* be a crime to support the supremacy of the British legislature, the Sovereign, the Lords and the Commons are as guilty as he is. ******* If the pretensions of the colonies had not been abetted by something worse than a faction here the stamp act would have executed itself. Every clause of it was so full and explicit that it wanted no further instruction; nor was it of that nature that required a military hand to carry it into execution. For the truth of this I am ready to appeal even to the colonies themselves. * * * *** Your correspondent [who had answered Miscell. Lett. XXIX.] confesses that Mr. Grenville is still respectable; yet he warns the friends of that gentleman not to provoke him, lest he should tell them what they may not like to hear. These are but words. He means as little when he threatens as when he condescends to applaud. Let us meet upon the fair ground of truth, and if he finds one vulnerable part in Mr. Grenville's character, let him fix his poisoned arrow there1." " If there be any thing improper in this address, [a letter addressed to G. Grenville] the singularity of your present situation will, I hope, excuse it. Your conduct attracts the attention, because it is highly interesting to the welfare of the public, and a private man who only expresses what thousands think, cannot well be accused of flattery or detraction. *** **** This letter, I doubt not, will be attributed to some party friend, by men who expect no applause but from their dependents. But you, Sir, have the testimony of your enemies in your favour. After years of opposition, we see them revert to those very measures with violence, with hazard and disgrace, which in the first instance might have been conducted with ease, with dignity and moderation. " While parliament preserves its constitutional authority, you will preserve yours. As long as there is a real representation of the people, you will be heard in that great assembly with attention, deference and respect; and if fatally for England the designs of the present ministry should at last succeed, you will have the consolation to reflect that your voice was heard, until the voice of truth and reason was drowned in the din of arms; and that your influence in parliament was irresistible, until every question was decided by the sword1." 1 Miscellaneous Letters, No. XXXI. Vol. II. p. 245. How far the same principles were supported by the same writer under the signature of JUNIUS, the reader will find in Vol. I. p. 35. and Vol. II. p. 90. and it is not necessary to copy farther. Mr. Malone, in his preface to a well-known work of Mr. Hamilton, entitled Parliamentary Logic2, offers a variety of remarks in disproof that this gentleman was the writer of the letters, several of which are possessed of sufficient force, though few persons will perhaps agree with him in believing that if Hamilton had written them, he would have written them better. The following are his chief arguments: "Now (not to insist on his own solemn asseveration near the time of his death, that he was not the author of JUNIUS3) Mr. Hamilton was so far from being an ardent party man, that during the long period above mentioned [from Jan. 1769 to Jan. 1772] he never closely connected himself with any party. * * * * Notwithstanding his extreme love of political discussion, he never, it is believed, was heard to speak of any administration or any opposition with vehemence either of censure or of praise; a character so opposite to the fervent and sometimes coarse acrimony of JUNIUS, that this consideration alone is sufficient to settle the point, as far as relates to our author, for ever. * * * * On the question-who was the author?-he was as free to talk as any other person, and often did express his opinion concerning it to the writer of this short memoir; an opinion nearly coinciding with that of those persons who appear to have had the best means of information on the subject. In a conversation on this much agitated point, he once said to an intimate friend, in a tone between seriousness and pleasantry, -You know, H * ***n, I could have written better papers than those of JUNIUS;' and so the gentleman whom he addressed, who was himself distinguished for his rhetorical powers, and a very competent judge, as well as many other persons, thought. 1 Miscellaneous Letters, NO. L111. Vol. II. p. 311. 2 Page xxix. et seq. 3 "It has been said that he at the same time declared that he knew who was the author; but unquestionably he never made any such declaration." MALONE. "It may be added, that his style of composition was entirely different from that of this writer. **** That he had none of that minute commissarial knowledge of petty military matters, which is displayed in some of the earlier papers of JUNIUS. "And finally it may be observed, that the figures and allusions of JUNIUS are often of so different a race from those which our author [Hamilton] would have used, that he never spoke of some of them without the strongest disapprobation; and particularly when a friend, for the purpose of drawing him out, affected to think him the writer of these papers; and bantering him on the subject, taxed him with that passage in which a nobleman, then in a high office, is said to have 'travelled through every sign in the political zodiac, from the SCORPION, in which he stung Lord Chatham, to the hopes of a VIRGIN,' &c. as if this imagery were much in his style,-Mr. Hamilton with great vehemence exclaimed, had I written such a sentence as that, I should have thought I had forfeited all pretensions to good taste in composition for ever!" " Mr. Malone further observes, that Hamilton filled the office of chancellor of the exchequer in Ireland, from September 1763 to April 1784, during the very period in which all the letters of JUNIUS appeared before the public; and it will not very readily be credited by any one that this is likely to have been the exact quarter from which the writer of the letters in question fulminated his severe criminations against government. The subject moreover of parliamentary reform, for which JUNIUS was so zealous an advocate, Mr. Malone expressly tells us was considered by Hamilton to be " of so dangerous a tendency, that he once VOL. I. *K said to a friend now living, that he would sooner suffer his right hand to be cut off, than vote for it." The only reason indeed that appears for these letters having ever been attributed to Hamilton is, that on a certain morning he told the Duke of Richmond, as has been already hinted at1, the substance of a letter of JUNIUS which he pretended to have just read in the Public Advertiser; but which, on consulting the Public Advertiser, was found not to appear there, an apology instead of it being offered for its postponement till the next day, when the letter thus previously adverted to by Hamilton did actually make its appearance. That Hamilton, therefore, had a knowledge of the existence and purport of this letter is unquestionable; but without conceiving him the author of it, it is easy to account for the fact, by supposing him (as we have supposed already) to have had it read to him by his friend Woodfall, antecedently to its being printed. Another character that has been started as a claimant to the Letters of JUNIUS, is the late Dr. Butler, bishop of Hereford, formerly secretary to the Right Hon. Bilson Legge, chancellor of the exchequer, and afterwards Lord Stawell. Dr. Butler was a man of some talents, and was occasionally a political writer, and felt no small disgust and mortification upon his patron's dismissal from office. But he never discovered those talents that could in any respect put him upon an equality with JUNIUS. He was moreover a man of mild disposition, and in no respect celebrated for political courage. To which general remarks, in contravention of this gentleman's claim, the editor begs leave to subjoin the following extract of a letter upon the subject, addressed by a friend of Dr. Butler's, and who himself' took an active part in the politics of the times, to a high official character of the present day, and which he has been allowed the liberty of copying: " Mr. Wilkes shewed me the letters he received privately from JUNIUS: parts of one of these were printed in the public 1 See Preliminary Essay, p. "6. papers at the request of the Bill of Rights. The autograph was remarkable-it was firm and precise, and did not appear to me at all disguised. Mr. Wilkes had been intimate with Bishop Butler when quartered as colonel of the militia at Winchester; and from some very curious concurrent circumstances, he had strong reasons for considering that the Bishop was the author, and I had some reasons for conjecturing the same. Yet I must confess, that if these suspicions were stronger and more confirmed, yet I think I should require more substantial proofs; and my reasons are, that from all I was ever able to learn of the Bishop's personal character, he was incapable of discovering, or feeling those rancorous sentiments, so unbecoming his character as a christian, and his station as a prelate, expressed towards the Duke of Grafton, Lord North, Sir William Draper, and others-more especially the King. Nor do I think that his being the sole depository of his own secret, which, as JUNIUS says, would be, and I fancy was, buried in everlasting oblivion, when he was entombed; would have encouraged him to have used such opprobrious language." The pretensions of the Rev. Philip Rosenhagen, though adverted to in a preceding edition of these letters, are hardly worth noticing. He was at one time chaplain to the 8th regiment of foot; and is said to have endeavoured to impose upon Lord North with a story of his having been the author of the letters in order to induce his Lordship to settle a pension upon him. It is sufficient to observe, that Mr. Rosenhagen, who was a school-fellow of Mr. H. S. Woodfall, continued on terms of acquaintance with him in subsequent life; and occasionally wrote for the Public Advertiser: but was repeatedly declared by Mr. Woodfall, who must have been a competent evidence as to the fact, not to be the author of JUNIUS's letters. A private letter of Rosenhagen's to Mr. Woodfall is still in the possession of his son, and nothing can be more different from each other than this autograph and that of JUNIUS. It has been said in an American periodical work entitled "The Wilmington Mirror," that General Lee in confidence : |