firm and noble palladium of our fafeties into Lord Granby's hands, who has kept it in the fame good order in which he received it. The ftrictest care has been taken to fill up the vacant commiffions, with fuch gentlemen as have the glory of their ancestors to fupport, as well as their own, and are doubly bound to the cause of their king and country, from motives of private property, as well as public fpirit. The adjutant-general, who has the immediate care of the troops after Lord Granby, is an officer who would do great honour to any service in Europe, for his correct arrangements, good fenfe and difcernment upon all occafions, and for a punctuality and precision which give the most entire fatisfaction to all who are obliged to confult him. The reviewing generals, who infpect the army twice a year, have been selected with the greatest care, and have anfwered the important trust reposed in them in the moft laudable manner. Their reports of the condition of the army are much more to be credited than thofe of Junius, whom I do advise, to atone for his fhameful afperfions, by afking pardon of Lord Granby and the whole kingdom, whom he has offended by his abominable scandals. In short, to turn Junius's own battery against him, I must affert, in his own words, "that he has given ftrong affertions without proof, decla mation mation without argument, and violent cenfures without dignity or moderation." Jan. 26, 1769. WILLIAM DRAPER. LETTER III. TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGT OF THE BATH. SIR, Your defence of Lord G-y does honour to the goodness of your heart. You feel, as you ought to do, for the reputation of your friend, and you express yourself in the warmeft language of the paffions. In any other caufe, I doubt not, you would have cautiously weighed the confequences of committing your name to the licentious difcourfes and malignant opinions of the world. But here, I prefume, you thought it would be a breach of friendship to lofe one moment in confulting your unfterdanding; as if an appeal to the public were no more than a military coup de main, where a brave man has no rules to follow, but the dictates of his courage. Touched 'with your generofity, I freely forgive the exceffes into which it has led you; and, far from refenting those terms of reproach, which, confidering that you are an advocate for decorum, you have heaped upon me rather too liberally, I place them to the account of an honeft unreflecting indignation, in which your cooler judgment and natural politeness had no concern. I approve of the fpirit, with which you have given your name to the public; and, if it were a proof of any thing but fpirit, I fhould have thought myself bound to follow your example. I fhould have hoped that even my name might carry fome authority with it, if I had not feen how very little weight or confideration a printed paper receives even from the refpectable fignature of Sir William Draper. You begin with a general affertion, that writers, fuch as I am, are the real cause of all the public evils we complain of. And do you really think, Sir William, that the licentious pen of a political writer is able to produce fuch important effects? A little calm reflection might have fhewn you, that national calamities do not arife from the defcription, but from the real character and conduct of minifters. To have fupported your affertion, you should have proved that the prefent miniftry are unquestionably the beft and rightest characters of the kingdom; and that, if the affections of the colonies have been alienated, if Corfica has been been fhamefully abandoned, if commerce languishes, if public credit is threatened with a new debt, and your own Manilla ranfom moft difhonourably given up, it has all been owing to the malice of political writers, who will not fuffer the best and brighteft of characters (meaning ftill the prefent miniftry) to take a fingle right ftep for the honour or intereft of the nation. But it feems you were a little tender of coming to particulars. Your confcience infinuated to you, that it would be prudent to leave the characters of Gn, N-th, Hgh, W-th, and M-d, to fhift for themfelves; and truly, Sir William, the part you have undertaken is at least as much as you are equal to. Without difputing Lord G-s courage, we are yet to learn in what articles of military knowledge nature has been fo very liberal to his mind. If you have served with him, you ought to have pointed out fome inftances of able difpofition and well-concerted enterprize, which might fairly be attributed to his capacity as a general. It is you, Sir William, who make your friend appear aukward and ridiculous, by giving him a laced fuit of tawdry qualifications, which nature never intended him to wear. You fay, he has acquired nothing but honour in the field. Is the Ordnance nothing? Are the C 4 Blues nothing? Is the command of the army, with all the patronage annexed to it, nothing? Where he got thefe nothings I know not; but you at least ought to have told us where he deferved them. As to his bounty, compaffion, &c. it would have been but little to the purpofe, though you had proved all that you have afferted. I meddle with nothing but his character as c―r in ch—; and though I acquit him of the bafenefs of felling commiffions, I fill affert that his military cares have never extended beyond the disposal of vacancies; and I am juftified by the complaints of the whole army, when I fay that, in this diftribution, he confults nothing but p-y interefts, or the gratification of his immediate dependants, As to his fervile fubmiffion to the reigning miniftry, let me ask, whether he did not defert the caufe of the whole army, when he suffered Sir Jeffery Amherst to be facrificed, and what fhare' he had in recalling that officer to the service. Did he not betray the juft intereft of the army, in permitting Lord P-y to have a regiment? and does he not at this moment give up all character and dignity as a gentleman, in ́receding from his own repeated declarations in favour of Mr. Wilkes. |