gate. It is the middle compound character which alone is vulnerable: the man, who, without firmnefs enough to avoid a difho-. nourable action, has feeling enough to be afhamed of it.

I THANK you for the hint of the decalogue, and fhall take an opportunity of applying it to fome of your most virtuous friends in both houses of parliament.

You feem to have dropped the affair of your regiment; fo let it reft. When you are appointed to another, I dare say you will not fell it either for a grofs fum, or for ant annuitý upon lives. lives.

I AM truly glad (for really, Sir William, I am not your enemy, nor did I begin this contest with you) that you have been able to clear yourself of a crime, though at the expence of the higheft indifcretion. You fay that your half-pay was given you by way of penfion. I will not dwell upon the fingularity of uniting in your own perfon two forts of provifion, which in their own nature, and in all military and parliamentary views, are incompatible; but I call upon you to VOL. I. juftify

E

justify that declaration, wherein you charge your Sovereign with having done an act in your favour notoriously against law. The half-pay, both in Ireland and England, is appropriated by parliament; and if it be given to perfons, who, like you, are legally incapable of holding it, it is a breach of law. It would have been more decent in you to have called this difhonourable transaction by its true name; a job to accommodate two perfons, by particular intereft and management at the castle. What fenfe must government have had of your fervices, when the rewards they have given you are only a difgrace to you!

AND now, Sir William, I fhall take my leave of you for ever. Motives very different from any apprchenfion of your resentment, make it impoffible you fhould ever know me. In truth, you have fome reafon to hold yourself indebted to me. From the leffons I have given you, you may collect a profitable inftruction for your future life. They will either teach you so to regulate your conduct, as to be able to fet the most malicious inquiries at defiance; or, if that be a loft hope, they will teach you prudence

enough

enough not to attract the public attention to a character, which will only pafs without cenfure, when it paffes without obfervation.

JUNIUS.

It has been faid, and I believe truly, that it was fignified to Sir William Draper, as the request of Lord Granby, that he should defift from writing in his Lordship's defence. Sir William Draper certainly drew Junius forward to say more of Lord Granby's character, than he originally intended. He was reduced to the dilemma of either being totally filenced, or of fupporting his first letter. Whether Sir William had a right to reduce him to this dilemma, or to call upon him for his name, after a voluntary attack on bis fide, are questions submitted to the candor of the public.----The death of Lord Granby was lamented by Junius. He undoubtedly owed fome compensations to the public, and seemed determined to acquit himself of them. In private life, he was unquestionably that good man, who, for the intereft of his country, ought to have been a great one. Bonum virum facilè dixeris ;---mag~ num libenter. I speak of him now without partiality ;---I never spoke of him with refentment. His mistakes, in public conduct, did not arise either from want of sentiment, or want of judgment, but in general from the difficulty of saying No to the bad people, who furrounded him.

As for the reft, the friends of Lord Granby should remember, that he himself thought proper to condemn, retract, and difavow, by a most folemn declaration in the House of Commons, that very fyftem of political conduct, which Junius had held forth, to the disapprobation of the public.

LETTER VIII.

TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

MY LORD,

18. March, 1769.

BEFORE you were placed

at the head of affairs, it had been a maxim of the English government, not unwillingly admitted by the people, that every ungracious or severe exertion of the prerogative fhould be placed to the account of the Minifter; but that, whenever an act of grace or benevolence was to be performed, the whole merit of it fhould be attributed to the Sovereign himself *. It was a wife doctrine, my Lord, and equally advantageous to the King and his fubjects; for while it preserved that fufpicious attention, with which the people ought always to examine the conduct of minifters, it tended at the fame time rather to increase than diminifh their attachment to the person of their Sovereign. If there be not a fatality attending every meafure you are concerned in, by what treache

* Les rois ne se font refervé que les graces. Ils renvoient les condamnations vers leurs officiers,

Montefquieu.

гу,

ry, or by what excefs of folly has it happened, that those ungracious acts, which have distinguished your administration, and which I doubt not were entirely your own, fhould carry with them a strong appearance of perfonal intereft, and even of perfonal enmity in a quarter, where no fuch interest or enmity can be fuppofed to exist, without the highest injuftice and the highest difhonour? On the other hand, by what judicious management have you contrived it, that the only act of mercy, to which you ever advised your Sovereign, far from adding to the luftre of a character, truly gracious and benevolent, fhould be received with univerfal disapprobation and disgust? I fhall confider it as a minifterial measure, because it is an odious one, and as your measure, my Lord Duke, because you are the minister.

As long as the trial of this chairman was depending, it was natural enough that government should give him every poffible encouragement and fupport. The honourable fervice for which he was hired, and the spirit with which he performed it, made common cause between your grace and him. The minifter, who by fecret corruption invades E 3

the