Autograph letter (signed "Jemmy Twitcher") to Henry Sampson Woodfall. 7 August 1765. 8 pages.
Folio (8 x 12-1/2 in.) To the printer and editor of The Public Advertiser. Woodfall had been a school mate of Francis at St. Paul's, and would later publish the "Junius" letters, A satiric attack on the recently fallen Grenville ministry: "You will at once perceive by my signature, that I am a Politician ... but you will, I dare say, be at a total loss to guess from the appellation I have taken, which of the numerous partys...has a right to claim me....Whig is a name dear to Englishmen ... the Party distinguished for a number of years past by that name may have been the object of jealousy and envy...." "I now avow in my own proper name, Jemmy Twicher, every thing I have writ under the borrowed one of anti-Sejanus. I declare the late ministry to have been the most able, the most upright, the most active that ever blessed a country. They firmly resisted the Power, & opposed the measures of the Favorite. They supported the honour of the nation by their transactions with Foreign Courts, particularly those of France and Spain & strengthened the Constitution by their domestic operations. Who can doubt the truth of my first assertion who remembers their consistent conduct in the affair of the Regency Bill? Their behaviour with regard to the Canada Bills, Manilla Ransom & particularly on the Petition from the Newfoundland Fishermen sufficiently support the second...their circumspection & precision in granting Warrants, their moderation in directing the execution of them & in short of everything that passed in the affair of my old friend & companion Wilkes will put the truth of that entirely out of doubt. Alas! poor Wilkes! I loved the poor Devil once, but when he attacked the religion, which I profess, & the Divinity, which I adore, Mr Woodfall, he had no quarter to expect from Jemmy Twitcher....Let me likewise inform you of the dreadfull consequences of [the ministry's] Dismission. Public credit fell with Mr. Grenville...no monied man will come near the present Ministry. The Liberty of the press fell with the Earl of H__x. ....what will the sedate & thinking part of the country say to the Removal of the Earl of S__h, with whom Religion, Morality, Friendship, & Sincerity took their leave of the Court?...Shocked at the dismission of these good men, & the vices of as well as inability of their successors, all men of Business, of Experience, of Decency & Morality have left the service of the Crown." He follows with a page of resignations, the names disguised (from us), as for example "The Earl G__ has resigned his Staff of Ch--l--n. The Earl of [?--] with a melancholy countenance followed him...Staves were thrown up out of number. The Earl of S--k[?] would have resigned one that did not belong to him, had he known how. I am not quite sure, that he has resigned his pension...." Item #23509
"Jemmy Twitcher" is the name of one of Captain Macheath's associates, who betrays him, in Gay's "The Beggar's Opera", it became attached to John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, in connection with his prosecution of John Wilkes in 1763. "Anti-Sejanus" was the name used by the Rev. James Scott, for his letters written in 1765 to The Public Advertiser, in support of his patron Sandwich and the Grenville ministry. Parkes however identifies "Anti-Sejanus" with Francis (J. Parkes and H. Merivale, eds., Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis, (1867)). ("Parkes, as usual with him in the case of the abler letters previous to 1769, attributes “Anti-Sejanus” to Sir P. Francis", Cambridge History of English and American Literature). The letter's being dated from the "Catch Club" also is a suggestion in the direction of Sandwich, who was also a patron of such singing. If this letter is indeed by Francis, and the handwriting which bears similarities to Francis's undisguised hand makes it not unlikely, it pre-dates any of the other controversial public letters attributed to him. The subjects touched on as examples of the ministry's competence (actually, of course, their incompetence) were ones that "Junius" also was concerned with. Whatever the author's identity, this is surely an interesting example of the political invective of the period.
Price: $1,500.00