of law, that was a matter which might afterward be moved in arrest of judgment." This put the prisoner completely in the power of the judges. The jury had no right to inquire into his motives or the real merits of the case. As the fact of publication was admitted, and the meaning of the words was clear, they must pronounce him guilty, although perfectly satisfied that he had spoken the truth, and had been governed by upright intentions. This, certainly, made the trial by jury in cases of libel a mere farce. In the present instance, the jury got round the difficulty by bringing in a verdict, "Guilty of the printing and publishing only." The question now arose, "What is the legal effect of this finding?" The Attorney General claimed that it was to be taken as a conviction; the counsel of Woodfall, that it The people of England are loyal to the house amounted to an acquittal. The case was argued of Hanover, not from a vain preference of one at length, and the court decided for neither party. family to another, but from a conviction that the They set the verdict aside, and ordered a new establishment of that family was necessary to trial. This, however, was the same to Woodthe support of their civil and religious liberties. fall as an acquittal; for it was perfectly well This, sir, is a principle of allegiance equally sol-known that no jury could ever be found in the id and rational, fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your Majesty's encouragement. We can not long be deluded by national distinctions. The name of Stuart, of itself, is only contemptible; armed with the sovereign authority, their principles were formidable. The Prince, who imitates their conduct, should be warned by their example; and while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, should remember that, as it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another. JUNIUS. This letter was published just before the Christmas holidays, and immediately after their close, Parliament commenced its session. Lord Chatham came out at once as leader of the Whigs, now united into one body, and within city of London to return a verdict against the publisher. The matter was therefore dropped, and Junius came off victorious. Much blame was thrown upon Lord Mansfield for this decision. The subject was brought before the House of Lords by Lord Chatham, and Lord Mansfield said in reply, "His Lordship tells the House that doctrines no less new than dangerous have been inculcated in this court, and that, particularly in a charge which I delivered to the jury on Mr. Woodfall's trial, my directions were contrary to law, repugnant to practice, and injurious to the dearest liberties of the people. This is an alarming picture, my Lords; it is drawn with great parade, and colored to affect the passions amazingly. Unhappily, however, for the painter, it wants the essential circumstance of truth in the design, and must, like many other political pictures, be thrown, notwithstanding the reputation of the artist, among the miserable daubings of faction. So far, my Lords, is the accusation without truth, that the directions now given to juries are the same that they have ever been. There is no novelty introduced-no chicanery attempted; nor has there, till very lately, been any complaint of the integrity of the King's Bench." The opinion of enlightened jurists at the present day, as to the merits of the case, is expressed by Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. ii., p. 480. | field had laid down; and, in laying it down, he not only followed the example of his immediate predecessors, but he was supported by the unanimous opinion of his brethren who sat by him. There was no pretense for representing him as a daring innovator, who, slavishly wishing to please the government, tried to subvert trial by jury, and to extinguish the liberty of the press.' the most cruel insinuations. But he overshot his mark, and fell into the grossest errors, especially in his grand controversy about the right of Lord Mansfield to bail a man named Eyre, in which, as Lord Campbell remarks, “Junius was egregiously in the wrong, clearly showing that he was not a lawyer, his mistakes not being designedly made for disguise, but palpably proceeding from an ignorant man affecting knowledge." Junius, as might be expected, attacked Lord Mansfield soon after in the most vehement terms. If he had confined himself to the legal question and the rights of juries, no one could have condemned him for using strong language; but he "Lord Mansfield, in the course of these tri- followed his ordinary method of assailing charals, had done nothing to incur moral blame. Iacter and motives. He revived the exploded think his doctrine-that the jury were only to story of Mansfield's having drunk the Pretendfind the fact of publication and the innuendoser's health on his knees. He tortured him by contrary to law as well as liberty. His grand argument for making the question of 'libel or not' exclusively one of law, that the defendant may demur or move in arrest of judgment, and so refer it to the court, admits of the easy answer, that, although there may be a writing set out in the information as libelous which it could under no circumstances be criminal to publish, yet that an information may set out a paper the publication of which may or may not be crim--Ibid., p. 402. inal, according to the intention of the defendant and the circumstances under which it is pub-ive of good. It roused the public mind to the lished. Therefore, supposing judges to be ever so pure, upright, and intelligent, justice could not be done by leaving to them the criminality or innocence of the paper alleged to be libelous, as a mere abstract question of law, to be decided by reading the record. Nevertheless, there were various authorities for the rule which Lord Mans The trial of Woodfall was ultimately product rights of juries. A similar case came up in 1784, when the Dean of St. Asaph was tried for a libel; and at this time Mr. Erskine made his celebrated argument on the subject, which prepared the way for an act of Parliament, declaring the right of juries to decide on the law as well as the facts in cases of libel. LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.1 MY LORD,-If I were personally your enemy, I might pity and forgive you. You have every claim to compassion that can arise from misery and distress. The condition you are reduced to would disarm a private enemy of his resentment, and leave no consolation to the most vindictive spirit, but that such an object as you are would disgrace the dignity of revenge. But, in the relation you have borne to this country, you have 1 Dated February 14th, 1770. This Letter must have been commenced within a week after the res ignation of the Duke of Grafton. It is Junius' first shout of triumph over the fall of his adversary. He evidently regarded Lord North's ministry as a mere modification of the Bedford party; and, as he always underrated his talents, he now treats him, at the close of this Letter, with great contempt, expressing (what he undoubtedly felt) a firm conviction that the whole concern must soon fall to pieces, and the Whigs be called into office. This is one of the most finished productions of Junius. It has more eloquence than the Letter to the King, and would deserve our unqualified admiration, if it were as just as it is eloquent. no title to indulgence; and, if I had followed the dictates of my own opinion, I never should have allowed you the respite of a moment. In your public character, you have injured every subject of the empire; and, though an individual is not authorized to forgive the injuries done to society, he is called upon to assert his separate share in the public resentment. I submitted, however, to the judgment of men, more moderate, perhaps more candid than myself. For my own part, I do not pretend to understand those prudent forms of decorum, those gentle rules of discretion, which some men endeavor to unite with the conduct of the greatest and most hazardous affairs. Engaged in the defense of an honorable cause, I would take a decisive part. I should scorn to provide for a future retreat, or to keep terms with a man who preserves no measures with the public. Neither the abject submission of deserting his post in the hour of danger, nor even the sacred shield of cowardice,2 2 Sacro tremuere timore. Every coward pretends to be planet-struck. should protect him. I would pursue him through the whining piety of a Methodist. We had realife, and try the last exertion of my abilities to pre-son to expect that notice would have been taken serve the perishable infamy of his name, and make it immortal. What then, my Lord, is this the event of all the sacrifices you have made to Lord Bute's patronage, and to your own unfortunate ambition? Was it for this you abandoned your earliest friendships the warmest connections of your youth, and all those honorable engagements, by which you once solicited, and might have acquired, the esteem of your country? Have you secured no recompense for such a waste of honor? Unhappy man! What party will receive the common deserter of all parties? Without a client to flatter, without a friend to console you, and with only one companion from the honest house of Bloomsbury, you must now retire into a dreadful solitude, [which you have created for yourself]. At the most active period of life, you must quit the busy scene, and conceal yourself from the world, if you would hope to save the wretched remains of a ruined reputation. The vices never fail of their effect. They operate like age-bring on dishonor before its time, and, in the prime of youth, leave the character broken and exhausted. Yet your conduct has been mysterious as well as contemptible. Where is now that firmness, or obstinacy, so long boasted of by your friends, and acknowledged by your enemies? We were taught to expect that you would not leave the ruin of this country to be completed by other hands, but were determined either to gain a decisive victory over the Constitution, or to perish, bravely at least, in the last dike of the prerogative. You knew the danger, and might have been provided for it. You took sufficient time to prepare for a meeting with your Parliament, to confirm the mercenary fidelity of your dependents, and to suggest to your Sovereign a language suited to his dignity, at least, if not to his benevolence and wisdom. Yet, while the whole kingdom was agitated with anxious expectation upon one great point, you meanly evaded the question, and, instead of the explicit firmness and decision of a King, you gave us nothing but the misery of a ruined grazier, and 3 The words in brackets were contained in the Letter as it originally appeared in the Public Advertiser, but were struck out by Junius in his revised edition. As they add an important idea, and give the period an easier cadence, it may be doubt. ed whether the author did wisely to omit them. It is unnecessary to remark on the animated flow and condensed energy of this paragraph. An able critic has said, in rather strong terms, No language, ancient or modern, can afford a specimen of impressive eloquence superior to this." * The King's speech, which was drawn up by the Duke of Grafton for the opening of this session, went by the name of the "horned-cattle speech," because it commenced with referring to a prevalent distemper among the horned cattle of the kingdom, as a matter of great importance, requiring the attention of Parliament. This created universal merriment; and Junius could not deny himself the pleasure of of the petitions which the King has received from the English nation; and, although I can conceive some personal motives for not yielding to them, I can find none, in common prudence or decency, for treating them with contempt. Be assured, my Lord, the English people will not tamely submit to this unworthy treatment. They had a right to be heard; and their petitions, if not granted, deserved to be considered. Whatever be the real views and doctrine of a court, the Sovereign should be taught to preserve some forms of attention to his subjects, and, if he will not redress their grievances, not to make them a topic of jest and mockery among the lords and ladies of the bedchamber. Injuries may be atoned for and forgiven; but insults admit of no compensation. They degrade the mind in its own esteem, and force it to recover its level by revenge. This neglect of the petitions was, however, a part of your original plan of government; nor will any consequences it has produced account for your deserting your Sovereign in the midst of that distress in which you and your new friends [the Bedfords] had involved him. One would think, my Lord, you might have taken this spirited resolution before you had dissolved the last of those early connections which once, even in your own opinion, did honor to your youth-before you had obliged Lord Granby to quit a service he was attached to-before you had discarded one Chancellor and killed another." throwing it in the teeth of the Duke, especially as the petitions and remonstrances of London, Westminster, Surrey, York, and other parts of the kingdom, respecting the most urgent political concerns, were passed over in silence, and thus treated with contempt. 5 Lord Granby had resigned his office as Commander-in-chief about a month before, affirming that he had been wholly misled under the administration of the Duke of Grafton as to the affair of Wilkes, and declaring that he considered his vote on that subject as the greatest misfortune of his life. When Lord Camden was discarded and compelled to resign, for saying in Parliament that he had long disapproved the measures of the cabinet, but had been unable to resist them, the King found it difficult to induce any one to accept the office of Lord Chancellor. He applied to Mr. Charles Yorke, son of the celebrated Lord Hardwicke, but could not prevail with him, because an acceptance would have been a virtual abandonment of his principles. After trying in other quarters, the King again requested a private interview with Mr. Yorke, and made such appeals to him (it is believed) as no monarch ought ever to address to a subject, declaring that, if he would only accept the seals, "an administration might soon be formed which the nation would entirely approve." Mr. Yorke was at length overpowered; he sunk on his knees in token of submission; and the King gave him his hand to kiss, saluting him as Lord Chancellor of England. Mr. Yorke instantly repaired to the house of his brother, Lord Hardwicke, to explain the step he had taken, and, to his great surprise, found Lord Rockingham, and the other leaders of Opposition, there, concerting with his brother the best means To what an abject condition have you labored to reduce the best of princes, when the unhappy man, who yields at last to such personal instance and solicitation as never can be fairly employed against a subject, feels himself degraded by his compliance, and is unable to survive the disgraceful honors which his gracious Sovereign had compelled him to accept. He was a man of spirit, for he had a quick sense of shame, and death has redeemed his character. I know your Grace too well to appeal to your feelings upon this event; but there is another heart, not yet, I hope, quite callous to the touch of humanity, to which it ought to be a dreadful lesson forever. to make it contemptible. You will say, perhaps, Now, my Lord, let us consider the situation to which you have conducted, and in which you have thought it advisable to abandon your royal master. Whenever the people have complained, and nothing better could be said in defense of the measures of government, it has been the fashion to answer us, though not very fairly, with an appeal to the private virtues of your sovereign. "Has he not, to relieve the people, surrendered a considerable part of his revenue? Has he not made the judges independent by fixing them in their places for life?" My Lord, we acknowledge the gracious principle which gave birth to these concessions, and have nothing to regret but that it has never been adhered to. At the end of seven years, we are loaded with a debt of above five hundred thousand pounds upon the civil list, and we now see the Chancellor of Great Britain tyrannically forced out of his office, not for want of abilities, not for want of in-betraying the King. tegrity, or of attention to his duty, but for delivering his honest opinion in Parliament upon the greatest constitutional question that has arisen since the Revolution. We care not to whose private virtues you appeal; the theory of such a government is falsehood and mockery; the practice is oppression. You have labored, then (though I confess to no purpose), to rob your master of the only plausible answer that ever was given in defense of his government-of the opinion which the people have conceived of his personal honor and integrity. The Duke of Bedford was more moderate than your Grace. only forced his master to violate a solemn promise made to an individual [Mr. Stuart Mackenzie]. But you, my Lord, have successfully extended your advice to every political, every moral engagement that could bind either the magistrate or the man. The condition of a King is often miserable; but it required your Grace's abilities In your treatment of particular persons, you have preserved the uniformity of your character. Even Mr. Bradshaw declares that no man was ever so ill used as himself. As to the provision you have made for his family, he was entitled to it by the house he lives in. The successor of one chancellor might well pretend to be the rival of another. It is the breach of private friendship which touches Mr. Bradshaw; and, to say the truth, when a man of his rank and abilities had taken so active a part in your affairs, he ought not to have been let down at last with a He miserable pension of fifteen hundred pounds a of carrying on their attack upon the government. When he told his story, they all turned upon him with a burst of indignation, and reproached him as guilty of a flagrant breach of honor. He returned to his house overwhelmed with grief, and within two days his death was announced. There was a general suspicion of suicide, and it has never yet been made certain that he died a natural death. Well might Junius say, in reference to the King, "There is another heart not yet, I hope, quite cal lous to the touch of humanity, to which it ought to be a dreadful lesson forever." This nobleman was notoriously profligate in his life. Such was the case also, to a great extent, with Gower, Rigby, and all the Bedford men in the Duke of Grafton's ministry. 7 Mr. Bradshaw, a dependent of the Duke of Grafton, received a pension of £1500 a year for his own life and the lives of all his sons, while Sir Edward Hawke, who had saved the state, received what was actually worth a less sum. Junius, alluding to Bradshaw's complaints, sneeringly says that he was certainly entitled to a large pension on account of "the house he lives in," referring to a fact which occasioned considerable speculation, viz., that Bradshaw had just taken a very costly residence, previously occupied by Lord Chancellor Northington. The whole passage is obviously a sneering one, though Heron takes it seriously, and then represents Junius as inconsistent with himself, because he alludes, in a note, to the largeness of Bradshaw's pension as compared with Admiral Hawke's. year. Colonel Luttrell, Mr. Onslow, and Mr. Burgoyne were equally engaged with you, and have rather more reason to complain than Mr. Bradshaw. These are men, my Lord, whose friendship you should have adhered to on the same principle on which you deserted Lord Rockingham, Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, and the Duke of Portland. We can easily account for your violating your engagements with men of honor, but why should you betray your natural connections? Why separate yourself from Lord Sandwich, Lord Gower, and Mr. Rigby, or leave the three worthy gentlemen above mentioned to shift for themselves? With all the fashionable indulgence of the times, this country does not abound in characters like theirs; and you may find it a difficult matter to recruit the black catalogue of your friends. | fold recrimination, and to set you at defiance. cies of false suggestion, and even by publishing breast for a character of consummate treachery, INFAMOUS and CONTENTED. The recollection of the royal patent you sold to Mr. Hine obliges me to say a word in defense of a man [Mr. Vaughan] whom you have taken the most dishonorable means to injure. I do not refer to the sham prosecution which you affected to carry on against him. On that ground, I doubt not he is prepared to meet you with ten• This alludes to the patent of an office granted for the benefit of Mr. Burgoyne, who, with the Duke of Grafton's permission, sold out the annual income for a gross sum to a person named Hine. The prosecution mentioned in the next sentence is thus spoken of by Woodfall, in his Junius, vol. i., 322: “Mr. I believe, my Lord, I may now take my leave Samuel Vaughan was a merchant in the city, of hith- of you forever. You are no longer that resolute erto anblemished character, and strongly attached minister who had spirit to support the most vioto the popular cause. The office he attempted to lent measures; who compensated for the want procure had at times been previously disposed of for of good and great qualities by a brave determina pecuniary consideration, and had, on one particnation (which some people admired and relied on) lar occasion, been sold by an order of a Court of The reputa Chancery, and consisted in the reversion of the clerkship to the Supreme Court in the island of Ja- tion of obstinacy and perseverance might have maica. A Mr. Howell was, in fact, at this very time supplied the place of all the absent virtues. You in treaty with the patentee for the purchase of his have now added the last negative to your charresignation, which clearly disproved any criminal in-acter, and meanly confessed that you are destitention in Mr. Vaughan. He was, however, prosecuted, obviously from political motives, but the prosecution was dropped after the affair of Hine's patent was brought before the public." Mr. Heron states, however, that the office itself had never been directly or avowedly sold by the Crown, though the life-interest had been, under a decree of Chance. ry." It is not surprising (if this were so) that Mr. Vaughan, not being a professional man, should have failed to discern the difference. His application, therefore, may have been made without any crim inal intention. To prosecute in such a case does seem a very severe measure; and, as the prosecu tion was dropped from this time, it would seem that the Duke himself considered it a bad business. It may be added, that Sir Dennis Le Marchant, in his edition of Walpole's Memoirs of George III., says, "Junius's account of the prosecution [of Vaughan] is fair-making the usual deductions." Walpole censures the prosecution as foolish. As to Hine's patent, he says, "It was proved that he [the Duke] had bestowed on Colonel Burgoyne a place, which the latter was to sell to reimburse him self for the expenses of his election at Preston."— Vol. iii, 400. This was the statement made by Junius; and it is not, therefore, wonderful that, after the exposure of such a transaction, the Duke thought best to say as little as possible about Mr. Vaughan. | to maintain himself without them. tute of the common spirit of a man. Retire then, my Lord, and hide your blushes from the world; for, with such a load of shame, even BLACK may change its color. A mind such as yours, in the solitary hours of domestic enjoyment, may still find topics of consolation. You may find it in the memory of violated friendship, in the afflictions of an accomplished prince, whom you have disgraced and deserted, and in the agitations of a great country, driven by your councils to the brink of destruction. The palm of ministerial firmness is now transferred to Lord North. He tells us so himself, with the plenitude of the ore rotundo;9 and I am ready enough to believe that, while he can keep his place, he will not easily be persuaded to resign it. Your Grace was the firm minister of yesterday: Lord North is the firm minister of to-day. To-morrow, perhaps, his Majesty, in his wisdom, may give us a rival for you both. |