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316

Junius's Letter to the D. of G,

drugs and operations, fo that, if they did not affift nature, neither did they obstruct her; and if they did not cure, neither did they kill, their patients, The Guaranis had likewife their conjurers, who boafted a power of killing whoever they thought proper; and had, in fact, fo far bewitched numbers as to make them believe, that feveral had been carried off by the secret power of their incantations; fo that it was fometimes enough for a man to have an enemy, to be feized with a panic, and even die of it, if he had not wherewith to bribe thefe impoftors."

N occafional writer in the Public A Advertiser, who figns himfelf Junius, and who has already been introduced in our Magazine, having clofed his attack upon the first m -r for the prefent political campaign, with a letter uncommonly fevere, the univerfal attention it has excited would render us inexcufable, if we did not prefent it to our readers.

To his Grace the D of
My Lord,

IF the measures in which you have been most fuccefsful, had been fupported by any tolerable appearance of argument, I fhould have thought my time not ill employed, in continuing to examine your conduct as a minifter, and ftating it fairly to the public: But when I fee questions of the highest national importance carried as they have been, and the first principles of the conftitution openly violated, with out argument or decency, I confefs, I give up the caufe in defpair. The meanet of your predeceflors had abilities 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 should furnish them with fonte plaufible pretences for fell ing their country and themfelves. You have had themerit of introducing a more compendious fytter of government and logic. You neither addrefs yourfelf to the paffions nor to the understanding, but fimply to the touch. You apply yourlelf immediately to the feelings of your friends, who, contrary to the

June

forms of parliament, never enter heartily into a debate, until they have divided.

Relinquishing, 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 diftinguishes 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 first uniform principle, er, if I may fo call it, the genius of your life, fhould have carried you through every poffible change and contradiction of conduct, without the momentary imputation or colour of a virtue; and that the wildeft fpirit of inconfiftency should 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 your's will find nothing to repent of. Let us try, my lord, how well you have fupported the various relations in which you ftood, to your fovereign, your country, your friends, and yourself. Give us, if it be poffible, fome excufe to posterity and to ourselves for fubmitting to your adminiftration. If not the abilities of a great ininifter, if not the integrity of a patriot, or the fidelity of a friend, thew 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 character of the reputed an, ceftors of fome men has made it poffi ble for their defcendants to be vicious in the extreme, without being dege. nerate. Thofe of your grace, for in stance, left no diftreffing examples of virtue even to their legitimate pofte rity,

and you may look back with pleafure to an illuftrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not left a fingle good quality upon record to infult or upbraid you. You have better proofs

of

1769.

Junius's Letter to the D. of G.

of your defcent, my lord, than the regifter of a marriage, or any troublefome inheritance of reputation, There are fome hereditary ftrokes of character, by which a family may be as clearly diftinguished as by the blackeft features of the human face. Charles the First lived and died a hypocrite. Charles the Second was a hypocrite of another fort, and fhould have died upon the fame scaffold. At the diftance of a century, we fee their different characters happily revived and blended in your grace. Sullen and severe without religion, profligate without gaiety, you live like Charles the Second, without being an amiable companion, and, for aught I know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr,

You had already taken your degrees with credit in thofe fchools in which the English nobility are formed to virtue, when you were introduced to Lord Chatham's protection, From New. market, White's, and the oppofition, he gave you to the world with an air of popularity, which young men ufually fet out with, and feldom preferve; grave and plaufible enough to be thought fit for business, too young for treachery, and, in fhort, a patriot of no unpromifing expectations. Lord Chatham was the earliest object of your political wonder and attachment: yet you deserted him, upon the firft hopes that offered of an equal share of power with Lord Rockingham. When the duke of Cumberland's first negotiation failed, and when the favourite was pushed to the laft extremity, you faved him, by joining with an admini. Atration, in which Lord Chatham had refufed to engage. Still, however, he was your friend, and you are yet to explain to the world why you confent ed to act without him, or why, after uniting with Lord Rockingham, you deferted and betrayed him. You complained that no measures were taken to faisfy your patron, and that your friend, Mr. Wilkes, who had fuffered fo much for the party, had been aban. doned to his fate. They have fince contributed, not a little, to your prefent plenitude of power; yet, I think, Lord Chatham has lefs reafon than ever to be fatisfied, and, as for Mr. Wilkes, it is, perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should have so many compenfations to make

317 in the clofet for your former friendship with him. Your gracious mafter understands your character, and makes you a perfecutor, because you have been a friend.

Lord Chatham formed his last adminiftration upon principles which you certainly concurred in, or you could never have been placed at the head of the Treasury. By deferting those principles, and by acting in direct contradiction to them, in which he found you were fecretly fupported in the closet, you foon forced him to leave you to yourself, and to withdraw his name from an adminiftration, which had been formed on the credit of it. You had then a profpect of friendships better fuited to your genius, and more likely to fix your dif pofition. Marriage is the point, on which every rake is ftationary at last; truly, my Lord, you may well be weary of the circuit you have taken, for you have now fairly travelled thro every fign in the political zodiac, from the Scorpion, in which you ftung Lord Catham, to the hopes of a Virgin in the houfe of Bl{———ÿ. One would think that you had had fufficient experience of the frailty of nuptial engagements, or, at leaft, that fuch a friend/hip as the duke of B-'s might have been fecured to you by the aufpicious marriage of your late dfs with his nephew. ties of this tender nature cannot be drawn too clofe; and it may poffibly be a part of the d- of B-f-d's ambition, after making her an honeft woman, to work a miracle of the fame fort upon your G. This worthy nobleman has long dealt in virtue. There has been a large confumption of it in his own family, and in the way of traffick, I dare fay, he has bought and fold more than half the reprefentative integrity of the nation.

But

In a political view, this union is not imprudent. The favour of princes is a perishable commodity. You have now a ftrength fufficient to command the clofet; and if it be neceflary to betray one friendship more, you may fet even Lord Bute at defiance. Mr. Stuart Mackenzie may poffibly remember what ule the d- of B-f--d ufually makes of his power, and our gracious fovereign I doubt not rejoices at this it appearance of union a

mong

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Junius's Letter to the D. of G.

mong his fervants. His late majefty, under the happy influence of a family connection between his minifters, was relieved from the cares of government. A more active prince may perhaps obferve with fufpicion, by what degrees an artful fervant grows upon his master from the firft unlimited profeffions of duty and attachment to the painful reprefentation of the neceffity of the royal fervice, and foon, in regular progreffion, to the humble infolence of dictating in all the obfequious forms of peremptory fubmiffion. The interval is carefully employed in forming connections, creating interefts, collecting a party, and laying the foundation of double marriages, until the deluded prince, who thought he had found a creature proftituted to his fervice, and infignificant enough to be always dependent upon his pleasure, finds him at last too ftrong to be commanded, and too for midable to be removed,

Your grace's public conduct, as a minifter, is but a counter-part of your private history, the fame inconfiftency, the fame contradictions. In America we trace you, from the first oppofition to the ftamp-act, on principles of convenience, to Mr. Pitt's furrender of the right; then forward to Lord Rockingham's furrender of the fact; then back again to Lord Rockingham's declaration of the right; then forward to taxation with Mr. Townshend; and in the last inftance, from the gentle Conway's undetermined difcretion, to blood and compulfion with the dof B-f-d: yet, if we may believe the fimplicity of Lord North's eloquence, at the opening of next feffions you are once more to be the patron of America. Is this the wildom of a great minifter? Or is it the vibration of a pendulum? Had you no opinion of your own, my Lord? Or was it the gratification of betraying every party with which you had been united, and of deferting every political principle in which you had concurred?

Your enemies may turn their eyes without regret from this admirable y tem of provincial government: they will find gratification enough in the furvey of your domestic and foreign policy.

If, instead of difowning Lord Shelburne, the British court had interpofed with dignity and firmness, you

June

know, my lord, that Corfica would never have been invaded. The French faw the weakness of a diftracted miniftry, and were justified in treating you with contempt: they would probably have yielded in the firft inftance, rather than hazard a rupture) with this country; but being once engaged, they cannot retreat without dithonour. Common fense foresees confequences which have escaped your grace's penetration. Either we fuffer the French to make an acquifition, the importance of which you have probably no conception of, or we oppofe them by an underhand management, which only difgraces us in the eyes of Europe, without anfwering any purpofe of policy or prudence. From fecret, indifcreet affiftance, a tranfition to fome more open decifive measures becomes unavoidable, till at last we find ourselves principals in the war, and are obliged to hazard every thing for an object which might have originally been obtained without expence or danger. I am not verfed in the politics of the North; but this I be lieve is certain, that half the money you have distributed to carry the expulfion of Mr. Wilkes, or even your fecretary's fhare in the laft fubfcription, would have kept the Turks at your devotion. Was it ceconomy, my lord? Or did the coy refiftance you have conftantly met with in the British fenate make you defpair of corrupting the divan? Your friends indeed have the first claim upon your bounty, but if five hundred pounds a year can be fpared in penfion to Sir John Moore, it would not have difgraced you to have allowed fomething to the fecret fervice of the public.

You will fay, perhaps, that the fituation of affairs at home demanded and engroffed the whole of your attention. Here, I confefs, you have been active. An amiable, accomplished prince af cends the throne under the happiest of all aufpices, the acclamations and united affections of his fubjects. The first meafures of his reign, and even the odium of a favourite, were not able to thake their attachment. Your fervices, my lord, have been more fuccessful. Since you were permitted to take the lead, we have feen the natural effects of a fyftem of government at once both odious and contemptible. We have feen the laws fometimes fcanda

loully

1769:
boufly relaxed, fometimes violently
ftretched beyond their tone. We have
feen the facred perfon of the fovereign
infulted; and in profound peace, and
with an indifputed title, the fidelity of
his fubjects brought by his own fer-
vants into public queftion. Without
abilities, refolution, or intereft, you
have done more than Lord Bute could
accomplish with all Scotland at his

The Cultivation, &c. of Sugar.

heels.

Your grace, little anxious either for prefent or future reputation, will not defire to be handed down in these colours to pofterity. You have reafon to flatter yourself that the memory of your adminiftration will furvive even the forms of a conftitution, which our anceftors vainly hoped would be immortal; and as for your perfonal character, I will not, for the honour of human nature, fuppofe that you can with to have it remembered. The condition of the prefent times is defperate indeed; but there is a debt due to those who come after us, and it is the hiftorian's office to punish, though he cannot correct. I do not give you to pofterity as a pattern to imitate, but as an example to deter; and as your conduct comprehends every thing that a wife or honeft minister fhould avoid, I mean to make you a negative infruction to your fucceflors for ever. JUNIUS. The Cultivation and Manufacturing of Sugar in America.

QUGAR is a commodity unknown to the Greeks and Romans, though it was made in China in very early times, from whence we had firft the knowledge of it; but the Portugueze were the firft who cultivated it in America, and brought it into request as one of the materials of a very univerfal luxury in Europe.

319

it fhoots into leaves, of a vivid green s the coat is pretty hard, and within contains a fpongy fubftance full of juice, the most lively, elegant, and leaft cloying fweet in nature, and which, fucked raw, has proved ex. tremely nutritive and wholesome.

It is not fettled, whether the cane, from which this fubftance is extracted, be a native of America, or brought thither by the Portuguefe from India and the coaft of Africa. But, however the matter may be, in the beginning, they made the most, as they still do the beft fugars which come to market in this part of the world.

The fugar cane grows to the height of between fix and eight feet, full of joints, about four or five inches afunder. The colour of the body of the cane is yellowish, and the top, where

In the month of Auguft, that is, in the rainy part of the year, after the ground is cleared and well hoed, they lay a piece of fix or feven joints of the cane flat, in a channel made for it, above half a foot deep; this they cover with the earth, and fo plant the whole field in lines, regularly disposed, and at proper diftances.

In a fhort time a young cane shoots out from every joint of the stock which was interred, and grows in twelve days to be a pretty tall and vigorous plant: but it is not until after fixteen inonths, or thereabouts, that the canes are fit to answer the purposes of the planter, tho'they may remain a few months after without any confiderable prejudice to him. The longer they continue in the ground when come to maturity, the lefs juice they afford; but that deficiency is fomewhat compenfa. ted by its fuperior richness.

That no time may be loft, they generally divide their cane grounds into three parts: one is of ftanding canes, and to be cut that feafon; the fecond is of new planted canes; and the third is fallow ready to receive a fresh

fupply. In fome places they make fecond and third cuttings from the fame root. The tops of the canes, and the leaves which grow upon the joints, make good provender for their cattle, and the refufe of the cane, after grinding, ferves for fire, fo that no part of this excellent plant is without its use.

The canes are cut with a billet, and carried in bundles to the mill, which is now generally a windmill. It turns three great cylinders, or rollers, plated with iron, fet perpendicularly, and cogged fo as to be all moved by the midale roller.

Between these the canes are bruised to pieces, and the juice runs through a hole into a vat, which is placed under the rollers to receive it: from hence it is carried through a pipe into a great refervoir, in which however, for tear of turning four, it is not fuffered to rest long; but is conveyed out of that, by other pipes, into the boiling houfe, where it is received by

a large

On the Properties of Air

320
a large cauldron. Here it remains
until the fcum, which conftantly arifes

during the boiling, is all taken off:
from this it is paffed fucceffively into
five or fix more boilers, gradually dimi-
nishing in their fize, and treated in the
fame manner. In the laft of thefe it
becomes of a very thick clammy confif-
tence; but mere boiling is incapable
of carrying it farther: to advance the
operation, they pour in a small quanti-
ty of lime-water; the immediate effect
of this alien mixture, is to raise up
the liquor in a very vehement fermen-
tation: but to prevent it from run-
ning over, a bit of butter, no larger
than a nur, is thrown in, upon which
the fury of fermentation immediately
fubfides; a veffel of two or three hun-
dred gallons requires no greater force
to quiet it. It is now taken out and
placed in a cooler, where it dries,
granulates, and becomes fit to be put
into the pots, which is the laft part
of its operation.

In these pots the fugar purges itfelf of its remaining impurities. The molaffes, or treacly part, difentangles itself from the reit, precipitates, and runs out of the aperture at the bottom. It is now in the condition called Mufcavado fugar, of a yellowish brown colour; and thus it is generally put into the hogshead and shipped off."

But when they have a mind to refine it further, and leave no remains at all of the molaffes, they cover the pots, just mentioned, with a fort of white clay, like that used for tobacco pipes, diluted with water; this penetrates the fugar, unites with the molaffes, and with them runs off, leaving the fugar of a whitish colour, but whiteft at top.

This is called Clay fugar: the operation is fometimes repeated once or twice more, and the fugar every time diminishing in quantity, gains confiderably in value, but ftill is called clay fugar. Further than this they do not go in the plantations, becaufe a heavy duty of fix thillings per hundred weight is laid upon all fugars refined

there.

Of the molafes rum is made, in the fame manner that other fpirits are diftilled.

From the fcummings of the fugar a meaner fpirit is procured, both of which find a market in North America.

June Confiderations on the Properties of the Air.

intrument, which nature is IR being an univerfal and power

ful conftantly employing in all her works, the knowledge of its active properties, fo highly neceffary not only to the chymift and phyfician, but to the philofopher and divine, cannot be an unentertaining ftudy to any fenfible mind.

First then, fluidity, which is one of the most obvious and effential of its properties, feems to be owing to the tenuity of its parts. That air is a fluid, appears from the easy paffage it affords to all bodies moving in it; however, air differs from all other fluids, in being compreffible, in its differing in denfity according to its height from the earth's furface, and in being incapable of fixation, at least by itself. It is of a different density in every part, decreafing from the earth's furface upwards; whereas other fluids are of an uniform denfity throughout. The air is therefore a fluid fui generis.

Secondly, gravity, another confiderable property of the air, may be proved from various experiments upon the air-pump; the principal of which are as follow.

1. By actually weighing it in a nice ballance, where we shall fee that one gallon of air will weigh a dram very nearly.

2. By filling a glafs tube with mercury, and inverting it in a bason of the fame fluid, where it will appear that a column will be fupported in the tube, by the fole weight or preffure of the air, to upwards of the height of twenty-eight inches.

3. By taking the air off the surface of the quickfilver, in the gage of the air-pump, which then immediately rifes by the preffure of the external air.

4. By exhaufting a receiver placed over the hole of the brass plate on the pump, which will then be kept fait by the preffure of the incumbent air; or,

5. More demonftratively, by exhaufting a small receiver under one larger, and letting in the air at once upon it; which will then be faftened to the plate as before, though not placed over the hole.

6. By placing the hand on the open receiver, and exhausting; the weight of

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