THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS.
“Junius” was the name or signature of a writer who published, at intervals between 1769 and 1772, a series of political papers on the leading questions and men of that day. They appeared in the newspaper called the Public Advertiser, and attracted immense attention, partly from the high position of the characters assailed, (among whom was George III. himself,) and still more from their brilliancy of style, their boldness of tone, and the tremendous severity of the invectives employed in them. The letters are still models of that species of writing,—though it has since risen to such a point of excellence generally as would greatly weaken the force of any similar phenomena if appearing in our day. However, from the monarch to the meanest of his subjects, all men were impressed deeply at the time by the letters of Junius, the mystery attending their authorship adding largely to their influence. It was a mystery at the moment, and remains a puzzle still. Not even the publisher, Woodfall, knew who his correspondent was, or, at least, not certainly. Yet all the world felt the letters to be the work of no common man. Their most remarkable feature, indeed, was the intimate familiarity with high people and official life which they so clearly evinced. “A traitor in the camp!” was the cry of the leading statesmen of the period. Hence it occurred that almost every person of talent and eminence then living fell, or has since fallen, more or less under the suspicion of being Junius. But his own words to Woodfall have as yet proved true:—“It is not in the nature of things that you or anybody else should know me, unless I make myself known.” He adds that he never will do so. “I am the sole depository of my secret, and it shall die with me.” If it has not died with him, he at least has gone to the grave without its divulgement by himself. But there may still be circumstantial evidence sufficient to betray him, in despite of all his secretive care.
In Rush’s Residence at the Court of London is preserved an anecdote relating to the authorship of Junius, of interest and apparent importance to the investigators of this vexed question. It is as follows:—
Mr. Canning related an anecdote pertinent to the topic, derived from the present king when Prince of Wales. It was to the following effect. The late king was in the habit of going to the theatre once a week at the time Junius’s Letters were appearing, and had a page in his service of the name of Ramus. This page always brought the play-bill in to the king at teatime, on the evenings when he went. On the evening before Sir Philip Francis sailed for India, Ramus handed to the king, at the same time when delivering the play-bill, a note from Garrick to Ramus, in which the former stated that there would be no more letters from Junius. This was found to be the very night on which Junius addressed his laconic note to Garrick, threatening him with vengeance. Sir Philip did embark for India next morning, and in point of fact the letters ceased to appear from that very day. The anecdote added that there lived with Sir Philip at the time a relation of Ramus, who sailed in the morning with him. The whole narrative excited much attention, and was new to most of the company. The first impression it made was, not only that it went far towards showing, by proof almost direct, that Sir Philip Francis was the author, but that Garrick must have been in the secret.
The Bengal Hurkaru, a Calcutta paper, dated Feb. 19, 1855, contains the following paragraph, which is the more interesting when taken in conjunction with several facts connected with Francis’s residence there, as a member of the council, for several years (1774–80).
“The Englishman (a military newspaper published in Calcutta) states that there is a gentleman in Calcutta who possesses ‘an original document, the publication of which would forever set at rest the vexata quæstio as to the authorship of the Letters of Junius.’ The document which we have seen is what our cotemporary describes it to be, and bears three signatures: that of ‘Chatham,’ on the right-hand side of the paper; and on the left, those of Dr. Wilmot, and J. Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton. The paper, the ink, and the writing all induce us to believe that the document is genuine; and we understand that the gentleman in whose possession it is has other documentary evidence corroborative of this, which still further tends to clear up the riddle which so many have attempted to read with small success.”
The incident related by Mr. Canning acquires additional value and significance when considered in connection with the evidence in favor of Francis, so concisely drawn up by Macaulay in his Essay on the impeachment of Warren Hastings. After an introductory allusion to the disputed authorship, Macaulay goes on to say:—
The external evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal, proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved: first, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of State’s office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the War Office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary at War; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the Secretary of State’s office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the War Office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of those speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at the War Office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence.
The internal evidence seems to us to point the same way. The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius; nor are we disposed to admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged compositions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argument from inferiority, at all events, is one which may be urged with at least equal force against every claimant that has ever been mentioned, with the single exception of Burke, who certainly was not Junius. And what conclusion, after all, can be drawn from mere inferiority? Every writer must produce his best work; and the interval between his best and his second-best work may be very wide indeed. Nobody will say that the best letters of Junius are more decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of Francis than three or four of Corneille’s tragedies to the rest; than three or four of Ben Jonson’s comedies to the rest; than the Pilgrim’s Progress to the other works of Bunyan; than Don Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain that the Man in the Mask, whoever he may have been, was a most unequal writer. To go no further than the letters which bear the signature of Junius,—the letter to the king and the letters to Horne Tooke have little in common except the asperity; and asperity was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the writings or in the speeches of Francis.
Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis was Junius is the moral resemblance between the two men. It is not difficult from the letters which, under various signatures, are known to have been written by Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerably correct notion of his character. He was clearly a man not destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity,—a man whose vices were not of a sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest degree arrogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, and prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. “Doest thou well to be angry?” was the question asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. And he answered, “I do well.” This was evidently the temper of Junius; and to this cause we attribute the savage cruelty which disgraces several of his letters. No man is so merciless as he who, under a strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with his duties. It may be added, that Junius, though allied with the democratic party by common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic politician. While attacking individuals with a ferocity which perpetually violated all the laws of literary warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old institutions with a respect amounting to pedantry, pleaded the cause of Old Sarum with fervor, and contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip Francis.
It is not strange that the great anonymous writer should have been willing at that time to leave the country which had been so powerfully stirred by his eloquence. Every thing had gone against him. That party which he clearly preferred to every other, the party of George Grenville, had been scattered by the death of its chief, and Lord Suffolk had led the greater part of it over to the ministerial benches. The ferment produced by the Middlesex election had gone down. Every faction must have been an object of aversion to Junius. His opinions on domestic affairs separated him from the Ministry, his opinions on colonial affairs from the Opposition. Under such circumstances, he had thrown down his pen in misanthropic despair. His farewell letter to Woodfall bears date January 19, 1773. In that letter he declared that he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men who would act steadily together on any question. “But it is all alike,” he added, “vile and contemptible. You have never flinched, that I know of; and I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity.” These were the last words of Junius. Soon afterwards Sir Philip Francis started on his voyage to Bengal.
One of the ablest articles in favor of Lord Chatham may be found in Hogg’s Instructor, already quoted from. The writer sums up his evidence in a masterly manner, and almost conclusively, were it not that he still leaves, like others who have preceded him, a large space for an entering wedge. Nay, more: he even divides the palm, and, though he gives the great William Pitt the chief glory, he intimates that Francis not only wrote some of the epistles, but originated “the idea of so operating on the public mind.” He says in his closing remarks, in answer to the question, “Had Sir Philip Francis no share in the Junian Letters?” “He certainly was privy, we imagine, to the whole business, and, indeed, very probably wrote some of the earlier and less important epistles. He had been private secretary to Chatham at one time, and was his friend, or rather idolizing follower, through life. But he was not Junius. He may even have begun the epistolary series, and may deserve the credit, perhaps, of having suggested the idea of so operating on the public mind. But still he was not Nominis Umbra himself. In answering the queries of Lord Campbell, Lady Francis, while owning that Sir Philip never called himself Junius to her, assumes nevertheless that he was that mystic being, but adds that after he had begun the letters a ‘new and powerful ally’ came to his assistance. The whole mystery is here laid bare. Lord Chatham is clearly the ally meant; and the testimony of Lady Francis, therefore, founded on the revelations of her husband, may be held as fully establishing our present hypothesis.”
Yet Francis and Chatham both “died and left no sign:” the question is therefore still open to discussion, and, as a late writer has remarked, it is not a mere question of curiosity. He recommends it to the study of every barrister who wishes to make himself acquainted with the Theory of Evidence. There is scarcely a claim that has been put forward as yet, which he will not find worthy of his attention, especially when he considers the remarkable coincidences which have generally been the occasion of their being brought forward. He adds that he has during the last thirty years successively admitted the claims of five or six of the candidates, but that now he does not believe in one of them.