laneous Letters, No. xc1, in which he publicly ridicules Mr. Laughlin Macleane, upon his defence of the ministry, in regard to the Falkland Islands. Mr. Laughlin Macleane is well known to have been the best and steadiest friend that Boyd ever possessed; and a friend who adhered to him uninterruptedly from 1764 to 1778', in which year Macleane commenced a voyage to India upon official business relating to the Nabob of Arcot. It was Macleane who, according to his biographer, furnished Boyd with the greater part of the secret transactions of our own government, and the intelligence he made use of in relation to the oriental concerns of the Nabob Mahomed Ali Khaân; who largely and liberally assisted him with pecuniary aid while at home, and “faithfully promised him he would, upon his return from India, assist in clearing him from all his pecuniary difficulties." The proofs are unquestionable, that the above letter was written by JUNIUS; and that he wrote it also in contempt and ridicule of Laughlin Macleane, who instead of being, as Mr. Campbell affirms, an opponent of the ministry at this time, was an avowed defendant of them.-Will Mr. Boyd's biographers and advocates, after this anecdote, so far vilify his memory as to contend that it was written by himself?

Of all the reputed authors of these celebrated addresses, Dunning, Lord Ashburton, offers the largest aggregate of

1 See Mr. Campbell's Life of Boyd, p. 117, 125, 209, 210. In p. 141, he gives us the following account of Mr. Boyd, in support of his assertion that he was the writer of these letters. “From this time [Nov. 27, 1771,] till the 20th of January following, Mr. Boyd's whole time was occupied in examining the law books and state trials above mentioned, and in writing with his usual secrecy for the Public Advertiser: JUNIUS's elaborate letter to Lord Mansfield, in which he strove hard to make good his charge against him, is dated the 21st of January, 1772: about three weeks after the publication of this letter, Mr. Boyd went to Ireland; and JUNIUS ceased to write under that signature for the Public Advertiser." The reader will perceive by a reference to Private Letters, Nos. 40 and 48, that the letter to Lord Mansfield was finished some considerable time before it made its appearance in the Public Advertiser; and by comparing the dates of the Private Letters, subsequent to that publication, up to March 5, 1772, of which there are no less than seven, he will be satisfied that it was totally impossible for the writer of the Letters of JUNIES to be in Ireland at the period described by Mr. Campbell.

claim in his favour; and, but for a few facts which seem decisive against him, might fairly be admitted to have been the real JUNIUS. His age and rank in life, his talents and learning, his brilliant wit, and sarcastic habit, his common residence, during the period in question, his political principles, attachments and antipathies conspire in marking him as the man: but unfortunately for such a conclusion, Dunning was solicitor-general at the time these letters first appeared, and for more than a twelvemonth afterwards: and JUNIUS himself has openly and solemnly affirmed, "I am no lawyer by profession; nor do I pretend to be more deeply read than every English gentleman should be in the laws of his country." Dunning was a man of high unblemished honour, as well as of high independent principles; it cannot therefore be supposed that he would have vilified the King, while one of the King's confidential servants and counsellors: nor would he, as a barrister, have written to Woodfall in the course of a confidential correspondence," I am advised that no jury will find" a bill.

Another person who has had a claim advanced in his favour upon the same subject, is the late celebrated Henry Flood, M. P. of Ireland. This claim has only been urged within the last few weeks. Now, without wandering at large for proofs that Mr. Flood could not have been the writer of the Letters of JUNIUS, it is only sufficient to call the reader's attention to the two following facts:

First, Mr. Flood was in Ireland throughout a great part of the summer of 1768, and at a time when JUNIUS, who- ́` ever he may have been, was perpetually corresponding with the printer of the Public Advertiser, and with a rapidity which could not have been maintained, not only in Ireland, but even at a hundred, and occasionally at less than fifty miles distance from the British metropolis. This fact may be collected, among other authorities, from the following passage in Mr. Campbell's Life of Boyd, and is just as adverse to the pretensions of the one as of the other.

1 Preface, p. 8.

VOL. I.

2 Private Letters, No. 18.

*N

"In the summer of 1768 Boyd went to Ireland for a few months, on some private business. During his stay in Dublin he was constantly in the company of Mr. Flood."

Next, by turning to the Private Letters of JUNIUS, No. 44, of the date of Nov. 27, 1771, the reader will find the following paragraph: "I fear your friend Jerry Dyson will lose his Irish pension.-Say "received." The mark " received" occurs accordingly in the Public Advertiser of the day ensuing. Now by turning to the Irish debates of this period, we shall find that the question concerning this pension was actually determined by the Irish parliament just two days before the date of the above mentioned Private Letter, and that Mr. Flood was one of the principal opponents of the grant, a circumstance which precludes the possibility of believing him to have written the letter in question. We shall extract the article from whence this information is derived, from the Public Advertiser of Dec. 18, 1771.

"Authentic copy of the conclusion of the speech which Mr. Flood made in the Irish House of Commons, on Monday the 25th of November last, when the debate on the pension of Jeremiah Dyson, Esq. came on before the committee of supplies:

"But of all the burthens which it has pleased government to lay upon our devoted shoulders, that which is the subject of the present debate is the most grievous and intolerable. Who does not know Jeremiah Dyson, Esq.?We know little of him indeed, otherwise than by his name in our pension list; but there are others who know him by his actions. This is he who is endued with those happy talents, that he has served every administration, and served every one with equal success-a civil, pliable, good-natured gentleman, who will do what you will, and say what you please for payment.

"Here Mr. Flood was interrupted, and called to order by Mr. M, who urged that more respect ought to be paid to Mr. Dyson as one of his Majesty's officers, and, as such, one whom his Majesty was graciously pleased to repose confidence in. However Mr. Flood went on.

"As to the royal confidence reposed in Mr. Dyson, his gracious Majesty (whom God long preserve) has been graciously lavish of it, not only to Mr. Dyson, but to the friends of Mr. Dyson; and I think the choice was good: The royal secrets will, I dare say, be very secure in their breasts, not only for the love they bear to his gracious Majesty, but for the love they bear to themselves. In the present case, however, we do not want to be informed of that part of Mr. Dyson's character-we know enough of him-every body knows enough of him-ask the British treasury-the British council-ask any Englishman who he is, what he is-they can all tell you, for the gentleman is well known.-But what have we to do with him? He never served Ireland, nor the friends of Ireland. And if this distressed kingdom was never benefited by his counsel, interest, or service, I see no good cause why this kingdom should reward him. Let the honourable members of this house consider this, and give their voices accordingly.-For God's sake let every man consult his conscience: If Jeremiah Dyson, Esq. shall be found to deserve this pension, let it be continued; if not, let it be lopped off our revenue as burthensome and unnecessary."

Let us proceed to the pretensions that have been offered on the part of Lord George Sackville as the real JUNIUS. The evidence is somewhat indecisive even to the present hour. Sir William Draper divided his suspicions between this nobleman and Mr. Burke, and upon the personal and unequivocal denial of the latter, he transferred them entirely to the former: and that Sir William was not the only person who suspected his Lordship even from the first, is evident from the Private Letter of JUNIUS, which asserts that Swinney had actually called upon Lord Sackville and taxed him with being JUNIUS, to his face'. This letter is, in fact, one of the most curious of the whole collection: if written by Lord George Sackville, it settles the point at once; and, if not written by him, presupposes an acquaintance with his Lordship's family, his sentiments and his connexions so in

1 Private Letters, No. 5.

timate as to excite no small degree of astonishment. JUNIUS was informed of Swinney's having called upon Lord George Sackville, a few hours after his call, and he knew that before this time he had never spoken to him in his life. It is certain then, that Lord George Sackville was early and generally suspected, that JUNIUS knew him to be suspected without denying, as in the case of the author of "The Whig', &c." that he was suspected wrongfully; and that this nobleman, if not JUNIUS himself, must have been in habits of close and intimate friendship with him. The talents of Lord George Sackville were well known and admitted, and his political principles led him to the same side of the question that was so warmly espoused by JUNIUS. It is said, however, that on one occasion his Lordship privately observed to a friend of his, "I should be proud to be capable of writing as JUNIUS has done; but there are many passages in his letters I should be very sorry to have written." Such a declaration, however, is too general to be in any way conclusive: even JUNIUS himself might, in a subsequent period, have regretted that he had written some of the passages that occur in his letters. In the case of his letter to Junia, we know he did from his own avowal. It is nevertheless peculiarly hostile to the opinion in favour of Lord George Sackville, that JUNIUS should roundly have accused him of want of courage, as he has done in Vol. II. p. 180. The facts, however, are fairly before the reader, and he shall be left to the exercise of his own judgment.

1 Private Letters, No. 23.

2 See Chalmers's Appendix to the Supplemental Apology, p.7.