After the letter was read, a despairing silence pervaded the hall. Nobody spoke for a considerable time. At last a member of much fortitude arose and said: "If the account in that letter is a true state of things, and we are in the situation there represented, it appears to me in vain to contend the matter any longer. We may as well give up the matter first as last." Another man arose and said: "Well, well, don't let the house despair; if things are not so well as we wish, we must endeavor to make them better," and then moved an adjournment.

What shall now be done? Where is the god of battle, that he has deserted America? When all others fail, both in council and in war, who shall be able to cheer the heart and lift up the head of the nation? We shall see. Thomas Paine draws his salary; he writes a stirring appeal for a private subscription; heads it with five hundred dollars, "his mite, and will increase it as far as the last ability will enable him to go." This subscription is to be a donation to carry on the war. In nine days the subscription "amounts to four hundred pounds hard money, and one hundred and one thousand three hundred and sixty pounds continental." The subscribers now meet and form a bank, with a capital basis of three hundred thousand pounds, real money, for the purpose of supplying the army; and the country is once more saved by the man who has on his hands "the business of a world."

It is now the university of Pennsylvania makes itself honorable and famous by conferring on Thomas Paine the degree of Master of Arts. It is in 1780 this is done, and on the Fourth of July.

But more money must be had. A continental dollar is worth about one cent. "Hard money must be had," says Thomas Paine. But how shall it be obtained? By an appeal to the king of France. Paine now sets about the work. It is near the close of the year 1780. He takes up the pen and undisguisedly states the true case of the nation, and requests that France, either as a subsidy or a loan, will supply the United States with a million sterling, and continue that supply annually during the war. This letter was addressed to Count Vergennes, the French minister of foreign affairs. Paine, as soon as he had written it, showed it to M. Marbois, secretary to the French minister. His reply was: "A million sent out of a nation exhausts it more than ten millions spent in it." But nothing daunted he then took it to Ralph Isard, member of Congress from South Carolina. Isard said: "We will try and do something about it in Congress." Congress favored the letter, and it was thus made a memorial. But who shall now take it to France, and in person represent the situation and demand assistance, as set forth in this letter? Paine had his eye on the man when he went to the member from South Carolina with his letter. It was one of this state's noblest sons, Col. John Laurens, aid to Washington; for Paine loved the Laurenses, both father and son. Through Washington this son was named as agent. But he said: "No, appoint Colonel Hamilton." Congress refused. Now young Laurens states his case to Paine. He said he was acquainted with the military difficulties, but not at all acquainted with political affairs, nor with the resources of the country, "but if you will go with me, I will accept." Of course Paine will go, and that, too, without pay, never expecting a cent for it. Paine had planned his work well, he has got his man, the bravest heart of the land, and we shall now see the boldest act of diplomacy on record. For five weeks Paine had been about this work, and about the first of February, 1781, they sail for France. As soon as they reach Paris, Laurens promptly reports his arrival and business to Vergennes. It is in vain. "The formalities of court and the self-complaisancy of the minister, who would not be hurried, baffled him for more than two months." But this young son of war has a spirit to dare and a tutor to direct—who knows from long experience the stuff kings are made of. He will not be trifled with by subordinates; he will appeal directly to the king. He declares this to the minister, who responds, "I am confounded with your audacity." This is more than Franklin would dare, who is there at court. There comes "a public lever." Louis XVI is there, and so is young Laurens, in uniform, his sword at his side. Now act well thy part, a nation's life dwells in thy words. He is presented to the king, who only expects the passing formalities of an introduction. But Laurens speaks: "I am just from the army of Washington. I know well its condition, it is fully set forth in this memorial;" and then touching his sword, he adds, with animation, "Unless speedy succor is sent to my country, the weapon I now wear at my side as the ally of your majesty, might be drawn as the subject of Great Britain against you and France." The king was struck dumb; but soon rallied himself and replied briefly, but favorably. He took the memorial, the money was granted, and Paine accompanied Laurens home with $2,500,000 in silver. The army is paid, fed, and clothed; Yorktown is attacked upon the strength of it; Cornwallis surrenders, and the British power is broken in this country forever, through those great causes put in motion and faithfully sustained by the man who had on his hands "THE BUSINESS OF A WORLD."

The great work of Thomas Paine is now nearly done in America, but mighty things are yet to be done for the world. The next year he writes his famous letter to the Abbe Raynal, and the Crisis, which guides the nation to honor. A few years of rest, in which he writes his Dissertation on Government, and other pieces; is elected a member of the Philosophical Society, receives the hospitalities of Washington, and three thousand dollars from Congress for his ten years services in America, and he sails for France where he sees the fires of revolution beginning to kindle.

But he has taken care to provide wisdom for his country before he quits her shores. His far-reaching eye sees that a Federal Constitution will have to be formed for the states, and in 1786 he is careful to incorporate into his Dissertation on Government a Declaration of Rights. In this Declaration of Rights lies the foundation of the republic, and although not prefixed to the Federal Constitution at the time it was formed and adopted, a complete synopsis of it was afterward added as the ten first amendments thereto. Franklin has also come home to labor awhile, now more than eighty years old; and being chosen a delegate to the Federal Convention, Mr. Paine sailed for France the 16th of April, 1787, just a month before it convened. He has finished his work in America. This work he did faithfully and well. He is now fifty years old, and there are ten years of revolutionary work, and twenty-two of life before him yet.

He took with him to Paris the model of an iron bridge. He submits it to the Academy of Sciences. It is pronounced a success, if theory can be sustained by mathematical demonstration. He proposes an iron arch with a span of four hundred and eighty feet. But theory must be tested, and the next year he builds his bridge in an open field near Paddington, in England. Experiment said it was a success, but he got into gaol for debt on account of it. The bridge now spans the river Wear, at Sunderland. This iron arch bridge was the first in the world. The principles are now seen in thousands of bridges in Europe and America; and if they could speak, each one would say: "I was born from the brain of Thomas Paine."

Two American merchants assist him to pay his debts, and he gets out of an English gaol in time to go over to France to witness the taking of the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789. That "high altar and castle of despotism" fell at the bidding of those republican principles which he had dedicated his life to teach and maintain. It was a most fitting and grand event when Lafayette gave to Thomas Paine the key to the Bastile to present to Washington. It is now the property of this nation.

Mr. Burke the next year writes his "Reflections" on the French Revolution, and Mr. Paine returns in November, 1790, to answer the publication. In March, the first part of "The Rights of Man" appeared for this purpose. It was dedicated to Washington. In another year the second part appeared, dedicated to Lafayette. A hundred thousand copies of this work went into the hands of the people. It was translated into all the European languages, and was read by the poor and the rich, the high and the low; it became the companion alike of the vassal and his lord. In this he says: "The peer is exalted into the man. Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character which degrades it. It talks about its fine ribbon like a girl, and shows its garter like a child. A certain writer of antiquity says, 'When I was a child I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.'... The insignificance of a senseless word like duke, count, or earl, has ceased to please, and as they outgrew the rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home society, contemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the bastile of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life of man." Aristocracy "is a law against every law of nature, and nature herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice and aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in a family of six children five are exposed. Aristocracy has never but one child. The rest are begotten to be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast."... "By nature they are children, and by marriage they are heirs, but by aristocracy they are bastards and orphans."

"In taking up this subject," he says, "I seek no recompense; I fear no consequences. Fortified with that proud integrity, that disdain to triumph or to yield, I will advocate the rights of man."... "Knowing my own heart, and feeling myself, as I now do, superior to all the skirmish of party, the inveteracy of interested or mistaken opponents, I answer not to falsehood or abuse."... "Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person. My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

Mr. Paine is now doing openly and boldly the work which Junius tried to do with less success. The same pen has now twenty years more experience; it has added wisdom, but lost a trifle of its vivacity; yet it has lost none of its terrible satire. Never did Junius use secretly such severe language toward the king as Mr. Paine now openly writes. Of the crown, he says: "It signifies a nominal office of a million a year, the business of which consists in receiving the money. Whether the person be wise or foolish, sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not. The hazard to which this office is exposed in all countries, is not from any thing that can happen to the man, but from what may happen to the nation; the danger of its coming to its senses.... When we speak of the Crown now it means nothing; it signifies neither a judge nor a general; besides which it is the laws that govern, and not the man."

"It is time that nations should be rational, and not governed like animals, for the pleasure of their riders. To read the history of kings, a man would be almost inclined to suppose that government consisted in stag hunting, and that every nation paid a million a year to the huntsman. Man ought to have pride or shame enough to blush at being thus imposed upon, and when he feels his proper character he will.... It has cost England almost seventy millions sterling to maintain a family imported from abroad, of very inferior capacity to thousands in the nation. No wonder that jails are crowded, and taxes and poor-rates increased. Under such systems nothing is to be looked for but what has already happened; and, as to reformation, whenever it comes, it must be from the nation, and not from the government."

In the above how one is reminded of Junius, when he says: "The original fault is in the government," and "there are many things which we ought to affirm can not be done by king, lords, and commons." "The ruin or prosperity of a state depends on the administration of its government." "Behold a nation overwhelmed with debt, her revenues wasted, her trade declining." That "a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but death." "And that if an honest man were permitted to approach a king, it would be matter of curious speculation how he would be received," if the king himself had "spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and understanding enough to listen to him with attention."

For the publication of this work in England many men were fined and imprisoned. Mr. Paine himself was tried and convicted, but having been elected a representative to the National Assembly of France, by the Department of Calais, he left England in September, 1792, and being afterward outlawed, never set foot on her soil again. Had it not been for this election to the National Assembly, he would have remained to contest in an English court the principles he had proclaimed. Twenty minutes after he left her shores forever, an order arrived at Dover, from which place he sailed, for his detention, but it was too late; there is yet a sublime deed to be done.

At Calais, France embraced him, and a daughter of the New Republic placed in his hat the national cockade. Mr. Paine is now entering the dark days of his life. With what fortitude and manliness he shall pass through them we shall see. He takes his seat in the National Assembly. In this he addresses the people of France, and says; "I come not to enjoy repose. I commence my citizenship in the stormy hour of difficulties. Convinced that the cause of France is THE CAUSE OF ALL MANKIND, and that liberty can not be purchased by a wish, I gladly share with you the dangers and honors necessary to success.... Let us now look calmly and confidently forward, and success is certain. It is no longer the paltry cause of kings, or of this or that individual, that calls France and her armies into action. It is the great cause of ALL. It is the establishment of a new era that shall blot despotism from the earth, and fix, on the lasting principles of peace and citizenship the great REPUBLIC OF MAN."

France is declared a republic, and Mr. Paine is one of nine men to draft a new constitution. This work is done. In the meantime, charges are preferred against the king, and Louis XVI is brought to trial. Mr. Paine voted for the trial. The king is found guilty, and condemned to die. But he has now a friend in Thomas Paine. He speaks against the death penalty, and says:

"Citizen President: My hatred and abhorrence of monarchy are sufficiently known; they originate in principles of reason and conviction, nor, except with life, can they ever be extirpated; but my compassion for the unfortunate, whether friend or enemy, is equally lively and sincere." He then reviews the causes which brought him to trial, and pictures the deplorable condition he is in—condemns the constituent assembly, rather than the unfortunate prisoner, and then asks: "What shall be done with this man?" He has now taken his own life in his hands, when he proffers to the King of France an asylum in America. Besides, he has a duty to perform for the United States, which now he offers his own life to fulfill. He has not forgotten the great feat of young Laurens, when he touched his sword in presence of this same king, demanding that aid which made his country free and independent, and which was granted. He therefore says: "It is to France alone, I know, that the United States of America owe that support which enabled them to shake off the unjust and tyrannical yoke of Britain. The ardor and zeal which she displayed to provide men and money, were the natural consequence of a thirst for liberty. But as the nation at that time, restrained by the shackles of her own government, could only act by means of a monarchical organ, this organ, whatever in other respects the object might be, certainly performed a good, a great action. Let, then, these United States be the safeguard and asylum of Louis Capet."

Marat cries out: "Paine is a Quaker," and the benevolence of this good man is whelmed over by the fierce and bloody sentiment of revenge. This is one of the sublime deeds which give us faith in man, but which appear at such wide intervals that they mark eras in the world's history. I know of but one other which rises to such touching sublimity—it is Socrates, at the head of the Athenian Senate, refusing to put the vote demanded by the laws, religion, and united voice of his country, which would condemn to death the admirals who were unable to bury the dead that had been slain in battle. Both offered their lives that others might live, rather than be themselves unjust.

Mr. Paine, by this effort to save the king's life, lost his influence in the assembly, and he became afterward a silent member, and, in the minds of many, set apart to die. Foreigners are now expelled from the convention, and an order having passed that all persons born in England, and residing in France, should be imprisoned, he was, by order of Robespierre, arrested, and thrown into the Luxembourg. Of his narrow escapes, Mr. Paine says:

In these hours of death, and when he expects to be beheaded at any moment, he is writing his Age of Reason. The first part he completed just before going to prison; the second part he studies upon, and partly writes, while in prison, and publishes it a few months after his release.

This work was planned years before it appeared, and its completion was deferred till near the close of his life, that the purity of his motives might not be impeached. It was written at that time, too, before he had intended it, because he expected soon to be put to death, and lest, in "the general shipwreck of superstition, of false systems of government, and false theology, the people lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of the theology that is true." It was written to combat superstition, fanaticism, and atheism on the one hand, and to defend religion, morality, and deism on the other. It is the good and religious work of a good and religious man. The work it was designed to accomplish is not yet done, but it is well begun. As the world grows wiser it will be valued the more highly, and the more it is read the better will people become.

Had Mr. Paine died at this time, his life's work would have been fulfilled, and the tranquillity of his life would not have been disturbed by the curses of the whole order of the priesthood. But there are fourteen years of life before him yet, in which he is maligned, vilified, slandered, and publicly and privately insulted.

I will briefly sum them up. Seven of these years he spends in France. He writes his essays "On the English System of Finance," "Agrarian Justice," and the "Letter to General Washington;" also, one "To the People and Armies of France." It seems he became attached to Napoleon, for the project of the gun-boat invasion of England is started, and should it succeed, Mr. Paine is to give England a more liberal government. In 1802, he came to America, and the folly of gun-boats also enters into Jefferson's administration. These seven years of life in America are years of trouble and grief. Jefferson, the great Democratic partisan, secures his services to write for his party; but he had never been a partisan, he had stood on higher ground, he had labored for all mankind, and the work, which ill became him, served only to aggravate his own life. We can see a mental change coming over the old man; the reason is yet strong, but the temper is irritable; he grows peevish and broods over his wrongs. "I ought not to have an enemy in America," he said. But the generation of people he now lived among, near the close of his life, were not yet born "in the times that tried men's souls," and they knew him not. He was the friend of Jefferson, and Jefferson had bitter enemies, who said "they both ought to dangle from the same gallows."

He had been paid but little for his revolutionary services, and he now felt the ingratitude of the old Congress, which had treated him badly, and the new one, which could not be bothered with him. Thus his miseries multiply. "After so many years of service, my heart grows cold toward America," he writes, a year before his death, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Jefferson ought to have kept the old man aloof from politics, instead of thrusting him into his party broils, and bringing down on his head the whole host of his own personal enemies. Paine had enemies enough of his own without these. But great ideas and generous affections, it seems, Jefferson never had. Now, in his old age, the great apostle of liberty is deserted by many he had labored to befriend, and, though he does not meet death at the hands of his enemies, they have venom enough in their hearts to slay him.

It is sad to think that his last hours were embittered for the want of a friend. Washington had long before forgotten him while a prisoner in the Luxembourg. Samuel Adams had condemned him. John Adams has it in his heart to blast his memory, and four years after he is dead writes to Jefferson, "Joel Barlow was about to record Tom Paine as the great author of the American Revolution. If he was, I desire that my name may be blotted out forever from its record." This came from the man who twice deserted his post in the trying hour of his country; once for four months when at the head of the war committee, and once for seven months when president of the nation. It came from the man who said: Jefferson had stolen his ideas from him to put into the Declaration of Independence. "Blotted out," No! John Adams, your name will live forever on the records of your country. You were sometimes a great man. But by the side of Thomas Paine, on the records of your country, you stand thus:

Franklin, the firm friend, has been dead these nineteen years, and many more of the old first friends had gone the same way. His mind now reverts to his home in England, and the religion of his father haunts his affections. He asks to be buried in the Quaker burying-ground, and is refused, lest this act of decency should offend the sanctified followers of Fox. It is as well. The old man's will records, that if this be not granted him on account of his father's religion, he was to be buried on his own farm at New Rochelle. On the 8th of June, 1809, he took his final leave of the world. "I have lived," said he, "an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator—God."

Thus the great REVOLUTIONIST passed away. Like all great men, he lived a virtuous, upright life. He had a noble object in view, and labored manfully to accomplish it. But having done his work well, his enemies have added to his fame by trying to undo what time has approved, and by reviling him when nature has applauded.

CONCLUSION.

Secretive beyond estimate, he lived a perfect spy upon the world, and obtained from friend and foe, from society and government, what they wished to conceal, and stored away facts which he locked up in his own mind to be used if needed, or everlastingly kept. He was too hopeful to estimate the future correctly, and had too much faith in man to judge correctly of his actions. Yet character he scarcely ever misjudged. As for courage, he dared to do any thing that was right. He dared to think like a philosopher, and to act like a man. Intellectually he was a prodigy; and as for genius, under which I combine the constructive, analytic and imaginative faculties the world has never seen his equal. He was, in short, an artist, inventor, scholar, poet, philosopher, enemy and friend. These mental characteristics were so combined and regulated by his will, that nature could never repeat what she produced in Thomas Paine.

I have faithfully followed the lines of nature in this criticism, and have endeavored to produce a work which the student and statesman can study with profit; which the lawyer may consider as an argument; which will arrest the attention of the historian, and present new themes to the mind of the philosopher; one which will open up a new method for the critic, and in all these a work which the scholar will not despise. This I say without vanity. Mine indeed are humble labors; and my work, whatever it is, has not been laborious and artful, but easy and natural.

I have not written this to make proselytes to his religion, but to do a much injured man a good service. Yet, as hero-worship is a part of man's nature, it may not be improbable that one age will extol what a previous one reviled, and a temple be erected to the religion of a man who was once thought to be a devil. This reminds me of a story which long ago I remember of reading in a volume of the Letters of the Turkish Spy; and as I quote from memory I will give only the substance:

Two hundred years ago, somewhere in Spain, in front of a Christian house of worship, stood a statue. This was the black image of a man sitting on an ass. As each pious devotee passed in to worship, or came out therefrom, he spat upon the statue. But a Mussulman embassador coming from the king of Morocco, observing these rites, which he was told had been performed for centuries, asked the king why they treated this image with such insult. He was told it was the image of Mahomet. The follower of Mahomet, being better informed, replied: This can not be, for Mahomet rode always on camels, and it was Jesus Christ who, it is recorded, rode on an ass. This fact was soon confirmed by the priests, and thereupon the people took to kissing and worshiping what they had before insultingly spat upon, and afterward erected a temple where it stood in honor of it.

APPENDIX.

Forty years after this edition was published, when Mr. H. S. Woodfall, the publisher, was dead, his son issued a new edition, in which he collected from the files of the Advertiser what he supposed to be other letters of Junius, and classed them as Miscellaneous Letters. This new edition, which is called Woodfall's, was first published in 1812. Upon the heel of this edition, John Taylor published his "Junius Identified," supporting his claims in favor of Francis nearly or quite altogether on the Miscellaneous Letters. Till then the claims of Francis were never brought forward. I now proceed to show that these Miscellaneous Letters are not all genuine.

1. They show in many instances internal evidence of fraud. Private Note No. 61 is as follows:

"Sunday, May 3, 1772.

"I am in no manner of hurry about the books. I hope the sale has answered. I think it will always be a saleable book. The inclosed is fact, and I wish it could be printed to-morrow. It is not worth announcing. The proceedings of this wretch are unaccountable. There must be some mystery in it, which I hope will soon be discovered, to his confusion. Next to the Duke of Grafton, I verily believe that the blackest heart in the kingdom belongs to Lord Barrington."

The above note accompanied a letter signed Scotus, published in the Advertiser, May 4, 1772. Now, mark! The private note which accompanied this letter of Scotus says: "This is fact." And the letter of Scotus opens as follows: "To Lord Barrington: My lord, I am a Scotchman," etc. He then goes on, without dignity or grace, to talk bluntly to Lord Barrington, and with an egotistical defense of the Scotch. He says: "There is courage at least in our composition." "For the future, my lord, be more sparing of your reflections on the Scotch." This letter and the note accompanying it are yet in existence in the original, and are called genuine. Now, that they are forgeries is quite evident from the whole spirit of Junius in regard to the Scotch. In Letter 44, he says of Mr. Wedderburne: "I speak tenderly of this gentleman, for when treachery is in question, I think we should make allowances for a Scotchman." He speaks of the Scotch "cunning," "treachery," and "fawning sycophancy," of "the characteristic prudence, the selfish nationality, the indefatigable smile, the persevering assiduity, the everlasting profession of a discreet and moderate resentment." This last quotation may be found in the Preface, and was written about four months prior to the publication of the letter of Scotus. Now, is the positive evidence of the genuine Letters to be set aside by this fugitive note and letter of Scotus? Reason and Common Sense say not. Here then one of the Miscellaneous Letters, and one of the private letters to Woodfall are proven to be forgeries. How many more may have to go the same way? Even the nationality of Francis is against this one of Scotus, for he was an Irishman.

It may be well to remark, in passing, that as the manuscript of this letter of Scotus is still in existence, the claims of Francis founded on handwriting will have to go the same way, for proof on genuine handwriting is doubtful, but proof on disguised handwriting is worthless. All that can be proven from handwriting is, Francis may have been the author of this forged letter of Scotus, and other letters of Veteran, which were written solely from personal spite toward Lord Barrington.

2. I would call attention to another manifest forgery of a private note and letter. The note is No. 8, vol. i, p. 198, and the letter is No. 58, vol. iii, p. 218, Woodfall's edition. The letter is one of low wit, and somewhat vulgar in its construction, and is an answer to another signed Junia, probably written by Mr. Caleb Whiteford. The note says: "The last letter you printed was idle and improper, and, I assure you, printed against my own opinion. The truth is, there are people about me whom I would wish not to contradict, and who had rather see Junius in the papers ever so improperly than not at all." The question now is: Did those people, for whose benefit he wrote the letter, keep the secret which has baffled the world?—for these people must have known him to be Junius. And did Junius write falsely, when he said in his Dedication more than two years afterward: "I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it shall perish with me?" Did Junius write falsely when he said: "This edition contains all the letters of Junius?" for this one which he cast out, and is in the Miscellaneous collection, was signed Junius. Besides, the handwriting is different from the genuine notes. Compare No. 8, spurious, with No. 3, genuine, vol. i, Woodfall's edition.

Here is clear evidence of forgery in two cases, not from handwriting be it remembered, but from internal evidence. May there not be many more such cases? Moreover, from the style and spirit of all the miscellaneous letters written after the one signed Atticus, and printed November 14, 1768, there is no evidence whatever of the hand or head of Junius. Prior to this time Junius had been writing to get his hand in, and his contributions appeared over the signatures of Atticus, Lucius, C, and a few others, but all prior to the above date. Junius proper began with his famous Letter of January 21, 1769, and closed in just three years to a day.

I am now prepared to state: In the comparison of Thomas Paine with Junius I did not suffer myself in a single instance to go outside of the genuine edition; because I plainly saw, after a long and critical study of the Letters, that there was no safe footing outside of it. Whatever, therefore, has been established in style, character, occupation, rank, opinion, etc., in favor of Paine, has at least this merit: its foundation is good. I propose now to show that this can not be said in favor of Francis.

I have given on pages 190 and 191 the summing up of the main argument of John Taylor in favor of Francis, by Mr. Macaulay. Macaulay writes only as a reviewer of Taylor, not an original investigator; and a reviewer, too, like many at this day, without searching at the fountain head for the facts in the case. Let us now look at the five points Mr. Taylor makes:

"First, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of State's office." Under this Taylor begins by observing: "One method of discovering the rank and station of Junius is to see with whose names he is most familiar." He then says: "The only persons to whom Junius applies epithets of familiarity are Welbore Ellis, Esq., Lord Barrington, Messrs. Rigby, Whateley, Bradshaw, and Chamier." Taylor then proves Junius to have been familiar with Whateley by a long quotation from miscellaneous letters, one without a signature, and one signed Henricus. See Taylor's Junius Identified, page 54. In this connection comes a very important disclosure in regard to Mr. Grenville. I will quote Taylor, page 54: "Comparing these indications of personal acquaintance with the opportunities afforded Sir P. Francis, we find that Mr. George Grenville was one of the secretaries of state at the time Sir Philip Francis held that place in the Secretary of State's office, which had been given him by Lord Holland, and Mr. Whateley was then Mr. Grenville's private secretary. This contiguity of station would afford Sir Philip Francis frequent opportunities of acquiring all that intimate and ocular knowledge of Mr. Whateley which is evinced by Junius." That is, which is evinced by Junius in the letter signed "Henricus," and the one without signature, and which are not in the genuine edition. But Mr. Taylor proves too much; for then Junius, if he were Sir Philip Francis, would also have been acquainted with Grenville, as Francis doubtless was, and there is nothing to hinder Grenville from becoming acquainted with Francis, where there is such "intimacy" between Grenville's private secretary and Francis, and where there is such "contiguity of station." Let us now produce positive proof on the other side from a genuine letter. Letter 18 says: "It is not my design to enter into a formal vindication of Mr. Grenville upon his own principles. I have neither the honor of being personally known to him, nor do I pretend to be completely master of the facts." But if Francis was Junius, this statement could not be true.

While I am upon this subject of personal knowledge and acquaintance, let me bring forward something against Francis. It is well known that he attended school for about three years with Mr. Woodfall, and that a friendship strong and intimate existed between them through life. Put over against this, from private note to Woodfall, No. 17, the following: "I doubt much whether I shall ever have the pleasure of knowing you; but if things take the turn I expect, you shall know me by my works." The italics are his own. Here is a positive statement that Junius did not know Woodfall, and an implied one that Woodfall did not know Junius. If Francis was Junius, here is confusion confounded; but if Paine was Junius, it is as clear as day. But to proceed.

In regard to Bradshaw, Chamier, and Barrington, Taylor quotes from Domitian, Veteran, Q. in the Corner, and Arthur Tell Truth, all miscellaneous letters. He also quotes once from private note No. 52, which, like the two others I have shown, is undoubtedly a forgery. This note was dated January 25, 1772, and was written with the manifest purpose of paving the way to those four low and scurrilous attacks on Lord Barrington by Veteran. These he began on the 28th, three days after the private note, and promised sixteen letters "already written," but only wrote four, when he exhausted himself. Nearly all the evidence in favor of Francis is taken from these letters. Taylor establishes not a single fact under the first head from Junius, and I believe only quotes him once, and to prove nothing. I now proceed with the next count.

"Secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the War Office." In answer to this, I will quote Taylor, page 61, as follows: "But in the letters at the end of the third volume [Letters of Veteran, vol. iii, Woodfall's Junius] it seems as if he was almost indifferent to discovery, he so clearly betrays his personal acquaintance with the proceedings of the Secretary of War." This he founds solely on Veteran.

"Thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of the speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham." Taylor tries to establish this claim on the letter Y. Z., which is in the Miscellaneous collection. But I insist, Y. Z. must be proven to be Junius before any inference can be drawn from it. Taylor can not even prove that Francis wrote it. But he draws an inference from the following in Philo Junius: "In regard to Lord Camden, the truth is, that he inadvertently overshot himself, as appears plainly by that unguarded mention of a tyranny of forty days, which I myself heard." The argument is, Junius heard speeches in Parliament, and therefore might have been Francis, as speeches were not reported till long after. As this extract is from authority which I indorse, I will meet it by a passage from Thomas Paine's Crisis vii, showing that he also heard debates in Parliament. Speaking of national honor, he says: "I remember the late Admiral Saunders declaring in the House of Commons, and that in the time of peace, 'that the city of Madrid laid in ashes was not a sufficient atonement for the Spaniards taking off the rudder of an English sloop of war.'"

"Fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary at War." This is founded entirely on the letters of Veteran.

"Fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland." This argument is founded on the silence of Junius in regard to Lord Holland, and one letter of Anti-Fox, which is in the Miscellaneous collection.

These five points, then, of Taylor's argument are all founded on unauthenticated letters, and yet Macaulay says: "If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence." But, if the evidence of those miscellaneous letters is to be taken as true, which were written nobody knows by whom, and collected forty years after Junius ceased writing, and which had been thrown out of the genuine edition by Junius himself, or had not yet been written, by what rule are we to be guided in settling the question? Let me present a difficulty at once. Suppose I am a Scotchman. I wish to make out a case for some one of my countrymen, and I turn to the Miscellaneous collection and find a letter signed Scotus. Ah! here is a Scotchman, as the signature denotes. I immediately begin to read, and to my happiness the first sentence is an unqualified affirmation: "My lord, I am a Scotchman." This is positive, I affirm; and then how delighted I am to find, in a private note, the assurance to Mr. Woodfall that this letter "is fact." And, more than this, the original manuscript is at this hour in existence. Now, all I have to do is to show that this disguised hand resembles that of some cotemporary Scotchman's, and Scotland has the honor. This shows how absolutely worthless any argument is, founded on the Miscellaneous Letters. Query: Did not the experts depend largely on the manuscript of this spurious Scotch epistle to make out a case of identity in handwriting? As the above five points which I have reviewed, form the head and body of Taylor's argument, it would be trifling to attack the appendages. These hints will guide the reader.

But the fact is, were the five points which Taylor enumerates and tries to prove from miscellaneous letters established, still there would be no case for Francis. But even admitting there is a good case made out for him on miscellaneous letters, there is nothing incompatible with my case in favor of Thomas Paine founded on the genuine Letters. This may be made manifest by the following further observations:

There is no evidence of any weight brought forward to prove that Francis was Junius, because it is assumed that Junius wrote those miscellaneous letters, and especially Veteran's productions. But first prove that Junius was Veteran. This can not be done, and it is an important premise in the argument left out. It would be easier to prove that Francis was Veteran; and this I do not dispute. It makes my case far stronger to have a clear case made for Francis, founded on the spurious and miscellaneous letters. But that Junius did not write the letters which Taylor makes the foundation of his argument there is abundance of internal evidence to prove. The evidence of forgery I have already adduced. But could Francis have forged the hand of Junius? I answer yes; and for the following reasons: