102 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»<» S. VIII. Aug. 6. '59. 



been the writer of the Letters of Junius, it is only suffi- 

 cient to call the reader's attention to the two following 

 facts, Avhich are decisive of the subject in question : — 



" First, Mr. Flood was in Ireland throughout a great 

 part of the summer of 1768, and at a time when Junius, 

 whoever he may have been, was perpetually correspond- 

 ing with the printer of the Public Advertiser, and with a 

 rapidity which could not have been maintained, not only 

 in Ireland, but even at a hundred, and occasionally at less 

 than fifty, miles' distance from the British metropolis. 

 This fact may be collected, among other authorities, from 

 the following passage in Mr. Campbell's Life of Boyd, 

 and is just as adverse to the pretensions of the one as of 

 the other. 



" ' In the summer of 1768, Boj'd went to Ireland for a 

 few months on some private business. During his stay in 

 Dublin he was constantly in the company of Mr. Flood.' 



"Next, by turning to the private letter of Junius, 

 No. 44., of the date of Nov. 27, 1771, the reader will find 

 the following paragraph : ' I fear your friend Jerry Dyson 

 will lose his Irish pension. Say "received." ' The mark 

 ' received ' occurs accordingly in the Public Advertiser of 

 the day ensuing. Now by turning to the Irish debates 

 of this period, we shall find that the question concerning 

 this pension was actually determined by the Irish Par- 

 liament just two days before the date of the above-men- 

 tioned private letter, and that Mr. Flood was one of the 

 principal opponents of the grant, a circumstance which 

 precludes the possibility of believing him to have written 

 the letter in question. 'We shall extract the article from 

 ■whence this information is derived, from the Public Adver- 

 tiser of Dec. 18, 1771. 



" * Authentic copj' of the conclusion of the speech which 

 Mr. Flood made in the Irish House of Commons, on Mon- 

 day the 25th of November last, when the debate on the 

 pension of Jeremiah Dyson, Esq., came on before the 

 Committee of Supplies : — 



« ' « But of all the burthens which it has pleased 



Government to lay upon our devoted shoulders, that 

 •which is the subject of the present debate is the most 

 grievous and intolerable. — Who does not know Jeremiah 

 Dyson, Esq. ? — We know little of him indeed, otherwise 

 than by his name in our pension list; but there are 

 others who know him by his actions. This is he who is 

 endued with those happy talents, that he has served 

 every administration, and served every one with equal 

 success, — a civil, pliable, goodnatured gentleman, who 

 will do what you will, and say what you please, — for pay- 

 ment." 



" ' Here Mr. Flood was interrupted and called to order 

 by Mr. ^I., who urged that more respect ought to be paid 

 to Mr. D3'son as one of his Majest3''s officers, and, as 

 such, one whom his Majesty was graciously' pleased to 

 repose confidence in. However, Mr. Flood went on: 

 " As to the royal confidence reposed in Mr. Dyson, his 

 gracious Majesty (whom ,God long preserve) has been 

 graciously lavish of it, not only to Mr. Dyson, but to the 

 friends of 5Ir. Dyson ; and I think the choice was good. 

 The royal secrets will, I dare saj', be very secure in their 

 breasts, not only for the love they bear to his gracious 

 INIajesty, but for the love they bear to themselves. In 

 the present case, however, we do not want to be informed 

 of that part of Mr. Dyson's character — we know enough 

 of him — everybodj' knows enough of him. Ask the 

 British treasury — the British council — ask an}' Eng- 

 lishman who he is, what he is — they can all tell 3'ou, for 

 the gentleman is well known. But what have we to do 

 with him? He never served Ireland, nor the friends of 

 Ireland. And if this distressed kingdom was never bene- 

 fited by his counsel, interest, or service, I see no good 

 cause why this kingdom should reward him. Let the 



honourable members of this House consider this, and give 

 their voices accordingly. For God's sake let every man 

 consult his conscience. If Jeremiah Dyson, Esq., shall be 

 found to deserve this pension, let it be" continued ; if not, 

 let it be lopped off' our revenue as burthensome and un- 

 necessary'." ' "— Woodfall's Junius (ed. 1814), pp. 156—9. 



Flood's name was again brought forward in 

 1838 bj Warden Flood, in his Memoirs of the 

 Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Henri/ 

 Flood, M.P., who tells us (p. 81.) that — 



" Mr._ Flood had pretensions to the authorship of Junius. 

 And, without more than recording a few anecdotes on the 

 subject, he may have had as well-sustained pretensions 

 as some who have been put forward ; since hypothetical 

 arguments, however lengthened, in support of a parti- 

 cular and popular personage, do not give greater cer- 

 tainty to the fact.* A literary inquirj' so curious as the 

 authorship of the celebrated Letters of Junius, has bafllied 

 for years the most ingenious conjectures. The nearer we 

 approach the object of our inquisitiveness, when we are 

 about to place the chaplet of immortal ba3'S on the head 

 of the supposed author, he eludes the completion of our 

 labour, like a delightful delusion of nature which pictures 

 to our vision an imaginary object that we pursue with 

 confidence till nearness informs of its unreality. It ia 

 fortunate Junius has left no certain trace of his personal 

 distinctness, no clue to saj' he was the man. 



" Mr. Flood, however, possessed much of the peculiar 

 genius of that writer, and a classic commentator re- 

 marked, when the political warfare was carrying on, that 

 his satire had much of the epigrammatic point of Achi- 

 locus. The time Mr. Flood flourished, his politics, his 

 compositions, and his position in society gave a sort of 

 colouring to the supposition that was hazarded by many 

 of his acquaintances, regarding his identity with Junius. 

 The following anecdotes, however, are all the materials 

 with which the biographer has to sustain the fact. Colo- 

 nel Luttrel (the first Lord of Carhampton) was a great 

 stickler for abuses, particularlj' in the army and pension 

 estimates ; he gave bitter and unmitigated opposition to 

 any measure suggested by Mr. Flood for their diminu- 

 tion. In one of the letters of Junius the colonel is exhi- 

 bited in no very enviable position. He happened to visit 

 the house of a friend, whom he found attentively perusing 

 a paper : ' What arc you reading ? ' inquired Luttrel. ' A 

 letter of Junius,' responded his friend. 'Who do you 

 think is he? ' * Why,' said the colonel, ' to be sure that 



d d fellow, Harry Flood.' .The conjecture of Colonel 



Luttrel operated as a well-attested fact, and gave an 

 acerbity to his observations, within and without the doors 

 of parliament, when opposed by his Junius. 



" When Sir Lawrence Parsons was on a visit at Farm- 

 le3', one evening the conversation turned on Junius. Mr. 

 Flood, who had been in his stud}', entered the room just 

 as Lady Frances said that Junius ought to make his real 

 name known. Mr. Flood sat down and looked fixedl}' 

 at Lady Frances; the conversation on the authorship 

 dropped, and afterwards Mr. Flood turned it to some 

 other subject. Sir Lawrence Parsons thought he traced, 

 in the manuscript of the letters at Woodfall's, the small 

 cramped handwriting of Lady Frances Flood. 



" The question he put to a'connexion of his is charac- 

 teristic enough of the man, and of Junius. ' What is 

 your definition of a secret?' 'A circumstance only 

 known to two persons.' 'No,' replied Mr. Flood, 'it 

 ceases to be a secret the moment it is known to anj' one 

 but yourself.' " 



* Lord Eosse has been mentioned as strongly of opinion 

 that Mr. Flood was Junius. 



