over the continent during the year 1769 to which it is limited, and consequently that General Lee, who was travelling over the continent, and who appears to have been chiefly in remote northern parts of it, could not be JUNIUS.

The editor has observed that it is equally obvious General Lee could not have been JUNIUS, from the different line of politics professed by the two characters; and not merely professed but fought for to his own outlawry by the former. JUNIUS, it has been already remarked, was a warm and determined friend to Mr. George Grenville: a zealous advocate for the stamp act, Mr. Grenville's most celebrated measure; and a decided upholder of the power of the British parliament to legislate for America, in the same manner as for any county in England. And it was because Mr. Lee was an inveterate oppugner of these doctrines, and was determined to fight against them, and even against his native country, if she insisted upon them, that he fled to the United States, took a lead in their armies, and powerfully contributed to their independence. The ensuing extracts taken from his letters contained in Mr. Langworthy's Memoirs, give his own opinions in his own words; and they may be compared with those of JUNIUS that follow the preceding extracts from Mr. Burke.

"You tell me the Americans are the most merciful people on the face of the earth: I think so too; and the strongest instance of it is, that they did long ago hang up you, and every advocate for the stamp act1."

"As to the rest who form what is called the opposition, they are so odious or contemptible, that the favourite himself is preferable to them; such as GRENVILLE, Bedford, Newcastle, and their associates. Temple is one of the most ridiculous order of coxcombs2."

"A formidable opposition is expected; but the heads are too odious to the nation in general, in my opinion, to carry their point. Such as Bedford, Sandwich, G. GRENVILLE, and, with submission, your friend Mansfield3."

1 Memoirs, p. 54, in a letter to W. H. Drayton, a member of congress. 2 Ib. p. 294. 3 Ib. p. 297.

VOL. I.

*L

"We have had twenty different accounts of your arrival at Boston, which have been regularly contradicted the next morning; but as I now find it certain that you are arrived, I shall not delay a single instant addressing myself to you. It is a duty I owe to the friendship I have long and sincerely professed for you; a friendship to which you have the strongest claims from the first moment of our acquaintance; there is no man from whom I have received so many testimonies of esteem and affection; there is no man whose esteem and affection could in my opinion have done me greater honour. * ******** I shall not trouble you with my opinion of the right of taxing America without her own consent, as I am afraid from what I have seen of your speeches, that you have already formed your creed on this article; but I will boldly affirm, had this right been established by a thousand statutes, had America admitted it from time immemorial, it would be the duty of every good Englishman to exert his utmost to divest parliament of this right, as it must inevitably work the subversion of the whole empire. ******** On these principles, I say, sir, every good Englishman, abstracted of all regard for America, must oppose her being taxed by the British parliament; for my own part I am convinced that no argument (not totally abhorrent from the spirit of liberty, and the British constitution,) can be produced in support of this right. ******** I have now, sir, only to entreat, that whatever measure you pursue, whether those which your real friends (myself among the rest) would wish, or unfortunately those which our accursed misrulers shall dictate, you will still believe me to be personally, with the greatest sincerity and affection, yours, &c. C. LEE1."

It would be waste of time to pursue the claim of General Lee any further: though a multitude of similar proofs to the same effect might be offered if necessary.

Another character to whom these letters have been

1 Letter to persuade General Burgoyne to join the Americans Memoirs, p. 323-330. See JUNIUS's opinion of General Burgoyne, Vol. I. p. 189.

ascribed is Mr. Wilkes; but that he is not the author of them must be clear to every one who will merely give a glance at either the public or the private letters. Wilkes could not have abused himself in the manner he is occasionally abused in the former; nor would he have said in the latter (since there was no necessity for his so saying) “I have been out of town for three weeks" at a time when he was closely confined in the King's Bench.

Of all the pretenders however to the honour of having written the letters of JUNIUS, Hugh Macauley Boyd has been brought forward with the most confidence: yet of all of them there is not one whose claims are so easily and completely refuted. It is nevertheless necessary, from the assurance with which they have been urged, to examine them with some degree of detail.

Hugh Macauley Boyd was an Irishman of a respectable family, who was educated for the bar, which he deserted, at an early age, for politics, and an unsettled life, that perpetually involved him in pecuniary distresses; and who is known as the author of "The Freeholder," which he wrote at Belfast, in the beginning of 1776; "The Whig," consisting of a series of revolutionary papers which he published in the London Courant, between November, 1779, and March, 1780, and the "Indian Observer," a miscellany of periodical essays published at Madras in 17932. In his public conversation he was an enthusiastic admirer of the style and principles of JUNIUS; and in his political effusions he perpetually strove to imitate his manner; and, in many instances, copied his sentences verbally. On this last account the three advocates for his fame, Mr. Almon who has introduced him into his Biographical Anecdotes, Mr. Campbell who

1 Private Letters, No. 11. This letter is dated Nov. 8, 1769. Wilkes entered the King's Bench prison April 27, 1768, and was liberated April 18, 1770-See further the private correspondence between JUNIUS and Mr. Wilkes.

2 He is also said by his friends to have written various letters in the Public Advertiser, in the years 1769, 1770, 1771, and afterwards in 1779; the former under a questionable signature, the latter under that of Democrates or Democratieus.

has published a life of him, and prefixed it to a new edition of "Boyd's Works," and Mr. George Chalmers, who has entered largely into the subject, in his "Appendix to the Supplemental Apology," have strenuously contended that Boyd and JUNIUS were the same person; an opinion which, they think, is rendered decisive from the following anecdote, as given in the words of Mr. Chalmers himself.

Boyd was in the habit of frequenting the shop of Almon, who detected him, as the writer of JUNIUS, as early as the autumn of 1769. At a meeting of the booksellers and printers, H. S. Woodfall read a letter of JUNIUS, which he had just received, because it contained a passage, that related to the business of the meeting. Almon had thereby an opportunity of seeing the hand-writing of the manuscript, without disclosing his thoughts of the discovery. The next time that Boyd called on him in Piccadilly, Almon said to him, 'I have seen a part of one of JUNIUS's Letters, in manuscript, which I believe is your hand-writing.' Boyd instantly changed colour; and after a short pause, he said, 'the similitude of hand writing is not a conclusive fact,' [proof.] Now, Almon does not deliver these intimations, as mere opinions; but, he speaks, like a witness, to facts, which he knows to be true. It is a fact, then, that Almon taxed Boyd with being the writer of JUNIUS's Letters; that Boyd thereupon changed colour; and that he only turned off the imputation, by the obvious remark, that comparison of hand-writing is not decisive evidence, to prove the writer. Add to this testimony, that Boyd was, by nature, confident, and, by habit, a man of the town, a sort of character, who is not apt to blush. From the epoch of this detection, it was the practice of Almon, when he was asked who was the writer of JUNIUS, to say, that he suspected JUNIUS was a broken gentleman, without a guinea in his pocket."

Mr. Almon's own words in relating this anecdote are as follows: The moment I saw the hand-writing I had a strong suspicion that it was Mr. Boyd's, whose hand-writing I knew, having received several letters from him concerning hooks." And be afterwards adds in reference to Boyd's reply to him,

"though these words do not acknowledge the truth of the suspicion, they do not, however, positively deny it1."

This reply, that "the similitude of hand-writing is not a conclusive proof," is called by Mr. Chalmers an "obvious remark," he might have added that the remark is just as general as it is obvious, and consequently that it admits of no particular deduction. It neither denies nor affirms, but leaves the question, or rather the suspicion, precisely where it was at first.

But, say these gentlemen, it was preceded by a change of colour: yet whether this change were to a flush or a paleness, or any other hue does not appear. Let it be taken for granted, however, that they mean Macauley Boyd blushed, and consequently that he exhibited, on the spur of the moment, a secret sense of shame: yet what had that man to be ashamed of, upon a detection of this kind, who openly gloried in the principles of JUNIUS, who had carried his own avowed sentiments immeasurably farther, who was for ever publicly imitating his style and copying his phrases?-this man, who was "by nature confident, and by habit a man of the town, a sort of character who is not apt to blush," nothing surely could have given him a higher delight than to have been suspected to have been JUNIUS himself; nothing could more agreeably have flattered his vanity. His cheeks glowed with a flush of rapture upon the supposed detection, and he could not even consent to dissipate the fond illusion by telling the the whole truth. Shame he could not feel; and as to the passion of fear it must not be mentioned for a moment: fear would have made him turn pale, but not have blushed.

Yet these gentlemen, in the ardour of their pursuit, prove too much for their own cause; since we at length find that, after all, there was no SIMILITUDE of hand-writing whatever, or at least none that could answer their purpose. The letter shewn by Woodfall, Almon asserted to be in the common hand-writing of Boyd, the hand-writing employed by him in his common and avowed transactions, and that he

1 Letter from J. Almon to L. D. Campbell, Esq. Dec. 10, 1798.