for by the division of the whole legislative power into three estates; and now let the judicial decisions of the House of Commons be ever so extravagant, let their declarations of law be ever so flagrantly false, arbitrary, and oppressive to the subject, the House of Lords have imposed a slavish silence upon themselves; they can not interpose; they can not protect the subject; they can not defend the laws of their country. A concession so extraordinary in itself, so contradictory to the principles of their own institution, can not but alarm the most unsuspecting mind."-Let. 39. Junius, in a note to this Letter, calls for a leader upon this state of facts: "The man who resists and overcomes this iniquitous power assumed by the lords, must be supported by the whole people. We have the laws on our side, and want nothing but an interpid leader. When such a man stands forth, let the nation look to it. It is not his cause, but our own."

But the leader did not come, and Junius is no more known to England. After such declarations it would outrage all degrees of probability to suppose that Junius revealed himself to the king and ministry, and that they conferred on him a fat office for what he had written. I will not insult the common sense of my readers by offering an argument against it, founded upon the laws of human nature. And yet, Lord Macaulay has surrendered his reason to just such an assumption. Had Junius ever revealed himself to the king and his "detestable junto," that would have been the last of him.

Before I take my leave of Junius, I will give two extracts in which he sounds, TO ARMS!

He is addressing the Duke of Grafton: "You have now brought the merits of your administration to an issue, on which every Englishman, of the narrowest capacity, may determine for himself; it is not an alarm to the passions, but a calm appeal to the judgment of the people upon their own most essential interests. A more experienced minister would not have hazarded a direct invasion of the first principles of the constitution before he had made some progress in subduing the spirit of the people. With such a cause as yours, my lord, it is not sufficient that you have the court at your devotion, unless you find means to corrupt or intimidate the jury. The collective body of the people form that jury, and from their decision there is but one appeal. Whether you have talents to support you at a crisis of such difficulty and danger, should long ago have been considered."-Let. 15.

"My lord, you should not encourage these appeals to Heaven. The pious prince from whom you are supposed to descend made such frequent use of them in his public declarations, that, at last, the people also found it necessary to appeal to Heaven in their turn. Your administration has driven us into circumstances of equal distress-beware, at least, how you remind us of the remedy."-Let. 9.

Junius breathed the spirit of revolution. This is the purpose, and only purpose, of the Letters, namely: to produce a revolution in England. And, if Thomas Paine was Junius, the idea never left him. As this is a fact which extends through the life of Mr. Paine, I shall offer some proof here, on this point, as amidst the multiplicity of facts and arguments it may hereafter es

cape me. It will serve, also, to introduce Mr. Paine to the reader.

An obscure English exciseman has now been a little more than two years in America, and just five years since Junius wrote his last Letter; he has written "Common Sense" and one "Crisis;" he has revolutionized public sentiment in America, the Declaration of Independence has been sent abroad to the world, and the war well begun, when in his second "Crisis" he indites the following to Lord Howe: "I, who know England and the disposition of the people well, am confident that it is easier for us to effect a revolution there than you a conquest here. A few thousand men landed in England with the declared design of deposing the present king, bringing his ministers to trial, and setting up the Duke of Gloucester in his stead, would assuredly carry their point while you were groveling here ignorant of the matter. As I send all my papers to England, this, like Common Sense, will find its way there; and, though it may put one party on their guard, it will inform the other and the nation in general of our design to help them."

Here Mr. Paine has announced the name of the leader whom Junius called for. But Paine proposes to do Junius over again. Hear him! In the year 1792 he writes: "During the war, in the 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 nie 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."

5

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