ABSTRACT

In response to pamphlets attacking his Taxation No Tyranny, Samuel Johnson wrote that ‘The patriots pelt me with answers’. One of the pelters was probably John Cartwright, and another was ‘A Doctor of Letters’, Hugh Baillie, of whom little is now known. In fact, Baillie decided to hit two controversial birds with one stone, combining an attack on Johnson with one on John Shebbeare. Whig attacks on the two together were common, and when both were pensioned by the Crown they became amusingly associated as a He-Bear and a She-Bear. The appended observations on Johnson, however, were more consistently topical. Whereas John Cartwright attacked Johnson with a broad brush, making sweeping statements about sovereignty, Baillie used a fine-tooth comb, picking apart Johnson’s arguments one by one, paragraph by paragraph, each one numbered.