Francis was appointed a member (or councillor) on the East India Regulating Act of 1773. Burke early spots is qualities, ‘I find that this Mr Francis is entirely [in the] interests of Lord Clive. Everything contributes to the Greatness of this Man, [273] who whether Government or the Company prevails will go near to govern India’ (Corr. , II, 472). For all Burke’s tribute he had yet done little but hold minor government posts.

O’Brien continues: ‘However, his pseudonymous writings, the Letters of Junius, were the talk of British political world. The Letters, a brilliant series of political polemics, appeared in the Public Advertiser between 21 Jan 1769 and 21 Jan 1772. they were mainly directed against the Duke of Grafton’s Administration from the point of view of a supporter of George Greville, and the political argument is on a high intellectual level. But Junius’s readers were less interested in political argument than in damaging personal allegations, couched in a tone of silky menace, which intersperse the argument and lend spice to it. Politicians read Junius with bated breath, in fear of what might be coming next.’ [Cont.]

‘The Letters are superbly written - some of the finest writers of the time, including Burke, are among those credited with the authorship. But the identity remained in dispute until, in 1962, Alvar Ellegaard [or Ellegård], on the basis of statistico-linguistic tests, established conclusively that Junius was Francis. One of the targets was the distinguished soldier Draper (1721-87), conquer of Manila and a personal friend of Francis’s father, Dr. Philip Francis, an eminent classicist. Two others were John Calcraft (1726-1772) and Welbore Ellis (1713-1802), both benefactors of Francis. Francis’s outwardly good relations with these two mn tended to invalidate the hypothesis that he was the author. The politician and writer John Wilson Croker dismissed the “Franciscan’ hypothesis on the grounds that if Francis was Junius, he must have been a “monster of treachery”, which Croker thought improbable. One wonders what Croker would have thought had he known that a few days after ceasing to write his Letters, Francis had written to his printer, “Having nothing better to do, I propose to entertain myself and the public by torturing that bloody wretch Barrington.”’

O’Brien goes on to relate that Francis was in receipt of letters from his father reporting sadly the effect of the Letters on Draper, never suspecting that his son was their author. (Memoirs, I, 220). Francis’s Memoirs, 3 vols, ed. by Joseph Parkes and Henry Merivale (London 1867), are full of feints such as his stated suspicion, in a letter to Macrabie, 17 June 1790, that Burke is Junius; even more cunning insistence the Burke behaves like someone who would wish to be believed to be the author of the Letters (Memoirs, I, 243, 219). Dr Johnson is reported in Boswell’s Life as having received an unsolicited denial from Burke that he was the author (in 1779). Chief Justice Lord Mansfield also gave an account in which he imputed a blackmail motive. O’Brien quotes Letter LXIX, the last, and calls it a piece of moralising à la Joseph Surface. He considers that in getting the political plum of Council office, he was being rewarded for the cessation, in view of a decision made by George III, who is shown to have learned the identity of Junius from David Garrick who had it from the printer, H. S. Woodfall.

O’Brien refines the blackmail theory with the observation that, at the death of Grencille in 1770, the Junius author had to turn to something else to exercise his acknowledged power. One of the characteristics which made Junius so talked about was the extreme audacity of his attacks on George III, viz., Letter XXXV (19 Dec. 1769):‘Sir, it is the misfortune of your life, and originally the cause of every reproach and distress, which has attended your government, that you should never have been acquainted with th language of truth, until you heard it in the complaints of your people.’ The letter ends, ‘... be warned by their [the Stuarts] example; and, while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, should remember that, as it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another.’ Prosecution against the printer failed. To O’Brien, it seems that Francis decided in late 1771 to go out of business as Junius, and cash in on the enormous nuisance-value he had accumulated. ... He arranged for a collected Letters and leaked to Garrick an intention to write no more, which, when tally-taled to George III, was followed by a more venomous letter than ever. If he was to go out of business, it would be at his own price. His grandson H. R. Francis (Junius Revealed, 1894), believed on the strength of family tradition that this was the reason for the plum India Council job. O’Brien rounds off, the Philip Francis who landed at Calcutta on 19 Oct. 1774 was a dangerous and unscrupulous man. But he was to find a man awaiting him there who was even more dangerous and unscrupulouos than he was. [273-280] Bibl.: Editions quoted by O’Brien are, Letters of Junius, ed. Everett; and Letters of Junius, ed. Cannon.

On Francis and Warren Hastings: The ensuing narrative introduces Francis as the prime mover in the impeachment of Hastings, especially in connection with the torturing of the eunichs - businessmen - of the Begums (or dowagers) of Oudhe, a sort of pocket kingdom under his control and certainly bereft of its rajah. Oudhe was, for Francis ‘the principal theatre of his [Hastings] iniquities.’ [289] At the centre of the affair was Nuncomar - or Nundakumar - who turned informer against Hastings. Under pressure of himself being imprisoned, Francis abandoned Nuncomor to the fate pursuant on his being successfully prosecuted for much earlier forging a bond, and Nuncomor was executed. In the process, Francis sent his petition for mercy to the common hangman to be burned, thus disassociating himself publically. As Owen Dudley Edwards puts it, ‘Junius had no interest in posterity.’ (See Carnell and Nicholson, eds., Impeachment of Warren Hastings, Edinburgh 1989). For the next six years Francis offered a show of subordination. Hastings decided to provoke a duel, ostensibly occasioned by an adverse vote in Council. Hastings [recte Francis] was sent home with a ball in his side. [He survived.] Hastings conducts the Mahratta war, ending military opposition to the British in India. Francis reaches Dover 18 Oct. 1781.

On Burke and Francis: O’Brien speaks of the ‘affected jocularity’ which infuses Burke’s letters to the man with whom he was yoked for nine years during the pursuit of Hastings. ‘I believe he was distastefully aware that Francis was Junius, but that he tried to suppress that awareness ... the awareness shows, in the forced cordiality of those letters. [304] After Francis had returned ... he became the Select Committee’s chief witness. [311] It is often suggested that Burke’s mind was poisoned by the rancorous Francis. [313] Burke at Francis’s house in Sheen, with Fox, disagreeing about method of impeachment.

O’Brien argues against the view that Francis can be seen ‘egging Burke on’ in the prosecution of Hastings. [352f] He portrays the psychology of a schemer and a traitor: ‘the Junius side was reconciled with the Numcomar side.’ [353] Burke sent the manuscript drafts and part proofs of his Reflections on the French Revolution to Philip Francis, who warned astringently against printing. He was especially caustic about the image of the Queen, ‘In my opinion all that you say about the Queen is pure fobbery’ (Corr. VI, 85-87). [408] Burke was especially stung by the reference to ‘this Foppery of mine’ and protested that it was sincerely felt emotion. He repudiated the notion that he was entering demeaning controversy with Price and Shelburne (his political master). In a further letter of 3 to 4 Nov., Francis sent a tactless letter to Burke with comments on the published Reflections. In it, he assigned the ‘plunder and pillage’ of history to the tyranny of the Catholic papacy, and to the usufructions of the celibate clergy and their monastic fiefdoms, [who] ‘laid waste a province, and then founded a Monastary’; ‘provided as far as it could for the utter extinction of future populaion by instituting numberless retreats for Celibacy’; &c. [~410] Burke’s reply is sharp: ‘I am very much obliged to you for your kind resolution to defend by late Publication against your better judgement.’ (Corr., VI, 152-5. [410] It is in this context that he says, ‘I decline Controversy with you, &c’, a statement which O’Brien takes as a hint that he knows the identity of Junius. [411]

Nevertheless, Burke so handled Francis that they remained allies in the impeachment proceedings. O’Brien notes a meekness in Francis’s relation to Burke, and concludes that his taming of Junius-Nuncomar-Francis is not the least remarkable of his achievements. Francis later wrote modestly of his contribution to the Ninth Report of the Section Committee [see 306 supra], ‘... indeed a masterpiece of human wisdom, the fact is I wrote a very small part of it, and, as to the composition, corrected the whole’. Yet ‘there is not one material principle or deduction in it which may not be fairly and honestly traced back to some antecedent opinions of my own, dilated on and expanded by a superior power. In some respect I am the acorn. But, if you want to see the oak in all its beauty, dignity, and strength, read the ninth report, the sole undbouted property of the commanding mastermind of Edmund Burke. &c.’ (Quoted in H. R. Francis, Junius Revealed, London 1894, p.29) [413]

Among those who attend Burke’s funeral was Sir Philip Francis whom O’Brien characterises at the chapter-end as a proud and selfish man nevertheless paying homage, at the expense of some humiliation, to the mastery of Burke - but ‘attended as always by the shade of Nuncomar.’ [592]