From the first landing of the new councillors in India, there had been misunderstandings-disputes on matters of etiquette, number of discharges of salute guns, receptions, and first visits. It was manifest the two divisions of the Supreme Council, Messrs. Clavering, Francis, and Monson on one side, and Messrs. Hastings and Barker on the other, were resolved not cordially to amalgamate. At the council-board altercations were incessant; conflicting opinions and recriminations were entered on the minutes; till at length, from daily bickerings, the exasperation between Francis and Hastings became so embittered that the latter seems to have been determined to bring their differences to a short issue by converting them into a personal affair. Mr. Hastings caused the following minute to be entered in the council-book, and communicated the same to Mr. Francis on the evening of August 14, 1780:-" My authority for the opinions I have declared concerning Mr. Francis depends on facts which have passed within my own knowledge. I judge of his public conduct by my experience of his private, which I have found to be void of truth and honour. This is a severe charge, but temperately and deliberately made, from the firm persuasion that I owe this justice to the public and myself, as the only redress to both, for artifices of which I have been a victim, and which threaten to involve their interests with disgrace and ruin. The only redress for a fraud for which the law has made no provision is the exposure of it." Next day they met as usual at the council-board. No notice was taken of this communication till after the conclusion of the business of the day, when Mr. Francis desired to speak to Mr Hastings in private. They withdrew into an adjoining room, when Mr. Francis adopted the unusual course of giving a verbal challenge to Mr. Hastings, which was accepted, and the meeting fixed for an early hour next morning. It was altogether "a silly affair, as Mr. Hastings admits in the account he gave of it to a friend, and cited in his "Life" by Mr. Gleig. A native old woman, Mr. Hastings says, happened to be standing near the spot, and seemed astonished at the strange scene that passed before her, enacted by two Europeans. Two gentlemen meet, take their stand at a measured distance, deliberately fire their pistols at each other; one gentleman falls, and the other runs up to tender him assistance. The ball struck Francis just below the right shoulder, passing out at the lower part of the abdomen. Next day Mr. Hastings sent a messenger to inquire after his health, and expressed a desire to pay a visit of condolence. This civility Mr. Francis politely declined, expressing a due sense of his kindness, and, not to be outdone, assured him that nothing which had passed would, on his part, leave anything like feelings of personal rancour in their future meetings at the council-board. MR. SERGEANT ROUGH TO MR. BARKER. "Serjeant's Inn, Chancery Lane, April 12, 1827. "DEAR SIR,-I hasten to acknowledge your letter, with the printed papers accompanying it, delivered at my chambers by Mr. Maxon. I am sorry, however, that I can render you so very little service in respect of the subjects on which you write. The Letters of Junius to Mr. Wilkes passed through my hands to Mr. Woodfall, and are those which appear in his edition of 1812. They belonged to Mr. P. Elmsley, the late Principal of St. Alban's, who, as I believe, possessed them as executor to his father. His knowledge of me as a brother-Westminster with me and the circumstance of my having married an acknowledged daughter of Mr. Wilkes, induced him to decline letting Mr. Woodfall have them without my assent. They came to me, from my friend Mr. Hallam, to whom they were afterwards returned for Mr. Elmsley. Mr. Wilkes used, I have been told, to say that he knew who the author of Junius was-that it was not Rosenhagen; but he never said it was not Sir P. Francis. The latter used to dine at Kensington frequently, and once cut off a lock of Mrs. Rough's hair (she was then quite a girl). She had an obscure imagination that her father once said, she had met Junius. All this is too slight, I admit, to build any conclusion upon. In the letters, I fear I have to answer for the striking out of a line or two in which the late king was spoken of, upon alleged personal knowledge, with an expression of much bitterness. It was an idle precaution on my part, inasmuch as Junius's opinions could have done little harm to any one, and were sufficiently avowed in other letters. I have never seen the letters about which you enquire, since they were given back by me to Mr. Hallam for Elmsley. I may mention here, that some letters of Mr. Wilkes's, forming a part of his correspondence with his daughter (Mary), and published by Longman and Rees, 1804, also passed through my hands. They were purchased of Sir Robert Baker, Bart., then of Richmond, for £300, by Mr. Hatchard, jointly with Longman and Rees. I was induced to superintend the publication with a view of serving Mr. Hatchard, and of guarding against anything appearing in the letters unpleasant to the feelings of my wife. She was a natural daughter of Wilkes. With him I never was in company; he was dead before I knew his daughter. Of that daughter our dear Dr. Parr thought with veneration. For myself, life has never been what it once was, since I lost her. "There is nothing secret in what I have thus communicated. "I am yours truly, "W. ROUGH.” "To E. H. Barker, Esq " INDEX. The Roman numerals i. and ii. refer to the volumes; and the figures, to the pages A. B. letter of, to the Duke of Grafton, as a fashionable unmeaning for- ruin or prosperity of a state, i. 104. Mr. Bradshaw's appointment to be Almon (Mr.), prosecution of, for libel, America, patronised by Mr. Pitt and Lord Camden, i. 107; new office fairs, 108; origin of that office, ib. Amicus Curiæ, letter of, on the Amherst (Sir Jeffery), his dismissal the Stamp Act and other acts on Anti-Fox, letter of, to the printer of Anti-Sejanus, letter of, to the printer William Lowther's grant, ii. 160; et seq. Attic wit, on the characteristics of, i. Atticus, one of the assumed signatures of Junius, i. 8; his first letter un- do right, nor resolution enough to Augur, letter of, on the Duke of Graf- ton's administration, ii. 276, 277. Bail, statement of the law of, i. 445, Barker (E. H.), Dr. Good's letter to, Barré (Col.), a claimant to the author- Barrell (Mr. S.), presides at a meeting |