COLONEL BARRÉ'S LETTER TO MR. PITT.

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protector and friend. The packets bring no directions concerning me; so that I remain as Adjutant General with General Amherst, by his desire, though with a very bad prospect of ever being taken notice of.

"From power I have not interest enough to ask favour; but, unless the discernment of my late general be much called in question, I may claim some title to justice. If my demands appear reasonable an application to Mr. Pitt cannot be charged with great impropriety.

"For want of friends I had lingered a subaltern officer eleven years, when Mr. Wolfe's opinion of me rescued me from that obscurity. I attended him as Major of Brigade to the siege of Louisbourg, in which campaign my zeal for the service confirmed him my friend, and gained the approbation of General Amherst. When the expedition to Canada was determined upon General Wolfe got his Majesty's permission to name me his Adjutant-General. Upon this occasion I only obtained the rank of Major in America and Captain in the army; my being still a subaltern was the reason assigned for such moderate honours. Thus my misfortune was imputed to me as a fault, and though thought worthy of that high employment, the rank of LieutenantColonel (so necessary to add weight to it) was refused, although generally given in like cases, and in some instances to younger officers.

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'My conduct in that station was so highly approved of by the general that when the success of the campaign seemed doubtful he regretted his want of power to serve me; and only wished with impatience for an opportunity to make me the messenger of agreeable news. This last honour the battle of Quebec deprived me of. After the defeat of his Majesty's enemies the trophies I can boast only indicate how much I suffered; my zealous and sole advocate killed, my left eye rendered useless, and the ball still in my head.

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The presumption in appealing to you I hope will be pardoned, when I affirm that I am almost utterly unknown to the Secretary at War.* Besides, Sir, I confess it would be the most flattering circumstance of my life to owe my preferment to that minister who honoured my late general with so important a command, and which I had the pleasure of seeing executed with satisfaction to my King and country.

"I have the honour to be, with the most profound respect, Sir, your most devoted humble servant,

"ISAAC BARRÉ."+

* Lord Barrington; who was afterwards violently assailed by Junius.

† Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 41.

This unusual mode of application for military promotion was probably adopted by the writer, in the hope that the Minister, in his conferences with Wolfe before the sailing of the expedition, had become acquainted not only with the name of Barré but also with the General's opinion of his merits; and that he might thereby have been disposed to listen favourably to his appeal. His hopes were, however, fruitless, the reply being merely, with true official reserve, that "senior officers would be injured by his promotion."

If there be not any remarkable literary ability evinced in this letter to Mr. Pitt it is at least a clear and emphatic statement of military claims; and is evidently the production of an earnest and vigorous mind. At the date of this appeal Wolfe's army was merged in that of Amherst. Unaided either by Monckton, or Murray, Barré was left to the kindness of General (Sir Jeffery) Amherst, under whose personal observation he had previously been at Louisbourg, and his new patron soon had an opportunity of rendering him an important service.

On the 8th of September, 1760, the surrender of Montreal completed the subjection of Canada, and Amherst appointed Barré to convey the despatches announcing that event to the English Minister. Accompanied by Captain Deane, on the part of the Navy, he arrived in London on the 5th of October in that year.

In the life of our ambitious but mortified and hitherto neglected young officer, this is a memorable period, in reference to an anonymous but important publication which may be reasonably attributed to the writer of the Letter to Mr. Pitt. Between the months of June and October in the same year, 1760, an anonymous pamphlet was printed and published in London, severely impeaching and satirising the conduct of General Townshend as commander of the Quebec expedition after the death of Wolfe.

This publication was entitled "A Letter to an Honourable Brigadier General, Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Forces in Canada." It excited much attention at the time of its appearance and even led to a hostile meeting between Townshend and the Earl of

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ANONYMOUS LETTER TO A BRIGADIER-GENERAL."

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Albemarle, the former of whom suspected that the latter had instigated or employed an anonymous assailant thus to traduce and vilify him. The belligerent parties were arrested at the place of meeting before the intended duel took place. This was on the 4th of November, 1760; but the pamphlet must have been printed some time before; for on the 5th of the preceding month, being the very day of Major Barré's arrival in London, " A Refutation of the Letter to an Honourable Brigadier General, &c., By an Officer," was published.

The latter pamphlet possesses no literary merit; but in the language, style, and sentiments of the anonymous Letter to General Townshend, there is a most remarkable and extraordinary coincidence with the "Letters of Junius." So striking indeed is the resemblance, not only in particular phrases and expressions and in isolated passages, but in the style, diction, energy, spirit and character of the entire composition that there can scarcely be a doubt the writer was the author not only of the letters which, from 1767 to 1769, appeared in the "Public Advertiser" under the signatures of Atticus, Lucius, Brutus, Poplicola, &c., but also of the unparalleled effusions which were published in the same journal from 1769 to 1772, with the memorable signature of Junius.*

This resemblance was pointed out in 1817 by a person who had only read some extracts from the "Letter to a Brigadier General," which had appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine." Under the name of "Phil-Urbanus," he expressed his "strong opinion," in the same periodical, that "if the author of the Letter to a Brigadier General should be known, it would be no difficult task to set at rest the inquiry after the author of the Letters of Junius." The hint thus given does not appear to have been followed up; but, in 1840, the pamphlet now referred to happened to come under the notice of Mr. N. W. Simons, of the Library of the British Museum. Not knowing that "Phil-Urbanus" had taken the same

* See a discriminating Review of this pamphlet in the Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1841.

view three and twenty years before, Mr. Simons, on reading this obscure and forgotten work, was immediately and forcibly impressed with its analogy in style to the Letters of Junius, and its consequent importance, as affording a possible clue to the discovery of their author. That gentleman was himself well qualified by previous study of the writings of Junius to form an opinion on this subject; and that opinion being confirmed by several friends of literary eminence, he was induced, in the year 1841, to reprint the "Letter," as well as the "Refutation" of it, appending to them some valuable original remarks, tending firstly to prove that the "Letter" was really from the pen of Junius, and secondly to refute the opinion that Sir Philip Francis was the author of the letters with that signa

In addition to Mr. Simons and "Phil-Urbanus," it is stated by another writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" (July, 1843) that an individual, then recently deceased, who had only seen the extracts from the pamphlet of 1760, had not only come to the same conclusion of its identity of authorship with the "Letters of Junius," but, previously to the illness which terminated his life, was preparing for the press a statement of his opinion. Thus, three several parties, entirely unconnected with each other, after reading either the whole" Letter," or extracts from it, had arrived at the conviction that it was an early production of the great and unknown English political satirist, and Mr. Simons's reprint has since induced many other persons to adopt the same opinion.

Before proceeding to show the probability that Isaac Barré was the author of the satirical "Letter" to Brigadier General Townshend it may be desirable by a few extracts to illustrate its identity in style, thought, and expression, with the Letters of Junius. This remarkable and ironical epistle impeaches, in the bitterest terms, the conduct of Townshend, in Canada; and episodically, that of Lord George Sackville, at Minden: and it must not be

* Mr. Simons's reprints and remarks appeared in the shape of a 16 mo. pamphlet, published by Pickering, London.

PASSAGES FROM THE ANONYMOUS LETTER.

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forgotten that, seven years afterwards, Junius, under various signatures, also satirised both those officers.

The anonymous pamphleteer thus addresses Brigadier General Townshend :

"Independent of fortune and her favours, you have made the most distinguished honour of the present war in a peculiar manner your own. The Goddess of blindness and caprice had certainly no share in the capitulation of Quebec. Ardent in the pursuit of glory, and the applause of your country, you generously violated the rules of war, and risked the resentment of your superior officer [General Monckton]; you signed the articles of capitulation without his knowledge, and, anxious for the preservation of your conquest, you appointed the staff of the garrison without even asking his consent. He might indeed suspect the friendship you had long professed for him, but with the spirit of an old Roman, the love of our country omnes omnium caritates complectitur. He might have ordered you into arrest for such an outrage to his authority. He was not insensible of the indignity; but you asked his pardon, and languishing under his wounds he accepted your submission. Thus you carried your point. You received into your protection the capital of an Empire larger than half the Roman conquests; and, though you had formally entered your protest against attacking the place, you alone enjoyed the honours of its being taken."—"Your appetite for glory being now fully satisfied, you descended from the Heights of Abraham, and, as the better part of valour is discretion, according to Falstaff's wisdom, you discreetly left your regiment, whose paltry emoluments you had dearly purchased by your one campaign, and prudently quitted a scene where danger would probably be too busy. You sagaciously foresaw that the French would endeavour to recover their capital, and you were convinced that the place was not defensible."

"I know that our ingenious moderns have been reproached with plundering the shrines of antiquity, and ransacking the virtues of the dead, to erect a lying monument of fame to the living. I shall not be apprehensive of this reproach when I assert that the noblest praise ever given to Cæsar, that of writing with the same spirit with which he fought, is equally due to you for the letter you wrote from Quebec to the Secretary of State. Some malignant spirits, indeed, were offended at your not having paid one civil compliment to the memory of General Wolfe, or used one kind expression of esteem or affection with regard to his person. Surely, some people are never to be satisfied."--"They must have known very little of the expedition to Quebec who expected that you would bear testimony to the conduct of a General whose plan of operations you had the honour, both in public and private, to