one of my fubjects is my friend, and I am and will be his. They who are convinced that the establishment of the family of Hanover was neceffary to the fupport of their civil and religious liberties were my friends,and must still be fo. I defire no other throne but the hearts of my people; and while I fecure that, I fhall fear no revolution, from a conviction that the fame principles, which brought my ancestors to the Crown, will always be powerful enough to keep it in my family.

LETTER

XXXIII.

To his Grace the DUKE of GRAFTON.
My LORD,

Feb. 14, 1770.

F I were perfonally your enemy, I might pity

IF

and forgive you. You have every claim to compaffion, that can arise from mifery and distress. The condition you are reduced to would difarm a private enemy of his refentment, and leave no confolation to the most vindictive spirit, but that fuch an object, as you are, would disgrace the dignity of revenge. But in the relation you have borne to this country, you have no title to indulgence; and, if I had followed dictates of my own opinion, I never should have allowed you the refpite of a moment. In your public character, you have injured every subject of the empire; and tho' an individual is not authorised to forgive the injuries

done to fociety, he is called upon to affert his feparate fhare in the public refentment. I fubmitted however to the judgment of men, more moderate, perhaps more candid than myself. For my own part, I do not pretend to understand those prudent forms of decorum, thofe gentle rules of difcretion, which fome men endeavour to unite with the conduct of the greatest and most hazardous affairs. Engaged in the defence of an honourable caufe, I would take a decifive part. -I should fcorn to provide for a future retreat, or to keep terms with a man, who preferves no measures with the public. Neither the abject fubmiffion of deferting his poft in the hour of danger, nor even the facred fhield of cowardice fhould protect him. I would purfue him through life, and try the last exertion of my abilities to preferve the perishable infamy of his name, and make it immortal.

your

What then, my lord, is this the event of all the facrifices you have made to Lord Bute's patronage, and to your own unfortunate ambition? Was it for this earliest friendfhips, abandoned you the warmeft connexions of your youth, and all thofe honourable engagements, by which you once folicited, and might have acquired the esteem of your country? Have you feccured no recompence for fuch a waste of honour? Unhappy man! what

party

party will receive the common deferter of all parties? Without a client to flatter, without a friend to confole you, and with only one companion from the honest house of Bloomsbury, you must now retire into a dreadful folitude, which you have created for yourself. At the moft active period of life, you must quit the busy scene, and conceal yourself from the world, if you would hope to save the wretched remains of a ruined reputation. The vices never fail of their effect. They operate like age-bring on dishonour before its time, and in the prime of youth leave the character broken and exhaufted.

Yet your conduct has been mysterious, as well as contemptible. Where is now that firmness, or obftinacy, so long boafted of by your friends, and acknowledged by your enemies? We were taught to expect, that you would not leave the ruin of this country to be completed by other hands, but were determined either to gain a decifive victory over the conftitution or to perish, bravely at least, in the last dike of the prerogative. You knew the danger, and might have been provided for it. You took fufficient time to prepare for a meeting with your parliament, to confirm the mercenary fidelity of your dependants, and to fuggeft to your Sovereign a language fuited to his dignity at least, if not to his benevolence and wif

dom. Yet, while the whole kingdom was agitated with anxious expectation upon one great point, you meanly evaded the queftion, and, instead of the explicit firmnefs and decifion of a King, gave us nothing but the misery of a ruined grazier, and the whining piety of a methodist. We had reafon to expect, that notice would have been taken of the petitions, which the King h eceived from the English nation; and although I can conceive fome perfonal motives for not yielding to them, I can find none, in common prudence or decency, for treating them with contempt. Be affured, my lord, the English people will not tamely fubmit to this unworthy treatment ;-they had a right to be heard, and their petitions, if not granted, deserved to be confidered. Whatever be the real views and doctrine of a court, the Sovereign fhould be taught to preserve fome forms of attention to his fubjects, and if he will not redress their grievances, not to make them a topic of jeft and mockery among lords and ladies of the bedchamber. Injuries may be atoned for and forgiven; but infults. admit of no compenfation. They degrade the mind in its own esteem, and force it to recover its level by revenge. This neglect of the petitions was however a part of your original plan of government, nor will any confequences it has produced account

for

for your deferting you Sovereign, in the midst of that distress, in which you and your new friends had involved him. One would think, my Lord, you might have taken this fpirited refolution before you had diffolved the laft of thofe early connexions, which once, even in our own opinion, did honour to your youth;—before you had obliged Lord Granby to quit a fevice he was attached to;

before you hád difcarded one Chancellor and killed another. To what an abject condition have you laboured to reduce the beft of Princes, when the unhappy man, who yields at last to such personal inftance and folicitation, as never can be fairly employed against a fubject, feels himself degraded by his compliance, and is unable to furvive the difgraceful honours which his gracious Sovereign had compelled him to accept. He was a man of

fpirit, for he had a quick sense of shame, and death has redeemed his character. I know your Grace too well to appeal to your feelings upon this event; but there is another heart, not yet, I hope, quite callous to the touch of humanity, to which it ought to be a dreadful leffon for ever.

Now, my Lord, let us confider the fituation to which you have conducted, and in which you have thought it advifeable to abandon your royal master. Whenever the people have complained, and nothing better could be faid in defence of the mea

fures