under the influence of government, may be honest enough in the decifion of private causes, yet a traitor to the public. When a victim is marked out by the ministry, this judge will offer himself to perform the facrifice. He will not fcruple to prostitute his dignity, and betray the fanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary point is to be carried for government, or the refentment of a court to be gratified.

THESE principles and proceedings, odious and contemptible as they are, in effect are no less injudicious. A wife and generous people are roufed by every appearance of oppreffive, unconftitutional measures, whether those measures are fupported only by the power of government, or masked under the forms of a court of justice. Prudence and felf-prefervation will oblige the moft moderate difpofitions to make common caufe, even with a man whofe conduct they cenfure, if they see him persecuted in a way, which the real fpirit of the laws will not justify. The facts, on which these remarks are founded, are too notorious to require an application.

THIS, Sir, is the detail. In one view be hold a nation overwhelmed with debt; her revenues wafted; her trade declining; the affections of her colonies alienated; the duty of the magistrate transferred to the foldiery a gallant army, which never fought unwillingly but against their fellow fubjects, mouldering away for want of the direction of a man of common abilities and fpirit; and, in the last inftance, the administration of juftice become odious and fufpected to the whole body of the people. This deplorable fcene admits of but one addition-that we are governed by counfels, from which a reafonable man can expect no remedy but poifon, no relief but death.

IF, by the immediate interpofition of Providence, it were poffible for us to escape a crifis fo full of terror and despair, posterity will not believe the history of the present times. They will either conclude that our diftreffes were imaginary, or that we had the good fortune to be governed by men of acknowledged integrity and wisdom: they will not believe it poffible that their ancestors could have furvived, or recovered from fo defpe

* rate

rate a condition, while a Duke of Grafton was Prime Minifter, a Lord North Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Weymouth and a Hillsborough Secretaries of State, a Granby Commander in Chief, and a Mansfield chief criminal Judge of the kingdom.

JUNIUS.

LETTER

II.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVER

SIR,

TISER.

26. January, 1769. THE kingdom fwarms with

fuch numbers of felonious robbers of private character and virtue, that no honeft or good man is fafe; efpecially as these cowardly bafe affaffins ftab in the dark, without having the courage to fign their real names to their malevolent and wicked productions. A writer, who figns himself Junius, in the Public Advertiser of the 21st instant, opens the deplorable fituation of his country in a very affecting manner; with a pompous parade of his candour and decency, he tells VOL. I. C

us,

us, that we see diffentions in all parts of the empire, an universal spirit of distrust and disfatisfaction, and a total loss of respect towards us in the eyes of foreign powers. But this writer, with all his boafted candour, has not told us the real caufe of the evils he so pathetically enumerates. I shall take the liberty to explain the cause for him. Junius, and fuch writers as himself, occafion all the mifchief complained of, by falfely and malicioufly traducing the best characters in the kingdom. For when our deluded people at home, and foreigners abroad, read the poisonous and inflammatory libels that are daily published with impunity, to vilify those who are any way diftinguished by their good qualities and eminent virtues: when they find no notice taken of, or reply given to thefe flanderous tongues and pens, their conclufion is, that both the minifters and the nation have been fairly defcribed; and they act accordingly. I think it therefore the duty of every good citizen to ftand forth, and endeavour to undeceive the public, when the vileft arts are made use of to defame and blacken the brightest characters among us. An eminent author affirms it to be almost as criminal to hear a worthy man traduced, without attempting

tempting his juftification, as to be the author of the calumny against him. For my own part, I think it a fort of misprision of treafon against society. No man therefore who knows Lord Granby, can poffibly hear fo good and great a character most vilely abused, without a warm and juft indignation against this Junius, this high-priest of envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, who has endeavoured to facrifice our beloved commander in chief at the altars of his horrid deities. Nor is the injury done to his lordship alone, but to the whole nation, which may too foon feel the contempt, and confequently the attacks of our late enemies, if they can be induced to believe that the perfon, on whom the fafety of these kingdoms so much depends, is unequal to his high station, and deftitute of thofe qualities which form a good general. One would have thought that his lordship's fervices in the cause of his country, from the battle of Culloden to his moft glorious conclufion of the late war, might have entitled him to common respect and decency at leaft; but this uncandid indecent writer has gone fo far as to turn one of the most amiable men of the age into a stupid, unfeeling, and fenfeless being; poffeffed in