UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LETTERS TO A NOBLEMAN, A LATE PRIME MINISTER TO HAVE BEEN AND DEVELOPING THE SECRET MOTIVES WHICH INDUCED HIM TO WRITE UNDER THAT AND OTHER SIGNATURES. WITH \ AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING A CELEBRATED CASE, PUBLISHED BY ALMON, IN 1768. , Spiritus et vita redit bonis Post mortem ducibus. Hor. C. I. 4, O. 8. " Be it lawful that I invooate thy ghost." Shakspeare. LONDON : PRINTED FOK MESSRS. LONGMAN, HURST, KEEP, ORME AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1816. G. WOODFALL, PRINTER, ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET, LONDON. > ignorant boy thinks himself fit to be minister : instead of attendance to objects of national im- portance, our worthy governors are contented to divide their time between private pleasures and ministerial intrigues. Their activity is just equal to the persecution of a prisoner in the King's Bench, and the honourable struggle of providing for their dependants." " Amidst the general indignation * which has been excited by the marked affront lately put upon sir J. Amherst, it is odd to find people puzzling themselves about the motives which have actuated administration in this extraordinary pro- cedure ; nothing is more short and easy than the solution of this affected difficulty : they were OR- DERED to act in this manner. The public knows, and can know no other reason. The ministry know, and desire to know no other reason. They have received the order , that is enough for them. Their whole political system is wrapped up in one short maxim " My author and disposer, what thou bidst Unargued I obey." " In this lesson they are perfect to a miracle ; and the signal proof they have just given of their daring and determined servility, shews them alto- gether worthy of that confidence which the favourite * M. L. 34, Aug. 23. ( 67 ) so wisely reposed in them, (during his pleasure,) the depositaries of his intentions, and the TRUSTEES of his power. But though it be vain to seek for any higher principle than blind obedience in the formal and executive members of the ministry, it is worth while to examine," &c. &c. " Falsehood is a servile vice, and to the imputation of that vice people in a slavish condition, whether low or high, (for servitude as well as hell has its ranks and dignities,) will always be subject, especially if ministers are /mown to have found the dexterous art of splitting themselves, and possessing one cha- racter in which to promise, and another in which to act." Speaking of Whigs, he says, "When the question is concerning the mere graces of the Crown, the rule is to become even more severe ; and every lover of the Constitution must think it a crime hardly less than treason in those who shall advise a Court to discountenance the families which have promoted tJie Revolution, and at the same time to load with its favours those who (re- conciled by profit, not by opinion} have ever been the declared enemies both of the Revolution, and of every benefit we derive from that happy event" Of this last quotation hereafter. Let us pro- ceed to Letter thirty-eight*. " When a worthless administration do a notorious act of injustice to a * Sept. 6, 1768. ( 68 ) good man, which naturally raises tJie indignation of the PUBLIC, they are not satisfied 'with the Jirst blow, but THEIR EMISSARIES go to work, to blacken the character which was fair before, in order to jus- tify the measures of their masters." On this point, though here adduced on account of sir J. Am- herst, you may remember that Shebbeare, and others of these emissaries of the ministers, had accused' the Portlands of robbing the Crown ; and some of them had given out that the Duke was endeavouring to rob sir J. Lowther of a fishery. In the forty-third * Letter, addressed to lord Hillsborough, and still urging the case of sir Jeflfery Amherst, Junius observes, that " his Lordship is a civil, polite person it is true j few men understand the little morals better, or ob- serve the great ones less. He can bow and smile in an honest man's' face, while he picks his pocket. These are the virtues of a Court, in which his edu- cation has not been neglected." The dukes of Portland and Grafton had met at Court on the 25th of November, and conferred on the subject of the lease to sir James Lowther. You know the consequence. The affair of sir Jeffery Amherst is here dropt for the present j therefore, I will explain in this * Sept. 15,1768. ( 69 ) place the additional reasons which I asserted to have swayed with Junius in supporting his case. I mentioned that it was of a similar nature with that which had hitherto occupied the pen of Ju- nius j it was another case of unmerited persecu- tion, or something bordering on it j and, there- fore, another weapon with which this writer could attack the administration, independent of a feel- ing he most probably entertained that the public would expect to see one at least of the many- supporters (for he adopted so many signatures) of the duke of Portland's case, who would stand up to vindicate that of sir J. Amherst. The leading business of Junius's Letters we have supposed to be the support of the first, and that support implied the most obstinate re- sistance and opposition to the ministry in every possible way, because that ministry were depriv- ing his Grace of his property. It was therefore the object of Junius to hold them up to every species of ridicule, contempt, and detestation ; to miss no opportunity of blazoning and magni- fying even their least error, and to niake it evi- dent that their principles and actions, their heads and hearts, were all alike odious, vicious, and atrocious. We have seen a short time past in the course of our inquiries, that the office of a third secre- tary of state was invented or revived to provide ( 70 ) for lord Hillsborough ; literally, to secure ano- ther ally to the tottering administration ; and he was commissioned to superintend the meet- ings of a certain set of people for promoting trade, and for inspecting and improving his Ma- jesty's plantations in America and elsewhere. Hence he seems to have had the ostensible of- fice of removing Sir J. Amherst from his go- vernment. " When an ungracious act was to be done, the earl of Hillsborough was chosen for the instrument of it;" and this " dirty purpose" (Letter thirty-two) gave Junius an opportunity of attacking him with advantage, his intention, or at least his wish being, no doubt, to over- whelm and crush him at his outset in adminis- tration ; for he taxes him with not having found some more honourable method of distin- guishing his entrance into power, and declares that he was only executing the orders of lord Bute. In addition to this last argument, Junius considered the secretary a king's man, and as the duke of Grafton's new friend ; two most ur- gent and indispensable claims on him for the whole stock of his bitterest animadversion, not- withstanding you must have perceived in read- ing the controversy (for Junius had many oppo- nents on this occasion, and was drawn into a necessity of writing much more than he other- wise would have taken the pains to do,) that ( 71 ) the usual accuracy of his information failed him. His dates are incorrect, and he is obliged to apologize to the public on account of his error. The ministry, however s they reinstated sir Jef- fery, make out a sufficiently plausible tale, that the office was a sinecure which they de- sired to abolish, and that they were not answer- able for the promise of lord Chatham^ though they intended, and offered to make the ex- governor every compensation. There is one remarkable circumstance which has struck me in reading the correspondence on this subject j viz. that Junius who, for pur- poses which we may be allowed to guess at, in defending the case of the duke of Portland, adopted seventeen successive signatures, has on this occasion almost confined himself to one that of Lucius. I shall make no further com- ment on this at present. LETTER XIV. 27 Jan. 1816. HAVING done with sir Jeffery Amherst and lord Hillsborough, who falls under the rod of Attictts, in a subsequent letter (the forty- eighth), let us trace a little further the subject of ( 72 ) our first inquiries, and follow the, remarks of Junius as -relative to his leading business. The letter just mentioned is a new attack on the ministry, whom he accuses of a littleness, even in their ambition, for, wzcwey is their object*. I find but one more passage in point, which is this : " The- voice of one man will hardly be - - J . heard when the voice of Truth and Reason is neglected : but, as far -a&.mjne extends, the au- r -* . . . thors of our ruin shall be marked out to the public. I will not tamely submit to be sacrificed, ?wr. shall this country perish 'without a warning. The fifty-first Letter, of the 14th November, recalls the old history to our minds in a direct * : . ... allusion, and echoes the expressions to which the public had listened eighteen months before. The Grafton administration are again the sub- ject of our author's anathema. " The most contemptible character in private life, and the most ruinous to private fortunes, is that which possesses neither judgment nor in- clination to do right, nor resolution enough to be consistent in doing wrong. " The Chancellor of the Exchequer has many deficiencies to make good besides those of land and malt ; and, to say the truth, he has * Junius was never mercenary and the duke of Portland always ambitious of power. C 73 ) a gallant way of doing It he gallops bravely through thick and thin as the Court directs, and, I dare say, would defend even an honest cause with as much zeal and eloquence as if he were ordered to shew his parts upon, nullum tempus or a Cumberland election" In the fifty-second ? Letter there is an ele- gant description of the only resource left to those who are injured by- apostate friends : and,, though, it belongs properly to. the defence of Mr. Wilkes, I shall quote it here, as it seems to breathe the spirit of a stronger sentiment than, that of ideal sympathy. " If a member of a well regulated society be injured, the laws and constitution will defend him. But where is the- law to enforce the engagements of private faith, or to punish the breach of them ? Where shall he apply for redress with whom all ties of honour, 'professions of friendship, and obligations of party have been violated and betrayed ? A man so in- jured has no redress or consolation but what he finds in the resentment and generous sympathy of mankind." We shall speak hereafter of the friendship of the two dukes. This fifty-second Letter is dated November 21st, 1768, and signed Junius j a designation which he retained ever after in preference to any of the others, * Nov. 21, 1768. ( 7* ) We must therefore quit the miscellaneous col- lection for the present, in order to follow the succession of the dates, and commence with his Letter to the Printer of the Public Advertiser, of the 21st of January, 1769. This Letter, the first of those usually published in the collection of Junius's Letters, contains a melancholy pic- ture of the state of the nation, and a review of the conduct of the administration collectively and individually. This called forth the corre- spondence of sir WilKam Draper ; and it is not till the 1 8th of March that Junius again turns his attention to the duke of Grafton, whom he then attacks for persuading the King to pardon M'Quirk. He makes this case even service- able to that in which he first embarked as a writer. " If there be not," he says, " a fata- lity attending every measure you are concerned in, by what treachery, or by what excess of folly has it happened that those ungracious acts which have distinguished your administration, and which, I doubt not, were entirely your own, should carry with them a strong appearance of personal interest, and even of personal enmity , in a quarter 'where no such interest or enmity can be supposed to exist without the highest injustice and the highest dishonour ? On the other hand, by what judicious management have you contrived it, that the only act of mercy to which advised your Sovereign, far from adding to the lustre of a character truly gracious and benevo- lent, should be received with universal disappro- bation and disgust ? / shall consider it as a mi- nisterial measure., because it is an odious one, AND AS YOUR MEASURE, MY LORD DUKE, BECAUSE rou ARE THE MINISTER *. The minister who by secret corruption invades the freedom of elections, and the ruffian who by open violence destroys that freedom, are embarked in the same bottom. They have the same interests, and naturally feel for each other. To do justice to your Grace's hu- manity, you felt for M Quirk as you ought to do, and if you had been contented to assist him indirectly, without a notorious denial of justice, or openly insulting the sense of the nation, you might have satisfied every duty of political friendship, &c. &c. " How does it happen, my Lord, that in your hands even the mercy of the PREROGATIVE is cruelty and oppression to the subject?' 9 In the ninth Letter t of Junius to his Grace of Grafton he says, " the extraordinary step you took to make sir James Lowther lord paramount of Cumberland, has ruined his interest in thatcoun- * Does not this remark account for his attacking the duke of Grafton, in preference to lord Bute, on the Cumberland business? t April 10, 1769. ( T6 ) ty for ever." The remainder of the letter re- viles his Grace for deserting his friend Mr. Wilkes. The eleventh Letter * is announced in a private? note to Mr. Woodfall, signed C. April 20th, and appeared four days afterwards. It contains general observations on the conduct of the duke of Grafton, and alludes often indirectly, and sometimes directly to the Portland business. I forbear quoting many passages lest you should think I put a strained construction on them $ but the following is evidently in point, where Junius is treating of the expulsion of Wilkes, and the ministry forcing Mr. Luttrel on the county of Middlesex, as their representative. " Boroughs were already too much at the mercy of govern- ment, counties could neither be purchased nor inti- midated. " The consequences of this attack upon : the Constitution are too plain and palpable not to alarm the dullest apprehension. I trust you will find that the people of England are neither de- ficient in spirit nor understanding, though you have treated tliem as if they had neither sense to jeel, nor spirit to resent. We have reason to fliank God and our ancestors, that there never yet was a minister in this country who could * April 24, 1769. ( 77 ) stand the issue of such a conflict, and with every prejudice in favour of your intentions, I see no such abilities in your Grace as should entitle you to succeed in an enterprise, in which the ablest and basest of your predecessors' have found their destruction. Never hope that the freeholders mil make a tame surrender of their rights. 9 ' On the 5th of May 1769, Mr. Woodfall re- ceived a private intimation 'that No. 55 of the miscellaneous collection should indispensably ap- pear : it is. addressed to lord Granby, and signed, " your real friend." The purport of it was to dissuade his Lordship from opposing the Mid- dlesex petition, against the seating Mr. Luttrel for that county. The next Letter in succes- sion is No. 56 of the miscellaneous collection, signed Simplex, and dated June 6th. It repeats the same doctrine held in that which we have already considered, ^No. 9j but in the fifty- seventh Letter, as Amicus Curice defending the writings of Junius against a ministerial advocate, Anti Malagrida, he recapitulates some of his old charges. " Junius and many others say { I fancy I speak the sense of the nation) that the duke of Grafton imposes upon his Sovereign, betrays his connections, persecutes the man who was his friend, idly irritates the Colonies, wickedly ali- enates their affections from their mother country, 6 ( 7S ) invades the liberties of the PEOPLE, abuses the pre- rogative of the Crown, and has actually subverted the Constitution; and when Junius civilly asks the reason of all this, sir, says he, you are a rascal. This may be a very good answer for aught I know at cross purposes, but it is a whim- sical one to people in our circumstances. The thirteenth Letter of Junius, 12th of June, is a defence of him by Philo Junius, proving the duke of Grafton to be every thing that Junius has called him ; it is a compression of the facts advanced by Junius into a small compass. The fourteenth * commences with a parallel be- tween the history of Charles I. (in regard of Oliver Cromwell) and his descendant the duke of Grafton, (in regard to Old, Noll,) a name as- sumed by one who wrote in his defence. I refer you to the Letter for the particulars of the parallel. It next animadverts with great bitterness on doc- tor Blackstone, solicitor to the Queen, for having asserted doctrines in the House of Commons, dif- fering from those maintained in his Commenta- ries. " The Doctor (says Philo Junius) recol- lected that he had a place to preserve, though he forgot that he had a reputation to lose. We have now the good fortune to understand the Doctor's principles as well as his writings. For *JUne 22, 1769. ( 79 ) the defence of truth, of law, and reason, the Doctor's book may be safely consulted ; but whoever wishes to cheat a neighbour of his estate, or to rob a country of its rights, need make no scruple of consulting the Doctor himself." The ' cause of this innuendo is worth recollecting. Dr. Blackstone had been an adviser of sir James Lowther in the dispute concerning the Cumber- land crown lands, a case of which Junius never loses sight. In the next Letter * Junius returns again to the charge against his Grace, pointing him out as the long sought leader of a submis- sive administration, collected gradually from the deserters of all parties, interests and connections. " The spirit (he observes) of the favourite had some apparent influence upon every administra- tion, and every set of ministers preserved an ap- pearance of duration as long as they submitted to that influence. But there were certain ser- vices to be performed for the favourite's security, or to gratify his resentments t, which your prede- cessors in office had the wisdom or the virtue not to undertake. Nothing remained but to find a leader for * Fifteenth. July 8, 1769. t In the life of the duke of Portland which follows, it will be seen that the grant to sir James Lowther was instigated by revenge on the part of lord Bute against his Grace. ( 80 ) these gallant, wellrdisciplined troops. Stand forth, my Lord, for THOU ART THE MAN." The services for the favourite's security, t)r gratification of his resentments, need little explanation. LETTER XV. 28 Jan. 1816. THE eighteenth* Letter to Dr. Black- stone is of great importance, as I shall hereafter take the pains to prove to you ; it is designed as an answer to a pamphlet written in his vindica- tion, and attributed by our author to Blackstone himself. Junius defends Mr. Grenville, whom the other had attacked for quoting a passage from the Doctor's excellent Commentaries, which directly contradicted the doctrine maintained by the Doctor in the House of Commons, on the case of Wilkes's expulsion. Junius thus con- cludes, " If I were personally your enemy r t, I should dwell with malignant pleasure upon those great and useful qualifications which you cer- tainly possess ; and by which you once acquired., * July 29, 1769. f Junius thrice uses this expression, once to the printer of the Public Advertiser, in speaking of the ministry; once to the duke of Grafton ; and, on this occasion, to Blackstone. May not the pains he takes to impress this assertion on the public, authorize a suspicion against the truth of it ? ( 81 ) though they could not secure to you, the respect and esteem of your country. I should enume- rate the honours you have lost, and the virtues you have disgraced ; but having no private re- sentmenls to gratify > I think it sufficient to have given my opinion of your public conduct, leav- ing the punishmentit'deserves to your closet and to yourself." I have already pointed out a rea- son why Jiinius, as the advocate of the duke of Portland, should have a great antipathy to Dr. Blackstone ; and I leave you to judge, whether Juriius does or does not dwell with malignant pleasure upon the Doctor's great and good qua- lities. Here follows, in the order of the dates, a pri- vate letter to Mr. Woodfall, No. VI*. Junius in. a former Note, (III.) had desired Woodfall to say candidly, whether he knew, or suspected who Ke was. Woodfall has made him acquainted with his suspicions ; and here Junius replies, " that whether he has guessed well or ill must be left to their future acquaintance." The nineteenth and twentieth Letters relate so much to Wilkes's business, that I shall pass them by, recording only one passage at the con- clusion of the latter. " Professions of patriot- ism are become stale and ridiculous. For my * Aug. &17G9. ( 82 ) own part, I claim no merit for endeavouring to do a service to my fellow-subjects. I have done it to the best of my understanding ; and without looking for the approbation of other men, my conscience is satisfied. What remains to be done concerns the collective body of the people. They are now to determine for themselves, whe- ther they will firmly and constitutionally assert their rights, or make an humble, slavish surren- der of them, at the feet of the ministry. To a generous mind there cannot be a doubt. We owe it to our ancestors, to preserve entire those rights which they have delivered to our care. We owe it to our posterity not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed. But if it were pos- sible for us to be insensible of these sacred claims, there is an obligation binding upon ourselves, from which nothing can acquit us a personal interest, which we cannot surrender. To alienate even our own rights would be a crime as much more enormous than suicide, as a life of civil security and freedom is superior to bare exist- ence ; and if life be the bounty of heaven, we scornfully reject the noblest part of the gift, if we consent to surrender that certain rule of liv- ing, without which, the condition of human na- ture is not only miserable, but contemptible." On the 7th of September, Junius is betrayed into an idle answer to Mr* C. Whiteford's letter, ( 83 ) ' V . signed Junia ; he repents, and endeavours to re- cant, desiring Mr. Woodfall to get him out of the scrape. His directions for that purpose are really in- teresting. " Suppose you were to say, we have some reason to suspect that the last letter signed Junius in this paper was not written by the real Junius, though the observation escaped us at the time ; or if you can hit off any thing more plau- sible yourself, you will much oblige me, but with- out a positive assertion." This is a Jesuitical refinement worthy of the administration he abused. The first part of his Letter is unac- countable ; but of that hereafter. The Letter twenty -three *, to his (jraee of Bedford, was written on account of lord Chat- ham's having again brought him into power with the duke of Grafton. Junius sought the utter de- struction of that administration j and attacks every ally that they excite to their support. Sir W. Draper comes forward in his defence,' aiid thus again occupies a series of the letters. But the reasons of our author may be traced in the miscellaneous letter, No. 6O t. " It is hard to determine whether the actions of the present ministry more excite abhorrence and indignation, or the writings of their advocates contempt and :, * Sept. 19,1769. f Sept. 8,1769. G 2 ( 84 ) ridicule. Eveiy action of the former is an inva- sion of our liberty or our property ; every line wrote in their defence by the latter is an insult to our understandings, and a base mockery of our sufferings. I have never yet known a bad cause made better by a bad defence Op- pression is more easily borne than insult j and the duke of Grafton, with his new directors, the Bloomsbury gang, may find, that it is dangerous to despise those whom he has deeply injured. Why does he let loose upon us his troops of fools, and madmen, and buffoons, and bullies ?" The business of general Gansell here occupies some time and writing ; meanwhile Junius, in a private note to Mr. Woodfall on the 8th of No- vember (No. 11*.) requests him to reprint a let- ter to the duke of Grafton, which had appeared the evening before in the London Evening Post. It contains an attack on lord Denbigh, who had " contrived to make himself a distinguished fa- vourite at Court." The tenor, the style, the language, are decidedly those of Junius : and another writer, Messala, charges him directly with it, alleging or insinuating that " Junius disowned the production which praised the duke of Rutland *, because he had infamously: * The duke of Rutland, in 1765, had joined the Rocking- ham administration, in which the duke of Portland was lord chamberlain ; and in 1766 both dukes went out with that ad- minis- traduced his relative, the marquis of Granby." As a Court favourite, lord Denbigh was at once a fair mark for our author, who would defend the duke of Rutland, because the ministry had slighted him*; taking the recommendation of lord Denbigh in the appointment of justices of the peace for the county of Leicester, at the time that the Duke was lord-lieutenant j never- theless, the letter was disavowed without any chicanery, though you may perhaps still appre- hend the existence of some intrigue in the cor- respondence that passed on the subject. I must give you a part of this private note : " I should be much obliged to you if you would reprint (and in the front page, if not improper or in- convenient,) a letter in the London Evening Post of last night to the duke of Grafton. If it had not been anticipated, I should have touched upon the subject myself: however, it is not ill done, and it is very material tliat it should be spread. The person alluded to is lord Denbigh. I should think you might venture him with a D. As it stands, few people can guess who is meant/ 5 In another private letter, No. 18 1, he de- miuistration. Lord Granby did not go out, but joined succes- sively the Chatham, Grafton, and North administrations. * The slight is accounted for. f Nov - ^> 1769 - ( 86 ) , sires Mr. Woodfall to assure the public that this same letter, signed A. B* relative to the duke of Rutland, is not written by the author of Junius. " I sometimes (he continues) change my signature, but could have no reason to change the paper, especially for one that does not circulate half so much as yours." This last is no very plausible reason, when we have just seen that he desired Woodfall to reprint the letter in his own paper, and that when it had not been in existence before the public so long as twenty-four hours ; but his private letter to Woodfall, No. 24*, will perhaps authorize a confirmation of our suspicions. He is speaking of his letter to lord Mansfield. " This paper should properly have appeared to- morrow, but I could not compass it ; so let it be announced to-morrow, and printed Wednes- day. If you should have any fears, I entreat you to send it early enough to Miller to appear to-morrow night in the London Evening Post. In that case, you will oblige me by informing the public to-morrow in your own paper that a real Junius will appear at night in the London. Miller, I am sure, will have no scruples" On the 16th of August, 1769, he has said : " I believe I need not assure you that I have * November 12, 1770. ( 87 ) never written in any other paper since I began with yours." The correspondence and controversy on the subject of general GanselPs affair, and the pro- secution of Mr. Vaughan, occupy the patriot writer till the 19th of December, when he publishes his Letter to the King. I shall not make any comments on it further than to ob- serve, that the tenor of it recommends the dismissal of the Stuarts, the Tories, and all the Scots, and advises the employment of those Whigs, (i. e. their descendants,) who had brought about the Revolution, and seated his Majesty^s ancestors on the throne. On the 14th of February, 1770, Junius returns again to the duke of Grafton, who had now resigned the office of First Lord of the Treasury, harassed and worn out by the attacks of lord Chatham and his friends in Parliament, and of Junius and the petitioners and remon- strators from all parts of the country out of par- liament. We shall soon perceive that Junius has changed his sentiments respecting the noble Lord j and, no doubt, on account of the reason just mentioned. However, the present letter demands our attention. " If I were PERSONALLY your enemy > I might pity and forgive you;" (the same expression nearly which he had used to Dr. Blackstone.) ( 88 ) "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 j 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 ho title to indulgence j 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 j and though an individual is not authorized to forgive the injuries done to society, he is catted upon to assert his separate share in the public re- sentment. .... What then, my Lord, is this the event of all the sacrifices you have made to lard 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 HONOURABLE ENGAGE- MENTS BY WHICH YOU ONCE SOLICITED, AND MIGHT HAVE ACQUIRED, THE ESTEEM OF YOUR COUNTRY ? Yet your conduct has been myste- rious as well as contemptible. 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 ( 89 ) REVENGE. You, my Lord, have successfully ex- tended your advice to every political, every moral engagement that could bind either the MA- GISTRATE OR THE MAN. In your treatment of particular persons you have preserved the uni- formity of your character. Even Mr. Brad- shaw declares that no man was ever so ill used as himself. It is the BREACH of private friend- ship which touches Mr. Bradshaw. Colonel Luttrell, Mr. Onslow, and governor 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." His Grace of Portland, though last mentioned, was the Jirst in rank, and enti- tied to precedence, as having been the Jirst de- serted. " We can easily account for your violating your engagements with men of honour ; but why should you betray your natural connections ? "You consulted your own breast for a charac- ter of consummate treachery, and gave it to the public for that of Mr. Vaughan. " I believe, my Lord, I may now take leave of you for ever. . . Retire, then, my Lord, and hide your blushes from the world, for with such a load ( 90 ) of shame even black may change its colour. A mind, such as yours, in the solitary hours of do- mestic enjoyment, may still find topics of con- solation. You may find it in the memory of violated friendship, in &c. &c." I should not have transcribed so many passages, but that Ju- nius sets out with saying, that he WAS NOT PER- SONALLY the Duke's enemy. What can we have stronger than this letter ? XVI. \ nw 9t V r 301* Jan. 1816. in? rwoitOfr WE are now nearly arrived, according to our author's expression, at the ministerial crisis. The city of London, the city and liberty of Westminster, the counties of Middlesex, Surry, &c. had presented petitions to his Majesty to dissolve the parliament in consequence of the illegal rejection of Mr. Wilkes by the lower house. These petitions not having been gra- ciously received, the petitioners next assumed a bolder tone, and approached the throne with remonstrances upon the answers that had been returned to them. These remonstrances were likewise rejected, and a declaration against them drawn up and subscribed by the aldermen on the ministerial side, while an address of the same tendency was presented by both houses of par- liament. The city, in its corporate capacity, drew up and presented another remonstrance, which met with no better reception than the first. During this crisis we find a private note to Mr. Woodfall, No. 21*, advising the letter, No. 37t, which Junius requested to be advertised directly, " to-night or to-morrow by dispersing a few handbills j pray do," he adds, " whatever you think will answer this purpose best, for now is the crisis." On the following day he writes a second private note respecting this letter, and says, " For God's sake, let it appear to-morroW : lord Chatham is determined to go to the Hall to support the Westminster remonstrance. I have no doubt that we shall conquer them at last. 19 The Letter, of course, defends and supports the Opposition, and all the attempts made to overturn this administration so hostile to Junius, and to that cause winch he had first espoused. Perhaps he was instigated to seek their over- throw by some small portion of revenge in ad- dition to the first motive, for which we have all along given him credit. For he has but lately March 17, 1770. f March 19, 1770. ( 92 ) remarked, that " insults admit of no compensa- tion, since they degrade the mind, and force it to seek its own level by revenge ;" and in that same Letter he applies a portion of that insult to himself as an individual. Moreover, his patriot- ism, was another incitement, and the ambition its usual attendant. But to the Letter : " The grievances of the people are aggravated l?y insults 5 their complaints not merely disre- garded, but checked by authority, and every one of those acts, against which they remonstrated, confirmed by the King's decisive approbation,. At such a moment, no honest man will remain silent or inactive. However distinguished by rank or property^ in. the rights of freedom we are all equal. His Majesty assures us, that he has made the laws the rule of his conduct. Was it in ordering or permitting his ministers to appre- hend Mr. Wilkes by a general warrant ? Was it in suffering his ministers to revive the obsolete maxim ofnullum tempus, to rob the duke of Port- land of his property, and thereby give a decisive turn to a county election ?" The thirty-ninth* Letter, on the justice and wisdom of the proceedings in parliament, affords me few opportunities for extract. I shall detail but two or three passages. May 28, ( 93 ) " The duke of Grafton certainly did not fore- see to what an extent the corruption of a parlia- ment might be carried. I do not question but the parliament has done what is usually called the King's business, much to his satisfaction ; we have only to lament, that in consequence of a system introduced or revived in the present reign, this kind of merit should be very consistent with the neglect of every duty they owe to the na- tion. "The morality of a King is not to be mea- sured by vulgar rules .... A faultless insipid equality in his character is neither capable of vice nor virtue in the. extreme ; but it secures his submission to those persons whom he has been accustomed to respect, and makes him a dangerous instrument of their ambition. . . . " At any other period, I doubt not, the scanda- lous disorders which have been introduced into the government of all the dependencies of the empire would have roused the attention of the public. 2% odious abuse and prostitution of the prerogative at home, the unconstitutional em- ployment of the military," &c. &c. We have now a Letter * in the miscellaneous collection, written about a month after the last,' (for during that interval Junius had been silent,) * June 26, 1770. No. 71. ( 94 ) which reminds us of our author's accuracy anfl complete information in bringing forward every particular respecting the duke of Portland's bu- siness. The paper in question, dated June 26th, 1770, is addressed, as usual, to Mr. Printer Woodfall ; and, as it is short, I shall transcribe the greater part of it. . " That we may be quietly governed is a very proper petition in the service of the Church of England. If the worst men should be put in authority under the King, they will think it po- litic to counteract the prayers of the people, and indifferently minister injustice, to the punish- ment of virtue and the maintenance of vice. The duke of Grafton has devoted himself to these principles with all the fervor of an enthu- siast; nor can we avoid lamenting that so in- flexible a bigot should still have failed of mar- tyrdom. His Grace has triumphed over the last moments of his power, nor permitted its ex- tinction, till he had dismissed the Chancellor, (lord Camden had been dismissed for declaring it treason to receive Mr. Luttrell in the place of Mr. Wilkes,) and procured a pension, inade- quate indeed to former merits, for the truly ho- nest Mr. Bradshaw. The first occurrence has been sufficiently canvassed. The propriety with which his Grace has effected the second occur- ( 95 ) fence cannot possibly be felt through all its force till the deserving object of ministerial gratitude has spoken for himself. " Come forward, Mr. Bradshaw, thou worthy but much injured man, at once convince and un- deceive the public. Tell them that if a person should exist who dares even to insinuate that the following relation is founded upon stubborn facts, he is a gross defamer of unbiassed honour, and would extend that rancorous abuse which hitherto has preyed upon the fairest and most courtly characters, till it asperse your own. Mrs. Allenby entered into an engagement with Miss Bradshaw in behalf of Mr. Allenby her hus- band. It was stipulated that she should give into Miss Bradshaw's hands the sum of six hundred pounds, which was to have been the purchase- money of the place of surveyor of the pines in America. An application was soon afterwards made for the same place by captain P. who pro- mised that, on receiving it he would pay down the sum of 800. In consequence of this pro- mise, the name of Allenby, already inserted in the list of intended promotions, was erased, and the blank filled up with the name of captain P.; to which was added a written assertion that his appointment waso wing to Mr. Allenby's hav- ing chosen to decline going abroad. When this affair waa examined at the Board of Treasury, ( 96 ) Mrs. Allenby was asked where her husband wa* during this transaction. She answered, *' in Cumberland assisting in the support of the PorU land interest, when Mr, Robinson and Mr. Jen- kinson were doing what mischief they could to oblige sir James Lowther. "The latter part of Mrs. Allenby 's declaration occasioned some little entertainment. She was ignorant that the two intimate friends of the earl of Bute, whose characters she was then drawing, were actually present. Mr. Bradshaw pleaded in excuse that his sister, a milliner near Moorfields, was solely concerned in this busi- ness. When Mr. Cooper mentioned to Mr. Bradshaw an intention of lodging a complaint against him, he burst into tears j they could not be tears of penitence, for those imply pre- ceding guilt. " When Mr. Bradshaw shall have exculpated his conduct, which cannot be arraigned without injustice, he may perhaps become a conspicuous fnstance of the prevalence of example. " The voice of injured innocence may sound within a neighbouring quarter, and as the 'osten- sible premier may be questioned on a similar oc- casion, his Lordship will have an opportunity to revive this long forgotten truth. " However contemptibly the world may judge of ministers of state, they are not conscious to 8 ( 97 ) .' . themselves of any guilt" " Q. in the cor- ner." This is the signature he used for his eigh- teenth Letter, wherein he insinuates that the ministry suffered Wilkes to be at liberty to ter- rify lord Bute; and he has occasion to employ it again shortly on this business of Miss Brad- shaw's. To one of the curious facts detailed in this letter, Mr. Grey Cooper answered the next day ; viz. that he never mentioned to Mr. Bradshaw any intention of lodging a complaint against him, not knpwing any circumstance that could justify the least imputation on Mr. Brad- shaw, of the nature intended to be conveyed by the said letter. Q. in the corner replies on the SOth, that he had received the circumstance of Mr. Brad- shaw's having burst into tears from an authority 'which he thought at least equal to Mr. Cooper's. He gives up this capital point 9 (the tears) and calls upon Mr. Bradshaw to be so obliging as to step forward and declare upon his honor that he does not know of any circumstance whatsoever that can justify the least imputation on him of the nature which seems to Mr. Cooper to have been conveyed by his letter. Mr. Bradshaw not complying with this re- quest, Junius, or Q. in the corner, addresses to H him a special letter a week after, which how- ever produces no reply on the part of the duke of Grafton's secretary. Now, it is manifest tha^ Junius had drawn his evidence, as he declares, from the first source, and not from the common falsities of the day.'* He has not written from conjecture, and this affair furnishes another occasion to prove that Junius knew every particular, however minute, of the duke of Portland's contest with sir James Lowther: nay, I think it very fair to jnr fer that his acquaintance with this transaction of Mr. Bradshaw's originated in his knowledge and out of the interest he felt and took in every thing tha,t concerned his Grace of Portland. He concludes his Letter with an allusion to St t Stephen's Qhapel, which I should not have no- ticed, but that in writing another Better the Sjame day respecting Mr. Wilkes's offering b}m- self as the city candidate, he speaks of St. Stephen's chapel by name. " There is a place which once was called the House of Prayer : I leave it to men more versed in, scripture phrases than myself t;o ; teJUi you what it is at present. Should you hereafter think it proper to discuss this subject there, you possibly may find an individual in that virtuous congregation who will assist the hitherto ineffec- tual inquiries of Q. in the corner." 7 ( 99 )..' The passage in the' other Letter is simply this: " I am ready to acknowledge, that in ri- gorous consistency the city of London ought not to return any representative to St. Stephen's chapel," &e. &c. This Letter is signed* " A Labourer in the same cause j" and, I dare say, the writer of Junfus never expected to see them both given to the world together, as the produc- tions of his pen, after an interval of forty-three years. Had they not been avowed by his Edi- tor, my remark would have been more in point. But I hope to make a further use of the observa- tion hereafter. LETTER XVII. 1 Feb. 1816. THE fortieth Letter * to lord North, de- nominates that noblematf *' the worthy represen- tative of lord Bute, and discusses the subject of colonel Luttrell's promotion to the office of ad- jutant-general in Ireland, which he resigned a few days after. tfrom the date of the last till the 19th of Oc- tober, Junius is silent. He then tells Woodfkft he is not the author of the Whig j that he nei- * August 22, 1770. H2 ( ,100 ) ther admires the writer, nor his idol, lord Chat- ham. On the 12th of November, he incloses his pa- per on lord Mansfield in a cover to Woodfall, telling him, " We have got the rascal down, let us strangle him, if it be possible. . . . Lord Mans- field has thrown the ministry into confusion by suddenly resigning the office of Speaker of the House of Lords." Of the paper itself, I need not say much : lord Mansfield was a Scotchman, as well as lord chief justice, he had presided at the trial of Woodfall and Almon for publishing Junius's Letter to the King, and Junius taxes him with being one of the Bute party -a catalogue of reasons quite sufficient to have drawn down the vengeance of our author, who calls him a wretch, in a subsequent note, and says he will never rest till he has destroyed or expelled him. No. 78 * of the miscellaneous collection, is an attack on the secretary at war, with a compari- son between Charles I. and the King, and is not material ; but No. 79 1 returns to the abuse of his Grace of Grafton, in anticipation of his taking the office of first lord of the Admiralty. Our author employs the signature of Domitian, and commences his attack by observing on the * November 24, 1770. f Dec. 7, 1770. report of his Grace's return to power, that he thought Junius had fairly hissed him off the stage. " It is the Duke's misfortune that he fails equally in firmness and propriety ; that he nei- ther acts with judgment nor speaks with ability. Look at his conduct from the outset ; I mean with a reference, not to the treachery, but to the folly of the man ; his earliest personal at- tachment in lift was the duke of Portland : that friendship he has foolishly dissolved, without suc- ceeding in his purpose to oblige sir James Low- ther." He then follows him through his political ca- reer, until he throws himself " body and soul" into the arms of the Bedfords. The Letter concludes with a most ridiculous speech, as a specimen of his Grace's eloquence in the House of Lords ; in prefacing which, Junius says he has often had the honour of hearing him talk in public. In a postscript to another Letter * with the same signature, he desires Mr. Woodfall to " tell the duke of Grafton that if he should dare to entertain the most distant thought of the Admiralty, the whole affair of Hine's pa- tent should be revived and published with an accumulation of evidence. "He at least shall be * No. 83. December 24, 1770. ( 102 ) kept under : his Ciceronian eloquence shall not save him." No. 87 *, signed Domitian, is a direct charge on the Princess Dowager, for conspiring with the earl of Bute to keep the government of the realm to themselves. According to the author, " there are two leading principles in the politics of St. James's, which will account for almost every measure of government since the King's accession. The first is, that the prerogative is sufficient to make a lackey a prime minister and to maintain him in that post without any regard to the welfare or to the opinion of the people. The second is, that none but persons insignificant tn themselves, [or of tainted reputation should be brought into employment. " Every office in government is filled with men who are known to be her creatures (the Princess's), or by mere cyphers incapable of re- sistance." On the subject of the Falkland Islands, Junius says, (Letter forty-two t,) " Violence and oppres- sion at home can only be supported by treachery and submission abroad. When the civil rights of the people are daringly invaded on one side, what have we to expect but that their political rights should be deserted and betrayed in the same * January 17, 1771. f January 30, 1771. ( 103 ) proportion on the other ? A man of spirit does not measure the degree of an injury by the mere positive damage he has sustained. He considers the principle on 'which it is founded, he resents the superiority asserted over him, and re- jects with indignation the claim of right which his adversary endeavours to establish, and would force him to acknowledge ; a clear unblemished cha- racter comprehends not only the integrity that will not offer, but the spirit that will not sub- mit to an injury." LETTER XVIII. 2 Feb. 1816. WE are now bringing the proofs of our first proposition towards a close j and but little matter remains to be placed before you on the mere subject of the part which Junius has taken, directly or by inference, in the affairs of the duke of Portland. I have purposely declined making hitherto any comments on the evidence I have collected from his numerous letters, preferring to leave it to your dispassionate consideration, with- out any recommendation that might influence your own judgment on it for the present. I think I may repeat, (without incurring the charge of an unjust bias to the opinion with which I commenced this investigation,) that Ju- ( 104 ) nius never has lost sight of the Cumberland grant to sir James Lowther, nor of the behaviour of the ministry ; and particularly of the duke of Grafton, on that business which was of such vi- tal importance to the duke of Portland. The very language, as well as the sentiments, which he employed in support of that great first cause, pervade all his subsequent writings j and though he is perpetually engaged in repelling the attacks of the many antagonists which his subsequent writings raised up against him, and thus drawn into a complicated correspondence, which he never sought nor relished, the subject which seemed at first so near his heart, almost perpe- tually obtrudes itself; and he is no sooner re- leased from the irksome part of his correspond- ence, than he returns with fresh energy, either to his Cumberland election, the Nullum Tempus bill, the favourite, or his " minions," the duke of Grafton, and lord North. But Junius, as I formerly asserted, was a staunch Whig, and ever kept in view the restora- tion of his party, whose " proscription," as he terms it, was certainly no small motive to autho- rize the long war which he carried on against the interest of lord Bute and the Princess Dowager. You will judge whether that proscription alone sufficed for the stimulus of his attacks. I have already spoken to this point. The grant to sir ( 105 ) James Lowther was not reversed ; and the Whigs as yet only looked forward to power. But to return to our investigation. Junius has left no stone unturned to puzzle and confound the ministry. As Domitian ; *' a member of one house in mourning for his King and Country ;" as A. B. ; Vindex ; an English- man and an Enemy to the Cabinet therefore j G. W. ; and a Whig, he scarce affords any respite to his opponents. As a Whig, however, we shall consider his cause hereafter; though I shall here quote a passage from the ninety-fifth * Miscell. Letters, in prosecution of the plan with which we at first entered on this mysterious subject. Junius speaks of the King. " He found this country in that state of perfect union and hap- piness which good government naturally pro- duces, and which a bad one has destroyed. He promised to abolish all distinctions of party, and kept his word by declaring lord Bute his fa- vourite minister, by proscribing the whole Whig interest of England, and by filling every place of profit and trust under his government with professed Tories, notorious Jacobites, and Scotch- men of all denominations. " The known laws of the land, the RIGHTS OF THE SUBJECT, the sanctity of charters, and the re- * April 9, 1771. ( 106 ) verence due to our magistrates, must all give way, without question or resistance, to a privi- lege, of which no man knows either the origin or Hie extent^' In his Letter to lord Suffolk * he says, " The man who, without honour to support any admi- nistration from principle, has still craft enough to betray all, may perhaps be solicited by every successive minister, or, perhaps, their credulity may be deceived into his friendship ; but the poor untaught villain, who can neither support with consistency, nor betray with decency, will be despised by those whom he deserted, and ridi- culed by the very men to whom he has made so ca- pital a surrender." This last sentence explains the cause of Junius's bitterness ; but see farther. " Your connection with such men as lord Rock- ingham, sir George Savile, the duke of Portland, and the duke of Richmond, was no disgrace to you.'* " Had administration reversed its order of governing, and given you any security for the preservation of our rights, and redress of our grievances ? If any private assurance of this sort has been given you, I shall think your conduct has been consistent, though it will still be dis- graceful with respect to your friends in opposi- tion." * April 15, 1771. ( 107 ) The duke of Grafton having now returned to office, that is to say, having lately been appoint- ed lord privy-seal, Junius loses no time in com- mencing a fresh attack on his Grace, which he urges with so much virulence, that he seems re- gardless of its involving even the sacred person of the Sovereign. The letter or the occasion had gratified its author, who says to Woodfall, in a note *, that he is strangely partial to it, and that it is finished with the utmost care ; adding, that if he finds himself mistaken in his judgment, he positively will never write again. He commences with a profession of profound respect to the gracious Prince who governs this country ; and who, by restoring his Grace of Grafton to his rank under the royal standard, saves him from a multitude of reproaches^ " While I remember (says he) how much is due to his- sacred character, I cannot, with any decent appearance of propriety, call you the Ti^anest and the basest fellow in the kingdom. ..... But this la.ngu.age is too mild for the occa- sion. The King is determined that our abilities shall not be lost to society : the perpetration and description of new crimes will find employment for w* both." He seems, by this* to have dedicated his !* ( 108 ) bours solely to the duke of Grafton ; and he declares afterwards that had his Grace withdrawn entirely, he would have followed him into his re- tirement. " You would long since have received your final dismission and reward; and I, my Lord, who do not esteem you the more for the high office you possess, would willingly have fol- lowed you to your retirement. " His Majesty is full of justice, and under- stands the doctrine of compensations. He remem- bers, with gratitude, how soon you had accommo- dated your morals to the necessities of his service; how cheerfully you had abandoned the engage-* ments of private friendship, and renounced the most solemn professions to the public You did not neglect the magistrate while you flatter ed the man! " We need not look for any other species of merit, to account for his taking the earliest op- portunity to recall you to his councils ; yet you have other merit in abundance. Mr. Hine the duke of Port and, and Mr. Yorke breach of trust robbery and murder The duke of Portland was in life your earliest friend. In de- fence of his property, he had nothing to plead but equity against sir James Lowther, and prescrip- tion against the Crown ; you felt for your friend, but the law must take its course. Posterity will scarce believe that lord Bute's son-in-law had barely ( 109 ) interest enough to get his grant completed before the general election. This letter, my Lord, is only a preface to my future correspondence ; with- out pretending to more than Mr. Bradshaw's sincerity, you may rely on my attachment, as long as you are in office." Though he has here again, you perceive, raked up the story of the duke of Portland, and tax^d his Grace of Grafton with a breach of his earliest friendship, on account of it, you will find by his ninety-eighth* Miscellaneous Letter, that he would not take the trouble of reviving and re- publishihg the affair of Mr. Hine's patent, which he had promised as "Domitian," in case the Duke should dare to entertain the most distant thought of the Admiralty ; the Duke, indeed, gave tip the Admiralty, but accepted a higher and more lucrative office. Still Domitian, though repeatedly called forward, declined pro- ducing his evidence, though by his hints of Tommy Bradshaw, miss Polly JBradshaw, Ross the agent 9 Taylor the house-builder^ and Taylor's little boy, he leaves us to imagine that he really possessed it ; but he returns to the duke- of Grafton. " How remarkable is it, and I speak of it not as matter of reproach, but as something pecu- --i * June 28, 1771, ( no ) liar to your character, that you have never yet formed a friendship^ which has not been fatal to the object ofity nor adopted a cause to which one way or other, you have not done mischief; your attach- ment is infamy, while it lasts ; and whichever way it turns, leaves ruin and disgrace behind it. Your Grace's re-appointment to a seat in the Cabinet was announced to the public by the omi- nous return of lord Bute to this country ; when that noxious planet approaches England, he never fails to bring plague and pestilence along with him." Mr. Harley being employed by the " friends of government" to bring in Messrs. Plumbe and Kirkman, as sheriffs of London, Junius asks of the duke of Grafton, " But, was there no other person of rank and consequence in the city, whom government could confide in, but a noto- rious Jacobite ? Did you imagine that the whole body of the Dissenters, that the whole Whig interest of London, would attend at the levee, and submit to the directions of a notorious Ja- cobite ? la there no room at St. James' s> but for Scotchmen and Jacobites * " ( 111 ) LETTER XIX. 3 Feb. 1816. I SHALL not dwell on the correspond- ence of Junius and Mr. Home, as it no way emanated from the plan or pursuit of our author. It is generally admitted, and I think with great reason, that Mr. Home had the better side of the argument ; and that he defended it with as much ability and no less success than his anta- gonist. In the fifty-fourth * Letter, which forms a part of this correspondence, we have that re- markable passage in praise of lord Chatham, whom Junius had formerly designated as a lu- natic, brandishing a crutch, or writing with des- perate charcoal a letter to North America, or brawling through a grate as an idol; with a few other appellations not necessary to enumerate. But lord Chatham had deserted Bute and Graf- ton, and ranked himself again with the Whigs. " I did not intend to make a public declara- tion of the respect I bear lord Chatham : I well knew what unworthy conclusions would be drawn from it. But I am called upon to deliver my opinion, and surely it is not in the little censure of Mr. Home to deter me from doing signal jus- tice to a man wha, I cenftss, has grown , ( 112 ) my esteem. As for the common sordid views of avarice, or any purpose of vulgar ambition, I ques- tion whether the applause of Junius would be of service to lord Chatham. My vote will hardly recommend him to an increase of his pension, or to a seat in the Cabinet ; but if his ambition be upon a level with his understanding, if he judges of what is truly honourable for himself, with the same superior genius which animates and directs him to eloquence in debate, to wis- dom in decision, even the pen of Junius shall contribute to reward him. Recorded honours 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." Speaking of the duke of Grafton in the same letter, he owns himself willing to suppose that in public affairs it would be impossible to desert or betray lord Chatham, without doing an essen- tial injury to this country. " My abhorrence of the Duke (he adds) arises from an intimate knowledge of his character, and from a thorough conviction that his baseness has been the cause of greater mischief to England than even the unfortunate ambition of lord Bute." But, to follow the course of our investigation : we must now proceed to the fifty-seventh* Letter, the third with which Junius has favoured the duke of Grafton, since his return to power. In the first, I quoted several passages which relate to the duke of Portland's case, and to the friendship that subsisted between the two dukes, to which Junius alludes again in the second. In the third now before us, the same affair is brought forward again. This Letter is written to expose the conduct of the duke of Grafton, in respect of his prosecuting the surveyor's deputy, for pro- ceeding to cut down the oaks in Whittlebury Forest, of which his Grace was hereditary ranger ', without having in his pocket the warrant from the Treasury for so doing. Another writer, Philalethes, defends the Duke's conduct, and asserts that his Grace had not either said or done what Junius had charged him with, and I do not profess to clear up the point, which to us is im- material ; but Junius, who had defended the duke of Portland, when the recommendation of the surveyor to grant away his property had been adopted by the Board of Treasury, seizes immediately on this as a parallel case, wherein the duke of Grafton's interest is at war with the doctrine he delivered on the conduct he pursued in the former case. Junius considered this Let- * Sept. 28, 1771. I ter of material importance, and sent it to his printer with an intimation, that " it must be given to the public immediately." " The people of England," says Junius to his Grace of Grafton, " have seen you distin- guished, and successful, in the continual viola- tion of the moral and political duties by which the little, as well as the great societies of life, are collected and held together." He then details the case, and proceeds to say, that the Duke had insisted on the dismissal of an active useful officer. " You have ruined an innocent man and his family in what language shall I address so black, so cowardly a tyrant thou worse than one of the Brunswicks, and all the Stuarts. To them who know lord North, it is unnecessary to say, that he was mean and base enough to submit to you. This, however, is but a small part of the fact. After ruining the surveyor's deputy for acting without the warrant, you attacked the warrant itself j you declared it was illegal, and swore in a fit of foaming frantic passion, that it never should be executed." He then taxes him with having declared on his honour that the property of the timber is vested in the ranger, which Junius as flatly denies. " The grant," he continues, " expressly, and by a parti* cular clause, reserves the property of the timber ( 115. ) for the use of the Crown. In spite of this evi- dence, in defiance of the representations of the Admiralty, in perfect mockery of the notorious distresses of the English navy, and those equally pressing, and almost equally notorious necessities of your pious Sovereign; here the matter rests. The Lords of the Treasury recall their warrant, the deputy surveyor is ruined for doing his duty, &c. &c." " There has been a strange alteration in your doctrines, since you thought it advisable to rob the duke of Portland of his property, in order to strengthen the interest of lord Bute's son-in-law, before the last general election. Nullum tempus occurrit regi, was then the boasted motto and the cry of all your hungry partisans. Now it seems a grant of Charles the Second to one of his bas- tards is to be held sacred and inviolable. It must not be questioned by the King's serva?its, nor ' submitted to any interpretation but your own. My Lord, this was not the language you held when it suited you to insult the memory of the glorious deliverer of England from that detested family to which you are still more nearly allied in principle than in blood. In the name of de- cency and common sense what are your Grace's merits, either with King or ministry, that should entitle you to assume this domineering autho- rity over both ?" I 2 ( 116 -) The Letters of our author from this time treat mostly of city business, the election of the lord niayor, and the circumstance of lord Mansfield bailing a felon. The miscellaneous correspondence is in a great measure addressed to lord Barrington, whom Junius proposed torturing by 'way of enter- taining himself and the public, " as he had nothing better to do" His Letters to his Lordship, however, do not commence till the end of Jan- uary, 1772, in the next year. LETTER XX. 6 Feb. 1816. His Grace the duke of Grafton is not honoured with any further notice till the 28th of November, a lapse of two months had inter- vened since his last; but in that interim the Crown on the part of sir James Lowther had been nonsuited in the Court of Exchequer, though it had triumphed in the House of Com- mons. ' On the 22nd November, 1771, came on before the Barons of the Exchequer at West- minster Hall, the great cause between sir James Lowther, plaintiff, and the duke of Portland, defendant, in consequence of a grant made to sir James Lowther of the Forest of Inglewood in the year 1767. After a full, candid, and most impartial examination of the said lease, it was found invalid, agreeable to the statute made in the first year of queen Anne, which recites, that upon every grant, &c. there shall be re- served a reasonable rent, not being under a third part of the clear yearly value of such of the said manors, &c. contained in the lease. Sir James Lowther's grant reserving only a quit rent of thirteen shillings and four-pence, for the whole of Inglewood, it was judged by the Court an inadequate proportion, and he was nonsuited accordingly.' This verdict was given on the 22nd of November ; on the 28th, Junius thus asserts the triumph of the duke of Portland. " TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 28 Nov. 1771. " WHAT is the reason, my Lord, that when almost every man in the kingdom, without distinction of principles or party, exults in the ridiculous defeat of sir James Lowther, when good and bad men unite in one common opinion of that Baronet, and triumph in his distress, as if the event (without any reference to vice or virtue) were interesting to human nature, your Grace alone should appear so miserably de- pressed and afflicted. In such universal joy I know not where you will look for a compliment of condolence, unless you appeal to the tender sympathetic sorrows of Mr. Bradshaw : he never weeps, but like an April shower, with a lam- bent ray of sunshine upon his countenance. From the feelings of honest men upon this joyful occasion, I do not mean to draw any conclusion to your Grace: they naturally rejoice when they see a signal instance of tyranny resisted with suc- cess; of treachery exposed to the derision of the world ; an infamous informer defeated, and an impudent robber dragged to the public gibbet ; but, in the other class of mankind I own I ex- pected to meet the duke of Grafton. Men who have no regard for justice, nor any sense of honour, seem as heartily pleased with sir James Lowther's well deserved punishment, as if he did not constitute an example against themselves. The unhappy Baronet has no friends even among those who resemble him ; you, my Lord, are not reduced to so deplorable a state of derelic- tion ; every villain in the kingdom is your friend, and in compliment to such amity, I think you should suffer your dismal countenance to clear up. Besides, my Lord, I am a little anxious for the consistency of your character : you vio- late your own rules of decorum, when you do not insult the man whom you have betrayed. " The divine justice of retribution seems now to liave begun its progress. Deliberate treachery ( 119 ) entails punishment upon the traitor. There is no possibility of escaping it, even in the highest rajik to which the consent of society can exalt the meanest and worst of men. ..... The next is a most remarkable instance of the good- ness of Providence. The just law of retaliation has at last overtaken the little contemptible tyrant of the North. To this son-in-law of your dearest friend, the earl of Bute, you meant to transfer the duke of Portland's property, and you hastened the grant with an expedition un- known to the Treasury, that he might have it time enough to give a decisive turn to the elec- tion for the county. The immediate conser quence of this flagitious robbery was, that he lost the election, which you mean.t to insure him, -and with such signal circumstances of scorn, reproach, and insult (to say nothing of the general exultation of all parties) as hardly ever fell upon a gentleman in this country ; in the event, he loses the very property of which he thought he had gotten possession ; and after an expense wJiich would hare paid tiie value of the land in question twenty times over. The FO.RMS of villany, you see are necessary to, his success ; hereafter you will act with greater circumspec- tion, and not drive so directly to your object to snatch a Grace beyond the reach of common treachery, is an exception, not ^ ful#. And ( 120 ) 4 " now, my good Lord, does not your conscious heart inform you, that the justice of retribution begins to operate, that it may soon approach your person ? Do you think that Junius has re- nounced the Middlesex election, or that the King's timber shall be refused to the royal navy with impunity, or that you shall hear no more of the sale of that patent to Mr. Hine, which you endeavoured to skreen by suddenly dropping your prosecution of Samuel Vaughan, when the rule against him was made absolute ? I believe, indeed, there never was such an instance of negative impudence, but it shall not save you: the very sunshine you live in is a prelude to your dissolution ; when you are ripe you shall be plucked." I have quoted nearly the whole of this epistle as evidence of the satisfaction that Junius seems to feel at the decision of the Portland cause. I cannot but think I perceive in every line and in every expression an air of triumph and a feel- ing of conquest which even the patriot Junius would hardly exhibit except the success were doubly dear to his heart, and recompensed his talents and his perseverance, while it gratified his revenge : for he has told us that insults de- base the mind " until it feels obliged to seek its level again by revenge." As to the other cases j the Middlesex elec- ( 121 ) tion, the Whittlebury oaks, Mr. Hine's patent, or Mr. Vaughan's prosecution, no more men- tion is ever made of them. LETTER XXI. 7 February, 1816. THIS triumphant Letter, however, was answered the next day by a writer who assumed the signature of Anti-Junius, and thus addressed our author : " Had Junius a single friend in the world whom he dared trust or consult, his performance of yesterday, so uninstructive to your readers, so fatal to his reputation, would surely have never found its way to the press. His invective has neither novelty nor variety to recommend it ; the public palate must nauseate at the insipidity of his repeated abuse, and loath the repast which his miserable thrift has attempted to furnish forth from the cold scraps and baked meats of his former scurrilous entertainments. In vain does this political fiddler labour for the public attention, by thrumming the worn out strings of Middlesex election, Whittlebury timber, Hine's patent, and the long forgotten rule made abso- lute against the long forgotten Vaughan. The voice of the charmer himself can no Jonger charm with these sounds j these chords so re- ( 122 ) peatedly struck fall flat, even upon the ear of Envy itself. " Sir James Lowther's nonsuit is, in the eye of the heaven-reading Junius, another visible operation of retribution ; not on the King, in- deed: he does not seem to be affected by it, any further than as it has introduced in the pa- renthesis of the Luttrell alliance : but, on the poor duke of Grafton, whose days are anxious, and whose nights are sleepless, because a grant obtained to serve a purpose, long since defeated, and to gratify the importunities of a man ever bur- t/iensome to every administration, is adjudged in- valid : Jor this the duke of Grafton wears ilie dis- mal countenance of solitary sorrow ; for this does he fruitlessly look round for consolation; for this does Mr. Bradshaw shed the April showers of lambent lamentation. Surely Junius thinks to mislead reason, and annihilate common-sense, by the use of a few ridiculous, half-meaning epi- thets, &c. &c." To this production of his opponent, Junius returns a short answer on the 4th of December following. It is addressed to the Printer of the Public Advertiser*, and signed Juniper. " Your ingenious correspondent Anti-Junius, has too much wit and taste to be easily satisfied. * Dec. 4, 1771. ( 123 ) It is really a misfortune to be born with such exquisitely fine feelings. If now that he is well fed and clothed, he cannot endure the severity of a southern breeze, what would become of him upon his native mountains? Junius can never write to .please him. If he revives the least men- tion of PAST ENORMITIES, what is it but cold scraps, baked meats, political fiddling, and the ,voice of the charmer! hashed mutton and DUTCH music with a vengeance! If, on the contrary, he lays any new villanies before the public, then .one and all the hungry pack open upon him at once. " Here's invention for you! What an abomi- nable liar ! Why does he not stick to his facts ! Does he think us such ideots, as to swallow wit for truth ! In short, Sir, the Scotch have strange qualmish stomachs ; it is not in the art of cookery to please them. Nothing will go down but oatmeal and brimstone. " Anti-Junius is not so explicit as I could wish What was that pur pose for which sir James Lowther's grant was obtained, and which Anti- Junius says has been long since defeated? Who does he mean by a man ever burtJtensome to every administration? I hope he does not mean the duke of Graf ton's friend, sir James Lowther ; or at least that he docs not give tJie Baronet this ( 124 ) pretty character, BY ORDER OF THE DUKE OF GRAFTON." This last sentence may recall to your mind an expression in Junius's Letter of the 28th No- vember. " Besides, my lord, I am a little anxious for the consistency of your character. You violate your own rules of decorum, when you do not insult the man whom you have betrayed.' 9 In the acknowledged collection of our author's writings, there follows a very long Letter to lord Mansfield, on the business of Eyre, a felon, whom his Lordship had admitted to bail. This Letter was absolutely necessary, as Junius, on the 2d of November preceding, had pledged himself before God and his country, in proper time and place, to make good his charge against the Chief Justice. On the same day that he en- deavoured to fulfil this engagement, he published a Letter to lord Camden, whom, we may remem- ber, he formerly had caricatured, as being armed witli a dagger, which he called the law of nature, and followed, as it marshalled him the way to the murder of the constitution. He has materially changed his sentiments, and now gives lord Camden credit for every great and good qualification, while he begs him to come forward, and impeach lord Mansfield, for having violated the laws, in bailing Eyre. An ( 125 ) extract from one of his private Letters to Mr. Wilkes closes the acknowledged correspondence of Junius : but he still amuses himself with writing at lord Barrington, who had dismissed Messrs. D'Oyly and Francis from the War Office, to make room for Mr. Chamier, and another of his friends. Junius's first Letter to his Lordship is dated the 28th of January, when he says, " This is the first of SIXTEEN LETTERS, addressed to your Lordship, which are ready for the press, and shall appear as it suits the printer's conve- nience." We have already observed, that he had told Woodfall he meant to entertain himself and the public with torturing lord B. having no- thing letter to do. This had been three days previous to his first Letter. On the 6th of February, 1 772, Junius uses the signature of Anti-Belial, in defence of the long Letter to lord Mansfield. The second epistle to lord Barrington is on the 17th of the same month j the third on the 27th ; and the fourth on the 10th of March. These are all signed Veteran, and, in the first, Junius uses the ex- pression, " We soldiers feel it as an indignity, &c." The fifth is dated on the 23d of March j and the sixth, on the 4th of May, is signed Scotus, for the purpose of reproaching his Lord- ship with having asserted, in a letter to lord Melcombe, that " Cockburne, like most of his ( 126 ) countrymen, was as abject to those above him, as he was insolent to those below him.*' On the 8th of May, 1772, follows a letter of congratulation to the Lords Commissioners 6f the Admiralty, on the appointment of Mr. Brad- shaw to be a member of their board. Mr. Bradshaw, he says, appeared first in the world as a domestic of lord Barrington's. The Memoirs of his Lordship were published on the 12th, under the signature of Nemesis, who details the policy by which he kept the place assigned him by the duke of Newcastle, after that minister's resignation in 1756, and, the contrivances by which he had managed, from that time, never to be a moment out of place. He concludes by stating, that lord Barrington had received 53,OOO/. of the public money, and thus concludes his last public Letter. Junius may have had various reasons for thus entertaining himself and the public by torturing lord Barrington, who does not appear to have interfered directly with the case of the duke of Portland*. I will, however, recapitulate the ostensible reasons which are supposed to have instigated the satire, as well as abuse, of the writer before us. * His writing after the 28th of November will be accounted for in the .memoirs of the duke of Portland which follow. " He served, in 176O, under the duke of New- castle, whom he deserted for Mr. Pitt, having meanwhile ruined the Governor of Gibraltar, general Fowke. He next served under lord Bute. Lord Rockingham then employed him, and, while he existed by his protection, he in- trigued with the duke of Grafton. But lord Chatham was again the only man in the king- dom fit to govern a great empire : still, when the duke of Grafton took the lead, lord Barring- ton saw things in a different point of view. Lord North was then the man after his heart, and, during his administration, in 1772, he caballed with the duke of Grafton and the Bedford*, to obtain the recall of lord Townshend, and to drive lord North from the treasury." A plan to prevent the Whig party still from coming into power. Lord Barrington thanked the troops, in 1768, for their behaviour in St. George's Fields, where fourteen persons were shot, desiring them to persist in the performance of their duty with" alacrity, and promising them every defence and protection that the law could authorize, or the War Office give. In February, 1 769, he moved the expulsion of Wilkes, seconded by Mr. Rigby; 219 members voted with him : the minority amounted to 136, among whom Mr. George Grenville made the' 6 ( 128 ) best speech in defence of Mr. WHkes. In 1 77O he declared that he did not know a single ge- neral officer, out of a hundred in the service, who was any way qualified to command the army. He had now -made the Ex-secretary of the duke of Grafton, Mr. Bradshaw, his own deputy in the War Office. He had voted against the nuttum tempus bill. _ ,, LETTER XXII. .-;-.'..- '.,-. ' - - MY LOIiD, 9 February, 1816. THE author of the Preliminary Essay, seeking a motive for Junius's writings, thus ex- presses himself: " Whether the writer of these Letters had any other and less worthy object in view than that he uniformly avowed, namely, a desire to subserve the best political interests of his country, it is impossible to ascertain with precision. It is unquestionably no common oc- currence in history, to behold a man thus steadily , and almost incessantly for Jive years, 'volunteering his services in flie cause of the people, amidst abuse and slander from every party, exposed to universal resentment, unknown and not daring to be known, without having ANY PERSONAL OBJECT. TO ACQUIRE, any sinister motive of individual aggrandizement ( 129 ) or reward. Yet nothing, either in his public or private Letters, affords us the remotest hint that he was thus actuated." Thus we may observe, that the writer suspected a motive, though he could not find one; however, we have discovered a mass of evidence illustrative of a paramount motive the restoration of the forest of Ingle- wood, and of the castle and manor of Carlisle : the security of the duJce of Portland's estate. Your Lordship has seen, that a real or sup- posed persecution of this nobleman, was appa- rently the first instigation to these celebrated Letters. The writer is so evidently affected by it, that he pursues it in all its stages : it is that which lends a venom to almost every arrow of his quiver : it is that which points and even wings every shaft. As if incensed at this per- secution, the indignation of the patriot Junius bursts into a flame at the first breath of it ; and this flame, fiercely as it burns, is neither extin- guished nor consumed, until the persecution which had been resisted is abandoned, and the injury atoned by the defeat of sir James Low- ther, and the consequent mortification of Ju- nius's most hateful enemy, the duke of Grafton. On the decision of the Barons of the Exchequer, the perseverance of Junius first manifests a sus- pension, after having kept before the public the case of the duke of Portland, through a lapse of K ( 130 ). four years and a half, detailing it in particular, or in part in seventeen Letters, and quoting or adverting to it in nearly twice as many more. Before I produce the collateral proofs which I have been able to procure, or lay before you a statement of the Duke's public history during the period occupied by these Letters, I wish much to impress you with a just idea of Junius's accuracy on this particular question. It is not that this is his first and chief engine of attack, that he descants on it with a malignity and in- veteracy sometimes amounting almost to fero- city, but that he is so correctly informed on every point connected with it, that it is not pos- sible but that either his Grace of Portland, or some one of his immediate relatives, must have afforded that information. " Your Lordship," says Junius to lord Hillsborough, under the character of Cleophas, " is exactly acquainted with particulars* which could only be known to a few persons." We may use the same language and idea, to infer that his Grace, under the cha- racter of Junius, was exactly acquainted with particulars which could hardly be known to any but those connected privately with himself. The case of the duke of Portland was pub- lished by Almori, in the year I768t. I have * Misc. Letter xxxvii. f April 2. ( 131 ) before observed, that the last Letter recorded in it is dated the 8th of January in that year. Now Junius relates several particulars affecting the Portland cause on the 16th of February follow- ing ; and some other still more important points of it on the 24th. On the 4th of March, the whole doctrine of nullum tempus is discussed ; the plan and conduct of the ministers, the infor- mation of sir James Lowther, and its conse- quences. The Letter of Anti-van-Teague fol- lows on the llth of March, and the answer of Anti-Stuart on the 24th. Here are five Letters from the pen of Junius, detailing almost every individual particular of the case of the duke of Portland, stating the manoeuvres and duplicity of the ministers, who gave out, he says, that they were not free agents, but acted as creatures of execution io the Surveyor-General. Whence did Junius derive this mass of information ? or any part of it ? The duke of Portland's case was not published, not even advertized by the pub- lisher, until the 2d of 4 pril following. Had it been publicly known when Junius was appa- rently engaged afterwards in writing down the ministry, and * attacking the King and the Commons, that the same patriotic spirit had for- merly dictated these five Letters, I think the * See Letters of Junius and Wilkes, No. 81. K 2 ( 132 ) public would not have long hesitated in pro- nouncing who was the author. But besides that he employed three different signatures, and left another of them blank, no one but Woodfall knew, even in after-time, not in fact till the re- cent publication of the Miscellaneous Letters, that Junius, under so many disguises, had for- merly written at all. The case, when it ap- pears, is found to contain a statement of facts exactly corresponding with every thing, even to the most minute particulars, as related by Ju- nius; nay, not only the sentiments, the lan- guage, the style, the very words ; but the rage and fury of the popular writer are visible in every page of it. The critics of the day attri- buted it to the duke of Portland himself, or to his friends. I find, in the Monthly Review for April 1768, this passage respecting the case in question. " // if no wonder that the Duke, see- ing an estate of such value and great consequence thus wrested out of his possession, should have re- course to every means of redress that the laws of his country may possibly afford him ; but how far it has been RIGHT IN HIM OR HIS FRIENDS to ring the alarm bell in the ear of the public, in the manner they have done, as though the rights and properties of every subject in the kingdom were in danger from the encroachments qfprerogative and ministerial op- pression, is a matter which we will not take upon ( 133 ) us to decide. Hear how the writer of this case declaims on the subject. ' One should hardly have conceived in whose heart or head such hor- rid plans of tyranny and vexation could be de- vised, if the untutored folly of these mock-mi- nisters had not blurted it out ; but we are told that this confiscation is but a part of a magnifi- cent plan for resuming the forest claims, and reviving the forest laws. Perambulate, level en- croachments, trample down the vineyard and the waving corn, expel the cottager, who with two hundred years' mistaken labour has made the fo- rest bring forth food for the use of man. Spare not his little ewe lamb, for that too has grazed feloniously on the royal demesnes. Search, va- lidate the dormant claims of the Crown j the resources must be made good they must be re- stored by such windfalls as it shall please God to send in the lapse of time, by the destruction of family writings. We have two hundred and five years to range in ; the civil wars have inter- vened ; fire, deaths, attorneys, executors and their executors may have destroyed or mislaid the parchments ; here is rich plunder for the public. Fall on, spare not, nay not one f royal" tsts, sons of the revolution, Hampdens, 'nullo discrimine.' Of all the wonders I have ever met with, it is the most astonishing to have heard -in open parliament, a deliberate proposal, in cold ( 134 ) blood, of raising a revenue from a concerted sys- tem of search for coirfiscations ; not for any crimes committed, or any in contemplation, but as the ungracious recompense for all the glorious and immortal virtues of those men who have heretofore rescued this kingdom from oppression. Plunder the posterity of those heroes on whom was here- tofore bestowed the rewards of their valour and virtues with unregretted munificence. We have been too liberal ; tve have rewarded the supporters of liberty and of the Protestant cause with too pro- digal a hand, we have purchased these baubles at too dear a price. Resume, confiscate, reple- nish the public coffers with the spoils of patriot- ism. Si serarium ambitione exhauserimus per scelera replendum erit.' " After this specimen, neither your Lordship nor myself can feel much surprise or doubt at the expression of the critics concerning the noble Duke or his friends, for never could any writer betray his personal feelings or personal interest in more obvious or glaring colours, than this au- thor, in the paragraph just quoted. It would be idle to argue on such a question, therefore I shall return to the five Letters, to furnish you with a brief comment on Junius's accuracy. The first of these Letters, without a signature, attacks the ministry for putting the great seal in com- mission, observing that the insignificance of the ( 135 ) three persons to whom its care had been com- mitted, indicated that some particular design was to be executed." In Almon's case, I find this remark (page 25), " The privy-seal is put into commission, for no other purpose but to hear counsel on that cav eat which tlie duke of Portland had entered at the privy-seal" Junius continues, " The establishment of the several high offices of state forms a natural and constitutional check upon the prerogative of the Crown ; no illegal or unconstitutional grant, charter, or patent can take effect from the mere motion of the Sove- reign, but must pass through a great number of offices, in each of which it is the duty of the officer, if the case require it, to remonstrate to the Crown, as he is himself answerable for the consequences of any public instrument which he has suffered to pass through his department. The delay of this progression has another good effect, in giving the subject time and opportu- nity to enter his protest against any sudden 6r inconsiderate grant by which his own property, &c. &c. may be affected." Now for the case : " The duke of Portland's agent waited upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to withhold the seal in consequence of the caveat entered at his office. His Lordship (lord North) said he was prepared to affix the seal instantaneously ; that as Chancellor of the Exchequer he considered ( 136' ) himself a ministerial officer, and subject as much to an order from the Board of Treasury as any common clerk, in respect to his seal to grants ; and, therefore, could not withhold it. I will venture to say this is so far from being the case, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is one of the first legal officers in the kingdom ; and that the very purpose of 'his being annexed to the Board of Treasury is, that he may be a judicial controul on the acts of that Board." Is not this an anticipation of the very thoughts and expres- sions of the case ? The writer then quotes Mad- dox in his history of the Exchequer (page 580), " As to the Oiancellor of the Exchequer he seems to have been appointed to be a controul or check upon the treasurer. The Chancellor of the Ex- chequer as a legal officer ranks next to the Lord High Chancellor. It is great condescension in him to act the part of a mere indented clerk, &c. &c." Thus far the case and the Letter of the 16th ; but Junius, in the other Letter of the 24th of February, relates the whole of the affair in question ; and says, after remarking on the administration's having denied access to the re- cords, having refused to hear counsel, &c. &c. " that the property was the estate of a noble and most respectable person, derived from a King to whom we owe all our liberties, sixty-three years in undisputed possession, the subject of frequent ( 137 ) settlements, and now actually a part of the join-' ture of the noble Duchess." Surely no indifferent person, however insti- gated by politics, can be supposed to have pos- sessed or to have urged this knowledge on the subject. If it were not his Grace who thus (speaking of a noble and most respectable per- son, and the noble Duchess,) communicates to the public the very circumstances of the treatment which his agents received at the Treasury board, and either declares or alludes to every particular of those transactions of which in his own cha- racter he could complain, the communication must have been made from information derived from himself or his very agents. The other Letter of Mnemon is an echo to the first, and every passage has its parallel in the case. The letter signed Anti-van-Teague, we have already placed in its true light, as nothing less than a target to receive the arrows of Anti- Stuart. But while we are intent on proving his singular correctness in this cause, we shall soon see that he is rarely so in the particulars of al- most any other. To commence with sir William Draper ; I think that against this gentleman he proves not one of his assertions. With respect to Mr. Home he was perpetually mistaken, and he does not even get out of the contest with him, ( 138 ) but with some lasting marks of disgrace. He considered Mr. Home as having misrepresented the sentiments conveyed in his Letter to the Bill of Rights Society, admits his mistake, seems rather to suspect Wilkes, and afterwards reprints his suspicion of Mr. Home. In the affair of sir J. Amherst he confuses dates, and apologizes to the public. He accuses the duke of Bedford of having been bribed by the French govern- ment, but can bring no proof whatever. He attacks the duke of Grafton on the subject of the Whittlebury oaks, and he is confuted by Philalethes. On the business of the Falkland Isles he is successfully opposed by Dr. Johnson. He is mistaken in his account of Mr. Edward Weston, and incorrect in attributing a certain pamphlet to him ; even on general Gansell's af- fair he meets with much contradiction. Mr. Vaughan sends him his papers, but the sale of the place at Exeter to Mr. Hine was asserted by the friends of the duke of Grafton to have been effected without his Grace's privity. He desires Woodfall to find out for him, if he can, the day the duke of Bedford was flogged on the course at Litchfield by Mr. Heston Humphry, and he entreats Wilkes to procure for him the most exact account of the information against Eyre. How different is all this from the accuracy of his &reat cause, where he neither confuses dates ( 139 ) nor facts, nor asserts any thing which is ever controverted except the tears of Mr. Bracl- shaw, respecting which he had had the testi- mony of Mr. Allenby, in all probability. When Mr. Grey Cooper, on the 27th June, 177O, de- fends Mr. Bradshaw, or rather exculpates him from any imputation on account of the job con- trived by Miss Polly Bradshaw, mark the answer of Junius ; " I received the circumstance of Mr. Bradshaw's having burst into tears from an authority 'which I thought at least equal to Mr. Cooper's." Miss Bradshaw had sold a place to Mrs. Allenby for her husband, who during the transaction had been in Cumberland assisting in the support of the Portland interest. Mr. Allenby was examined on this subject be- fore the Board of Treasury, and the affair would certainly come to the ears of the duke of Port- land, as affecting one of his agents, however Ju- nius might arrive at the knowledge of it. Junius says, however, to Mr. Bradshaw, (7th July) " / have not written from conjecture, nor can you be ignorant that I have drawn my intelligence from its Jirst source, and not the common falsities of the day" Of Mr. Grey Cooper, Junius even speaks handsomely ; and though his sentiments are coupled with a sarcasm on Mr. Bradshaw, he admits in answer to the first that he may be mis- taken, and does willingly give up the capital ( 140 ) point of the tears. " I have a high opinion/' he continues, " of Mr. Grey Cooper's integrity, but a much higher of Mr. Bradshaw's. I find the fair image of truth in the first ; in the last I expect to meet an oracle." He then argues solely on Mr. Cooper's ignorance of the subject, but without any expressions even of disrespect, and concludes by an appeal to Mr. Bradshaw. You may perhaps anticipate the cause of my detaining you so long on this affair, which is to shew you by way of parallel, that the writer also of Almon's case of the duke of Portland, though violent against the Treasury even to the last de- gree, professes a good opinion of Mr. Cooper, their secretary. " I will not omit," says the writer, (p. 32) " this opportunity of doing jus- tice to Mr. Cooper's candid and friendly conduct throughout the course of this transaction. I would make an apology personally to him if I thought there wanted any, for the liberty I take in commenting upon his official letters, but every one will consider the sophistry, reservations, and double dealing which are unavoidable in so lame a cause, as merely official ; and I will venture to say, that those who know him best will least think him capable of personally taking part in any transaction inconsistent with the punctilios of a man of honour." Would an indifferent person, or any one merely employed to draw ( 141 ) up the case have used the terms candid and friendly ? LETTER XXIII. MY LORD, 11 Feb. I SHALL state what facts I have col- lected relative to the duke of Portland's public conduct during the years in which the Letters of Junius appeared, with some account of his political sentiments and career preceding and subsequent to that period. In this research, I own I have met with little success, and it has not been until within these few days that I have collected any documents on which to found an argument of sufficient force in proof of the pal- pable identity of Junius and his Grace. I have hitherto judged the case which seems to accord so well with the impression under which I first commenced this correspondence, from its inter- nal and intrinsic evidence, resolved that if the sentiments of Junius, in addition to his pertina- city on one particular question, should not bear me out in my expectation as well as conjecture, that I would not pursue that case or correspon- dence any further, nor incur the risk of deceiv- ing your Lordship or myself by any strained construction of the efforts of Junius, or the known conduct or opinions of the duke of Port- ( 142 ) Jand. But the difficulty or want of success to which I allude has not arisen from any discovery of incongruity in the two characters before us. They are perfectly consistent; nor have I in the course of numberless inquiries hitherto detected a single fact, nor a circumstance of even the slightest importance that can militate for a moment against the conviction I have experienced from the very Letters of our author. The want, or rather delay of success, has originated in a paucity of matter upon one point. The politics of his Grace are well known, but his speeches, his public professions of patriotism, his eloquence, and his triumphs, these I have in vain sought for. Your Lordship hints that his Grace possessed not a sufficiency of talent to have written the best Letters of Junius, whilst I hear and read on all hands and in many pamphlets and reviews that these letters possess small claims to any ta- lent; that they consist in declamation without argument, furious invective without truth, flow- ing language and well turned periods calculated to captivate rather than convince. But I will admit all that his admirers have to boast in his favour, and then undertake to prove that his Grace of Portland possessed an abundance of talent fully equal to the production of them all. I could refer you to his friends, to those who ( 143 ) lived with him and knew him ; and more parti- cularly to the excellent and worthy Dr. Cyril Jackson, late dean of Christchurch, who knew and duly appreciated his Grace's talents. But we shall see that the particulars of his public life are a sufficient testimony that his political friends entertained no mean opinion of him. All the biography which I have found of his Grace, especially respecting the aera in which we are interested, has been selected from magazines, memoirs, or public prints. In seeking the his- tory of a public character, I have naturally ap- plied to those sources which of right are the property of us all. At the same time I write to your Lordship under correction, and do not pre- sume on any personal infallibility myself, nor en- gage to vindicate the accounts which I take from others. The late Duke was born in 1738 *, received his education partly at home under a private tu- tor, and was entered at Christchurch, in Oxford, in 1753. His Grace's mother,' lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, only daughter and heiress of Edward earl of Oxford, and grand-daughter of John Holies, duke of Newcastle, possessed a great taste for vtrt& 9 and expended an immense * Monthly Magazine. No. 193. 6 ( 144 ) sara of money on the attainment of objects suit- able to her finely cultivated taste. She formed a magnificent museum of curiosities at Bulstrode, among which was the " Portland vase," for- merly belonging to the Barberini family ; and I have heard she possessed an excellent collection of gems, &c. &c. The celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Elstob was go- verness to her children ; a lady skilled in eight languages, whom Rowe Mores, the antiquary, called the " indefessa comes" of her brother's studies ; a female student of the University upon a genteel fortune, but pursuing too much the drug learning. This lady engaged herself in the family of the Duchess in the year 1739, and died at Bui- strode in 1756, three years after the late Duke entered at Christchurch : therefore his Grace, even from his earliest infancy, must have had every opportunity in his domestic education of profiting by the talents of two extraordinary and accomplished females. In 1756 he recited pub- licly some English verses in such a manner as to attract notice. On the 1st of February, 1757, he took the degree of A. M. After finishing his education at this learned seminary, his Grace, then lord Titchfield, went abroad, in company with his only brother, lord 8 ( 145 ) Edward Bentinck, on their travels *. They made the grand tour, and after their return home became members of parliament : the mar- quis of Titchfield served for Weobly, in Here- fordshire, and lord Edward, first for the city of Carlisle, and secondly for the county of Not- tingham, of which his brother became lord lieu- tenant. The Marquis sat but a few months as a com- moner; for his father, the duke of Portland, died soon after he took his seat; and a new writ was issued for Weobly, on the 6th of June, 1762 : so that he does not seem to have had an oppor- tunity of speaking, as the house did not meet for the dispatch of business until the succeeding autumn. From the first moment that he was ad- mitted to his seat among the peers, the young duke of Portland, then twenty-four years of age, took an active part in the proceedings of the House, and THEN, AS WELL AS FOR MANY YEARS AFTER, seemed desirous both of earning and of deserving popularity. * The marquis of Titchfield being at Berlin, on his travels, was introduced, to Frederick. Their conversation turned on the divisions in England and the unpopularity of the court. " If I were to sit on your throne for three days/' said Frede- rick, " I would make you know what it is to have a king." " Sire," replied the young nobleman, " your Majesty would not be able to keep your seat on the English throne three hours." Dodsley's Ann. Reg. far 1773, p. 68. L / ( 146 ) " His estate was not large, as it was encumbered with an immense jointure of el60OO per annum to his mother, the Dowager. This circumstance obliged him to have recourse early in life to ex- pedients for raising money which encumbered his fortune, crippled his independence, and is supposed to have induced him suddenly and un- pectedly to alter the whole tenor of his politicaj conduct ; but this political change did not take place till many years after." In 1763 his Grace gave an early presage of his patriotism, by a strenuous opposition to the Cyder Bill ; a measure engendered during the earl of Bute's administration, and brought for- ward by sir Francis Dashwood, then chancellor of the Exchequer. He afterwards entered his protest against that measure, which was too un- popular to be persevered in. The ambitious views of lord Bute had now led him to dismiss from the administration all those whose principles and influence he apprehended hostile to himself. The duke of Newcastle ha.d been advised to resign, and the duke of Devon- shire had been struck off the list of privy coun- sellors*. To the first his Grace of Portland was already related in descent, and to the family of the second he became four years after allied by 17G2. ( 1*7 ) marrying lady Dorothy Cavendish, his daughter. In the year 1763, I find the subject of our pre* sent inquiry leagued with the members of the op-, position to condemn the peace*; who feeling their own insignificance, and perceiving who were highest in esteem with the public, had solicited an union with those who had resigned on ac- count of the late measures; their established re- putation and unshaken popularity being convinc- ing proofs that it would be folly to attempt an opposition without the sanction of their names at the head of it. The principal persons consented to a coalition, and frequently dined together at each other's houses. The first dinner was given by the duke of Newcastle, about the middle of March, 1 763. At this were present the dukes of Devonshire, Bolton, and Portland ; marquis of Rockingham ; earls Temple, Cornwallis, Albemarle, Ashburn- ham, Hardwicke, Besborough ; the lords Spen- cer, Sondes, Grantham, and Villiers ; Mr. Pitt, Mr. Grenville, and sir George Savile. On the third reading of the Cyder Bill, there was another division, and a second protest: the following were the lords in the minority dukes of Grqfton, Bolton, Devonshire, Newcastle, and Portland ; marquis of Rockingham ; earls of * History of the late Minority, p. 91. L 2 ( 148 ) Suffolk, Plymouth, Oxford, Ferrers, Dartmouth, Bristol, Ashburnham, Temple, Cornwallis, Hard- wicke, and Fauconberg. But to return to our biography. According to the custom pursued by men of rank and influence in this country to attach themselves to a party, as the only sure and infal- lible way of either attaining or preserving poli- tical and parliamentary consequence, his Grace of Portland connected himself with the marquis of Rockingham ; a name once celebrated and still venerable in the annals of this country. " He joined with that worthy nobleman in talking down and writing down two different administra- tions ; Jbr which last purpose there was a joint stock purse collected and employed" The first of these administrations was that of the earl of Bute j the second of Mr. George Grenville, who took the two offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exche- quer. But the plan of administration and the measures of government continued as laid down by the late minister. The opposition remained in the same situation, and affirmed that the new ministry were no other than substitutes of the favourite, who had only retired to a place of safety and secrecy, in order still to govern, though by other hands. The fact of the duke of Portland having ( 145 ) written down this administration, in which Mr. G. Grenville held the two offices above men- tioned, whilst, according to Mr. Woodfall, Ju- nius always admired and approved of that gen- tleman either in or out of office, may seem, at first sight, to start a glaring objection to the similarity and consistency of the two characters; therefore I will answer the objection at once, premising that I have found no evidence in Ju, nius's Letters, to authorize the inference of Mr. Woodfall. Consistency is not an indispensable attribute of Junius : we have seen that he ex- presses, at different periods, different and almost opposite sentiments of lords Camden, Chatham, Granby, C. Townshend, Wilkes, &c. But to the answer. The administration of Mr. G. Grenville, called also the administration of the duke of Bedford, included with those persons lords North, Granby, Hillsborough, Northington, sir Gilbert Elliot, lord Barrington, Mr. Rigby, and the duke of Rutland, who still continued Master of the Horse, and held that appointment under $he Roc king kam administration, wiHi which lie went out. while his relative, the marquis of Granby, preserved his place through both ad- ministrations, and then united himself, first with lord Chatham, and afterwards with the duke of Grafton. Hence may be divined (en passant} . ( 150 ) the reason why Junius is so tender of the duke of Rutland's reputation, as we have formerly ob- served, whilst he is less considerate, if not a little inveterate, respecting that of lord Granby ; and here, I think, your Lordship may see at least that Junius and his Grace of Portland entertained the same sentiments towards those members of administration, whom I have enumerated, both under the duke of Bedford, in 1763, and after- wards under his Grace of Grafton, in 1768 and 1769. But what shall we say of the opposite opinions entertained by them respecting Mr. G. Grenville ? " Mr. G. Grenville, younger brother of lord Temple, and brother-in-law to lord Chatham, was a political eltve of his maternal uncle, lord Cobham. Hejirst attached himself to the Tory party in consequence of -marrying the daughter of sir W. Wyndham, the confidential friend of Bolingbroke, and father to lord Egremont, and was made one of the Secretaries of State in 1762, when lord Bute was advanced to the Treasury ; he exchanged places with lord Halifax previous to the peace. On the 8th of April, 1763, lord Bute resigned, and Mr. Grenville accepted the two offices already mentioned, the administration being still under the influence of the favourite. But Mr. Grenville became disgusted with lord Bute, and then jfirmly attached himself to lord ( 151 ) Rockingham, to whom he resigned the Treasury in 1765, and ever after remained a staunch and determined Whig, not entering into power with any of the successive administrations, lord Chat- ham's, the duke of Grafton's, or lord North's. Thus you will see, my Lord, that the very circumstance of Mr. Grenville's abandoning the favourite and the Tories, and uniting himself with the Rockingham party, in whose adminis- tration the duke of Portland held the office of Lord Chamberlain, and to whose party, during the period occupied by Junius's Letters, his Grace was wholly devoted, accounts readily for the good opinion professed by Junius in his fa- vour, whatever disposition the duke of Portland might have formerly entertained to write him down, whilst he upheld the favourite/ and the Tories*. Moreover, he voted in favour of the nullum tempus bill. I shall now return to the Duke's memoirs. The Roekingham administration being turned out in a twelvemonth, the duke of Portland for- got for a while his disappointment in the pleas- * The leading principle of Mr. Grenville's politics, to which Junius was attached, was the taxation of America. Mr. Gren- ville took no place in the Rockingham administration, though he had joined it ; and that administration repealed the Stamp Act. What sentiments did the duke of Portland profess as to this measure ? ( 152 ) ing scenes of domestic comfort. He married lady Dorothy Cavendish on the 8th of Novem- ber, 1766, and, by this union, became connected with another Whig family, which, like his own, had ever been zealous for the principles of the Revolution, which it still cherished under a new dynasty. " From this period Burlington House in Pic- cadilly, became his town residence, and it was there 'where all the plans for abating all the alarming influence of the Crown, curbing the avowed arro- gance of several successive ministers, giving strength, zeal, and efficiency, to POPULAR SENTI- MENT, were hatched, reared, and brought to ma- turity, up to the period of the French revolu* tion" The sj^oject of this memoir being well aware of the advantages supposed to result from parlia- mentary influence, and having property in Cum- berland, determined to support two of his friends as members for the county, the late H. Curwen, esq. and H. Fletcher, esq. an East India Director, and afterwards a Baronet, both possessing large property there. This gave great umbrage to sir James Lowther, afterwards earl of Lonsdale, who, to great opulence, united a daring spirit, and, in addition to both, was son-in-law of the earl of Bute. A long, violent, and expensive contest accordingly took place, and, although ( 153 ) the Baronet found means to be returned, yet he was declared unduly elected by a committee of the (ouse ol Commons, and the two other can- didates were left, for that parliament at least, in the quiet possession of their seats. While these transactions were meditating in the North, a storm was preparing in the South to crush the fortunes, darken the expectations, and put an end to the influence of the hardy peer who had thus presumed to counteract the views or the favourite, and create an influence in direct opposition to his family. By way of effectually preventing the two friends of the Duk from reaping the benefit of his patronage, it was resolved to annihilate by one single sweep- ing stroke of authority the power and interest of the family of Portland in the county of Cum- berland. Accordingly, in the month of De- cember, 1767, a grant was made in due form by the Lords of the Treasury to sir James Low- ther, of the extensive and valuable estate known by the name of Inglewood Forest, being part of and appurtenant to the manor of Penrith in the county abovementioned. To this was added the soccage of Carlisle, granted by king William* to * Shebbeare, in h^ pamphlet, says, that the manor of Car- lisle had been a purchase for life of the last surviving- lessee, to whom it had been granted by Catherine, Queen powager of Charles ( 154 ) his favourite, the first earl of Portland ; -which, whether worthily bestowed or not, bad hitherto been considered as an inheritance, descending regularly from father to son through several ge- nerations, without hindrance, molestation, or objection. Every thing on this occasion was conducted with all the due forms of office. Sir James Lowther by memorial prayed a lease of the lands in question, and on a reference to the surveyor-general, that gentleman, though no lawyer, decided that the premises were not comprised in the grant from king William to the earl of Portland, and concluded by recom- mending the lease demanded at a reserved rent of fifty pounds for the soccage of Carlisle, and thirteen shillings and four-pence for the Forest. Your Lordship is already acquainted with the particulars of this affair, therefore I need not repeat any more of it ; I shall merely add that at the trial in November, 1771, lord Rosslyn, then Mr. Wedderburne, was counsel for the Crown, and Mr. Thurlow*, afterwards baron Charles the Second, and consequently, after the death of that lessee, the Portlands had held it illegally from the Crown. * Lord Thurlow may be supposed to have guessed at the man who had defended the cause, which he, as a barrister, had advocated. A Mr. * * *, conversing with his Lordship on the subject of Junius, without however having entertained x the ( 135 ) Thurlow, and Lord Chancellor, led for the duke of Portland. " During the whole of the American contest, the Duke was eminently consistent, exhibiting on all occasions a degree ofjirmness, zeal and resolution^ that obtained for him the confidence of the opposi- tion and the love of the people." At the change of ministry in 1782, when the Rockingham party again came into power, the duke of Portland was constituted lord-lieutenant of Ireland, whither he took general Fitzpatrick for his secretary. The new administration con- tinued by liberal and manly instructions to insure popularity to his mission, he conceded freely what might have been demanded forcibly, and accordingly one of his first acts was the in- dependence of Ireland, or rather complete emancipation from the power and controul of a British parliament. He was perhaps the only lord-lieutenant with whom the Irish people were so completely pleased as to be eager to drag him to the parliament-house, which they were only the most remote idea of his being the duke of Portland, asked lord Thurlow whether he had ever suspected any person,-*- whether he had ever formed any opinion of the author of Ju- nius's Letters ? "Yes," replied his Lordship, " I have had my opinions." As this speech was delivered in a serious and rather solemn manner, Mr. * * * did not venture his curiosity any farther. This was at Mr. Macnamara's table, 8 ( 156 ) prevented from doing by the intervention of the horse-guards. In the mean time an event oc- curred in this country which produced his speedy return at the end of three months *: this was the lamented death of lord Rockingham, whose talents and virtues were of the first order, so that all conceded to him the first place. But no sooner was the nation deprived of this great statesman by death, than a most contemp- tible and interested struggle took place for the nomination of his successor. The candidates set up by their respective friends were the mar- quis of Lansdowne (lord Shelburne) and the duke of Portland, who was supported by Mr. Charles Fox, and recommended to the Sove- reign by the majority of the cabinet. But his Majesty was pleased to select lord Shelburne, upon which Mr. Fox resigned the seals as secre- tary for the Northern department t, lord John Cavendish his office as Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, and the duke of Portland his go- vernment of Ireland, wherein he was succeeded by the earl Temple, eldest son of the late George Grenville. On the 5th of April, 1783, the duke of Port- land was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, and resigned on the 17th of December follow- * July, 1, 1782. f September, 15, 1782. # . ( 157 ) ing : meanwhile the cabinet had been so divided by the lords North, Carlisle, and Stormont being placed in opposition to lord Keppel, lord John Cavendish and Mr. Fox on all great con- stitutional questions, that nothing could be ef- fected either honourable to themselves or ad- vantageous to the countiy. The public con- fidence was lost, in consequence of that strange coalition of Whigs and Tories, of men who had vilified and reproached each other for years. On the 18th of November, 1783, Mr. Fox moved for leave to bring in the famous East India Bill, which, after passing the Commons, was rejected in the House of Lords. The duke of Portland, who now as First Lord of the Treasury, had concerted the measure, had for- merly, in 1773, protested in company with the Rockingham party against a bill of a somewhajt similar tendency. This event brought Mr. Pitt on the stage as a principal actor. Lord Temple was employed to dismiss the present administra- tion, and the House of Commons was dissolved on the 25th of March, 1784. But the candour and veracity of the Duke remained unimpeached, and the King, by a message to his Grace, desired him to arrange with Mr. Pitt a new plan of administration on fair and equal terms. TJie Duke, as a prelimi- nary, requested before the interview to be in- ( 138 ) formed in what sense he was to understand these words : but Mr. Pitt declining any previous ex- planation, the negotiation terminated. On this occasion his Grace is asserted to have saidthat he would never sit in the same cabinet with this youthful statesman. Mr. Fox had formerly ex- pressed the same determination respecting Lord North. Disappointed and deceived, the duke of Portland now attempted to regain his tarnished popularity, and strove to restore his friends after a six years' political martyrdom to their seats in the House of Commons. Mr. Pitt endeavoured to render them odious to their constituents. But not to dwell on the latter part of the duke of Portland's life, which is less important for our purpose, I shall briefly state that upon the illness of his Majesty, in 1788, the Prince of Wales manifested a preference for the politics of Mr. Fox, and it was expected that a new admi- nistration would be formed, with the Duke at its head. A committee of twenty-one persons in each house was appointed to examine and report the sentiments of the royal physicians, and his Grace was one of the lords chosen on that occasion, and also summoned as a privy councillor to hear and consider that report when delivered. *>< It has been said, that during a debate in the ( 159 ) House of Commons, when one of his Grace's near relatives sent a note to Burlington House for instructions, in consequence of the sudden hostility of Fox and Burke, which was first pub- licly declared that evening, the reply was, Follow Fox j" nevertheless the Duke, on the 6th of August, 1792, succeeded the earl of Guildford, as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, without so much as a struggle, although the influence of the minister was supposed to be very great among the members of that body. In the course of a short time what was only sus- picion became certainty, for lord Loughborough having accepted the seals in 1793, the Duke, in July, 1794, was gazetted as third Secretary of State j an office, which he himself had, four- teen years before, strenuously laboured to abo- lish, as superfluous in itself, and affording means of corrupt influence*. From this time the conduct of his Grace must in some measure be confounded with that of his * Belsham. Junius also disapproved of this office: see the I2th Misc. Letter, 16th of February, 1768." I shall take another opportunity to enquire into the legality of the appointment of a third Secretary of State, at present let me be permitted to rouse the attention of the public to a later, and a still more flagrant stretch of prerogative. A prostitution or corruption of old offices may be as fatal to the constitution as the illegal creation of new ones." ( 160 ) old enemy, Mr. Pitt ; and no sooner was this po- litical alliance made known than he lost all his popularity. Notwithstanding this his influence was become so extensive as to occasion a multitude of appli- cations for preferment, and not a few of a very suspicious, unusual, and equivocal kind. Under his name, but without his authority or knowledge, a multitude of places were publicly and impu- dently offered for sale ; but the parties were af- terwards prosecuted and punished. As his Grace's finances were supposed to be rather de- ranged, he himself was frequently pestered with applications of all sorts for patronage civil and ecclesiastical ; and corrupt offers were made in a most barefaced and disgusting manner to obtain his protection. On these occasions he displayed great and perhaps blameable moderation. The Marylebone estate, which his Grace in- herited from the Newcastle and Oxford families, was held under a lease from the Crown ; which lease falling in at the time that the Duke formed his political alliance with the then minister, Mr. Pitt, occasioned some insinuations to his preju- dice, and caused perhaps the remark of lord Lansdown in the House of Lords, " that it was to be hoped the lease of the Marylebone estate had not been renewed." This innuendo might have originated in ancient rivalship between the Duke and the Marquis. However, the lease Was renewed, and his Grace received also a blue rib- band. In 18O1, his Grace finding his health decline, resigned the office of Secretary of State, and acted as President of the Council until 18O5. On the formation of the Fox and Grenville ad- ministration, his Grace thought fit to withdraw, as he had not for some time been on terms of intimacy with Mr. Fox j but after that gentle- man's death he again, in 1807, took the office of First Lord of the Treasury, but being unable to attend, the business was conducted by Mr. Perceval in one house and lord Liverpool in the other. He retired altogether in 18O9, and died in a few weeks after, in the seventy-second year of his age. As a private man, the early part of this noble- man's life was peculiarly amiable. During that period he supported his rank with a very mode- rate fortune. He had never spoken in the Lower House, and on the great question of the Regency, in 1788, though intimately connected with the result, he does not appear to have spoken once. On Mr. Hastings's trial, though poli- tically united with Mr. Burke, he did not vote on any of the charges. " Although never con- sidered an orator, yet what he said was listened to as the suggestions of an honest man, spring- ing directly from the heart.- He was but little M ( 162 ) adapted to business; YET IT is WELL KNOWN THAT NO GENTLEMAN IN THE KINGDOM COULD WRITE A BETTER LETTER." After his Coalition with Mr. Pitt, his equanimity at times forsook him, and he ordered a distinguished commoner to be excluded from inspecting any of his Majesty's jails, on account of the denunciation of certain supposed abuses. As tlie visible head of the opposition for a long series of years, frequent calls were doubtless made on his purse. The contest with sir James Lowther was to him an enormous expense. These, with other claims on his generosity, kept him poor. LETTER XXIV. ** MY LORD, 16 February, 1816. I THINK your Lordship will admit, after the perusal of the brief account which I have given you of the duke of Portland's public character, that his friends, in conceding to him the first of- fices of the state, implied a sufficient sense of his talents at least for our purpose : therefore I shall dwell no longer on a subject that requires, in my opinion, no additional confirmation. As a statesman, we must regard his political changes as we should those of almost all other statesmen. These changes are not material to our inquiry : it is enough to have shewn that the public and ( 163 ) private history of the duke of Portland were in no one particular at variance with the principles professed by Junius. On the contrary, there is scarce a question, even down to Junius's reproba- ting the office of third Secretary of State, which was not supported or opposed equally and as strenuously though by different means by both characters. Junius was the writer of the people, the Duke laboured to earn and deserve popularity. The first associated his great cause, the Cumber- land business, with the interests and liberties of the people: he endeavoured to make it theirs. The Duke throughout the whole affair held his peace. No selfish thought obtruded itself on the nation j he left his cause to his friends and the public. Junius carried his point, and the Duke ejected sir James Lowther : his Grace re- sumed possession of his estate, and Junius wrote no more *'. May we not here apply an expression of his * The decision in the Duke's favour was given on the 22d of November, 1771, the Duke plaintiff, the Crown defendant. Sir J. Lowther appealed from the decision. The cause was again tried at the Summer Assizes for Carlisle, 1776, sir James plaintiff, and the Duke defendant: verdict for the Duke. A motion was made for a new trial, and the Barons of the Exchequer gave their opinion in favour of the Duke, on the llth of February, 1777. Here the business ended. Thus after the first decision five years elapsed before the duke of Portland encountered the new trial, and indeed after the first decision, he seems to have carried all before him. M2 ( 164 ) own to sir W. Draper. " The plain evidence of facts is superior to all declarations. Before you were appointed, &c. &c. your complaints were a distress to government ; from that mo- ment you were silent. The conclusion is inevit- able." I can no where discover any proofs of the Duke's oratorical powers ; but as a letter-writer his biographer has observed that no gentleman in England could surpass him. I think few per- sons have had greater practice or more expe- rience in that style of composition, or have brought it to greater perfection than our au- thor. Junius first thought to desist from using this signature on the 21st July, 1769. He had then published fifty-seven miscellaneous Letters, and nineteen under the signature which he now thought too good for " a set of brutes whose writings were too dull to furnish him even with the materials of contention:" but he meant to have ceased writing altogether on the 8th November, 1771, as appears from his private Letter to Woodfall of that date, a fortnight before the de- cision of the cause in Westminster Hall. And, supposing him really to have entertained that in- tention, it is worth while to remember here that at this date he had brought forward his charge respecting the Cumberland estate seventeen ( 165 ) times directly ; that is to say, he had so often specified the whole, or parts, or facts applying to it. Besides which he had indirectly alluded to it, mentioned it as if by accident, or refreshed the minds of his readers with some expression that originated in, and belonged to it, in no less than twenty -five other Letters: nevertheless, when the decision had been given in favour of the Duke, on the 22d, Junius, determined to have a final blow at his enemy the duke of Grafton, affects to say that David Garrick had literally forced him to break his resolution of writing no more ! David Garrick ! who had told Mr. Ramus, who had told the King, that Junius would not write again, thus forced Junius to break his resolution, and what was the conse- quence ? He published the sixty-seventh Letter, of the 28th of November, which I have already denominated the triumphant Letter j a produc- tion written solely on occasion of the Duke's success j wherein he calls the conduct of the Treasury a signal instance of tyranny and trea- chery, sir J. Lowther an infamous informer, and either the Baronet or the duke of Grafton an impudent robber dragged to the public gib- bet. These rancorous epithets then, we are re- quested to believe, emanated from a cause of the first importance : David Garrick produced all this, rousing the slumbering vengeance of ( 166 ) the mighty patriot by his intimation to Mr. Ramus, and for this his fury bursts forth again : Tigris ut aspera Gaetulusve Leo Might it not have been politic to prepare both the printer and the public for a suspension or conclusion of Junius's writings, before the event of the trial transpired? Had the verdict been given against the Duke, his cause was too well known, having been so often before the public, that Junius could scarcely have attempted any thing farther in support or defence of it. Cal- culating perhaps on the decision which did take place, was it not also politic to desist before- hand ? It was necessary to deceive both printer and public; and, to my mind, " Astqta ingenuum vulpet inaitala leonem," at least with respect to Garrick. You may ask, why Junius then found a pretext for writing again. I can only account for it, by concluding that he was the duke of Portland. Who can support success? and where is that deeply-injured bosom, to which revenge is tasteless ? LETTER XXV. MY LORD, 18 Febnuiry, 1816. WE have seen, long since, that our hero, Junius, makes no scruple of attributing whatever is written in defence of his opponents, to those opponents themselves, who are on a par with him in that respect, and tax him in turn for supporting himself: how justly we must both well know, thanks to Mr. Woodfall for the pub- lication of the Miscellaneous and Private Letters. I should wonder that a suspicion had not origi- nated from his defence of the Cumberland cause, if it were not, that in fighting it through his Miscellaneous Letters, he employed seventeen different signatures, besides occasionally writing without any ; and that, when selecting the Bet- ters for republication, he avoided taking notice of any of those above-mentioned^ though he altered the signatures of one or two on other subjects, and gave them again to the world with the name of Philo-Junius. Even the Letters relative to the transaction between Miss Bradshaw and Mrs. Allenby, though written in June and July 1770, that is eighteen months after he had adopted the general signature of Junius, and in which he expresses such knowledge of the ( 168 ) Duke's affairs, were printed in the Public Ad- vertiser with no other signature than that of Q. in the Corner, and were omitted in the republi- cation altogether. But with regard to his opponents : first, lord Hillsborough is identified by Junius with Cleo- phas. " In your Letter, signed Cleophas," says our author, " you are pleased to assume the character of a person half informed. We under- stand the use of this expedient. You avail your- self of every thing that can be said by a third person, without being obliged to abide by the apo- logy. My Lord, this is a paltry art, unworthy of your station. You can repeat every article of your own Letter to sir Jeffery Amherst, &c." Cleophas denies the charge ; and Junius replies, that " it is indifferent to the public, whether the Letters signed Cleophas are written by his Lordship, or under his immediate direction" Secondly, Judge Blackstone is considered by Junius as the author of a certain pam- phlet, in which his late conduct is defended. " The personal interest" says he, " the per-, sonal resentments, and, above all, that wounded spirit, unaccustomed to reproach, and, I hope, not frequently conscious of deserving it, are signals which betray the author to us as plainly as if your name were in the title-page You ap? ( 169 ) peal to the public in defence of your reputation. We hold it, Sir, that an injury offered to an Indi- vidual is interesting to society, 8$c." It was at last admitted by the friends of Judge Blackstone, that he had written the pamphlet. Thirdly, when lord Barrington is attacked by Junius, a writer defends him under the signature of Novalis. " You very justly," says our author immediately, " thought it unnecessary to sign your name to this last elegant performance. Novalis answers as well as Barrington. We know you by your style." In spite of our author's extensive information, I know not what reason he had to suspect these three persons of writing in their own causes, ex- cept from the internal evidence the causes con- tained to that effect. Junius hesitates not a moment to insinuate who the writers were; and yet Junius has written near fifty times in support of the duke of Port- land, and made his cause the theme and ground- work of all his Letters, without fearing a similar insinuation ! I shall infer (with Junius in the case of the duke of Bedford,) " that the conduct of this writer is an internal and convincing evi- dence against himself." Junius is occasionally so inconsistent in his assertions and promises, that we can take none of them for truth, except they will stand the test ( 170 ) of inquiry. In his third private Letter he de- sires Woodfall to tell him candidly, whether he knows or suspects him j and, in the sixth, he says, " Whether you have guessed well or ill, must be left to our future acquaintance." In his tenth, he says, that it is not in the nature of things that the Cavendishes (though there be no end of the family} that Mr. Woodfal), or any body else, should ever know him, unless he made himself known j and yet, in the eighth, he had said, " The truth is, there are people about me whom. I would wish not to contradict, and who had rather see Junius in the papers, ever so im- properly, than not at all. In the seventeenth he doubts much whether he shall ever have the pleasure of knowing Mr. Woodfall : and in No. 41 he promises that Mr. Woodfall shall know him at a proper time, if he will act honourably by him : and, after all, in his Dedication to the English people, he tells them he is the sole de- positary of his secret, and it shall perish with him. On one occasion, he says, the greater part of his property has been invested in the funds (yet the landed interest is dear to him) j on a second he is a soldier* ; on a third he is not a soldiert. He defends the citizens on the 10th of March, 177O; and opposes alderman * Letter to lord Barrington. f MS. Letter, xuv. Nash, as " a stranger." lie writes to the people, and confesses thrice a contempt for pa- triots. He says, in a miscellaneous Letter, that he knows nothing ofjunius ; and denies any ac- quaintance even with Mr. Grenville. Many of these are, doubtless, voluntary contradictions; others accidental : his motives for concealment induced him to urge any pretence that was at hand ; but the knowledge of his own con- trivances has been the cause of his suspecting the source of his opponents' defence. LETTER XXVI. 20 Feb. 1816. HAVING shewn, I think satisfactorily, that the Portland cause was the paramount ob- ject of Junius's Letters, and that the person who wrote them must have had an intimate know- ledge of his Grace's affairs, I think the collateral testimony, discernible in all those Letters, indi- cates that Junius was the Duke himself. Who can peruse these brilliant lucubrations without perceiving, in almost every page, the haughty spirit of the aristocrat ? The popular Junius still is no republican ; and though he affects, with the Americans, to despise the absurd pageantry of a King, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a ( 172 ) Bishop," yet his wrath is awakened by the inde- cent conduct of Mr. Wilkes, and the infatuation of a mob insulting the Monarch, and trampling on the laws and customs that guard the rights of wealth and rank. Junius is never more in earnest than in writing on such an occasion. When Wilkes, after his outlawry, returned to England, and offered himself as candidate, first for the metropolis, and then for the county, our writer observes, that " he is disappointed in the first attempt, notwithstanding ail the efforts and vio- lence of the rabble; but he has still the confidence to offer himself to the freeholders of Middlesex, as a proper person to represent a county, in which he has not a single foot of land. The circum- stances which attended the facts of Mr. Wilkes's case are no less atrocious. We saw the other candidates, gentlemen of large fortune, and of the most respectable characters, dragged from their carriages, and hardly escaping with life out of the hands of Mr. Wilkes's friends and companions. I need not enlarge on this detest- able scene ; there is hardly a family in London or Westminster, which has not reason to remem- ber the day of Mr. Wilkes's election. The me- tropolis of the kingdom, the seat of justice, and the residence of the Sovereign, and of the royal family, was left, for two nights together, at the mercy of a licentious and drunken rabble. Who ( 173 ) can hear, without grief and resentment, that even in some of the royal palaces, to avoid worse consequences, illuminations were made, to cele- brate the success of a >, who, after heap- ing every possible insult on the person of his Sovereign, returns in triumph to brave and out- rage him again, even in the place of his imme- diate residence. I am persuaded there is not a man of property, sense, or honour, in v this coun- try, who is not ready, heart and hand, to support the Constitution, and to defend the Sovereign." An annual parliament, which, to a democrat with no other possession than talents and am- bition, would doubtless have been the most ac- ceptable form of government, is nevertheless no way agreeable to the man of rank and import- ance. Junius is convinced that the English na- tion ought to insist on a triennial, and banish the idea of an annual parliament. He will not consent to abolish impressment ; and as to cutting away the rotten boroughs, " I am as much of- fended (says he) as any man at seeing so many of them under the direct influence of the Crown, or at the disposal of private persons, yet I own I have both doubts and apprehensions in regard to the remedy you propose. I shall be charged perhaps with an unusual want of political intre- pidity, when I honestly confess to you, that I am startled at the idea of so extensive an amputa- 7 ( 174 ) tion. When you propose to cut away the rotten parts, can you tell us what parts are perfectly sound ?" Any man who looked forward to power would be unwilling to strip of its pinions that prerogative on which he hoped to soar ; and he will not encourage Mr. Wilkes in any insults to* wards the Sovereign, nor allow him as Sheriff to send a message to the Lord Mayor (more spirited than judicious), requesting leave to prefer the administration of justice at the Old Bailey, to the vain parade on the anniversary of his Ma- jesty's accession." Junius calls it a direct out- rage ; says it will give the courtiers an advan- tage, offend the Whigs, and be condemned by all parties. But the Aristocratical disposition of our author evinces itself more directly in his fifty-ninth Let- ter, when he says, " he can more readily admire the liberal spirit and integrity, than the sound judgment of any man who prefers a republican form of government in this, or any other empire of equal extent, to a monarchy so qualified and limited as ours. He is convinced it is neither the wisest in theory, nor practicable in this coun- try j and hopes the English constitution will for ever preserve its monarchical form. He thinks the present habit of the political body the very reverse of what it ought to be, that the form of the Constitution leans rather more than enough ( 175 ) to the popular branch, while, in effect, the manners of the people, of those at least who are likely to take a lead in the country, incline too generally to a de- pendance on the Crown. That the real friends of arbitrary power combine the facts, and are not inconsistent with their principles, when they strenuously support the unwarrantable privileges assumed by the House of Commons." The Sove- reign has too much influence, and the Commons assume too many privileges. Where would Ju- nius vest the power of the state ? In the Lords? Notwithstanding what Junius, under the sig- nature of C. had formerly said of Mr. Wilkes, in his private correspondence with that gentleman, he tells him, that " whatever imaginary views may be ascribed to the author, it must always make part of Junius's plan to support Mr. Wilkes while he makes common cause with the people. I would engage your favourable attention to what I am going to say to you, and I intreat you not to be too hasty in concluding from the ap- parent tendency of this letter to any possible in- terest or connexion of my own*. It is a very com- mon mistake in judgment, and a very dangerous one in conduct, first to look for nothing in the argument proposed to us, but the motive of the man who uses it, and then to measure the truth * Whence is this perpetual anxiety to appear disinterested ? 3 ( 176 ) of his argument by the motive we have assigned to him. With regard to me, sir, any refinement in this way would assuredly mislead you ; and though I do not disclaim the idea of some personal views to future honour and advantage, (you would not believe me if I did,} yet can I truly affirm, that neither are they little in themselves, nor can they by any possible conjecture be collected from my writings." Here Junius has a mind to confuse Mr. Wilkes, as he has always endeavoured to puzzle every one else on the subject of his own identity, but still he is consistent in his pursuit of power ; and though he makes a business of supporting Mr. Wilkes and the popular cause, it is evident his object is to serve himself, though by their means. The spirit of the great man is visible through all his writings, no less than in the instance al- ready adduced respecting Mr. Wilkes and the mob. Your Lordship will recollect how con- temptuously he speaks of the Scotch on all occa- sions; and with what arrogance he confounds them all, as a set of people incapable of sincerity or any good quality whatever. No one, but a man of rank, accustomed to the reverence of in- feriors, would have employed the expressions of asperity and disdain with which Junius is ever attended. " Who (he says) is lord North ? The ( 177 ) son of a poor unknown Earl, who four years ago was a needy commissioner of the treasury for the benefit of a subsistence, and would have accepted a commission of hackney coaches upon the same terms." Lord Chatham is honoured with half a dozen base or ridiculous appellations: one among them is, a miserable, decrepid, worn out old man ; and when lord Bute is associated with him, " May that union (says Junius), ho- nourable as it is, subsist for ever ! May they con- tinue to smell at one thistle, and not be separated even in death." Lord Boutetort is " one of your cringing, bowing, fawning, sword-bearing brother courtiers j" and lord Rochfort is " a mute in the house of lords, and destitute of for- tune, interesty and connexions." It is unnecessary to repeat his scornful allu- sions to all the noblemen whose politics dis- pleased him : the expressions must be fresh in your memory ; nor shall I dwell on the haughty violence with which he repels the attacks of those beneath him : a few quotations will suffice. In Private Letter, No. 12, speaking of some one who had written with a view to entrap him, as he thinks, " I should like (he says) to know what the fool means." " Modestus (in Miscel. Letter 64) is not the first blockhead who has plumed himself upon an imaginary triumph over Junius." Of lord Mansfield he says, " We have N ( 178 ) got the rascal down let us strangle him." " Scaevola is a blockhead and a fool, the wretch* edest of all fools, and a dirty knave ;" " Swin- ney, a wretched and dangerous fool ;" " Gar- rick, a rascal, and a vagabond ;" " the Old Cor- respondent, a pert youth, who makes free with Junius." I think his letter to the Actor is per- haps the strongest specimen of Aristocratical indignation. " I am very exactly informed (he says) of your impertinent inquiries and of the information you so busily sent to Richmond, and with what triumph and exultation it was re ceived : I knew every particular of it next day. Now mark me, vagabond keep to your panto- mimes, or be assured you shall hear of it ! med- dle no more, thou busy informer ! It is in my power to make you curse the hour in which you dared to interfere with Junius." The Lord Mayor " is an abandoned prosti- tuted ideot." How does he ridicule Mr. Cha- mier, whom he styles " the little broker from Jonathan's." Mr. Home is not treated even as a gentleman, though as a writer he is certainly Junius' s equal. The duke of Grafton's ancestor is called " one of king Charles's bastards." This last nobleman falls under the high displeasure of Junius for appearing at the Opera with miss Parsons. The moral and admirable principle* of the duke of Portland, then but lately married ( 179 ) to a young lady of the first rank and character, would certainly have led him to construe such an action into a gross insult on the virtuous feel- ings of the community ; and no one, I think, could have witnessed such an exhibition with greater indignation than the duke of Portland, particularly as his Grace of Grafton was then conspicuous both in rank and power. ,uu LETTER XXVII. 24 Feb. 1816. WITH respect to the age of Junius, I see Mr. Woodfall has fancied him to be fifty, and chiefly because he once says, that " after a long experience of the world, he never knew a rogue that was not unhappy." Now, after the various contradictions of which we have but lately proved him guilty, I do not conceive that any particular stress should be laid on this ex- pression, so as to authorize Mr. Woodfall's con- clusion, against other more important evidence arising out of his works. Many a person at thirty-five years of age thinks he has had a long experience, and has seen a great deal of man- kind. Nor can I imagine that Junius, except in one instance, possessed the caution which be- longs to grey hairs. The exception to which I allude is, the circumstance of his having avoided N 2 ( 130 ) detection ; for which I am, however, inclined to think he was indebted chiefly to the honourable conduct of Mr. Woodfah 1 . At the time Junius talked of long experience of the world, his Grace of Portland was thirty- three years old: an age I own I should have supposed best calculated for the ardour, the en- terprise and the perseverance of such a writer as our author. I would not argue much from his Letter to Junia, replete with indelicate allusions, of which I have expressed an opinion already, though I still feel unwilling to reckon it among the pro- ductions of a moral writer approaching the win- ter of life ; but read his Letter signed Correggio, examine the grand council upon the affairs of Ireland, his Letters to lord Barrington, the scenes between Waddlewell and the Lieutenant-gene- ral, the King and lord Barrington, lord Barring- ton and Waddlewell. Is this levity characteristic of age ? does the fire of his vengeance, when kindled by the mention of the Cumberland grant, of the Nullum Tempus bill, of lord Chatham's dereliction, of lord Mansfield's doctrines, of the duke of Grafton's very name, emanate from an head silvered over by age, or from an heart cooled by the frosts of fifty winters \ Oh no ! I remember no one thought or expression through- out all his writings, that is not rather the pro- ( 181 ) perty of a man in the vigour of life, in the ma- turity of youth, if I may be allowed such a phrase, rising into a knowledge of his mental talents, and feeling confidence enough to exert them from no unjust self-approbation *. The motives for Junius's writing on so many other subjects than that which we have called his own, may be explained by a reference to some of his Letters to Wilkes. These are the passages to which I allude. " I affirm, without a doubt, that political prudence, the benefit of the cause, your public reputation, and personal interest, do all equally demand this conduct of you. L do not deny that a stroke like this is above the level of vulgar policy, or that if you were a much less considerable man than you are, it would not suit you. But you will recollect, Sir, that the public opinion of you rises every day ; and that you must enlarge your plan as you proceed, since you have every day a new acquisition of credit to maintain. " To make our passions subservient to you, you must command your own. The man who for any personal indulgence whatsoever, can sacri- fice a great purpose to a little one, is not quali- fied for the management of great affairs." In * The Writer of No. 65, in the Misc. Letters, calls Junius a young gentleman, with that fire and spirit which accompanies green years. ( 182 ) teaching Mr. Wilkes the management of his passions, to carry political points, Junius ac- counts at once for his whole course of writing, arid almost confesses that he had used the pas- sions of the multitude, to carry a point of his own. Mark what he says in the same Letter to Mr. Wilkes, on the subject of Mr. Sawbridge being the Lord Mayor. " His disposition, as you well know, is not Jittedfor that ACTIVE MANAGE- MENT and INTRIGUE, which acquire an active popu- larity and direct the people by their PASSIONS. " Common men are influenced by common motives j but you, Sir, who pretend to lead the people, must act on higher motives." And af- terwards : " A man who honestly engages in a public cause, must prepare himself for events which will at once demand his utmost patience, and rouse his warmest indignation. I feel my- self at this moment in the very situation I de- scribe*." This is too plain to require any com- ment 5 however, it may be worth while to re- mark, that at this time he had just finished his correspondence with Home ; and that a few days afterwards he wrote the fifty-seventh Letter to the duke of Grafton, about the Whittlebury oaks, the duke of Portland, anol nullum tempus. The ninety-third and ninety-fourth Letters of * Junius and Wilkes, Letter LXVI. 7 September, 1771. 7 ( 183 ) the miscellaneous collection, are addressed to the Lord Mayor Crosby, and Messrs. Oliver and Wilkes, justifying and approving their conduct, in having resisted the dictatorial power assumed by the House of Commons. The first and second were in the Tower at the time, where they were visited by the dukes of Manchester and Port- land. The antipathy of Junius to the duke of Graf- ton, is accounted for by his identity with the last of these two noblemen ; but, having record- ed some passages in his writings, asserting, that the dukes of Grafton and Portland had once been friends, I shall give you a little collateral testi- mony on the subject. On the 15th of March, 1763, there appeared, prefixed to a new tragedy called the Fall of Mortimer, a letter, supposed to be written by Mr. Wilkes, being a dedication of the tragedy to lord Bute, and replete with invective against him. I will give you one extract from this letter, leaving it to your Lordship to form your own opinion of the writer ; it tends merely to show that there existed a political intimacy be- tween the two Dukes at the time. The writer addresses himself to lord Bute. " You hold the first office of this kingdom, and enjoy, almost exclusively, the smiles of your Sovereign. They ( 184 ) (Mr. Pitt, and lord Temple and others,) have only the empty applause of their country. " This too they share with others a duke of Newcastle and Devonshire, a marquis of Rock- ingham, an earl of Hardwicke, and the two spi- rited young nobles, who stand so high in fame and virtue, whom England glories that she can call her own, the dukes of Grafton and Portland. These illustrious characters will ever be respected by your Lordship for their ardent love of our So- vereign and of liberty, as well as honoured by this nation as the declared, determined, and combined enemies of 'despotic ', insolent, contemptible favouritism" On the 8th day of March, among the dissen- tient lords on the Cyder Bill we have seen toge- ther the names of " Grafton and Portland." On the 29th of November, 1763, a protest, signed by seventeen lords against the decision in that House, to agree with the Commons that the privilege of Parliament did not extend to libels, contains the names of Temple, Bolton, Devon- - shire, and others, linked with those of Grafton and Portland. The list of the members of the Club in Albe- nwle-street, in 1764, commences with " the dukes of Devonshire, Newcastle, Bolton, Graf tan, and Portland" ( 185 ) In the Rockingham administration the duke of Grafton and general Conway were Under Secretaries of State, the duke of Portland was made Lord Chamberlain. The duke of Grafton deserted his party and friends, and Junius eternally reproaches his Grace with having abandoned and persecuted the duke of Portland. LETTER XXVIII. 28 Feb. 1816. Two very prominent features in Junius are his hatred to the Scotch, and his refusing to derive any pecuniary advantage from his writ- ings. The duke of Portland, as the descendant of the first Bentinck, probably inherited a dislike to the leading men of that nation whose monarch was expelled by the assistance of his own sove- reign and master, William III. Junius perpe- tually reminds us of the Whigs who brought about the glorious Revolution. Misc. Letter thirty-seven contains several forcible allusions to it. In fact, though the Scotch under their lead- er, lord Bute, rallied round the throne of Bri- tain when filled by a descendant of the house of Brunswick, it does not appear that the Whigs of the house of Nassau ever shewed a disposition to encourage or even to trust them. But the in- ( 186 ) vasion of the duke of Portland's property by the intrigues of the Scotch favourite, and the transfer of it to the husband of that favourite's daughter, are argument enough to account for a partial antipathy to that nation ; for we all know how naturally mankind, confounding public' with pri- vate, draw general conclusions from particular examples: besides, (as Junius observed,) the Scotch engrossed the power of the Crown, and there was no room at St. James's but for Tories and Jacobites. There were two Scotchmen in the triumvirate that heard counsel on the Duke's caveat. Lord Mansfield (a Scotchman) as Lord Chief Justice, one of the King's servants, ought, according to Junius and to the case, " to have debated so- lemnly on the Duke's title," and to have quashed with his decision the grant to sir James Lowtherj and Wedderburne, a Scotchman, was counsel for the Crown at the trial in Westminster Hall. The other circumstance of refusing all pecu- niary advantage, indicates that Junius was nei- ther poor nor avaricious. There are few per- sons, even of good fortune, who would decline in these times to profit by any lucubrations they have the talent to produce; and if a doubt should be started as to accepting a reward for writing in a newspaper, it would probably vanish at the sight of two octavo volumes. But Junius ( 187 ) "would not even submit to benefit a charity by his labours. He says he is Jar above all pecu- niary views. He writes, according to his 44th Letter, neither for profit nor fame, that is, for profit derived from the press, for he had told Wilkes he did not disclaim the idea of some per- sonal views to future honour and advantage" However I think it very fair to infer from this circumstance even, that Junius was no underling nor insignificant person, but a man of rank and influence. We may easily imagine for example, that a nobleman of the first class and distinction in the realm would disdain to take a reward for Letters written to serve a party and published in a newspaper, much less would his pride submit to receive a recompense for Letters written in a newspaper to serve himself. In signifying his fears of detection, Junius says he should not survive a discovery three days, or if he did, " they would attaint him by bill," which expression implies, that he was a peer, because he could only have been attainted for a libel*. " He has left no room for accom- modation with the piety of St.- James's, his of- fences are not to be redeemed by recantation or repentance," a truth we may easily admit, and as a peer, he had indeed every thing to appre- * Private Letter, No, 41. ( 188 ) hend in detection. He calls himself once a member of one house of parliament in mourn- ing for the honour of his King and Country ; and I cannot help mentioning here, (though I do not mean to insist on the idea,) that when he advertises " Junius to another duke," I think he was instigated by some little conceit beyond the mere fancy of signifying that the antagonist of the duke of Grafton had now turned his arms against the duke of Bedford. There is a private letter of Janius, No. 1O, among the fac-similes, wherein the writer speaks of a paquet which Mr. Woodfall had received with the arms of Cavendish on the cover. Ju- hius (one would imagine) was in frequent habits of writing the Cavendish name, for he uses an abbreviation, and describes it Candish. The contents of this paquet are unknown ; probably it was returned to Junius unopened, if from Ju- nius it had originally come, which I very much suspect. That the duke of Portland, the most noble William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, son of lady Margaret Cavendish, who had married into the family (Jf the duke of Devonshire, ano- ther family of Cavendishes, should have had a seal with their arms is not very improbable, nor that he might have used it by mistake ; few per- sons are always perfect in mystery, and no one knew better than the duke of Portland that there ( 189 ) was "no end of the family." But as Junius had always spoken well of the duke of Port- land, we might expect him to mention his family and connexions with respect. He says "the paquet cannot come from the Candishes, though there be no end of the family. They would not be so silly as to put their arms on the cover." For a second mention of this family I must re- fer you to the 59th Letter, where Junius says he will not reject a bill which tends to confine par- liamentary privilege, though it be stolen from the house of Cavendish, and introduced by Mr. Onslow. " The features of the infant are a proof of the descent, and vindicate the nobk birth from the baseness of the adoption." One of the seals affixed to the letters in Mr. Woodfall's possession is a ducal coronet. The engraving of it is published with the fac-similes ; others are antiques, particularly a fine head of Marcus Aurelius very finely cut. The cabinet of his Grace's mother would have furnished these. The hand-writing of Junius is generally dis- guised, although his real hand appears at times in spite of every precaution j sometimes he uses a small i at the commencement, where he would naturally be most attentive to conceal- ment, but the hand-writing of the duke of Portland is precisely that of Junius, whenever undisguised, and formation of the letters is al- ( 190 ) ways similar, Junius's disguise consisting in placing them upright, and without any in- clination. The manner of his forming the letter P is very remarkable. He has three dif- ferent ways of writing it, besides a fourth, which is -sometimes used in signing the name Portland. I think there is an attempt at disguise in them all except one, which is the most com- mon ; but a sight of his Grace's hand- writing of the same date compared with the fac-similes in Mr. Woodfall's book will satisfy your Lordship at once, that there is no one reason whatever to doubt, that Junius and the duke of Portland were one and the same person. LETTER XXIX. MY LORD, March 13, 1816. THERE remains but one circumstance which I shall recommend to your Lordship's no- tice at present, feeling persuaded that the mass of evidence which I have given you has pro- duced all the conviction you could desire, though you must have seen that I have hardly brought forward more than half the evidence which I had the power to employ. The volumes of Junius's Letters are replete with the most incon- trovertible proofs of a personal interest per- vading them. There is a personal feeling, a sense of injury and oppression, a wounded but indignant spirit discernible in every Letter, if not in every page. 6 It is impossible for a man that writes one thing not to have that same thing in his mind *.' As Junius has made the duke of Portland's cause his own, by defending it almost personal- ly, so the sentiments it breathes have their echo in every succeeding case which Junius defends politically ; the string which had been first struck never ceases to vibrate, and there is hardly a single Letter in which some portion of that individual feeling is not to be detected, either in substance or by implication, though sometimes it appear but as a solitary gleam, or exist only in a solitary word, a glance at sir James Lowther, lord Bute, the duke of Grafton, or the duke of Portland, a hint of the man, the minister, of forms, property, charters, grants, promises, &c. &c. &c. On referring to the Letters which I have quoted, your Lordship has seen that I have se- lected only the most pointed expressions, and but enough of those to serve my purpose, 1 had I transcribed every passage that could elucidate * Lord.Erskine, ( 192 ) or strengthen my argument, I should have en- cumbered you and exhausted myself with an infinity of correspondence which the circum- stances of the proof have not seemed to require. I have avoided the observations of historians, reviewers and magazine writers on the merits of Junius as an author and as a man, and more particularly of those who have thought proper to abuse him and his works. Whether their at- tacks are generous or just, or both, or neither, it is not my province to decide, and I have not thought them worthy of our notice, since they have been all written in ignorance of the man and of his motives ; but enough of this subject. I shall proceed to the circumstance I mentioned in the beginning of my letter as still to be ex- plained, premising that I state a suppositious case from which no absolute conclusion need be drawn, but as a matter of speculation, a case not unworthy of a few lines. Let us suppose that Junius had not written, that the language of the duke of Portland's case had never transpired, that his Grace and lord Rockingham had not endeavoured to write down the two administrations, or to curb the alarming encroachments of the Crown, that the secret influence of the favourite and the power of the Tories had remained in full force and vigour, what had become of the Forest of ( 193 ) Inglewood, and the castle and soccage of Car- lisle ? Would the duke of Portland have ejected sir James Lowther, or would the Tories have re- newed the leases of the Marylebone estate which devolved to the crown in 1794? If the Trea- sury had seated sir James Lowther in perfect and secure possession of his new grant, what plea could his Gfrace have set up against the resump- tion of the Marylebone estate, in which the Crown had every right ? You, my Lord, who know the value of the Marylebone property, can estimate justly the enormous portion of his re- venue and influence which by such a combina- tion of circumstances the duke of Portland might have lost. The same ministers who had granted away his hereditary property in Cumberland might have sold or granted away even the reversion of this. Let us suppose still another case : Had the author of Junius's Letters been discovered be- fore the year 1794, and had it been proved that he was the duke of Portland ; could the Duke have expected of the Crown the renewal of the Marylebone estate, whether Whigs or Tories were uppermost? and would not the apprehen- sion of such an event have influenced any man breathing to have desisted from writing such Let- ters as Junius wrote, when he had no longer a personal interest to serve? What does Junius in- o ( 194 ) fer by telling sir W. Draper that motives very dif- ferent from any apprehension of Ins resentment make at impossible he should ever know him? Taking for granted that the Duke and Junius were one person, for what a mighty stake did that one person contend ! and how necessary was it to his interest that the Scotch influence and the power of the Tories should be over- thrown ! Surely it is no small palliation, if not an entire excuse, 'for every thing that has or can be urged against him, that he fought pro aris et focis, and not for aggrandizement or avarice, but to defend his inheritance, to keep what he. had got, to preserve all that mankind value and scramble for, the wealth and the power which he already possessed. The security of the Cumberland estate was the first concern -of Junius ; the possibility of losing the other, though at a distance of more than twenty years, must have been contemplated with a perpetual anxiety. Indeed, to this cir- cumstance the politicians of the day attributed his change of party in 1794; and probably an idea originating in this supposition caused the remark of lor^ Lansdown in the House of Lords respecting the renewal of the leases. I have heard or read, that lord Lansdown, but a little time before his death, declared his knowledge of Junius; but I have been informed on excellent ( 195 ) authority, that nothing whatever relative to that writer has been found among his Lordship's pa- pers. So much for the last circumstance which I thought worthy your notice, I have mentioned it as merely being so, without having drawn an inference from it of any nature : indeed, it never occurred to myself till yesterday, and can only be entertained as a piece of speculation except that it admits a most ample apology for any thing and every thing that Junius has written. I shall now take leave of the subject which has so much interested both of us, and in the investigation of which we have not discovered, encountered, nor avoided any one objection whatever. I shall close my correspondence with two passages from our author. " The conclusion to be drawn from these premises is obvious. IT AMOUNTS TO A MORAL CERTAINTY *, AND, TAKING THE WHOLE OF THE EVIDENCE TOGETHER, I AFFIRM THAT IT CON- STITUTES A MASS OF DEMONSTRATION, THAN WHICH NOTHING MORE COMPLETE CAN BE OFFERED TO THE HUMAN MIND t." * Misc. Letter XLV. p. 158, Vol. III. f Junius to lord Mansfield. APPENDIX. THE DUKE OF PORTLAND'S CASE. THE v -' : t CASE , -.>' OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF PORTLAND, RESPECTING TWO LEASES, LATELY GRANTED BY THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY, TO SIR JAMES LOWTHER, BART. WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE MOTION FOR A REMEDIAL BILL, FOR QUIETING THE POSSESSION OF THE SUBJECT; CONSISTING OF AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS. THE ELEVENTH EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. ALMON, OPPOSITE BURLINGTON HOUSE, IN PICCADILLY. 1768. k .; APPENDIX. THE CASE OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF PORTLAND, &c. As I shall have frequent occasion in the course of the following pages to speak of the debates and proceedings in the late parliament, I shall pre- mise, that I consider myself fully at liberty to canvass their conduct, though they were but yes- terday in the plenitude of their power, either to redress grievances, if they had so pleased, or to leave them unredressed, which they thought the preferable parts, as any faithful historian would be, who should have occasion to relate events in the pensionary parliament of Charles the Second, or any other the most obsequious that can be found in our ancient annals, either in the prerogative days of Stuarts and Tudors, or the violent race of Plan- tagenets. I shall use no ambiguous terms of cer- tain noble persons, or a certain august assembly, and all the shifty phrases for conveying hints instead of affirming, I shall relate the conduct of the Board of Treasury, leaving it to the public to judge, whe- ther or no they have been guilty of an unjust and violent attack upon private property, to serve the 6 APPENDIX. purposes of an election, and I shall leave the late parliament itself, to be handed down to posterity, as having refused redress to their constituents of such grievances, and having denied the proffered security for their fellow-subjects, against future at- tacks of the same kind. Let the public judge how fit those men are to be trusted with the administra- tion of government, who think it sport to involve the holders of landed property in law-suits with the powers of the Crown, after an uninterrupted enjoyment without question of their title, for more than threescore years, and this for no pretence of crime, or other visible cause, than that the tenants of the party thus attacked, oppose, in right of their own private property as freeholders, the election of sir James Lowther for the county of Cumber- land. As to the personal conduct of the members of the last parliament, it behoves us likewise to be be fully apprized, not, I fear, that it would have much weight as to the future election of many of them into parliament, should the terrors of govern- ment be held out to such refractory constituents, as refuse to return their dependants and favour- ites. But still it is an advantage always to be ap- prized of the danger, if at any time hereafter so great a calamity should lie in wait for us, so severe a visitation for the too general profligacy and ve- nality of constituents, as to find the liberty and property of themselves and their fellow-subjects, betrayed by their own profligate and venal dele- gates. " A motion was made" on the 1 7th of February, 1768, in parliament, by sir George Savile, and se- conded by sir Anthony Abdy, "for leave to bring in a bill for quieting the possessions of the subject, and for amending and rendering more effectual an APPENDIX. 7 act of 21st of James I. for the general quiet of the subject against all pretences of concealment what- ever." The purport of this act of 21st of James I. is, that a quiet and uninterrupted enjoyment for 6O years before the passing of the act, of any estate originally derived from the Crown, shall bar the Crown from any right of suit to recover such estate, under pretence of any flaw in the grant, or other defect of title. This act, at that time, therefore se- cured the rights of such as could prove their pos- sessions 6O years, but, by its very nature, has been continually diminishing in its effect, and departing from its principle, since it would now become as necessary to prove a possession of 205 years, as it was then to prove 6O. Thus, by a kind of retro- grade inversion of the principle, security wastes and weakens, instead of gaining strength, by time and possession : and he who has longest enjoyed, is the most perplext, and may now be most liable to any vexatious law-suit, that any Board of Treasury, to serve any clandestine purpose, may at any time please to institute. The proposal to amend that bill, and to render it more effectual towards the quiet of the subject, was simply this, That an un- disturbed possession of 6O years ( or any such term as parliament should have thought proper) to be taken backwards from the time being, should be a security from any suit to be commenced by the Crown, or any of its ministers. This motion was introduced upon public grounds, and supported upon those principles only, without any personal attack upon the administration or the members of the Board of Treasury, nay expressly guarded against even the appearance of serving any immediate and personal purpose, or taking in, 8 APPENDIX. any pendent recent case : But as an evil conscience will betray itself, and the galled jade will winch, the mere proposal of securing the future quiet of the subject, was wormwood at that time to those who laboured under the consciousness of their own past and recent conduct. They made a faint at- tempt, worthy indeed of themselves, to oppose the salutary principle of this bill, by ransacking the tombs of tyranny for argument, and holding up the relics of prerogative for adoration ; by daring to contend in the face of their country, that it would shake the fundamentals of the constitution even to limit ministers under the Crown, from ha- rassing the private subject, with antiquated claims, vexatious suits, and threats of confiscation ; and by such other detestable doctrines as made their own servile dependants shudder to hear. Feeling their weakness on this ground, they left the interest of the public in this great question, for the private cause of endeavouring to colour, misrepresent, and ex- plain away (if they could have done it) the iniquity of their own conduct in the particular act of vio- lence towards the duke of Portland's property, for which they felt that every impartial man in the king- dom (though few indeed are uninterested in the consequences of this precedent) must hold them in abhorrence. But even upon the private ground they succeeded no better than on the public, though every circumstance was planned by themselves, cards sent to summon their dependants pro aris etfocis, and all parties to the trial of accuser, criminal, ad- vocate, and judge united in the person of the minis- try. Self-accused even in their own argument, the ministry; criminal, the ministry; advocate, the ministry; judges, the ministiy. Yet I will venture to say that that ministry shall bear in their fore- APPENDIX. head from that day, the mark of reprobation which no future times shall separate from their names and memory. And I will likewise venture to hope and to foretell, that the very next parlia- ment shall, to their eternal disgrace, erect a vic- torious monument cere perennius, of private pro- perty rescued and secured from the violence, breach of faith, injustice, and profligacy of hireling mi- nisters. I have no hesitation or scruple to avow, that the cause which I am going to lay before the public is a private concern, for what cause can be more inte- resting to the public, or more universal, than the defence of private property against oppression and the hand of power. The friends to the future peace and quiet of their country, could not have wished for a more favourable incident. The value of the property put into litigation is not inconsiderable in itself, (about 3O,OOO/.) but it is far from being the most material part of the noble Duke's inheritance against whom this attack is made. It might have fallen upon some other crown-grantee and have been his all. Such a case might have excited more compassion, yet the evil consequences comprehend- ed under the precedent and principle, have no less tendency against the public quiet, though it has happened to a Duke. I will anticipate one circumstance, viz. that the grant of part of the duke of Portland's property was made out by the Treasury to sir James Lowther without consulting the crown lawyers, or hearing the duke of Portland's lawyers, as to the validity of his present title and possession. The only rea- son of this must be, lest the duke of Portland's title should have been so clearly made out, that they could have had no pretence of granting a lease to 7 1O APPENDIX. sir James Lowther to serve the temporary purposes of the next election, but even here they have failed, having so far over-shot the mark in Cumberland, that the laudable spirit of the freeholders has been disgusted and not terrified at such violent proceed- ings. I conclude from all this that we shall freely be acquitted by the public from being actuated by motives of spleen or pique or panic, neither being galled by the appearance of the election, nor yet the duke of Portland under any apprehension of losing the smallest part of his property. As to the expence of the law-suit, there are but few so well able to support it as himself, and none more willing, like Hampden, to go through every form and every court of law, whatever be the vexation or expence, having the fullest hope and confidence, that his case may furnish an opportunity of enacting some salutary law, that shall henceforward protect his fellow-subjects from such vexations ; not that his ability, his readiness or resolution to stand in the gap for the general quiet of private property, does in any sort extenuate the conduct of the Board of Treasury in this act of violence, but is on the con- trary the greatest, reproach and aggravation. As to the proposed bill, the leaders of the late parliament, with all their store of prerogative doc- trines, could not look it in the face, but after hav- ing exposed the blackness of their secret thoughts, even with a venal majority of three to one on any o* ^ +ion, they did not dare to divide upon this, their . s<( te^in plicit dependants at any other time, having refused to fight under the high flying ban- ners of prerogative set up by them. Being de- feated in this attempt, they could only obtain a delay of this bill, after the universal sense of the house (the few ministerial advocates for prerogative APPENDIX. 1 I excepted) was expressed, for taking up the cause in the first session of the next parliament. Even this delay was carried only by a majority of twenty. Many trimmers were so obsequious as to retire, not having the hardiness directly to oppose an imme- diate redress of so flagrant a grievance, as the inva- sion of private property for the purposes of an elec- tion. There was one piece of ministerial and par- liamentary craft, which perhaps every one may not be aware of. When any question is moved and se- conded, if there is a division of the house upon it, that question must appear in the votes. The ma- jority not daring to throw out such a question with the votes to confront them in the face of the public, moved for the orders of the day, which, according to the forms of the house, avoids any public specifi- cation of the motion then in debate. Concealment betrays guilt, and those will ever retire into dark- ness and subterfuges whose deeds are evil. Acclpe nunc Danaum Insidias, et Crimine ab uno Disce omnes. I shall now state the transactions and matters of fact as they stand between sir James Lowther, the Board of Treasury, and the duke of Portland. The materials by which I am enabled to verify the se- veral parts of this narrative, are, Memorials to the Treasury, with their official replies, all public and authentic. Besides these, there are letters which have passed between some of the part : ' : 'ift transaction, they are not by any mea^to^T^called private letters, either from any secrecy implied in the matter of them, or the expression. But for the sake of the most scrupulous punctilio, it is not thought proper to publish them without the consent 12 APPENDIX. of all parties. I can answer for one side, that the duke of Portland neither has, nor can have, any ob- jection, to have every letter, every note, every pri- vate conversation, and every the minutest transac- tion or hint whatsoever, brought out into open day- light. Not that the facts alluded to in any of these personal papers, (for I cannot call them private ones) are in any sort different from those which can be authenticated from the public memorials, but ori- ginals written by the parties themselves, during the very transaction, would hold up life and real ob- jects to the public, of which a narrative can be but the representation. On the 9th of July, 1767, sir James Lowther pre- sented a memorial (No. 1.) to the Treasury, pray- ing a grant of the forest of Inglewood, and soccage of the castle of Carlisle, which the duke of Port- land enjoys under a grant from king William, and which his family have been in quiet possession of, between sixty and seventy years. The memorialist, sir James Lowther, says he is informed, that the possession of the premises has been for many years withheld from the Crown, and that no benefit what- ever arises to the Crown therefrom, therefore prays a lease of his Majesty's interest therein, for three lives, on such terms as to their Lordships shall seem meet. This memorial the Board of Treasury re- ferred to the surveyor-general of crown lands for his opinion thereon. His report in answer to the Board (No. 2), dated the 7th of August, 1767, says, that the forest of Inglewood, and soccage of Carlisle, were not conveyed by king William's grant to the earl of Portland, but were still vest- ed in the Crown, he therefore recommends a lease of the premises to be granted to sir James Low- ther, for three lives on certain reserved rents, APPENDIX. 13 viz. 501. per ann. for the soccage of Carlisle, and 1 3s. 4>d. for the forest, and a third part in both of the rent of such lands, &c. as shall be recovered from the duke of Portland. This report of the Surveyor-General, who is not a lawyer himself, was returned to the Treasury, without having taken the opinion of the Attorney or Solicitor General, though on a point of law, or hearing the duke of Portland's lawyers in de- fence of his title. This officer, called Surveyor- General, is a person not known in the law, nor in any sort connected with it. He is supposed to be conversant in the knowledge of metes and bounds; ascertaining the value of lands and houses; and the setting of fines, in consequence of such knowledge. Such questions as these, and not points of law, are the proper subjects of reference to him ; for he is no more than a keeper of the King's maps, or Land- Surveyor ; and neither by profession, nor office, has the least connection with the law. The pre- sent Surveyor-General is an elderly gentleman, who has lost his sight by age, and is himself inca- pable of business, which therefore devolves, de facto, upon his deputy, Mr. Zachary Chambers. Think then of the duke of Portland's title, which is to be either defeated, or supported, by a long train of precedents, usages, constructions, grants, surveys, perambulations, verdicts, and innumerable acts of ownership, for three hundred years back (from the time of Richard III. when duke of Gloucester), be- ing decided between the 9th of July, and the 7th of August, without any consultation with the crown lawyers, by Mr. Chambers, the Surveyor's deputy. I would have given any man an hundred guesses, to find out the properest person to decide a great mat- ter of right and property. One might have thought J4 APPENDIX. of my Lord High Chancellor, (but perhaps he would not have served their turn) or my Lords the Judges, or his Majesty's Counsel learned in the law. No ! none of these. The standing counsel to the Board of Treasury, whenever the King's in- heritance is called in question, is a Land-surveyor's deputy. I would not aver, indeed, that they have been entirely destitute of all legal help ; for it has been shrewdly suspected, from the utter impossibility of an abstruse question in law being stated by such an officer, that sir James Lowther's lawyers as- sisted to draw up that report, in their client's fa- vour, which was presented to the Board, as from the Surveyor-General. We shall see, by and by, that the Treasury asserts this report to be binding upon their proceedings, and that they have no power to contravene it. Which end will they take it by ? have they, in their capacity as King's mi- nisters, instituted a suit against the lineal possessor of seventy years, upon the advice of a mere Land- surveyor, without consulting the crown lawyers ? or, to mend the matter, did they consider the re- port as drawn up by a lawyer of the party petition- ing for the grant ; and, for that reason, to be com- pulsive upon their determinations. There is a maxim in logic, omne majus continet minus, and I do not see what can be thought impossible for a Board to do, who have granted away the property of a fellow-subject, without hearing him in defence of his title, notwithstanding the most solemn and repeated assurances, that no step should be taken till he had been heard. But, to return to the narrative : This report in favour of sir James Lowther, whether drawn up by his own lawyer, or the deputy-surveyor, was pre- APPENDIX. 15 sented to the Board on the 7th of August, but the Board thought themselves under no obligations to inform the duke of Portland, whose property was so materially attacked, of their proceedings, though his agents attended, day by day, at the Treasury, from the middle of August, to the end of the month, upon a vague report, that something of the kind was in agitation. After many days attendance, a friend of the duke of Portland, whom his agent knew (a member of parliament), came to the Trea- sury upon some other business: through his means, the agent applied to the secretary of the Treasury for information ; who answered, he could give no papers without orders from the Board. Upon this, the duke of Portland's friend applied directly to a Lord of the Treasury, who procured copies of what had passed. I will observe here, that, in common justice, where any one's property is attacked, he ought to have the earliest notice to stand upon his defence. The Board of Treasury might have in- formed the duke of Portland, at any time, between the 7th of August and the end of the month, for his agent attended constantly ; the clerks of the Treasury knew this very well ; but even supposing the Board not to know of the agent's attendance, yet the duke of Portland himself is not so entirely unknown, but that the Secretary of the Treasury might have informed him by letter. On the 2d of September, the duke of Portland received authentic information (notwithstanding all the silence and reserve of office) of sir James Low- tber's memorial, and the Surveyor-General's report, for so it is called. He immediately applied for a suspension of all proceedings in the matter, till he had an opportunity of laying his title before the Board. The Treasury, in the interim, had ad~ p 2 16 APPENDIX. journed till the 9th of October, and, during this vacation, all lawyers at this time of the year being absent from London, the duke of Portland could make but little progress in preparing his title for the Board. In the beginning of October (viz. on the 8th) caveats were entered in the offices of the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, and the Auditor of the land revenue for the county of Cumberland, to pre- vent any lease, or grant, passing to sir James Low- ther by surprise. The proper fees were paid at each office, and the caveats received ; and, for a greater caution, a caveat was entered with the clerk of the patents to the Great Seal. But, in respect of the Board of Treasury, which is not an office of law, the duke of Portland, instead of a caveat, pre- sented a memorial (No. 3), praying to be heard by counsel, in defence of his own title, before the Board proceeded to any act in consequence of sir James Lowther's application. This request from the duke of Portland to be heard in defence of his title, before the Treasury came to any determination against him, produced the following at that time very satisfactory reply, from the Secretary of the Treasury, by order of the Board. (No. 4.) Treasury Chambers, Oct. 1O, 1767. MY LORD, A MEMORIAL of your Grace's to the Board of Treasury, with respect to the forest of Ingle- wood, was delivered to me yesterday, by your Grace's agent. I did not lose a moment in bring- ing it before the Lords, I gave it place of all other papers, and, upon its being read, the duke APPENDIX. 17 of Grafton, and the other Lords, were pleased to di- rect me to acquaint your Grace, that if you would be pleased to lay before them a state of your claim, and title to the forest of Inglewood, they would re- fer it to the Surveyor-General, and send him back also, at the same time, his report upon the memo- rial of sir James Lowther for his farther conside- ration. And I am directed also to assure your Grace, that no step shall be taken towards the decision of the matter in question, till your Grace's title has been sta- ted, referred to, and reported on, by the proper officer, and fully and maturely considered by the Board of Treasury. I have the honour to be, &c. GREY COOPER. I will stop the reader in this place, and recom- mend him to weigh every word of this letter, with the utmost attention and accuracy, and then tell me, whether there can be found any terms in the whole extent of language, more explicit, or more peremptory than these. Is there the least ambi- guity or loop-hole for mental reservation ? Let us attend to the request that called out these assu- rances. The duke of Portland desires to be heard by counsel, in support of his own rights. Can there be devised any proposition in itself more reasonable and just ? The Treasury assure him, that no step shall be taken, till his title had been stated, referred to, and reported on, by the proper officer, and fully and ma- turely considered by the Board. Yet these words were given to the wind. We have heard of ministerial promises broken even to a proverb ; and if the duke of Portland had applied for some favour, or place, or pension, had the promise been conceived 7 IS APPENDIX. in ordinary or indefinite terms, I can conceive, that many precedents might be found for the exercise of this ministerial prerogative. But in a plea of strict justice, no more than that the party attacked should be heard before decision, and in a country where not only strict, but liberal justice, is the in- defeasable inheritance of the meanest subject ; to violate this fundamental law, without remorse, and in contempt of the most solemn engagements that words could express, attested under the hand and seal, and record of office, is a degree of madness', infatuation, and profligacy, beyond example. Some judgment hangs over them ; some fate or fatal in- fluence impels them to their ruin. Quos Dens vult perdere, prius dementat. From this time, the duke of Portland, trusting to the full assurances from the Board, and, therefore, that his labours would not be thrown away, conti- nued to employ his agents in preparing his title. Their time was fully employed in inspecting, and taking copies of a great variety of evidences, in many of the public offices. But, in order to exa- mine whether the facts stated in the Surveyor's report were truly and impartially stated, it was thought desirable to have recourse to his office, to inspect the surveys, court-rolls, and muniments, on which he founded his report. The propriety and justice of this is very apparent ; for what presump- tion can there be, that such a report should be ac- curately stated, if it be supposed to come from the incompetent hand of a deputy land-surveyor ? and if it be the performance of a lawyer of the adverse party, how can it be considered as impartial ? The agents of the duke of Portland, made no doubt of obtaining permission to inspect the Surveyor's of- fice j accordingly, application was made to Mr. APPENDIX. 19 Chambers for that purpose ; which application, however, he refused to comply with. This refusal of Mr. Chambers to produce the vouchers for the contents of his report, did not at all con tribute to lessen the suspicion of the duke of Portland's agents, that the facts, alledged in the Surveyor's re- port, might be partially stated, though the Trea- sury entertained it with such implicit deference. However, upon this disappointment,, the duke of Portland's agents, thinking they could fully em- ploy their time among other offices, till the meet- ing of parliament, when he was expected in town, determined so to do, and to apply to him, when he came, to obtain an inspection into the Surveyor's office. Accordingly, on the 25th of November, the very next day after the meeting of parliament, the duke of Portland met the duke of Grafton at court, and had a conference with him on the sub- ject. In a few days, the duke of Portland presented a Memorial to the Treasury, (No. 5.) dated De- cember the second. The Memorial prays (in regard that all public records ought, and by all courts of judi- cature are directed to be inspected for the benefit of the parties interested} an order from the Treasury for the inspection of such surveys, court-rolls, &c. as re- lated to the matter in question. On the next day, the Secretary of the Treasury informed the duke of Portland's agent, that their Lordships had granted the request, as to the inspection of the Sur- veyor's office, not upon the foundation of right, but as a matter of candour and civility, and that such an orderwould.be drawn up by Mr. Wat- kins, the clerk, in whose department such business was. The agent applied to Mr. Watkins, who put him off till the middle of the next week. The order was 20 APPENDIX. afterwards called for twice; the first time the clerk was not in the way, but the next day appeared, and took his fee for the order, and said, that it had been sent to the Surveyor-General; he was applied to for a copy, but would not give one, alledging, that the order sent to the Surveyor-General was sufficient. Application was then made at the deputy survey- or's, to know if they had received it. They de- nied that any such order had been sent, although they had returned an answer to the Treasury two days before, remonstrating against any order for inspection by those who litigate the rights of the Crown. Then farther application was made at the Treasury, to hunt out this supposed order which Mr. Cooper had told them, the Lords, out of their great candour and civility, had given instructions for ; and in this manner were the agents tossed about, from pillar to post, from the 2d of December till Christmas. I dare say the reader no more suspects what was passing at the Board in this interim, than the agents did. The Board had indeed given the most solemn assurances, thai no step should be taken towards the de- cision of the matter in question, till the duke of Port- land's title had been stated, referred to, and reported on, by the proper officer, and fully and maturely consi- dered by the Board. But notwithstanding this pro- mise, and without the least previous notice, or cita- tion, to the duke of Portland, to lay the particulars of his title before the Board; and while his agents were preparing his title under instructions from the Board, and were amused with the expectation of an order for inspection; the grants were actually exe- cuted (all but the Exchequer seal) before the duke of Portland, or his agents, were even apprised that the inspection of the Surveyor's office was denied. APPENDIX. 21 Having specified in what manner the agents were employed, let us now see what has been passing at the Board. Mr. Bradshaw, in pursuance to their Lordships' commands, on the 12th of December, sent the directions of the Board to the Survey or, *fa>- inghim to permit the inspection of his office ; on the 15th of December, he reports (No. 6.) in answer to Mr. Bradshaw's letter, that the Records in his office are not public, but kept for the King's use only : then he remonstrates against any permission to inspect, by the agents of any persons who avow- edly intend to contest the rights of the Crown. In the conclusion, he recommends the shortest way to try the rights of the Crown, by granting the desired leases to sir James Lowther. I cannot imagine what put it into the Surveyor's head, to subjoin this last injunction to the Treasury, to take the shortest way with the duke of Portland's property. It was quite foreign to the purport of his report, which ought to have been, merely to assign his reasons for not permitting the inspection of the records. In what light can this insertion, so foreign to the purpose of his report, be considered, but as taking the part of an agent for sir James Lowther ? But if the whole Board of Treasury had been sir James Lowther's most officious agents, they could not have followed this injunction more implicitly. The Surveyor- General cannot be sup- posed to have known of the solemn promise, that was subsisting from the Board to the duke of Port- land, not to take any step till his title had been stated, &c. and fully and maturely considered ; but this made no impediment to the Treasury, they took the shortest way indeed, which was to decide, without the plague of hearing the evidence ; and on the 22d of December, Mr. Cooper wrote to the 22 APPENDIX. duke of Portland, (No. 7.) that the Board, upon re ceiving the Surveyor's second Memorial, refusing the inspection of his office to the agents, and recom- mending to the Treasury to proceed the shortest way to work, had given orders for the leases to sir James Lowther, without any more to do : and so, my Lords the Commissioners of the Treasury present their respects to your Grace, and it is all over : which was the truth of the matter ; for the Board adjourned that day for the Christinas holy- days, the leases were signed and sealed, and exe- cuted by the Lords, at their ow?i houses, during the holydays, and delivered to sir James Lowther ten days before the Board was to meet again. As this was the case, they were safe enough from any me- morials or remonstrances against the breach of faith, and injustice of these proceedings, till the grant was too far out of their reach to be recalled, and posted up in hand-bills, to the honour of the King's ministers, at every hedge-alehouse in Cum- berland, with the King's arms affixed. Two parts of a plot may be going on together, but it is not easy to describe them in the same breath. The poor agents are all this time quite in the dark, though continually attending at the Trea- sury. They are rummaging for an order to inspect the Surveyor's office, a week after it was all over. I think those who were in the secret, and knew what was passing itt the Board, must laugh in their sleeve; and to prolong the entertainment a few days, the Secretary of the Treasury wrote, on the 22d of December, to the duke of Portland, who was 15O miles off in the country, that all was over, and the grant ordered to sir James Lowther, instead of having, five days before, when the order to pro- ceed in the leases was signed, informed his agent, APPENDIX. 23 who was in the lobby the very day and hour when that order was made out. A trusty office truly ! where Mr. Watkins, the clerk, is receiving a guinea fee, to examine the Treasury books (viz. on the 17th of December) for the supposed order for inspection, in the same breath that the Board having superseded that order, is proceeding to decision with the utmost dispatch ! Had they stuck to their favourite princi- ple of doing things the shortest way, they might have informed the agent of their proceedings upon the spot ; and at the very time of their determination, instead of concealing them in a clandestine manner, till the last day before the holy days, and then send- ing the information three hundred miles round. There can have been no other intention in all this secrecy, but to avoid any memorial from the duke of Portland's counsel, who are gentlemen of the first eminence in the law, and were then in town ; and the consequence was, that the leases were signed and executed by the Lords of the Treasury, and nothing remained but the Chancellor of the Exchequer's seal to be affixed, before either the duke of Portland's agents, or lawyers, were in the least apprised of the matter. As soon as information arrived from the duke of Portland of these proceedings, his agent waited upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to prevail upon him to withhold the seal, in consequence of the caveat entered at his office. His Lordship said that he was pressed to affix the seal instantaneously, that as Chancellor of Exchequer, he considered himself a ministerial officer, and subject as much to an order from the Board of Treasury as any common clerk, in respect to his seal to grants, and therefore could not withhold it. I will venture to say, this is so far from being the case, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is one of the first APPENDIX. legal officers in the kingdom, and that the very purpose of his being annexed to the Board of Treasury, is, that he may be & judicial controul upon the acts of that Board. At least, so says Maddox, in his history of the Exchequer, page 580 : as to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he seems to have been appointed to be a controul or check upon the Treasurer. The commissioners are supposed to act upon the common principles of justice, they are supposed to take the advice of the crown lawyers, they are supposed to hear the counsel of the parties concerned, or the parties themselves, (and surely not the less so for having given the most solemn assurances) but in case of any notorious dissatis- faction, the parties have a right to enter a caveat before the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to appeal to him as a legal officer of controul, and not as a mere deputy clerk to the Treasury ; and if, upon a legal consideration of the matter, the Chancellor of the Exchequer sees sufficient cause, he may, in right of his office, refuse to affix his seal. But to put this out of the question, I can produce a case in point, which happened when the duke of Newcastle was first Lord of the Treasury, and sir George Lyttleton Chancellor of the Exche- quer. A lease was ordered to be made out by the Board of Treasury in favour of the corpora- tion of Plymouth. The defendant entered a caveat at the seal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer withheld his seal : the defendant was heard by his counsel, and the lease revoked. I quote no obscure case ; the living witnesses to this transaction are, (among others) the duke of Newcastle, lord Lyttleton, lord Mansfield, the earl of Northington, and lord Camden, having all been parties to it. Wise men profit by the experience of others ; I hope the APPENDIX. 25 present Chancellor of the Exchequer will be wiser for his own. It would be absurd to suppose any officer, having the King's seal in his custody, and responsible for the exercise of it, to be subservient, like a mere clerk of the Treasury, besides the very right of his office to receive a caveat, is a proof of his judicial capacity. Who ever heard of a caveat entered at the desk of a common clerk ? I hope this plea of the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, being merely ministerial as to his seal to grants, will not be established into precedent, as the mutual check of offices upon one another is a principal barrier to the property of the subject, and as such, a precedent would defeat the very main security in future times, against the encroachments, injustice, and insolence, of of- fice. How different the fate of this caveat has been, compared with another which has been late- ly entered at the Privy Seal ! the earl of Chat- ham's health not allowing him to attend to bu- siness, the Privy Seal is put into commission for no other purpose, but to hear counsel upon that caveat, notwithstanding the Lord High Chancellor, (whose abilities and integrity to enquire into the subject-matter of that caveat no one can doubt,) remains in order, after the privy seal, to give the defendants a second hearing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, as a legal officer, ranks next to the Lord High Chancellor, and takes precedence of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and both Chief Justices. It is great condescension in him to act the sub- missive part of a mere indented clerk ; but if he had stood up to the dignity of his office, the Board of Treasury could not have avoided hearing coun- sel at law, which might perhaps have defeated their designs, of granting away the duke of 26 APPENDIX. Portland's property to sir James Lowther. No 1 - thing surely can bear so little the appearance of justice, as for a Board, without the least smattering of law among the members, without consulting the crown lawyers in a matter of very abstruse law, who are bound, ex officio, to give their advice ; re- fusing to hear the defendant's counsel ; and during the adjournment of the Board, when no memorial could have access to them, even if the parties attacked had been apprised of their conduct, which was so cautiously kept out of sight. 'I say, under all these circumstances, what motives of ho- nesty, or justice, could impel them to grant away the property of a British subject, by a clandestine, precipitate, and surreptitious act ? If I were to follow the example of the Board of Treasury, I should content myself with stating one side, and end here, without producing to the public their apology for themselves, as set forth in a letter from one of the secretaries (No. 8). It was in answer to the duke of Portland, who had written personally to the principal members of the Treasury, no Board sitting to receive a Me- morial. In it he complained of the injustice and precipitancy of their conduct. He represented that, resting secure in the promise he had received, that no steps should be taken, till his claim had been maturely considered : he was actually collect- ing his title, when by one and the same letter (No. 7.) from the Secretary of the Treasury, he was informed, to his great astonishment, that the Surveyor-General's Office was not to be inspect- ed, and that the grants were ordered to be made out to sir James Lowther. I shall now state the substance of this letter, ( No. 8.) and consider the particulars in order. The letter 6 APPENDIX. 27 says, that the Surveyor-General declares his opinion, that the forest of Inglewood is not in grant, but vested in the Crown, and recommends and advises, that a lease of the said forest may be granted to sir James Lowther, for such term, at such a rent, and on such conditions as are therein mentioned. In ordinary cases, according to the ancient practice and precedents of the Treasury, reports of this nature are immedi- ately approved of upon being read. In this in- stance, the consideration of the report was postponed, with many expressions of personal regard. I have already spoke of the Surveyor's capacity as a lawyer, to give an opinion in a deep point of law, but in this place he is introduced and acknowledged by the Board in a new capacity, viz. that of recom- mending and advising them, who are the proper ob- jects to receive the favours of the Crown. The First Lord of the Treasury is always supposed to be minister, but here we see the whole Board ac- knowledging the deputy, Mr. Chambers, as their privy counsellor and referee for the favours of the Crown. If one transient ray of common justice had shot across the Board, if it had perchance oc- curred, that the duke of Portland, as the lineal and undisturbed possessor for sixty or seventy years, should have had an offer of the lease grant- ed to sir James Lowther, it must of course have been checked by Mr. Chambers' s recommendation of sir James Lowther as the more deserving man. Again as managers of the public revenue, under the Civil List Act, quoted by Mr. Chambers in his report, who sets a low fine, and small reserved rent* in consideration of the trouble and expence to recover the premises ; if upon reference or con- sideration before the Board, the duke of Portland had found his title defective, it would have been 28 APPENDIX. worth his while to have given as much more than sir James Lowther, as the expences of the suit must amount to. But these stewards of the public pre- fer the inestimable friend of Mr. Zachary to any such consideration. What is it but infinite impertinence for a mere office of reference to dictate, in this manner, to the first Board in the kingdom : and if such a re- port is to be approved as soon as read, what security is there against partiality or secret influence, es- pecially in matters of great property. I mean se- curity to the private subject, for the more liable any private office is to corruption, the more readily may it be turned into an engine of tyranny by ministers. Some profligate administration may, in future times, arise, either acting from a general pre- meditated design of spreading destruction through- out this kingdom, or with the special view of ap- plying the terrors of proscription, in the election of members ; preferring the chance, that a parlia- ment, so elected, will be most likely to betray the liberty and property of their constituents, to the hazard of proceeding by open violence. The Sur- veyor-General, as far as relates to his office, must, at all times, be a mere creature of any administra- tion, whenever they shall take any wicked design into their head, being an officer removeable at pleasure. The Treasury may shelter themselves under his sanction, and they may perpetrate the most desperate acts, without exposing themselves, under the guise of a poor, dependent, insignifi- cant, unresponsible object. A secret understand- ing may subsist between the two parties, and it will behove the Surveyor, for his own sake, to be quick of apprehension, and not to report in fa- vour of any obnoxious party, where the ministry APPENDIX. 29 shall aim a confiscation ; until the very sound of Surveyor-General, shall become as odious in the ears of the people, as the names of Empson and Dudley. I think I do not exaggerate when I say, that all these mischiefs tread on the heels of them, who get instructed in the use of such dangerous weapons, especially when faction, resentment, and party rage, quicken the appetite for revenge. However- in the case of the duke of Portland, the Treasury postponed, as they say, the considera- tion of the Surveyor's report, with many expressions of personal regard, fyc. But how was the matter mended by mere postponing ? for they never heard the other side of the question, nor consulted the Attorney-General, nor took any of the steps they had engaged for, to consider the case fully and maturely. This boasted postponing, was, in truth, no more than lying in wait for some opportunity to finish the whole matter, at one sudden stroke, by giving final orders, without any previous notice to the duke of Portland, upon the last Board day before their adjournment for the holydays ; which effectually barred him from claiming the promise of the Board, to be heard in defence of his title, as the whole matter was over long before the Board met again. Now comes the capital stroke in their defence, viz. to assign their reason for the violation of a direct engagement and promise, given to the duke of Portland from the Board on the 10th of October. I will state the words of the promise itself, and the motive assigned by the Board for dispensing with the observance of it, side by side, which will be the fairest way to state it j and if the Treasury hacl Q 30 APPENDIX. followed the same rule, by hearing the duke of Portland's defence of his title, as well as the attack upon it, we had never come to this crimination. Oct. 10, 1767. And I am directed to assure your Grace, that no step shall be taken to- wards the decision of the matter in question, till your Grace's title has been sta- ted, referred to, and re- ported upon, by the proper officer, and fully and ma- turely considered by the Board. Jan. 8, 1768. I laid it (viz. your Me- morial) before the Board without a moment's delay, and in preference to all other papers, and upon my acquainting the Lords that I understood from your Grace's agent, that the state of your Grace's claim and right to the fo- rest, might be drawn up and prepared in a short time (a condition which however he had never acquainted the duke of Portland with before) their Lordships 'were plea- sed to order me, to write to your Grace the letter of the 10th of October. Here is a secret transaction between the Board and the Secretary, that has never appeared yet ; a mental reservation is a stale device ; here is the most solemn and explicit engagement defeated in a whis- per between them. But where is the condition in the promise ? Why was it not specified that the Board would hear no evidence, unless produced by such or APPENDIX. 31 such a day ? Why was not a day fixed by the Board, and connected with this promise ? Why was not this whisper about a short day, conveyed to the duke of Portland, in the course of the negotiations subse- quent to the 10th of October ? Why was he not cited for delay ? On the contrary, the duke of Portland has expressly not been charged with neg- lect or delay, in the answer to his enquiries, whether the Board thought him chargeable in that respect. I go no farther than this, tho', for my own part, I wish some letters that were not official were laid before the public : but I think I have a right to say what is not in them. Take another view of the disposition to justice and equity, in a Board, where the Secretary draws a picture of himself, interceding that the duke of Portland may be heard in defence of his title. I think I could very fairly draw this comment, or translation, out of Mr. Cooper's letter. My Lord, I do assure you, the Board was in a very ill dispo- sition towards you, notwithstanding all their ex- pressions of personal regard. Sir James Lowther, and perhaps somebody else, would havebeenincensed to the highest degree, if they had shewn you any pit- tance of favour.; besides, the elections were so near, and their Lordships' heads were so full of them, that I began to tremble for you. In this deplo- rable prospect for your Grace's affairs, I could not refrain from putting in a word in your favour. Perhaps, said I, his Grace will not be a great while in stating his title, and it would at least have the appearance of justice ; (for you know it would have been their own fault if they had allowed you any more than the appearance.) I was timorous, Q2 32 APPENDIX. and afraid of asking too much ; but what did pos- sess their Lordships, all of a sudden, to give you a promise so explicit, so unbounded, without any reservation, and so consistent with every principle of honour, equity, and justice, is as much beyond my comprehension, as it is beyond my power, ei- ther to deny, or justify the breach of it. The very next paragraph of Mr. Cooper's let- ter represents him, as again under the necessity of interposing his good offices, seeming to foresee, that the duke of Portland could have but little to expect, from any candour in the Board, unassisted by his friendly endeavours. In speaking of the memorial to the Board, desiring the inspection of the Surveyor's office, he adds, / assured your Grace's agent, upon this occasion, that I 'would use my best en- deavours, that this indulgence might be granted to your Grace's request. Yet I will not omit this opportu- nity of doing justice to Mr; Cooper's candid and friendly conduct throughout the course of this transaction. I would make an apology personally to him, if I thought there wanted any, for the liberty that I take in commenting upon his official letters ; but every one will consider, the sophistry, reser- vations, and double dealing, which are unavoidable in so lame a cause, as merely official ,- and I will venture to say, that those who know him best, will least think him capable of personally taking part, in any transaction inconsistent with the punctilios of a man of honour. But to proceed TheSurveyor-General, it is said, gave such reasons for not permitting the inspection of his office, as were satisfactory to the Board. Up- on this head, I do allow, if that office is not public, nor an office of record, the duke of Portland had APPENDIX. 63 not a claim, ex debito juslitice, to the inspection. But the Treasury will not stop here, they contend farther, viz. that the precedent of permitting an ancient crown grantee to defend his title out of those very materials, upon which his grant was originally made, and is now attacked, will be a prejudice to the King's interest on future similar occasions, and create great inconvenience in the future management of the land revenue. That is to say, in plain English : Let any crown grantee have, bonajide, ever so good a title, yet, if, by length of time, or any casualty, he has the misfortune to lose the proof of his title, although there shall be lying in the Surveyor's of- fice sufficient proof of his right, yet the King shall recover such estate, notwithstanding the real right of the possessor, while the Surveyor-General know- ingly suppresses the evidences of the true right. I have heard of seditious libels tending to alie- nate the affections of the subject. In what class then shall this assertion be ranked? That ft is the interest of the Crown to rob the private subject of his just property, because he may have lost his title deeds, the Crown's officer having a power to secrete the proof of his right, let it be ever so clear; and perhaps, that very same officer, having trumped up a false or partial report in favour of some informer, to involve any crown grantee whatsoever, that shall be obnoxious to the administration for the time be- ing, in a law-suit, without producing the vouchers for the proof of his report. But it is going farther off than we need, to consider what future evils may arise out of this detestable principle. Look at the instance before us. The Treasury have instituted a law-suit against the duke of Portland, for an estate in value about 3O,OOOA upon no other sug- 34 APPENDIX. gestion whatsoever, than that Mr. Zachary Cham- bers has reported unfavourably to his title, and has refused to produce the vouchers. Upon the inspection of the Surveyor's office be- ing denied, the apology proceeds to say, that it not appearing to their Lordships, from any thing alledged on the part of your Grace's agents, that the state of your claim to the inheritance of the forest in question (which the Board had, by its former order of the 10th of October, undertaken to refer to the Surveyor- General} could be prepared without such inspection, the Lords ordered the grant to sir James Lowther, &c. The matter conveyed in this part might be cut very short ; it not appearing to their Lordships, from any thing alledged, &c. These words seem intended to convey, that they had, at least, made some enquiry, and that the agent had alledged no- thing, on the duke of Portland's part, to suspend their decision ; but this was so far from being the case, that no such enquiry was made by the Board, either on the day when the leases were ordered to sir James Lowther, or in any part of the transac- tion, directly or indirectly. How then could the Lords of the Treasury think themselves entitled, in point of justice, to such an inference, not hav- ing made any enquiry about the matter? But perhaps it may be thought (for I know such reports have been industriously spread) that the Treasury waited a reasonable time, after the duke of Port- land, or his agents were informed, that they were riot to inspect the Surveyor's office ; and upon no steps being taken by them towards offering their defence, the Treasury concluded, that they had drop- ped their point, and therefore proceeded to order the APPENDIX. 35 grant to sir James Lowther. I must still insist, that the plainest way, without any negative inferences, would have been for the Board to have asked the duke of Portland, whether he had with- drawn his claim to be heard or no, and what I think any Board, meaning to act with honesty and impar- tiality, would have done. However, supposing them to have waited a reasonable time, what \vould any one guess to be a reasonable time, to conclude, be- cause the duke of Portland did not obtrude his title, of his own accord, without any citation or day fixed by the Board, that he had therefore no evi- dence, among his family papers, or the public re- cords relating to crown lands, of weight enough to balance the partial report of an ignorant Land Surveyor. But I will not perplex the reader with a question, where his labour will be so entirely thrown away; for, whatever might have been rea- sonable, they gave the duke of Portland no time, or previous notice, at all. It has been shewn, how studiously the Board avoided to inform him, or his agent, that the in- spection of the Surveyor's office was denied, till they sent him information, by the very same post, that they had decided the grant in favour of sir James Lowther ; and that upon the very last board- day before Christmas. Here I repeat my voucher. Mr. Cooper, in his letter of the 22d of December, says, the duke of Grafton commands me to present his respects to your Grace, and to acquaint you, that upon reading a report of the Surveyor-General, (of which I have the honour to send your Grace a copy,) %c. 8$c. the Lords found themselves oblig- ed, by the course and practice of office, to direct 36 APPENDIX, a grant to be made to sir James Lowther, $c. <$c. By this indubitable testimony from Mr. Cooper, it may be seen, that the information of both these points got to the duke of Portland together, when all was over, and the Board adjourned. But observe how dexterously this thing was con- ducted, to defeat the duke of Portland from laying his title before the Board. The Surveyor's report, denying inspection, was dated the 15th of Decem- ber, and the Board sat a week after that. If the Duke had been immediately informed of it, and that the leases were to be ordered out, there would have been time for him to present a memorial to appoint a day, either before or after the holydays ; which memorial nothing could have stopped, but delaying the information till the last Board before the holydays j by which trick (as has been expressed before) the members of the Board proceeded with- out interruption, during the Christmas, to go through the finishing forms of the grant ; where- as, if the several steps had been taken, out of ho- lyday time, at so many public Boards in the face of day, and with the knowledge of the parties interested (as any honest act might have been) this grant could not have passec^ through the ne- cessary stages, without the defendant laying in his claim, in point of justice, and by promise of having his title fully and maturely considered. By this piece of dexterity to suppress the Sur- veyor's report denying inspection, till the leases were ordered, and out of the reach of any me- morial to stop them, let any impartial man give his judgment what the intentions of the Board were. 7 APPENDIX. 37 Let us descend a little farther into particulars, and take a specimen of most exquisite conduct in carrying a clandestine point. The Board having determined to grant the leases, a warrant was sent on the 17th of December, to the Surveyor-General, to make out the constats ; that is to say, the parti- culars of the lands, &c. descriptively to be inserted into the leases. This was finished by the 21st, as appears by the date of the constats. On the 22(1, the Lords sent a.Jiat; that is, a warrant to the Clerk of the Pipe, to make out the draught of leases according to those constats. All subsequent forms were capable of being executed (as they really were) during the holydays. Mark then how nicely the thing was calculated. The 17th of December was on a Thursday. If the Board had informed the duke of Portland of their proceed- ings by that post, he could have sent notice to his agents by the Monday following at the latest (sooner if by express) and have presented a me- morial on Tuesday the 22d of December, the last board day before the holydays. Had their Lordships wrote on the 18th, a memorial might still have been ready by the 22d. Nay, they would not even trust the 19th, which left but three days for a memorial to be drawn up, after a jour- ney of three hundred miles round ; but on the 22d, the day of adjournment, when the deed was done, and the perpetrators thought themselves out of reach, they informed him, with every pos- sible mark of attention and respect, of their mis- chievous intentions, that they had cut a great gash in his rent-roll, but (unfortunately) their deci- sions were not final in law. In all this, there is such manifest study to lie concealed, and to 38 APPENDIX. avoid detection, that I will call it an overt-act of concealment. We are almost got to the end of this ministe- rial apology, which, I am sure, the reader will be as glad of as myself, for poking into the dark and vicious recesses of concealment, equivocation and treachery, is nauseous to the moral sense, and an office no more to be coveted, than the clerk of the arraigns to the Old Bailey. Mr. Cooper concludes by saying, that the duke of Grafton signed the order with the greatest re- luctance. Then, in God's name, why did he sign it at all, without advising with the crown lawyers, hearing the duke of Portland's defence, or even informing him ? The demur of any other Lord might not have stopped the proceedings of the Board, but, without question, if the First Lord of the Treasury had declared his reluctance till the promise to the duke of Portland, of maturely con- sidering his title had been fulfilled, his single sus- pense might have prevented all that is now com- plained of. Talibus insidiis, perjurique arte Sinonis, Perdita res We are at last got to the end of this ministerial apology, which finishes the narrative of facts. I need say nothing to assure the public that I have stated them truly, because any one may see the original vouchers at length in the Appendix. As to facts of less note, viz. such as passed between the clerks of the Treasury, and the duke of Port- land's agents, the main points of the question do not turn upon them. But suppose such a point as this should be called in question j whether the APPENDIX. 39 agent paid a fee at the Treasury for a supposed or- der to inspect the Surveyor's office on the 17th of December, which was two days after the report from the Surveyor to the Board, finally denying the inspection ; the evidence to prove this is from the attorney's books, who paid the guinea upon that day. Or suppose they should equivocate about signing the leases at their private houses To be sure they might be signed at a tavern, or at sir James Lowther's, or any where else, but it \vas private, and not at a Board, for the letters patent were dated the 28th of December, 1767, according to sir James Lowther's own advertise- ment, and the last Board was on the 22d. I bar all these petty-fogging tricks, because I know the runners of administration have been, and will be, very assiduous, to propagate any falsehood just for the day. We had a story, not long ago, most confidently asserted, to palliate the conduct of the Treasury. It was said, that the whole grant to sir James Lowther was but a trifling estate of se- venty pounds a-year. Let every one consider whether sir James Lowther would think it worth his while, to take an estate of seventy pounds a-year, paying fifty pounds reserved rent to the Crown, and a third part of the yearly rent, over and above that fifty pounds per annum, of what he shall recover after a law-suit with the duke of Portland. Sic de similibus. But the public will require an account at their hands, of the notorious features in this transaction. There is an instinc- tive judgment in the impartial public, which no minister can equivocate them out of, a sort of na- tional jury, whose verdict Guilty is a formidable sentence. Methinks I hear a plain, blunt man, who fears it may be his turn next, say, Did not 8 40 APPENDIX. they grant away the duke of Portland's estate without hearing him ? Answer me that. Did not they promise to hear him, and did not they break their promise ? Answer me that. Did they consult the Attorney-General, or any of the Crown lawyers ? Answer me that. What ho- nest motive could they have to grant away any man's estate without hearing evidence or law ? I should be glad to know that. Was it not done at the eve of an election, while a contest for Cumberland was depending, and given to sir James Lowther, one of the candidates? What could that be for but to intimidate the free- holders? for if the estate was the King's, what right had sir James Lowther to it more than any other man? Did not they lay their heads together with a man called the Surveyor-General ? and upon his report alone, grant away the duke of Portland's property without examining the Surveyor's vouchers by the King's counsel, or letting any body else see them ? O ! but they say that is legal, because his office is not public, but a private one. So much the worse ; that a man's estate should be granted away upon the secret suggestion (without proof) of*" a private inquisitorial office ; and to mend the matter, the Treasury think it legal too, to decide without hearing evidence or law. At this rate, any man's estate. that votes against ministry may be granted away to some minister's favourite, or some favourite's favourite, for the reward of voting with them. These evils, if they are legal, require a speedy remedy before they spread. When any question is debated, touching public grievances, or any remedy is proposed to prevent such for the future, the administration are instantly in arms, and range themselves, as it were by in- APPENDIX. 41 stinct, in battalion, to repel what they consider as their enemy, let it be ever so friendly to the pub- lic ; as if the general good of the community, and the particular objects of administration, were in their own natures, inconsistent and incompatible. Is it then confessed, that the vexation and disquiet of the subject is their view? Why else should they be so strenuous to stifle a law, in the very first step, for quieting the possessions of the subject? But perhaps they had not consulted some superior oracle, who controls, not only their actions, but even their words and thoughts. 1 cannot feel re- spect enough for these pageants that are put into the place of ministers, to be angry with them; God help them ! they scarcely know who it is that con- trols them, much less to what ends they are con- ducted. What are they but babies learning to lisp prerogative and nullum tempus? But mark, by their babbling, what lessons they have been taught in their nursery. There shall be no quiet for the sub- ject. We will hear of no such law. Prerogative is a precious jewel of the Crown. The subject shall have no place of security to lay his head, or where- on to rest the sole of his foot. Terror, search, vexation, persecution are the precious jewels of the Crown. Thanks to them for giving us this warning ; but if their preceptor should chastise them for their tell-tale folly, I cannot pity them. I do not ask where their instructor lives who teaches these maxims, or who he is, for I shall not put myself under his tuition ; but I will tell these boys where they did not learn them. They did not receive them from one, whose glory is that he was born a Briton. Shall, then, the ministers of a prince, who esteems the liberty of the subject, and the security of their 42 APPENDIX. property, the only jewels of his Crown, shall they stand between, and deprive us of that peace and quiet, which was not denied to the subject, in the most vexatious times of prerogative, by the founder of the Stuart line ? Hear them again. Nullum tempus occurrit regi. By this law, which shall be maintained in its utmost severity, we will provide an ample and never-failing revenue for the Crown, by proscrip- tions, confiscations, and the whole train of legal rapine. What ! are we but in the beginning of things ? Is that violent act, which we thought to proceed merely from an impotent rage at an elec- tion ; is it, I say, but the flash of the priming ? Is it but the first act of a pestilent system, that is al- ready planned with endless malice afore-thought ? The private English subject, who has so lately con- tributed millions upon millions, without repining, to purchase national honour and security honour abroad, and peace at home to him do you offer this consolation ; that giving and granting is over for ever, but vengeance and plunder are substituted in their place ? The soldier who returns to his native home, loaded with his country's honour, flattering himself to enjoy some rest from the toils of war in his paternal retreat ; thinking to beat his spear into a plow-share, and his sword into a reaping-hook will it staunch his wounds, will it administer comfort to the achings of his heart, to greet him with the newsj that all which he can now call his own, his house, gardens, parks, meadows, woods, patrimony, mansion, with every thing so situate, lying, being and thereunto be- longing, is marked for confiscation ; that he may repose his head upon his laurels, but that his APPENDIX. 43 lot, and the reward of his labours, is to be poverty and exile ? Tune miles tremulus posiid tulit arma tiara, Et ruit ante aram summi Jovis, ut vetulus bos, Qui domini cultris tenue et miserabile collum Prtebet, ab ingratojamjastiditus aratro. One should hardly have conceived in whose heart or head such horrid plans of tyranny and vexation could be devised, if the untutored folly of these mock ministers had not blurted it out, but we are told that this of confiscations is but part of a magnificent plan for resuming forest claims, and reviving the forest laws. Perambulate, level en- croachments, trample down the vineyard and the waving corn, expel the cottager, who, with two hundred years' mistaken labour, has made the forest bring forth food for the use of man. Spare not his little ewe lamb, for that too has grazed feloniously on the royal demesnes. Search, validate .the dor- mant claims of the Crown ; the resources must be made good, they must be restored by such windfalls as it shall please God to send, in the lapse of time, and by the destruction of family writings. We have two hundred and five years to range in, the civil wars have intervened ; fire, deaths, attorneys, executors, and their executors, may have destroyed or mislaid the parchment : here is rich plunder for the public j fall on, spare not, no not one; royalists, Hampdens, sons of the revolution nullo discrimine. Of all the wonders that I ever yet have met with, it is the most astonishing, to have heard, in open parliament, a deliberate proposal, in cold blood, of raising a revenue from a concerted system of 44- APPENDIX. search for confiscations ; not for any crimes com- mitted, or any in contemplation ; but as the un- gracious recompence for all the glorious and im- mortal virtues of those men, who have heretofore rescued this kingdom from oppression. Plunder the posterity of those heroes, on whom was here- tofore bestowed the reward of their valour and virtues with unregretted munificence. We have been too liberal. We have rewarded the support- ers of liberty, and of the Protestant cause, with too prodigal a hand ; we have purchased these baubles at too dear a price. Resume, confiscate, replenish the public coffers with the spoils of pa- triotism. Si cerariwn ambitione exhauserimus, per scekra replendum erit. APPENDIX TO A CELEBRATED CASE. NUMBER I. July 9, 1767. To the Right Hon. the LORDS COMMISSIONERS of his MAJESTY'S TREASURY. The MEMORIAL of Sir JAS. LOWTHER, Bart. SHEWETH, THAT his Majesty, in right of his crown, is seised of the forest of Inglewood, in the county of Cumberland, and of the manor of the soccage of the castle of Carlisle, with the appurtenants belonging to the said forest and manor. That the memorialist is informed that the possession of the above premises has been for many years with- held from the Crown, and that no benefit arises to the Crown therefrom. Therefore prays a lease of his Majesty's interest therein to himself, his heirs, and assigns for three lives, on such terms as to their lordships should seem meet. NUMBER II. August 7, 1767. THE Surveyor-general reports, in answer to the foregoing memorial, his opinion as to the title of the lands in question. The former part is merely a re- cital of technical terms in law, relating to the duke of Portland's private property, and belongs only to a court of law. It concludes in these words: That, with regard to the memorialist's request of a lease of the premises remaining in the Crown, he was of opinion, a lease of his Majesty's interest in the forest of Inglewood, and of the rents, royalties, and services might be granted to him for 99 years, determinable on three such lives as he should nominate, reserving to his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, the yearly rent of 13s. 4d. and one third of the yearly profits of what should be recovered, and to pass with fine in regard to the trouble and expenses he might be put to in reco- R 46 APPENDIX TO vering the premises, and bringing them in charge for the benefit of the Crown after so long an intrusion. And that the lease of the manor of the soccage of Carlisle, with the courts, royalties, and lands, might be granted to him for a like term, reserving the ancient rent of 501. per annum, and one third of the yearly rent of what shall be recovered above the rent of 50l- per annum, which would be agreeable to the Civil List Act. NUMBER III. October 9, 1767. To the Right Hon. the Lords Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury. The MEMORIAL of the Most Noble WILLIAM HENRY CAVENDISH, duke of Portland. SHEWETH, THAT your memorialist has been informed, that sir James Lowther, bart. lately presented a memo- rial to your lordships, praying a grant of a lease of the forest of Inglewood, in the county of Cumberland, and several other premises in the same county for three lives, on such terms as to your lordships shall seem meet. That the said forest and premises were upwards of 70 years ago granted from the Crown to one of your memorialist's ancestors in fee, who, with your memo- rialist, have ever since been in the actual possession thereof. Your memorialist therefore hopes your lordships will be pleased at present to postpone the con- sideration of the said memorial, and grant him leave to be heard by himself or counsel against the prayer thereof, that he may manifest his right and interest in the aforesaid premises. NUMBER IV. Treasury Chambers, Oct. 10, 1767. MY LORD, A MEMORIAL of your Grace to the Board of Trea- sury, with respect to the forest of Inglewood, was de- livered to me yesterday by your Grace's agent; I did not A CELEBRATED CASE. 47 lose a moment in bringing it before the lords; I gave it place of all other papers; and upon its being read, the duke of Grafton, and the other lords, were pleased to direct me to acquaint your Grace, that if you would be pleased to lay before them a state of your claim and title to the forest of Inglewood, they would refer it to the Surveyor-general, and send him back also at the same time his report upon the memorial of sir James Lowther for his further consideration; and I am directed also to assure your Grace, that no step shall be taken towards the decision of the matter in question till your Grace's title has been stated) referred to, and reported on by the proper officer, and fully and maturely considered by the Board of Treasury. I have the honour to be, &c. GREY COOPER. NUMBER V. December , 176?. To the Right Hon. the Lords Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury. The MEMORIAL of the Most Noble WILLIAM HENRY, Duke of Portland, SHEWETH, THAT your memorialist, and those under whom he claims, have been seventy years and upwards in the quiet and uninterrupted possession of the forest of Inglewood, and the manor of the soccage of the castle of Carlisle, in the county of Cumberland, and of divers lands, tenements, and hereditaments within the said forest and county under a grant from the Crown. That sir James Lowther, bart. in June last, in a se- cret underhand manner, without the least notice or intimation given to your memorialist, applied to your lordships by memorial, praying a lease of the said fo- rest, manor and premises; and, upon the 9th day of July last, your lordships were pleased to make an order, referring it to the Surveyor-general to examine and report his opinion thereon. That the Surveyor-general, without calling on your memorialist to support his title, or giving your memo- rialist the least notice or opportunity of being heard, R 2 48 APPENDIX TO made his report upon 7th August last, (in less than a month after the order of reference) advising your lord- ships to grant the lease desired on the terms therein mentioned, and thereby refers to divers ancient surveys, court-rolls, and other instruments. That your lordships having adjourned soon after making the said order of reference, and your memorial- ist's counsel and agents, during the recess of business, being retired into the country, your memorialist pre- sented a memorial to your lordships, desiring your lordships would be pleased to postpone the consider- ation of the said memorial, and give him leave to be heard by himself or counsel against the prayer thereof, that he might manifest his title and interest in the afore- said premises, which your lordships were pleased to grant. That your memorialist's agent, upon the 20th Octo- ber last, applied to the Surveyor-general for leave to in- spect the surveys, court-rolls, and other instruments re- ferred to by his said report, or at least such of them as were in his possession, when Zachary Chambers, esq. the Surveyor's deputy, took time to consider of such re- quest, and directed your memorialist's agent to attend him again on the 22d October, when he declared the Surveyor-general had given him directions not to pro- duce any papers. That the Surveyor-general's office was not a public office, and therefore not obliged to produce records for inspection, and that he could not suffer any to be inspected without a superior order. Therefore, and in regard all public records ought, and by all Courts of Judicature are, directed to be inspected for the benefitof the parties interest- ed, your memorialist prays your lordships' di- rections to the Surveyor-general, to permit your memorialist's agents to inspect all the surveys, court-rolls, and other muniments and writings in his custody relating to the matters in question, and that your memorialist may be at liberty to take copies thereof, or of such parts thereof as he shall be advised, that your memorialist may be enabled to lay the merits of his case before his counsel, and manifest his title to your lord- A CELEBRATED CASE. 49 NUMBER VI. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIPS, I HAVE received your lordships' directions by letter from Mr. Bradshaw, dated the 12th instant, desiring me to suffer the agents of his Grace the duke of Portland to inspect the court-rolls and other muni- ments and writings relating to the forest of Inglewood, and the manor of the soccage of the castle of Carlisle, in the county of Cumberland, in my custody, it having been suggested to your lordships that I had an objec- tion to his Grace's request. I beg leave to inform your lordships, that, about three weeks ago, an agent of the duke of Portland ap- plied to me to inspect the surveys, and other evidences in my office, which are mentioned, or referred to in my report to your lordships on the memorial of sir James Lowther, bearing date the 7th day of August last (of which they had obtained a copy) ; and on my enquiring to what use or purposes he wanted them, he said, that be apprehended he was entitled to the inheritance of the forest aforementioned, and should dispute the right of the Crown thereto, on which he was acquainted, by my direction, that I should not suffer them to be in- spected, as the surveys and evidences in my custody were not public records, but kept there for the King's use only; and 1 have heard nothing since relating to that matter till yesterday, when I received the letter above-mentioned. As to the propriety of the Duke's request, I humbly apprehend, that the permitting the King's deeds and evidences to be inspected by the agents of any persons who avowedly intend to contest the rights of the Crown, would b6 a bad precedent, and may be detrimental to his Majesty's interest on future occasions; and i think the shortest way will be to try the right of the Crown, which sir James Lowther is ready to do at his own ex- pense, if your lordships shall think fit to grant him the desired lease. All which is humbly submitted to your lordships' wisdom. I .io. ROBERT HERBERT, Surveyor-general. December 15, 1?67. 50 APPENDIX TO NUMBER VII. MY LORD, Treasury Chambers, Dec. '22, 1767. THE duke of Grafton commands me to pre- sent his respects to your Grace, and to acquaint you, that, upon reading a report of the Surveyor-general (of which I have the honour to send your Grace a copy) and upon taking into consideration a former report of the same officer, dated in the month of August last, relating to the forest of Inglewood; in which he is clearly of opinion, that the lands in question are not included in the grants made to the earl of Portland by king William, and that they are now vested in the Crown; the lords found themselves obliged, by the course and practice of office, to direct a grant to be made to sir James Lowther (pursuant to the recom- mendation of two successive reports of the Surveyor- general) upon his undertaking to try the right of the Crown at his own expense, and upon his conforming to the other conditions mentioned in the said report; I am directed to assure your Grace, that the lords re- ceived and entertained your Grace's memorials relative to this matter, with every possible mark of attention and respect, but that in all cases where it appears that the title to the inheritance of the King's estate is con- tested, the Board is guided by the opinion of the Sur- veyor-general, in whose custody all the evidences, and records relating to the crown lands are deposited, and to whom all matters and questions of this nature are referred. My lords have at the same time the satis- faction to know, that no act of their Board, done in necessary compliance will) the rules and duties of their office, can decide any legal right, or affect any claim which your Grace may have to the inheritance of the lands or forest in question. I have the honour to be, &c. GREY COOPER. NUMBER VIII. Copy of Mr. Cooper's Letter to the Duke of Portland. MY LORD, Januarys, 1768. As I have but too much reason to apprehend that your Grace's last letter to the duke of Grafton, re- Jative to the forest of Inglewood, which has given him A CELEBRATED CASE. 51 much real concern, was, in a great measure, occasioned by my not having explained to your Grace so fully as I ought, the grounds and motives on which the Board appeared to me to have proceeded during the course of this whole transaction ; 1 most humbly beg your Grace's permission to lay before you, more at large than 1 did in the last letter which I had the honour of writing to you, what I conceive to be the real state of the circumstances of the case. The Surveyor-general, in his first report, dated in August last, declares his opinion, that the fo- rest of Inglewood is not in grant, but actually vested in the crown, and recommends and advises that a lease of the said forest may be granted to sir James Lowther, for such a term, at such a rent, and on such conditions as are therein mentioned. In ordinary cases, according to the ancient practice and precedents of the Treasury, reports of this nature are immediately approved of upon being read, and leases are ordered in conformity to such opinions. In this instance, the consideration of the re- port was postponed, with many expressions and marks on the part of the Duke, and the whole Board, of the greatest personal regard for your Grace. On the 9th of October last, being the day on which the lords met after the adjournment, your Grace's first memorial was delivered to me : I laid it before the Board without a moment's delay, and in preference to all other papers , and upon my acquainting the lords, that I understood, from my conversation with your Grace's agent, that a state of your Grace's claim and right to the forest might be drawn up and prepared in a short time ; their lordships commanded me to write to your Grace the letter dated the 10th of October, a copy of which you was pleased to send inclosed to the duke of Grafton. From the time of this order all proceedings of the Board were suspended, and the whole matter slept till it revived by your Grace's memorial ; in which you pray my lords' directions to the Surveyor-general to permit your agents to inspect the surveys and records in his of- fice, and to take copies thereof, or such parts thereof as you should be advised. I assured your Grace's agent, upon this occasion, that I would use my best endeavours that this indulgence might be granted to your Grace's request. Upon read- ing this memorial, the Board were of opinion, that the 52 APPENDIX TO records and papers in the custody of the Surveyor-gene- ral were not public records, but merely the evidences and the deeds of the estates of the Crown, and that no person had a right ex debito justifies to inspect or take co- pies of such records, without a special case made for that purpose: but it being suggested that the Surveyor-ge- neral had no objection to the inspection desired by your Grace, the Board ordered that your Grace's agents might be permitted to make such inspection, and to take copies of papers and records, in case the Surveyor-general had no objection thereto. Upon this order the Surveyor made his second report, a copy of which accompanied the last letter which I had the honour of writing to your Grace on this subject : His objections to the inspection were so strongly marked and expressed, that the lords were of opinion that they could not direct it to be al- lowed, without the hazard of great inconvenience and' prejudice to his Majesty's intereston future similar oc- casions and applications ; and it not appearing to them, from any thing alledged on the part of your Grace's agent, that the state of your claim to the inheritance of the forest in question, (which the Board had by its for- mer order of the 9th of October undertaken to refer to the Surveyor-general) could be prepared without such inspection, the lords found themselves under the ne- cessity of yielding to the usage of precedents of office, in ordering a grant to be made to sir James Lowther, in pursuance of the clear opinion and repeated recom- mendations of the Surveyor-general. Upon the whole matter, 1 think it a debt due to truth and justice to as- sure your Grace, that the duke of Grafion shewed the greatest reluctance and unwillingness to make any or- der which might carry even the appearance of affecting your Grace's claim to the lands in question, and that he withheld his assent so long as he thought he could do it, without establishing a precedent which might cre- ate great inconvenience in the future management of the land revenue, and prejudice the interests of the Crown committed to his care. I have the honour to be, &c. GREY COOPER. NUMBER A CELEBRATED CASE. 53 NUMBER IX. EXTRACTS FROM THE CONSTATS. County of Cumberland. All that forest, called the forest of Inglewood, with the rights, members, and appurtenances, &c. &c. &c. In like manner, All that the manor of the soccage of the castle of Carlisle, with all and singular the rights, members, &c. &c. &c. Then follows to each, This constat is made forth and rated by virtue of a warrant from the Right Hon. the Lords Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury, bearing date the 17 th day of this instant December, in order to a lease of the premises, with their appurtenances, to be passed under the Ex- chequer seal to sir James Lowther, &c. &c. &c. Examined by me, ROBERT HERBERT, Surveyor-General, Dec. 21, 1767. This voucher is inserted to prove, that the definitive order of the Board to proceed in the leases was signed on the 17th of December, according to the reference in the Surveyor's report, annexed to each constat, al- though the Board suppressed this order from the duke of Portland's knowledge, till after they had adjourned for the holidays. FINIS. KEPRINTED BY G, WOODFALL, ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET, LONDON. .. . ERRATA. Page 177, line 14,/or "lord Rochfort," read " lord Roch ford." 183, 17, " a new tragedy, called the Fall of Mor- timer," read " a new edition of the tragedy called the Fall of Morti- mer/' 188, 13, . " paquet," read " pacquet." ' 18, idem. 189, 5, idem, 192, 17, " supposition/' read " supposititious." UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below Form L-9 aom-1, '41(1122) Of* DA 508 [Johnston] - P8J6 Lfltf.fl-pfl to a. nobleman. DEMCO M4N { ARCHTT1 A /"\ /N "" '*'" 'I'll III || DA 508 P8J6