Junius Unmasked. Joel Moody
king and his ministers. The former part of this paragraph contains the major premise, the remainder the minor down to the last sentence, which brings out the conclusion in emphatic terms. In order to strengthen the minor, which was the most important premise, he rapidly contrasts the condition of England before and after the king ascended the throne. In doing this, he dilates on those errors of the king which led to, and which account for, so remarkable a change. Thus the conclusion is made doubly strong. This union of severe logic with the finest rhetorical skill in filling out the premises and giving them their utmost effect, furnishes an excellent model for the student in oratory.
[D] 4. In this attack on the king, there is a refined artifice, rarely if ever equaled, in leading the mind gradually forward from the slightest possible insinuation to the bitterest irony. First we have the "uniting of all parties," which is proper and desirable; next "trying all characters," which suggests decidedly a want of judgment; then "distributing the offices of state by rotation," a charge rendered plausible, at least, by the frequent changes of ministers, and involving (if true) a weakness little short of absolute fatuity. The way being thus prepared, what was first insinuated is now openly expressed in the next sentence. The word "folly" is applied to the conduct of the king of England in the face of his subjects, and the application rendered doubly severe by the gravest irony. Still, there is one relief. Allusion is made to his "unbounded goodness of heart," from which, in the preceding chain of insinuations, these errors of judgment had been deduced. The next sentence takes this away. It directly ascribes to the king, with an increased severity of ironical denial, some of the meanest passions of royalty, "a capricious partiality for new faces," a "natural love of low intrigue," "the treacherous amusement of double and triple negotiations!" It is unnecessary to remark on the admirable precision and force of the language in these expressions, and, indeed, throughout the whole passage. There had been just enough in the king's conduct, for the last seven years, to make the people suspect all this, and to weaken or destroy their affection for the crown. It was all connected with that system of favoritism introduced by Lord Bute, which the nation so much abhorred. Nothing but this would have made them endure for a moment such an attack on their monarch, and especially the absolute mockery with which Junius concludes the whole, by speaking of "the anxiety of the purest of all possible hearts for the general welfare!" His entire Letter to the king, with all the rancor ascribed to it by Burke, does not contain so much bitterness and insult as are concentrated in this single passage. While we can not but condemn its spirit, we are forced to acknowledge that there is in this and many other passages of Junius, a rhetorical skill in the evolution of thought which was never surpassed by Demosthenes.
[E] 5. The Duke of Grafton, first Lord of the Treasury. It is unnecessary to remark on the dexterity of connecting with this mention of a treasury, "sinking under its debts and expenses," the idea of its head being a gambler loaded with his own debts, and liable continually to new distresses and temptations from his love of play. The thought is wisely left here. The argument which it implies would be weakened by any attempt to expand it. Junius often reminds us of the great Athenian orator, in thus striking a single blow, and then passing on to some other subject, as he does here to the apostasy of the Duke of Grafton, his inconsistency, caprice, and irresolution.
[F] 6. Within about seven years, the king had run up a debt of £513,000 beyond the ample allowance made for his expenses on the civil list, and had just applied, at the opening of Parliament, for a grant to pay it off. The nation were indignant at such overreaching. The debt, however, was paid this session, and in a few years there was another contracted. Thus it went on, from time to time, until 1782, when £300,000 more were paid, in addition to a large sum during the interval. At this time a partial provision was made, in connection with Mr. Burke's plan of economical reform, for preventing all future encroachments of this kind on the public revenues.
[G] 7. Notwithstanding these early difficulties, Lord North became at last a very dexterous and effective debater.
[H] 8. This attack on Lord Chatham and his friend shows the political affinities of Junius. He believed with Mr. Grenville and Lord Rockingham in the right of Great Britain to tax America; and in referring to Mr. Grenville's attempt to enforce that right by the Stamp Act, he adopts his usual course of interweaving an argument in its favor into the language used.[1] He thus prepares the way for his censures on Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, affirming that they acted on the principle that "Mr. Grenville was at any rate to be distressed because he was minister and they were in opposition," thus implying that they were actuated by factious and selfish views in their defense of America. About a year after this letter was written, Lord Rockingham was reconciled to Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, and all united to break down the Grafton ministry. Junius now turned round and wrote his celebrated eulogium on Lord Chatham, contained in his fifty-fourth letter, in which he says, "Recorded honors 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." The last of his letters was addressed to Lord Camden, in which he says, "I turn with pleasure from that barren waste, in which no salutary plant takes root, no verdure quickens, to a character fertile, as I willingly believe, in every great and good qualification." Political men have certainly a peculiar faculty of viewing the characters of others under very different lights, as they happen to affect their own interests and feelings.[2]
[I] 9. The "arbitrary condition" was that the General Court of Massachusetts should rescind one of their own resolutions and expunge it from their records. The whole of this passage in relation to Hillsborough is as correct in point of fact, as it is well reasoned and finely expressed.
[J] 10. The changes here censured had taken place about three months before. The office of Foreign Secretary for the Southern Department was made vacant by the resignation of Lord Shelburne.[3] Lord Rochford, who had been minister to France, and thus made "acquainted with the temper of the Southern courts," ought naturally to have been appointed (if at all) to this department. Instead of this he was made Secretary of the Northern Department, for which he had been prepared by no previous knowledge; while Lord Weymouth was taken from the Home Department, and placed in the Southern, being "equally qualified" [that is, wholly unqualified by any "experience whatsoever"] for either department in the Foreign office, whether Southern or Northern.
[K] 11. As Secretary of the Home Department, Lord Weymouth had addressed a letter to the magistrates of London, early in 1768, advising them to call in the military, provided certain disturbances in the streets should continue. The idea of setting the soldiery to fire on masses of unarmed men has always been abhorrent to the English nation. It was, therefore, a case admirably suited to the purposes of this Letter. In using it to inflame the people against Lord Weymouth, Junius charitably supposes that he was not repeating the errors of his youth—that he was neither drunk, nor ignorant of what he did, nor impelled by "the furious spirit" of one of the proudest families of the realm—all of which Lord Weymouth would certainly say—and therefore (which his Lordship must also admit) that he did, from "the deliberate motion of his heart, supported by the best of his judgment," sign a paper which the great body of the people considered as authorizing promiscuous murder, and which actually resulted in the death of fourteen persons three weeks after. The whole is so wrought up as to create the feeling, that Lord Weymouth was in both of these states of mind—that he acted with deliberation in carrying out the dictates of headlong