il, in the month
of January, 1772, the king remarked to a friend in confidence: 'Junius
is known, and will write no more.' Such proved to be the fact. His last
performance was dated January 21, 1772, three years to a day from his
first letter to the printer of the Public Advertiser. Within a _few
months_, SIR PHILIP FRANCIS was appointed to one of the highest stations
of _profit and trust_ in India, at a distance of fifteen thousand miles
from the seat of English politics!"

The "_few months_" in the above sentence is just a year and a half after
the king "remarked in confidence," etc. But Francis did not go to India
for more than two and a half years after. In March, 1772, he resigned
his clerkship in the war department, in consequence of a quarrel with
Lord Barrington, the new Minister at War. He then left England, and
traveled on the continent the remainder of the year; in the June
following he was appointed one of the Council of Bengal, with a salary
of L10,000, and in the summer of 1774 went to India. That fall Thomas
Paine came to America. It is thus the phrase "_a few months_," artfully
put into a sentence in connection with the _supposed_ fact that the king
had found out Junius, and had bribed him to stop writing, would mislead
the mind, and pervert a reasonable conclusion. This is a trick of the
pen, and to which no honorable mind will descend. The fact is, Francis
would never have been thought of as Junius, had he not been an intimate
friend and schoolmate of Mr. Woodfall's.

{195}But the above argument, summed up by Lord Macaulay, is the
strongest on record for any man till now. I was not aware of its
weakness till now. I supposed there was a plausible argument at least.
To be answered, it needs only to be appended to this. I speak without
vanity, for the argument is nature's own, not mine. I will honor it,
therefore, with a rebuttal from Junius himself. In Letter 44 he says: "I
may quit the service, but it would be absurd to suspect me of desertion.
The reputation of these papers is an honorable pledge for my attachment
to the people. To sacrifice a respected character, and to renounce the
esteem of society, requires more than Mr. Wedderburn's resolution; and
though in him it was rather a profession than a desertion of his
principles (I speak tenderly of this gentleman, for, when treachery is
in question, I think we should make allowances for a Scotchman), yet we
have seen him in the House of Commons, overw