y as no concern of theirs. Unfortunately, a decided
course was impossible to the divided cabinet. They remonstrated
vigorously, and France wavered. Then the Bedford section made it known
that England would not in any case go to war, and France despised their
remonstrance. Grafton allowed the Corsicans to hope for British help,
and secretly sent them arms. This was worse than useless. The Corsican
general, Paoli, was forced to flee; the island was annexed to France in
1769, and, as Burke said, "British policy was brought into derision".

[Sidenote: _ARREARS OF THE CIVIL LIST._]

Again, in the midst of the struggle with the Middlesex electorate,
parliament was asked for L513,500 to pay the debts on the civil list.
The civil list was sufficient to meet the legitimate expenses of the
crown; the king was personally frugal; how had the deficiency arisen?
Beyond all question the money had been spent in augmenting the influence
of the crown by multiplying offices and pensions, by the purchase of
votes at elections, and other corrupt means. The ministers were
responsible to the nation for the way in which the public money had been
spent. The opposition, and specially Grenville, Burke, and Dowdeswell,
urged that before the house made the grant, it should inquire into the
causes which rendered it necessary. Their demand was resisted: the house
decided not to consider the causes of the debts, and the ministers
carried the grant without inquiry. By this evil precedent the commons
abandoned the constitutional means of checking the expenditure of the
public money by the crown, and proved themselves unfaithful to their
duty towards the nation.

Violent attacks were made on the ministers by the press. The most famous
of these are the letters signed "Junius," and others attributed, some of
them with little probability, to the same author, which appeared first
in the _Public Advertizer_, a London daily paper. Their fame is partly
due to the mystery of their authorship. For that doubtful honour more
than thirty names have been suggested. On strong, if not perfectly
convincing grounds, Junius is now generally believed to have been Philip
Francis, then a clerk in the war office and later a member of the East
India council and a knight, though, if he was the author, he probably
received help from some one of higher social position, possibly from
Temple.[80] As literature the letters are remarkable for clearness of
expression and for a polis