[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]