proofs of your descent, my Lord, than the register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheritance of reputation. There are fome hereditary strokes of character, by which a family may be as clearly diftinguished as by the blackeft features in the hu man face. Charles the First lived and died a hypocrite. Charles the Second was a hypocrite of another fort, and should have died upon the fame fcaffold. At the distance of a century, we see their different characters happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and fevere without religion, profligate without gaiety, you live like Charles the Second, without being an amiable companion, and, for ought 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 Newmarket, 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 plausible enough to be though fit for bufinefs; too young for treachery; and, in fhort, a patriot of no unpromising expectations. Lord Chathamwas the earliest object of your political wonder and attachment; yet you deserted him, upon the first hopes that offered of an equal share of power with

Lord

Lord Rockingham. When the Duke of Cumberland's first negotiation failed, and when the Favourite was pushed to the last extremity, you faved him, by joining with an adminiftration, in which Lord Chatham had refused to engage. Still, however, he was your friend, and you are yet to explain to the world, why you confented to act without him, or why, after uniting with Lord Rockingham, you deserted and betrayed him. You complained that no measures were taken to fatisfy your patron, and that your friend, Mr. Wilkes, who had fuffered fo much for the party, had been abandoned to his fate. They have fince contributed, not a little, to your prefent plenitude of power; yet, I think, Lord Chatham has lefs reason than ever to be fatisfied; and as for Mr. Wilkes, it is, perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should have fo many compenfations to make in the closet for your former friendfhip with him. Your gracious mafter understands your character, and makes you a perfecutor, because you have been a friend,

Lord Chatham formed his laft administration upon principles which you certainly concurred in, or you could never have been placed at the head of the treasury. By deferting thofe principles, and by acting in direct contradiction to them, in which he found you were fecretly fupported in the closet,

you

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 difpo fition. Marriage is the point on which every rake is stationary at laft; and truly my Lord, you may well be weary of the circuit you have taken, for you have now fairly travelled through every fign in the political zodiac, from the Scorpion in which you ftung Lord Chatham, to the hopes of a Virgin in the house of Bloomsbury. One would think that you had had fufficient experience of the frailty of nuptial engagements, or, at least, that fuch a friendship as the Duke of Bedford's might have been fecured to you by the aufpicious marriage of your late Duchefs with his nephew. But ties of this tender nature cannot be drawn too close; and it may poffibly be a part of the Duke of Bedford's ambition, after making her an honeft woman, to work a miracle of the fame fort upon your Grace. 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 or the nation.

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In a political view, this union is not imprudent. The favour of princes is a perishable commodity.

You

You have now a ftrength fufficient to command the clofet; and if it be neceffary to betray one friendship more, you may fet even Lord Bute at defiance. Mr. Stuart Mackenzie may poffibly remember what use the Duke of Bedford ufually makes of his power; and our gracious Sovereign, I doubt not, rejoices at this first appearance of union among his fervants. His late Majefty, under the happy influence of a family connexion between his minifters, was relieved from the cares of government. A more active prince may perhaps observe with suspicion, by what degrees an artful fervant grows upon his master from the first unlimited profeffions of duty and attachment to the painful representation 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 connexions, creating interests, 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 dependant upon his pleasure, finds him at laft too strong to be commanded, and too formidable to be removed.

Your Grace's public conduct, as a minister, is but the counter part of your private hiftory, the

fame

fame inconfiftency, the fame contradictions. In America we trace you, from the firft oppofition to the Stamp 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. Townfhend; and, in the last instance, from the gentle Conway's undetermined difcretion, to blood and compulfion with the Duke of Bedford: Yet if we may believe the fimplicity of Lord North's eloquence, at the opening of next feffions you are once more to be patron of America. Is this the wisdom 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 fyftem of provincial government: they will find gratification enough in the furvey of your domestic and foreign policy.

If, instead of disowning with Lord Shelburne, the British court had interpofed with dignity and firmnefs, you know my Lord, that Corfica would never have been invaded. The French faw the weakness of a distracted miniftry, and were ju

ftified