your most virtuous friends in both houses of liament,

par

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

I am truly glad (for really, Sir William, I am not your enemy, nor did I begin this conteft with you) that you have been able to clear yourself of a crime, though at the expence of the highest 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 sorts of provifion, which in their own nature, and in all military and parliamentary views, are incompatible; but I call upon you to juftify that declaration, wherein you charge your prince with having done an act in your favour, notoriously against law. The half pay, both in Ireland and in 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 tranfaction by its true name; a Job to accommodate two perfons, by particular interest and management at the Caftle. What fense must

government have had of your fervices, when the rewards they have given you are only a difgrace to you!

And

And now, Sir William, I fhall take my leave of

you
for ever. Motives, very different from any
apprehenfion of your refentment, make it impof
fible you should ever know me. In truth, you
have some reason to hold yourself indebted to me.
From the leffons I have given, 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 not to attract the pub-
lic attention upon a character, which will only pass
without cenfure, when it paffes without obferva-
tion.

JUNIUS.

LETTER IX.

To the DUKE of GRAFTON.

My LORD,

March 18. 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 feyere exertion of the prerogative should be placed to the account of the Minister; but that whenever an act of grace or benevolence was to be performed, the whole merit of it fhould be attributed to the Sovereign

himfelf.

himfelf. It was a wife doctrine, my Lord, and equally advantageous to the King and to his fubjects for while it preferved that fufpicious attention, with which the people ought always to examine the conduct of ministers, it tended at the fame time rather to increase than diminish their attachment to the perfon of their Sovereign. If there be not a fatality attending every measure you are concerned in, by what treachery, or by what excess of folly has it happened, that those ungracious acts which have distinguished your administration, and which I doubt not were entirely your own, should carry with them a strong appearance of personal interest, and even of perfonal enmity in a quarter where no fuch intereft or enmity can be fuppofed to exift, without the highest injustice, and the highest dishonour? On the other hand, by what judicious management have you contrived it, that the only act of mercy to which you ever advised your king, far from adding to the luftre of a character truly gracious and benevolent, should 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

fhould

fhould give him every poffible encouragement and fupport. The honourable fervice for which he was hired, and the spirit with which he performed it, made a common cause between your Grace and him. The minister, who by fecret corruption invades the freedom of elections, and the ruffian, who by open violence deftroys that freedom, are embarked in the fame bottom. They have the same interefts, and mutually feel for each other. To do juftice to your Grace's humanity, you felt for MacQuirk as you ought to do, and if you had been contented to affift him indirectly, without a notorious denial of justice, or openly infulting the sense of the nation, you might have fatisfied every duty of political friendship, without committing the honour of your prince, or hazarding the reputation of his government. But when this unhappy man had been folemnly tried, convicted and condemned;when it appeared that he had been frequently employed in the fame fervices, and that no excuse for him could be drawn either from the innocence of his former life, or the fimplicity of his character, was it not hazarding too much to interpofe the ftrength of the prerogative between this felon and the justice of his country? You ought to have known that an example of this fort was never fo neceffary as at prefent; and certainly you must have known that the lot could not have fallen up

on

on a more guilty object. What fyftem of government is this? You are perpetually complaining of the riotous difpofition of the lower clafs of the people, yet when the laws have given you the means of making an example, in every fenfe unexceptionable, and by far the most likely to awe the multitude, you pardon the offence, and are not ashamed to give the fanction of government to the riots you complain of, and even to future murderers. You are partial perhaps to the military mode of execution, and had rather fee a score of these wretches butchered by the guards, than one of them fuffer death by regular courfe of law. How does it happen, my Lord, that, in your hands, even the of the prerogative is cruelty and oppreffion to the fubject?

mercy

The measure it seems was fo extraordinary, that you thought it neceffary to give some reasons for it to the public. Let them be fairly examined.

1. You fay that Meff. Bromfield and Starling were not examined at MacQuirk's trial. I will tell your Grace why they were not. They muft have been examined upon oath; and it was foreseen that their evidence would either not benefit, or might be prejudicial to the prifoner. Otherwife, is it conceivable that his counfel fhould neglect to call in fuch material evidence?

You