tages over him which common candour, if not the memory of your former friendship, should have forbidden you to make ufe of. To religious men you had an opportunity of exaggerating the irregularities of his past life;-to moderate men you held forth the pernicious confequences of faction. Men, who with this character, looked no farther than to the object before them, were not diffatiffied at feeing Mr. Wilkes excluded from parliament. You have now taken care to shift the queftion; or, rather, you have created a new one, in which Mr. Wilkes is no more concerned than any other English gentleman. You have united this country against you on one grand conftitutional point, on the decifion of which our existence, as a free people, abfolutely depends. You have afferted, not in words but in fact, that the reprefentation in parliament does not depend upon the choice of the freeholders. If fuch a case can posfibly happen once, it may happen frequently; it may happen always :-and if three hundred votes, by any mode of reasoning whatsoever, can prevail against twelve hundred, the fame reasoning would equally have given Mr. Luttrell his feat with ten votes, or even with one. The confequences of this attack upon the conftitution are too plain and palpable not to alarm the dulleft apprehenfion. I truft you will find, that the people of England are

neither

neither deficient in fpirit nor understanding, though you have treated them, as if they had neither sense to feel nor fpirit to refent. We have reafon to thank God and our ancestors, that there never yet was a minifter in this country, who could ftand the issue of fuch a conflict; and with every prejudice in favour of your intentions, I fee no fuch abilities in your Grace, as should entitle you to fucceed in an enterprize, in which the ableft and basest of your predeceffors have found their deftruction. You may continue to deceive your gracious mafter with falfe reprefentations of the temper and condition of his subjects. You may command a venal vote, because it is the common established appendage of your office. But never hope that the freeholders will make a tame furrender of their rights, or that an English army will join with you in overturning the liberties of their country. They know that their first duty, as citizens, is paramount to all subsequent engagements, nor will they prefer the discipline or even the honours of their profeffion to thofe facred original rights, which belonged to them before they were foldiers, and which they claim and poffefs as the birth-rights of Englishmen.

Return, my Lord, before it is too late, to that eafy infipid fyftem, which you first set out with. Take back ; -the name of friend

mistress your

may

may

be fatal to her, for it leads to treachery and perfecution. Indulge the people. Attend Newmarket. Mr. Luttrell may again vacate his feat; and Mr. Wilkes, if not perfecuted, will foon be forgotten. To be weak and inactive is fafer than to be daring and criminal; and wide is the diftance between a riot of the populace and a convulfion of the whole kingdom. You may live to make the experiment, but no honest man can wish you fhould furvive it.

JUNIUS.

XIII.

LETTER

TO HIS GRACE THE D OF

MY LORD,

If the measures in which you have been most faccessful, had been fupported by any tolerable appearance of argument, I should have thought my time not ill employed, in continuing to examine your conduct as a minifter, and stating it fairly to the public: but when I fee questions of the highest national importance carried as they have been, and the firft principles of the conftitution openly violated, without argument or decency. I confefs, I give up the cause in despair. The meanest of your predeceffors had abilities

fufficient

fufficient to give a colour to their measures. If they invaded the rights of the people, they did not dare to offer a direct infult to their understanding; and, in former times, the most venal parliaments made it a condition, in their bargain with the minifter, that he fhould furnish them with fome plaufible pretences for felling their country and themselves. You have had the merit of introducing a more compendious fyftem of government and logic. You neither addrefs yourself to the paffions, nor to the understanding, but fimply to the touch. You apply yourfelf immediately to the feelings of your friends, who, contrary to the forms of parliament, never enter heartily into a debate. until they have divided.

Relinquifhing, therefore, all idle views of amendment to your Grace, or of benefit to the public, let me be permitted to confider your character and conduct merely as a subject of curious fpeculation.There is fomething in both, which distinguishes you not only from all other minifters, but all other men. It is not that you do wrong by defign, but that you should never do right by mistake. It is not that your indolence and your activity have been equally mifapplied, but that the firft uniform principle, or, if I may To call it, the genius of your life, should have carried you through every poffible change and

con

contradiction of conduct, without the momentary imputation or colour of a virtue; and that the wildeft fpirit of inconfiftency fhould never once have betrayed you into a wife or honourable action. This, I own, gives an air of fingularity to your fortune, as well as to your difpofition. Let us look back together to a scene, in which a mind like yours will find nothing to repent of. Let us try, my Lord, how well you have fupported the various relations in which you stood, to your fovereign, your country, your friends, and yourself. Give us, if it be poffible, fome excufe to pofterity, and to ourselves, for fubmitting to your administration. If not the abilities of a great minister, if not the integrity of a patriot, or the fidelity of a friend, shew us, at least the firmness of a man. For the fake of your mistress, the lover fhall be fpared. I will not lead her into public, as you have done, nor will I infult the memory of departed beauty. Her fex, which alone made her amiable in your eyes, makes her refpectable in mine.

The charrêter of the reputed ancestors of some men, has made it poffible for their descendants to be vicious in the extreme, without being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for inftance, left no diftreffing examples of virtue, even to their legitimate pofterity, and you may look back