Sir Philip Francis

Philip Francis (1740-1818) rose to political notice as a clerk in the War Office. He quitted his post in 1772, and the following year was appointed to the newly-constituted Supreme Council of Bengal, where he remained for eight turbulent years of conflict with the Governor-General, Warren Hastings: the two men even contested a duel over Francis’s extra-marital liaisons. Francis returned to England in 1781, and three years later entered Parliament. His vendetta with Hastings continued, culminating in the Governor-General’s impeachment in 1787. Hastings was acquitted in 1795, and Francis, much to his disappointment, was never appointed in his place. He found a new outlet for his energies, however, in campaigning for universal male suffrage, for a simpler and fairer electoral system, and for an end to the slave trade. Francis is widely believed to be the essayist ‘Junius’ who launched a bitter attack on George III’s ministers between 1769 and 1772.