[G] 7. Notwithstanding these early difficulties, Lord North became at last a very dexterous and effective debater.
[H] 8. This attack on Lord Chatham and his friend shows the political affinities of Junius. He believed with Mr. Grenville and Lord Rockingham in the right of Great Britain to tax America; and in referring to Mr. Grenville's attempt to enforce that right by the Stamp Act, he adopts his usual course of interweaving an argument in its favor into the language used.[1] He thus prepares the way for his censures on Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, affirming that they acted on the principle that "Mr. Grenville was at any rate to be distressed because he was minister and they were in opposition," thus implying that they were actuated by factious and selfish views in their defense of America. About a year after this letter was written, Lord Rockingham was reconciled to Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, and all united to break down the Grafton ministry. Junius now turned round and wrote his celebrated eulogium on Lord Chatham, contained in his fifty-fourth letter, in which he says, "Recorded honors shall gather round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it. I am not conversant in the language of panegyric. These praises are extorted from me; but they will wear well, for they have been dearly earned." The last of his letters was addressed to Lord Camden, in which he says, "I turn with pleasure from that barren waste, in which no salutary plant takes root, no verdure quickens, to a character fertile, as I willingly believe, in every great and good qualification." Political men have certainly a peculiar faculty of viewing the characters of others under very different lights, as they happen to affect their own interests and feelings.[2]
[I] 9. The "arbitrary condition" was that the General Court of Massachusetts should rescind one of their own resolutions and expunge it from their records. The whole of this passage in relation to Hillsborough is as correct in point of fact, as it is well reasoned and finely expressed.
[J] 10. The changes here censured had taken place about three months before. The office of Foreign Secretary for the Southern Department was made vacant by the resignation of Lord Shelburne.[3] Lord Rochford, who had been minister to France, and thus made "acquainted with the temper of the Southern courts," ought naturally to have been appointed (if at all) to this department. Instead of this he was made Secretary of the Northern Department, for which he had been prepared by no previous knowledge; while Lord Weymouth was taken from the Home Department, and placed in the Southern, being "equally qualified" [that is, wholly unqualified by any "experience whatsoever">[ for either department in the Foreign office, whether Southern or Northern.
[K] 11. As Secretary of the Home Department, Lord Weymouth had addressed a letter to the magistrates of London, early in 1768, advising them to call in the military, provided certain disturbances in the streets should continue. The idea of setting the soldiery to fire on masses of unarmed men has always been abhorrent to the English nation. It was, therefore, a case admirably suited to the purposes of this Letter. In using it to inflame the people against Lord Weymouth, Junius charitably supposes that he was not repeating the errors of his youth—that he was neither drunk, nor ignorant of what he did, nor impelled by "the furious spirit" of one of the proudest families of the realm—all of which Lord Weymouth would certainly say—and therefore (which his Lordship must also admit) that he did, from "the deliberate motion of his heart, supported by the best of his judgment," sign a paper which the great body of the people considered as authorizing promiscuous murder, and which actually resulted in the death of fourteen persons three weeks after. The whole is so wrought up as to create the feeling, that Lord Weymouth was in both of these states of mind—that he acted with deliberation in carrying out the dictates of headlong or drunken passion.
All this, of course, is greatly exaggerated. Severe measures did seem indispensable to suppress the mobs of that day, and, whoever stood forth to direct them, must of necessity incur the popular indignation. Still, it was a question among the most candid men, whether milder means might not have been effectual.
[L] 12. The Marquess of Granby, personally considered, was perhaps the most popular member of the cabinet, with the exception of Sir Edward Hawke. He was a warm-hearted man, of highly social qualities and generous feelings. As it was the object of Junius to break down the ministry, it was peculiarly necessary for him to blast and destroy his popularity. This he attempts to do by discrediting the character of the marquess, as a man of firmness, strength of mind, and disinterestedness in managing the concerns of the army. This attack is distinguished for its plausibility and bitterness. It is clear that Junius was in some way connected with the army or with the War Department, and that in this situation he had not only the means of very exact information, but some private grudge against the Commander-in-chief.[4] His charges and insinuations are greatly overstrained; but it is certain that the army was moldering away at this time in a manner which left the country in a very defenseless condition. Lord Chatham showed this by incontestible evidence, in his speech on the Falkland Islands, delivered about a year after this Letter was written.
[M] 13. It is unnecessary to say that Lord Mansfield is here pointed at. No one now believes that this great jurist ever did the things here ascribed to him by Junius.[5] All that is true is, that he was a very high Tory, and was, therefore, naturally led to exalt the prerogatives of the crown; and that he was a very politic man (and this was the great failing in his character), and therefore unwilling to oppose the king or his ministers, when he knew in heart they were wrong. This was undoubtedly the case in respect to the issuing of a general warrant for apprehending Wilkes, which he ought publicly to have condemned; but, as he remained silent, men naturally considered him, in his character of Chief Justice, as having approved of the course directed by the king. Hence Mansfield was held responsible for the treatment of Wilkes, of whom Junius here speaks in very nearly the terms used by Lord Chatham, as a man whose "conduct" he censured, but with whom every moderate man must "make common cause," when he was "persecuted in a way which the real spirit of the laws will not justify."