Junius Unmasked. Joel Moody
latter end of the year 1780, I formed to myself the design of coming over to England. … I was strongly impressed with the idea that if I could get over to England without being known, and only remain in safety till I could get out a publication, I could open the eyes of the country with respect to the madness and stupidity of its government. I saw that the parties in parliament had pitted themselves as far as they could go, and could make no new impression on each other. General Greene entered fully into my views, but the affair of Arnold and Andre happening just after, he changed his mind, and, under strong apprehensions for my safety, wrote to me very pressingly to give up the design, which, with some reluctance, I did." He afterward renews the same design. In accompanying Colonel Laurens to France, certain dispatches from the English government fell into his hands through the capture of an English frigate. These dispatches Paine read at Paris, and brought them to America on his return. He says: "By these dispatches I saw further into the stupidity of the English cabinet than I otherwise could have done, and I renewed my former design. But Colonel Laurens was so unwilling to return alone, more especially as, among other matters, he had a charge of upward of two hundred thousand pounds sterling money, that I gave in to his wishes, and finally gave up my plan. But I am now certain that, if I could have executed it, it would not have been altogether unsuccessful."—Note, Rights of Man, part ii. Nor is this all. "When Napoleon meditated a descent upon England by means of gunboats, he secured the services of Thomas Paine to establish, after the conquest, a more popular government."—New Am. Cyc., Art. Thomas Paine. From all that I can gather, Mr. Paine was himself the author of this "plan of Napoleon's."
COMMON SENSE.
Junius is heard no more in England. The fame of this unknown author has gone round the world. A score of volumes have been written to prove his identity with a score of names. But all that has been said is wild with conjecture, and arguments have only been built upon "rumor," and "facts" drawn from the imagination. A scientific criticism has never been attempted. Truth has been insulted by the imagination in its wild ramblings, and writers have contented themselves with theory and fancy, "to pile up reluctant quarto upon solid folio, as if their labors, because they are gigantic, could contend with truth and Heaven." But while the king and his cabinet are setting traps, and hunting up and down the whole realm for this "mighty boar of the forest," in fear that he will again plunge at the king, or tear the ermine of Lord Mansfield, Thomas Paine, just landed upon the shores of America, hurls back a shaft at royalty which transfixes it to the wall of its castle. This was Common Sense. A reaction had taken place in England, and the people of America were also affected thereby. Reconciliation was the cry, independence scarcely lisped, and, when lisped, people "startled at the novelty of it." "In this state of political suspense," says Mr. Paine, "the pamphlet of Common Sense made its appearance, and the success it met with does not become me to mention. Dr. Franklin, Mr. Samuel, and John Adams were severally spoken of as the supposed author. I had not, at that time, the pleasure either of personally knowing or being known to the two last gentlemen. The favor of Dr. Franklin's friendship I possessed in England, and my introduction to this part of the world was through his patronage. … In October, 1775, Dr. Franklin proposed giving me such materials as were in his hands toward completing a history of the present transactions, and seemed desirous of having the first volume out the next spring. I had then formed the outlines of Common Sense and finished nearly the first part; and, as I supposed the doctor's design in getting out a history was to open the new year with a new system, I expected to surprise him with a production on that subject much earlier than he thought of, and, without informing him what I was doing, got it ready for the press as fast as I conveniently could, and sent him the first pamphlet that was printed off."—Note, Crisis, iii.
Opening the new year with a new system is emphatically what Junius also did, and it is most remarkable that the appearance of Junius' first Letter had, at first, the same effect in England that Common Sense had in America. Both came like thunderbolts. "On January 10, 1776, when 'a reconciliation with the mother country was the wish of almost every American,' a pamphlet called Common Sense, advocating the establishment of a republic of free and independent states, 'burst upon the world'—in the language of Dr. Rush—'with an effect which has rarely been produced by types and paper in any age or country.' It was immediately denounced as 'one of the most artful, insidious, and pernicious of pamphlets!' John Dickinson, a staunch supporter of the American cause, and author of the 'Farmers' Letters,' opposed the idea of independence in a speech as a member of the Continental Congress. The author of 'Plain Truth,' one of the many replies to Common Sense, thought that 'volumes were insufficient to describe the horror, misery, and desolation awaiting the people at large in the siren form of American independence.' Dr. William Smith, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, said, in his 'Cato's Letters,' published in March, 1776: 'Nor have many weeks yet elapsed since the first open proposition for independence was published to the world; it certainly has no countenance from congress, and is only the idol of those who wish to subvert all order among us, and rise on the ruins of their country.'"—Art. Thomas Paine, New Am. Cyc.
This was the first effort in America toward revolution. It was a bold hand, moved by a daring heart, that wrote Common Sense. In style and language, in argument and sentiment, in spirit and character, it is the finest political document ever produced in the English language. The object for which Junius and Common Sense were written I have shown to be the same, namely: revolution, and that the base of operation has only been changed. It is still an attack upon king, lords, and commons, and a defense of the people. I now go to show that Common Sense is a concise reproduction of Junius, in sentiment, style, and method of argumentation. But I will first call to the reader's mind a sentence from Junius in answer to the assertion of Dr. Smith just quoted, that Common Sense was "the first open proposition for independence." On the contrary, the first open statement of Junius in regard to the colonies, addressed to the king six years before this, is as follows: "Looking forward to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but, if you ever retire to America, be assured they will give you such a covenant to digest as the presbytery of Scotland would have been ashamed to offer to Charles the Second. They left their native land in search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided as they are into a thousand forms of policy and religion, there is one point in which they all agree—they equally detest the pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop."
I have now only to remark: when Thomas Paine came to America, at least when he wrote Common Sense, he understood the American people and what they wanted better than they did themselves; and so did Junius.
I now bring Common Sense and Junius together to show parallels of idea, method, and style.
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Common Sense was addressed to the inhabitants of America, the Introduction of which is as follows:
"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises, at first, a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than Reason."
"A long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question (and in matters, too, which might never have been thought of had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry), and as the king of England hath undertaken, in his own right, to support the parliament in what he calls theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpations of either.
"In the following sheets the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly will cease of themselves, unless too much pains is bestowed upon their conversion."
"The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are |