SIR, It is the misfortune of your life, and and political liberties depend. Had it been posoriginally the cause of every reproach and dis-sible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonortress which has attended your government, that you should never have been acquainted with the language of truth until you heard it in the complaints of your people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error of your education. We are still inclined to make an indulgent allowance for the pernicious lessons you received in your youth, and to form the most sanguine hopes from the natural benevolence of your disposition.3 We are far from thinking you capable of a direct, deliberate purpose to invade those original rights of your subjects, on which all their civil sketch, in order to take off the appearance of intending any thing personally offensive to the King. He will be struck, also, with the dexterity shown in assuming just the requisite appearance of playing with the subject, when he says, "if an honest man were permitted to approach a King" and the delicacy and apparent respect with which he enters on the task of administering to his sovereign unsought-for counsel and humiliating reproof. Note by Junius. The plan of tutelage and future dominion over the heir-apparent, laid many years ago at Carlton House between the Princess Dowager and her favorite the Earl of Bute, was as gross and palpable as that which was concerted between Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin to govern Louis the Fourteenth, and in effect to prolong his minority until the end of their lives. That prince had strong natural parts, and used frequently to blush for his own ignorance and want of education, which had been willfully neglected by his mother and her minion. A little experience, however, soon showed him how shamefully he had been treat ed, and for what infamous purposes he had been kept in ignorance. Our great Edward, too, at an early period, had sense enough to understand the nature of the connection between his abandoned mother and the detested Mortimer. But, since that time, human nature, we may observe, is greatly al tered for the better. Dowagers may be chaste, and minions may be honest. When it was proposed to settle the present King's household as Prince of Wales, it is well known that the Earl of Bute was forced into it, in direct contradiction to the late King's inclination. That was the salient point from which all the mischiefs and disgraces of the present reign took life and motion. From that moment, Lord Bute never suffered the Prince of Wales to be an instant out of his sight. We need not look farther. On this statement Mr. Heron makes the following remarks in his edition of Junius, vol. ii., 43: “There was, therefore, no dishonest plan for keeping the King in perpetual pupilage formed between his mother and the Earl of Bute. Neither had George the Second nor the Princess Dowager of Wales committed the education of the young Prince to the Jacobites and Tories. His education was not neg. lected, but managed with admirable success and care. Not the young King, but their incapacity and unpopularity, drove the Newcastle party from power. Not the King, but his own arrogance, and the opposition and dislike of the Newcastle party and others, dismissed Mr. Pitt from the administration. The union of parties, and the breaking down of the great Whig party, was originally the measure of Pitt, and arose from the natural progress of things. So unjust are the imputations with which this Letter commences." The truth lies between the two. able to your character, we should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance very distant from the humility of complaint. The doctrine inculcated by our laws, that the King can do no wrong, is admitted without reluctance. We separate the amiable, good-natured prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the private virtues of the man from the vices of his government. Were it not for this just distinction, I know not whether your Majesty's condition, or that of the English nation, would deI would prepare serve most to be lamented. your mind for a favorable reception of truth. by removing every painful, offensive idea of personal reproach. Your subjects, sir, wish for nothing but that, as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your person from your government, so you, in your turn, should distinguish between the conduct which becomes the permanent dignity of a King, and that which serves only to promote the temporary interest and miserable ambition of a minister. You ascended the throne with a declared, and, I doubt not, a sincere resolution of giving universal satisfaction to your subjects. You found them pleased with the novelty of a young prince, whose countenance promised even more than his words, and loyal to you not only from principle, but passion. It was not a cold profession of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a partial, animated attachment to a favorite prince, the native of their country. They did not wait to examine your conduct, nor to be determined by experience, but gave you a generous credit for the future blessings of your reign, and paid you in advance the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, sir, was once the disposition of a people, who now surround your throne with reproaches and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some interested persons have labored to possess you. Distrust the men who tell you that the English are naturally light and inconstant; that they complain without a cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from all parties-from ministers, favorites, and relations; and let there be one moment in your life in which you have consulted your own understanding. When you affectedly renounced the name of Englishman, believe me, sir, you were persuaded to pay a very ill-judged compliment to one part of your subjects, at the expense of another. While the natives of Scotland are not in actual rebellion, they are undoubtedly entitled to protection; nor do I mean to condemn the policy Junius here lays hold of and perverts the language used by the King in his first speech after coming to the throne: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton," &c. The prevailing hostility to the Scotch led many to com ment on this avoidance of the word Englishman, as probably dictated by Lord Bute, and as indicating too much anxiety to conciliate the people of Scot land. the most irregular character may not be redeemed. The mistakes of one sex find a retreat in patriotism; those of the other in devotion. Mr. Wilkes brought with him into politics the same liberal sentiments by which his private conduct had been directed, and seemed to think, that, as there are few excesses in which an En of giving some encouragement to the novelty of their affections for the house of Hanover. I am ready to hope for every thing from their newborn zeal, and from the future steadiness of their allegiance. But hitherto they have no claim to your favor. To honor them with a determined predilection and confidence, in exclusion of your English subjects, who placed your family, and,glish gentleman may not be permitted to indulge, in spite of treachery and rebellion, have support the same latitude was allowed him in the choice ed it upon the throne, is a mistake too gross of his political principles, and in the spirit of even for the unsuspecting generosity of youth. maintaining them. I mean to state, not entirely In this error we see a capital violation of the to defend his conduct. In the earnestness of most obvious rules of policy and prudence. We his zeal, he suffered some unwarrantable insinutrace it, however, to an original bias in your ed-ations to escape him. He said more than moderucation, and are ready to allow for your inexperi ence. To the same early influence we attribute it, that you have descended to take a share not only in the narrow views and interests of particular persons, but in the fatal malignity of their passions. At your accession to the throne, the whole system of government was altered, not from wisdom or deliberation, but because it had been adopted by your predecessor. A little personal motive of pique and resentment was sufficient to remove the ablest servants of the Crown; but it is not in this country, sir, that such men can be dishonored by the frowns of a King. They were dismissed, but could not be disgraced. Without entering into a minuter discussion of the merits of the peace, we may observe, in the imprudent hurry with which the first overtures from France were accepted, in the conduct of the negotiation, and terms of the treaty, the strongest marks of that precipitate spirit of concession with which a certain part of your subjects have been at all times ready to purchase a peace with the natural enemies of this country. On your part we are satisfied that every thing was honorable and sincere, and if England was sold to France, we doubt not that your Majesty was equally betrayed. The conditions of the peace were matter of grief and surprise to your subjects, but not the immediate cause of their present discontent. ate men would justify, but not enough to entitle him to the honor of your Majesty's personal resentment. The rays of royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to illuminate, and could not consume. Animated by the favor of the people on one side, and heated by persecution on the other, his views and sentiments changed with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an enthusiast. The coldest bodies warm with opposition, the hardest sparkle in collision. There is a wholly mistaken zeal in politics as well as religion. By persuading others, we convince our selves. The passions are engaged, and create a maternal affection in the mind, which forces us to love the cause for which we suffer. Is this a contention worthy of a King? Are you not sensible how much the meanness of the cause gives an air of ridicule to the serious difficulties into which you have been betrayed? The destruction of one man has been now, for many years, the sole object of your government; and, if there can be any thing still more disgraceful, we have seen, for such an object, the utmost influence of the executive power, and every ministerial artifice, exerted without success. Nor can you ever succeed, unless he should be imprudent enough to forfeit the protection of those laws to which you owe your crown, or unless your ministers should persuade you to make it a question of force alone, and try the whole strength of government in opposition to the people. The lessons he has reHitherto, sir, you had been sacrificed to the ceived from experience will probably guard him prejudices and passions of others. With what from such excess of folly; and in your Majesty's firmness will you bear the mention of your own? virtues we find an unquestionable assurance that A man, not very honorably distinguished in no illegal violence will be attempted. the world, commences a formal attack upon your Favorite, considering nothing but how he might best expose his person and principles to detestation, and the national character of his countrymen to contempt. The natives of that country, sir, are as much distinguished by a peculiar character as by your Majesty's favor. Like another chosen people, they have been conducted into the Land of Plenty, where they find themselves effectually marked, and divided from mankind. There is hardly a period at which Note by Junius. One of the first acts of the present reign was to dismiss Mr. Legge, because he had some years before refused to yield his interest in Hampshire to a Scotchman recommended by Lord Bate. This was the reason publicly assigned by his Lordship. Far from suspecting you of so horrible a design, we would attribute the continued violation of the laws, and even this last enormous attack upon the vital principles of the Constitution, to an ill-advised, unworthy personal resentment. From one false step you have been betrayed into another, and, as the cause was unworthy of you, your ministers were determined that the prudence of the execution should correspond with the wisdom and dignity of the design. They have reduced you to the necessity of choosing out of a variety of difficulties-to a situation so unhappy, that you can neither do wrong without ruin, nor right without affliction. These worthy servants have undoubtedly given Not contented gular proofs of their abilities. with making Mr. Wilkes a man of importance, you many sin they have judiciously transferred the question object as it would be an affront to you to name. Men of sense will examine your conduct with suspicion; while those who are incapable of comprehending to what extent they are injured, afflict you with clamors equally insolent and unmeaning. Supposing it possible that no fatal struggle should ensue, you determine at once to be unhappy, without the hope of a compensation either from interest or ambition. If an English king be hated or despised, he must be unhappy; and this, perhaps, is the only political truth which he ought to be convinced of without experiment. But if the English people should no longer confine their resentment to a submissive representation of their wrongs; if, following the glorious example of their ancestors, they should no longer appeal to the creature of the Constitution, but to that high Being who gave them the rights of humanity, whose gifts it were sacrilege to surrender, let me ask you, sir, upon what part of your subjects would you rely for assistance? The people of Ireland have been uniformly plundered and oppressed. In return, they give you every day fresh marks of their resentment. They despise the miserable governor [Viscount Townsend] you have sent them, because he is the creature of Lord Bute; nor is it from any natural confusion in their ideas that they are so ready to confound the original of a king with the disgraceful representation of him. The distance of the colonies would make it The circumstances to which you are reduced will not admit of a compromise with the English nation. Undecisive, qualifying measures will disgrace your government still more than open violence, and, without satisfying the people, will excite their contempt. They have too much understanding and spirit to accept of an indirect satisfaction for a direct injury. Nothing less than a repeal, as formal as the resolution itself, can heal the wound which has been given to the Constitution, nor will any thing less be accepted. I can readily believe that there is an influence sufficient to recall that pernicious vote. The House of Commons undoubtedly consider their duty to the Crown as paramount to all other obligations. To us they are only indebted for an accidental existence, and have justly transferred their gratitude from their parents to their benefactors-from those who gave them birth, to the minister from whose benevolence they derive the comforts and pleasures of their political life; who has taken the tenderest care of their infancy, relieves their necessities with-impossible for them to take an active concern in out offending their delicacy, and has given them, what they value most, a virtuous education. But, if it were possible for their integrity to be degraded to a condition so vile and abject, that, compared with it, the present estimation they stand in is a state of honor and respect, consider, sir, in what manner you will afterward proceed? Can you conceive that the people of this country will long submit to be governed by so flexible a House of Commons? It is not in the nature of human society that any form of government, in such circumstances, can long be preserved. In ours, the general contempt of the people is as fatal as their detestation. Such, I am persuaded, would be the necessary effect of any base concession made by the present House of Commons; and, as a qualifying measure would not be accepted, it remains for you to decide whether you will, at any hazard, support a set of men, who have reduced you to this unhappy dilemma, or whether you will gratify the united wishes of the whole people of England by dissolving the Parliament. Taking it for granted, as I do very sincerely, that you have personally no design against the Constitution, nor any views inconsistent with the good of your subjects, I think you can not hesitate long upon the choice which it equally concerns your interest and your honor to adopt. On one side, you hazard the affections of all your English subjects; you relinquish every hope of repose to yourself, and you endanger the establishment of your family forever. All this you venture for no object whatsoever, or for such an your affairs, if they were as well affected to your government as they once pretended to be to your person. They were ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They complained of an act of the Legislature, but traced the origin of it no higher than to the servants of the Crown. They pleased themselves with the hope that their Sovereign, if not favorable to their cause, at least was impartial. The decisive, personal part you took against them, has effectually banished that first distinction from their minds. They consider you as united with your servants against America, and know how to distinguish the sovereign and a venal Parliament on one side, from the real sentiments of the English people on the other. Looking forward to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but, if ever you retire to America, be assured they will give you such a Covenant to digest, as the presbytery of Scotland would have been ashamed to offer to Charles the Second. They left their native land in search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided as they are into a thousand forms of policy and religion, there is one point in which they all agree: they equally detest the pageantry of a King, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop. It is not, then, from the alienated affections of Ireland or America, that you can reasonably look for assistance; still less from the people of England, who are actually contending for their rights, and, in this great question, are parties against you. You are not, however, destitute of every appearance of support. You have all the Jacobites, Nonjurors, Roman Catholics, and Tories of this country, and all Scotland without exception. Considering from what family you are descended, the choice of your friends has been singularly directed; and truly, sir, if you had not lost the Whig interest of England, I should admire your dexterity in turning the hearts of your enemies. Is it possible for you to place any confidence in men, who, before they are faithful to you, must renounce every opinion, and betray every principle, both in church and state, which they inherit from their ancestors, and are confirmed in by their education? whose numbers are so inconsiderable, that they have long since been obliged to give up the principles and language which distinguished them as a party, and to fight under the banners of their enemies? Their zeal begins with hypocrisy, and must conclude in treachery. At first they deceive, at last they betray. As to the Scotch, I must suppose your heart and understanding so biased, from your earliest infancy, in their favor, that nothing less than your own misfortunes can undeceive you. You will not accept of the uniform experience of your ancestors; and when once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine confirms him in his faith. A bigoted understanding can draw a proof of attachment to the house of Hanover from a notorious zeal for the house of Stuart, and find an earnest of future loyalty in former rebellions. Appearances are, however, in their favor; so strongly, indeed, that one would think they had forgotten that you are their lawful King, and had mistaken you for a Pretender to the crown. Let it be admitted, then, that the Scotch are as sincere in their present professions as if you were in reality not an Englishman, but a Briton of the North-you would not be the first prince of their native country against whom they have rebelled, nor the first whom they have basely betrayed. Have you forgotten, sir, or has your Favorite concealed from you that part of our history, when the unhappy Charles (and he, too, had private virtues) fled from the open, avowed indignation of his English subjects, and surrendered himself at discretion to the good faith of his own countrymen ? Without looking for support in their affections as subjects, he applied only to their honor as gentlemen, for protection. They received him as they would your Majesty, with bows, and smiles, and falsehood, and kept him until they had settled their bargain with the English Parliament; then basely sold their native king to the vengeance of his enemies. This, sir, was not the act of a few traitors, but the deliberate treachery of a Scotch Parliament representing the nation. A wise prince might draw from it two lessons of equal utility to himself. On one side he might learn to dread the undisguised resentment of a generous people, who dare openly assert their rights, and who, in a just cause, arc ready to meet their sovereign in the field. On the other side, he would be taught to apprehend something far more formidable-a fawning treachery, against which no prudence can guard, no courage can defend. The insidious smiles upon the cheek would warn him of the canker in the heart. From the uses to which one part of the army has been too frequently applied, you have some reason to expect that there are no services they would refuse. Here, too, we trace the partiality of your understanding. You take the sense of the army from the conduct of the Guards, with the same justice with which you collect the sense of the people from the representations of the ministry. Your marching regiments, sir, will not make the Guards their example, either as soldiers or subjects. They feel and resent, as they ought to do, that invariable, undistinguishing favor with which the Guards are treated; while those gallant troops, by whom every hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left to perish in garrisons abroad, or pine in quarters at home, neglected and forgotten. If they had no sense of the great original duty they owe their country, their resentment would operate like patriotism, and leave your cause to be defended by those to whom you have lavished the rewards and honors of their profession. Pretorian bands, enervated and debauched as they were, had still strength enough to awe the Roman populace; but when the distant legions took the alarm, they marched to Rome, and gave away the Empire. The On this side, then, whichever way you turn your eyes, you see nothing but perplexity and distress. You may determine to support the very ministry who have reduced your affairs to this deplorable situation; you may shelter your self under the forms of Parliament, and set your 7 Note by Junius. The number of commissioned officers in the Guards are to the marching regiments as one to eleven; the number of regiments given to the Guards, compared with those given to the line, is about three to one, at a moderate computation; consequently, the partiality in favor of the Guards is as thirty-three to one. So much for the officers. The private men have fourpence a day to subsist on, and five hundred lashes if they desert. Under this punishment they frequently expire. With theso encouragements, it is supposed they may be depended upon, whenever a certain person thinks it necessary to butcher his fellow-subjects. This is one of the passages which show the fa miliarity of Junius with Tacitus, when composing march of the German legions to Rome, under Vitellius, and their defeat of the Pretorian Bands, who had previously given the imperial dignity to Otho, from whom it passed to Vitellius. these Letters. The event referred to was the people at defiance. But, be assured, sir, that such a resolution would be as imprudent as it would be odious. If it did not immediately shake your establishment, it would rob you of your peace of mind forever. Or what assurance will they give you, that, when they have trampled upon their equais, they will submit to a superior? Your Majesty may learn hereafter how nearly the slave and tyrant are allied. Some of your council, more candid than the rest, admit the abandoned profligacy of the preseut House of Commons, but oppose their dissolution upon an opinion, I confess not very unwarrantable, that their successors would be equally at the disposal of the treasury. I can not persuade myself that the nation will have profited so little by experience. But if that opinion were well founded, you might then gratify our wishes at an easy rate, and appease the present clamor against your government without offering any material injury to the favorite cause of corruption. jected the majority of votes, the only criterion by which our laws judge of the sense of the people; they have transferred the right of election from the collective to the representative body; and by these acts, taken separately or together, On the other, how different is the prospect! they have essentially altered the original constiHow easy, how safe and honorable is the path tution of the House of Commons. Versed, as before you! The English nation declare they your Majesty undoubtedly is, in the English hisare grossly injured by their representatives, and tory, it can not easily escape you, how much it solicit your Majesty to exert your lawful pre- is to your interest, as well as your duty, to prerogative, and give them an opportunity of recall- vent one of the three estates from encroaching ing a trust, which, they find, has been so scan- upon the province of the other two, or assuming dalously abused. You are not to be told that the authority of them all. When once they the power of the House of Commons is not orig- have departed from the great constitutional line inal, but delegated to them for the welfare of the by which all their proceedings should be directpeople, from whom they received it. A ques-ed, who will answer for their future moderation? tion of right arises between the constituent and the representative body. By what authority shall it be decided? Will your Majesty interfere in a question in which you have properly no immediate concern? It would be a step equally odious and unnecessary. Shall the Lords be called upon to determine the rights and privileges of the Commons? They can not do it without a flagrant breach of the Constitution. Or will you refer it to the judges? They have often told your ancestors that the law of Parliament is above them. What party then remains, but to leave it to the people to determine for themselves? They alone are injured; and since there is no superior power to which the cause can be referred, they alone ought to determine. I do not mean to perplex you with a tedious argument upon a subject already so discussed, that inspiration could hardly throw a new light upon it. There are, however, two points of view in which it particularly imports your Majesty to consider the late proceedings of the House of Commons. By depriving a subject of his birthright, they have attributed to their own vote an authority equal to an act of the whole Legislature; and, though perhaps not with the same motives, have strictly followed the example of the Long Parliament, which first declared the regal office useless, and soon after, with as little ceremony, dissolved the House of Lords. The same pretended power which robs an English subject of his birthright, may rob an English King of his crown. In another view, the resolution of the House of Commons, apparently not so dangerous to your Majesty, is still more alarming to your people. Not contented with divesting one man of his right, they have arbitrarily conveyed that right to another. They have set aside a return as illegal, without daring to censure those officers who were particularly apprised of Mr. Wilkes's incapacity, not only by the declaration of the House, but expressly by the writ directed to them, and who nevertheless returned him as duly elected. They have re-don, and subsequently Lord Mayor. At the next There is force in this remark. If there was any blame in the Middlesex election, it certainly rested with the returning officers. They ought to have known, better than the common people of Middlesex could be presumed to know, whether Mr. Wilkes was disqualified by his expulsion from the House. You have still an honorable part to act. The affections of your subjects may still be recovered. But, before you subdue their hearts, you must gain a noble victory over your own. Discard those little personal resentments which have too long directed your public conduct. Pardon this man the remainder of his punishment, and, if resentment still prevails, make it, what it should have been long since, an act, not of mercy, but contempt. He will soon fall back into his natural station-a silent senator, and hardly supporting the weekly eloquence of a newspaper. The gentle breath of peace would leave him on 10 But they received the votes, and returned him as member, and then the House of Commons punished the electors by setting aside their votes, without a word of censure on the returning officers. 10 He was pardoned and released from prison within less than four months. This Letter probably convinced the King that he could no longer maintain the contest. A general illumination took place throughout London on the night following his release. His debts had been previously paid or compromised by the Society of the People's Rights. Wilkes was soon after chosen an alderman of Lon general election in 1774, he was returned again as member for Middlesex, and took his seat without opposition. On the dismissal of Lord North's administration in 1782, the obnoxious resolutions which gave Colonel Luttrell his seat were expunged, on his own motion, from the journals of the House of Commons. |