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the metropolis, where his life has been fo often threatened, and his palace fo often attacked? If he returns to Woburn, fcorn and mockery await him. He must create a folitude round his eftate, if he would avoid the face of reproach and derision. At Plymouth, his deftruction would be more than probable; at Exeter, inevitable. No honeft Englishman will ever forget his attachment, nor any honest Scotchman forgive his treachery to Lord Bute. At every town he enters, he must change his liveries and his name. Which ever way he flies, the Hue and Cry of the country purfues him.

In another kingdom indeed, the bleffings of his administration have been more fenfibly felt ;-his virtues better understood;-or at worst, they will not, for him alone, forget their hospitality.—As well might VERRES have returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, my Lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people, plundered, infulted, and oppreffed as they have been, will not always be difappointed.

It is in yain therefore to shift the fcene. You can no more fly from your enemies than from yourfelf. Perfecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for confolation, and find nothing but reproaches and defpair, But, my Lord, you may quit the field of bufinefs, though not the field of

danger;

.

danger; and though you cannot be safe, you may ceafe to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice of thofe pernicious friends, with whose interests you have fordidly united your own, and for whom you have facrificed every thing that ought to be dear to a man of honour. They are still base enough to encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum, as with the laws of morality, they will not fuffer you to profit by experience, nor even to confult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you, that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero fhould preferve his confiftency to the laft, and that as you lived without virtue, you should die without repentance. JUNIUS.

LETTER XXII.

SIR,

To JUNIUS.

Sept. 20, 1769.

HAVING accidentally seen a republication of

your letters, wherein you have been pleased to affert, that I had fold the companions of my fuccefs; I am again obliged to declare the faid affertion

* Vide letters V. and VII. pages 29 and 40, in answer to Junius; and likewise Sir William's answer to An half-pay subaltern, letter XIV, pape 62.

affertion to be a most infamous and malicious falfebood; and I again call upon you to stand forth, avow youffelf, and prove the charge. If you can make it out to the fatisfaction of any one man in the kingdom, I will be content to be thought the worft man in it; if you do not, what must the nation think of you? Party has nothing to do in this affair: You have made a perfonal attack upon' my honour, defamed me by a most vile calumny, which might poffibly have funk into oblivion, had hot fuch uncommon pains been taken to renew and perpetuate this fcandal, chiefly because it has been told in good language: For I give you full credit for your elegant diction, well turned periods, and attic wit; but wit is oftentimes false, though it may appear brilliant; which is exactly the case of your whole performance. But, Sir, I am obliged in the moft ferious manner to accuse you of being guilty of falfities. You have faid the thing that is not. To fupport your ftory, you have recourse to the following irrefiftable argument: You fold the companions of your victory, because when the fixteenth regiment was given to you, you was filent. The conclufion is inevitable. I believe that fuch deep and acute reafoning could only come from fuch an extraordinary writer as Junius. But unfortunately for you, the premises as well as the conclufion are abfolutely falfe. Many applications

have

have been made to the miniftry on the fubject of the Manilla Ranfom fince the time of my being colonel of that regiment. As I have for fome. years quitted London, I was obliged to have recourfe to the honourable colonel Monfon and Sir Samuel Cornish to negotiate for me In the laft autumn I perfonally delivered a memorial to the Earl of Shelburne at his feat in Wiltshire. As you. have told us of your importance, that you are a perfon of rank and fortune, and above a common bribe, you may in all probability be not unknown to his lordship, who can fatisfy you of the truth of what I fay. But I fhall now take the liberty, Sir, to feize your battery, and turn it against yourself. If your puerile and tinfel logic could carry the leastweight or conviction with it, how muft you ftand affected by the inevitable conclufion, as you are pleased to term it? According to Junius, Silence is Guilt. In many of the public papers, you have been called in the most direct and offenfive terms a liar and a coward. When did you reply to these foul accufations? You have been quite filent; quite chop-fallen: Therefore, because you was filent, the nation has a right to pronounce you to be both a liar and a coward from your own argument: But, Sir, I will give you fair play; will afford you an opportunity to wipe off the firft appellation; by defiring the proofs of your charge against

against me. Produce them! To wipe off the last, produce yourself. People cannot bear any longer your lion's skin, and the despicable imposture of the old Roman name which you have affected. For the future affume the name of fome modern bravo and dark affaffin: Let your appellation have fome affinity to your practice. But if I must perish, Junius, let me perish in the face of day; be for once a generous and open enemy. I allow that gothic appeals to cold iron are no better proofs of a man's honefty and veracity than hot iron and burning plowfhares are of female chastity: But a foldier's honour is as delicate as a woman's; it must not be fufpected; you have dared to throw more than a fufpicion upon mine: You cannot but know the confequence, which even the meeknefs of Christianity would pardon me for, after the injury you have done me.

WILLIAM DRAPER

Clifton, Sept. 14, 1769.

LET

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