Sir Philip Francis was an Irish

Kingdom of Ireland

The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...

-born British

Kingdom of Great Britain

The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 and pamphleteer, the possible author of the Letters of Junius

Junius

Junius was the pseudonym of a writer who contributed a series of letters to the Public Advertiser, from 21 January 1769 to 21 January 1772. The signature had been already used, apparently by him, in a letter of 21 November 1768...

, and the chief antagonist of Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...

. His accusations against the latter led to the Impeachment of Warren Hastings

Impeachment of Warren Hastings

The Impeachment of Warren Hastings was a failed attempt to impeach the former Governor-General of India Warren Hastings in the Parliament of Great Britain between 1788 and 1795. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta particularly relating to mismanagement and personal...

 by Parliament.

Early life

Born in Dublin, he was the only son of Dr Philip Francis (c. 1708-1773), a man of some literary celebrity in his time, known by his translations of Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, Aeschines

Aeschines

Aeschines was a Greek statesman and one of the ten Attic orators.-Life:Although it is known he was born in Athens, the records regarding his parentage and early life are conflicting; but it seems probable that his parents, though poor, were respectable. Aeschines' father was Atrometus, an...

 and Demosthenes

Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...

. He received the rudiments of an excellent education at a free school in Dublin, and afterwards spent a year or two (1751–1752) under his father's roof at Skeyton

Skeyton

Skeyton is a village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is south of Cromer, north of Norwich and north-east of London. The village lies east of the nearby town of Aylsham. The nearest railway station is at North Walsham for the Bittern Line which runs between...

 Rectory

Rectory

A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...

, Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

, and elsewhere, and for a short time he had Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...

 as a fellow-pupil. In March 1753, he entered St Paul's school, London, where he remained for three and a half years, becoming a proficient classical scholar.

In 1756, immediately on his leaving school, he was appointed to a junior clerkship in the secretary of state's office by Henry Fox

Henry Fox

Henry Fox may refer to:* Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland , British politician of the eighteenth century* Henry Edward Fox , British Army general* Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland...

 (afterwards Lord Holland

Baron Holland

Baron Holland, of Holland in the County of Lincoln, and Baron Holland, of Foxley in the County of Wiltshire, were two titles in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first barony was created on 7 March 1762 for Lady Caroline Fox, the daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond and the eldest of...

), with whose family Dr Francis was at that time on intimate terms; and this post he retained under the succeeding administration. In 1758 he was employed as secretary to General Bligh

Thomas Bligh

Thomas Bligh was a British soldier, best known for his service during the Seven Years' War when he led a series of amphibious raids, known as "descents" on the French coastline...

 in the expedition against Cherbourg

Raid on Cherbourg

The Raid on Cherbourg took place in August 1758 during the Seven Year's War when a British force was landed on the coast of France by the Royal Navy with the intention of attacking the town of Cherbourg as part of the British government's policy of "descents" on the French Coast.-Background:Since...

; and in the same capacity he accompanied the Earl of Kinnoull

Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull

Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull PC was a Scottish peer and British politician.Hay was elected for Scarborough in 1736, but his election was overturned on petition. He sat as Member of Parliament for Cambridge from 1741 until 1758...

 on his special embassy to the court of Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 in 1760.

He starts to rise

In 1761, he became personally known to William Pitt the Elder who, recognising his ability and discretion, made use of his services as private amanuensis from time to time. In 1762 he was appointed to a principal clerkship in the war office, where he formed a warm friendship with Christopher D'Oyly, Deputy-Secretary at War, whose dismissal from office in 1772 was hotly resented by Junius. On 27 February 1762 he married Elizabeth Macrabie, the daughter of a retired London merchant.

His official duties brought him into direct relations with many who were well versed in the politics of the time. In 1763 the great constitutional questions arising out of the arrest of Wilkes began to be sharply canvassed. It was natural that Francis, who from a very early age had been in the habit of writing occasionally to the newspapers, should be eager to take an active part in the discussion, though his position as a government official made it necessary that his intervention should be carefully disguised.

Time moves on

He is known to have written to the Public Ledger and Public Advertiser, as an advocate of the popular cause, on many occasions about and after the year 1763; he frequently attended debates in both Houses of Parliament, especially when American questions were being discussed; and between 1769 and 1771 he is also known to have been favorable to the scheme for the overthrow of the Grafton government and afterwards of that of Lord North, and for persuading or forcing Lord Chatham into power. In January 1769 the first of the Letters of Junius appeared, and the series was continued till January 21, 1772. They had been preceded by others under various signatures such as Candor, Father of Candor, Anti-Sejanus, Lucius, Nemesis, which have all been attributed, some of them certainly in error, to one and the same hand.

The authorship of the letters

Identity of Junius

Junius was the pseudonym of a writer who contributed a series of political letters to the Public Advertiser, from 21 January 1769 to 21 January 1772 as well as several other London newspapers such as the London Evening Post....

 has been assigned to Francis on a variety of grounds, including a computer-aided analysis of the Junius texts in the 1960s. Comparing stylistic patterns from the letters with attributed writings of the period allowed a reasonable statistical conclusion to be drawn that Francis was by far the most likely author.

In March 1772 Francis finally left the war office, and in July of the same year he left England for a tour through France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, which lasted until the following December. On his return he was contemplating emigration to New England, when in June 1773 Lord North, on the recommendation of Lord Barrington, appointed him a member of the newly constituted supreme council of Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

 at a salary of 10,000 per annum. Along with his colleagues Monson and Clavering he reached Calcutta in October 1774, and a long struggle with Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...

, the governor-general, immediately began. These three, actuated probably by petty personal motives, combined to form a majority of the council in harassing opposition to the governor-general's policy; and they even accused him of corruption, mainly on the evidence of Nuncomar

Nuncomar

Maharaja Nandakumar was a Mughal Indian tax official best known for his connection with Warren Hastings. He learned Vaishnava from Radhamohana Thakura...

.

The death of Monson

Monson

-People:* David Smith Monson, U.S. Representative from Utah, 1985-1987* Sir Edward Monson, English diplomat* Henry Monson , New Zealand settler* Jeff Monson, mixed martial arts fighter* John Monson, 11th Baron Monson* Shaun Monson, film director...

 in 1776, and of Clavering

Clavering

Clavering may refer to:In places:*Clavering, Essex, a village in England*Clavering, Ontario, a community in Georgian Bluffs, Ontario, Canada*Clavering Island, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, part of GreenlandPeople with the surname Clavering:...

 in the following year, made Hastings again supreme in the council. But a dispute with Francis, more than usually embittered, led in August 1780 to a minute being delivered to the council board by Hastings, in which he stated that he judged of the public conduct of Mr Francis by his experience of his private, which he had found to be "void of truth and honor"; such an opinion was aggravated by the various affairs Francis had during his stay in Calcutta, including one with Catherine Grand

Catherine Grand

Catherine Noele Grand was the mistress and later the wife of French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the first Prime Minister of France. From their marriage in 1802 until her death she was Catherine Noele Grand de Talleyrand-Périgord, Princesse de Bénévent...

. A duel

Duel

A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...

 was the consequence, in which Francis received a dangerous wound. Though his recovery was rapid and complete, he did not choose to prolong his stay abroad. He arrived in England in October 1781, and was received with little favor.

Little is known of the nature of his occupations during the next two years ( went to Tibet?), except that he was untiring in his efforts to procure first the recall, and afterwards the impeachment, of his hitherto triumphant adversary. In 1783 Fox produced his India Bill, which led to the overthrow of the coalition government. In 1784 Francis was returned to the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 as Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for the borough of Yarmouth, Isle of Wight

Yarmouth (Isle of Wight) (UK Parliament constituency)

Yarmouth was a borough constituency of the House of Commons of England then of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832...

; and although he took an opportunity to disclaim every feeling of personal animosity towards Hastings, this did not prevent him, on the return of the latter in 1785, from doing all in his power to bring forward and support the charges which ultimately led to the impeachment

Impeachment

Impeachment is a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity, the outcome of which, depending on the country, may include the removal of that official from office as well as other punishment....

 resolutions of 1787. Although excluded by a majority of the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 from the list of the managers of that impeachment, Francis was nonetheless its most energetic promoter, supplying his friends Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

 and Richard Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...

 with all the materials for their eloquent orations and burning invectives.

At the general election of 1790 he was returned member for Bletchingley

Bletchingley (UK Parliament constituency)

Bletchingley was a parliamentary borough in Surrey. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of England from 1295 to 1707, to the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom until 1832, when the constituency was...

. He sympathized warmly and actively with the French revolutionary doctrines, expostulating with Burke on his vehement denunciation of the same. In 1793 he supported Earl Grey

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC , known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 22 November 1830 to 16 July 1834. A member of the Whig Party, he backed significant reform of the British government and was among the...

's motion for a return to the old constitutional system of representation, and so earned the title to be regarded as one of the earliest promoters of the cause of parliamentary reform; and he was one of the founders of the Society of the Friends of the People.

Later life

The acquittal of Hastings in April 1795 disappointed Francis of the governor-generalship, and in 1798 he had to submit to the additional mortification of a defeat in the general election. He was once more successful, however, in 1802, when he sat for Appleby

Appleby (UK Parliament constituency)

Appleby was a parliamentary constituency in the former county of Westmorland in England. It existed for two separate periods: from 1295 to 1832, and from 1885 to 1918....

, and it seemed as if the great ambitions of his life were about to be realized when the Whig party came into power in 1806. His disappointment was great when the governor-generalship was, owing to party exigencies, conferred on Sir Gilbert Elliot (Lord Minto); he declined, it is said, soon afterwards the government of the Cape, but accepted a KB

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

. Though re-elected for Appleby in 1806, he failed to secure a seat in the following year; and the remainder of his life was spent in comparative privacy.

Among the later productions of his pen were, besides the Plan of a Reform in the Election of the House of Commons, pamphlets entitled:

• Proceedings in the House of Commons on the Slave Trade (1796),
• Reflections on the Abundance of Paper in Circulation and the Scarcity of Specie (1810),
• Historical Questions Exhibited (1818), and a
• Letter to Earl Grey on the Policy of Great Britain and the Allies towards Norway (1814).

His first wife, by whom he had six children, died in 1806, and in 1814 he married his second wife, Emma Watkins, who long survived him, and who left voluminous manuscripts relating to his biography. In his domestic relations he was exemplary, and he lived on terms of mutual affection with a wide circle of friends. He was, however, full of vindictiveness, dissimulation and treachery, and there can be little doubt that in his historic conflict with Warren Hastings unworthy personal motives played a leading part.

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