speak to your subjects with the spirit of a man, and in the language of a gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived. The acknow ledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an honour, to your understanding. Tell them you are detemined to remove every cause of complaint against your government; that you will give your confidence to no man, who does not possess the confidence of your subjects; and leave it to themselves to determine, by their conduct at a future election, whether or no it be, in reality, the general sense of the nation, that their rights have been arbitrarily invaded by the present House of Commons, and the constitution betrayed. They will then do justice to their representatives and to themselves.

These sentiments, Sir, and the style they are conveyed in, may be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed to the language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the vehemence of their expressions; and when they only praise you indifferently, you admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They deceive you, Sir, who tell you that you have many friends, whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal attachment. The first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and may be returned. The fortune which made you a King, forbade you to have a friend. It is a law of nature, which cannot be violated with impunity. The mistaken Prince, who looks for friendship, will find a favourite, and in that favourite the ruin of his affairs.

The people of England are loyal to the House of Hanover; not from a vain preference of one family to another, but from a conviction, that the establishment of that family was necessary to the support of their civil and religious liber

ties. This, Sir, is a principle of allegiance equally solid and rational; fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your Majesty's encouragement. We cannot long be deluded by nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart, of itself, is only contemptible; armed with the sovereign authority, their principles are formidable. The prince who imitates their conduct, should be warned by their example; and, while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, should remember, that, as it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another.

JUNIUS.

LETTER XXXVI.

ΤΟ

His Grace the Duke of Grafton.

MY LORD,

February 14, 1770. If I were personally your enemy, I might pity and forgive you. You have every claim to compassion that can arise from misery and distress. The condition you are reduced to would disarm a private enemy of his resentment, and leave no consolation to the most vindictive spirit, but that such 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 the dictates of my own opinion, I never should have allowed you the respite of a moment. In your public character, you have injured every subject of the empire; and though an individual is not authorized to forgive the injuries done to society, he is called upon to assert his separate share in the public resentment. I submitted, however, to the judgment of men, more mode.

rate, perhaps more candid, than myself. For my own part, I do not pretend to understand those prudent forms of decorum, those gentle rules of discretion, which some men endeavour to unite with the conduct of the greatest and most hazardous affairs. Engaged in the defence of an honourable cause, I would take a decisive part. I should scorn to provide for a future. retreat, or to keep terms with a man who preserves no measures with the public. Neither the abject submission of deserting his post in the hour of danger, nor even the sacred-shield of cowardice should protect him. I would pursue him through life, and try the last exertion of my abilities to preserve the perishable infamy of his name, and make it immortal.

What then, my Lord? Is this the event of all the sacrifices you have made to Lord Bute's patronage, and to your own unfortunate ambition? Was it for this you abandoned your earliest friendships, the warmest connexions of your youth, and all those honourable engagements by which you once solicited, and might have acquired, the esteem of your country? Have you secured no recompence for such a waste of honour? Unhappy man! what party will receive the common deserter of all parties? With out a client to flatter, without a friend to con sole you, and with only one companion from the honest House of Bloomsbury, you must now retire into a dreadful solitude. At the most 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 operate like age, bring on disease before its time, and in the prime of youth leave the character broken and exhausted.

........Sacro tremuere timore. Every coward pretends to be planet-struck.

Yet your conduct has been mysterious, as well as contemptible. Where is now that firmness, or obstinacy, so long boasted 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 decisive victory over the constitution, or to perish bravely, at least behind the last dyke of the prerogative. You knew the danger, and might have been provided for it. You took sufficient time to prepare for a meeting with your parliament, to confirm the mercenary fidelity of your dependents, and to suggest to your Sovereign a language suited to his dignity. at least, if not to his benevolence and wisdom. Yet, while the whole kingdom was agitated with anxious expectation upon one great point, you meanly evaded the question, and, instead of the explicit firmuess and decision of a king, gave us nothing but the misery of a ruined* grazier, and the whining piety of a Methodist. We had reason to expect, that notice would have been taken of the petitions which the King had re ceived from the English nation; and although I can conceive some personal motives for not yielding to them, I can find none, in common prudence or decency, for treating them with contempt. Be assured, my Lord, the English people will not tamely submit to this unworthy treatment. They had a right to be heard; and their petitions, if not granted, deserved to be considered. Whatever be the real views and doctrine of a court, the Sovereign should be taught to preserve some forms of attention to his subjects; and, if he will not redress their grievances, not to make them a topic of jest

There was something wonderfully pathetic in the mention of the horned cattle.

and mockery among lords and ladies of the bedchamber. Injuries may be atoned for and for given; but insults admit of no compensation. 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. consequences it has produced, account for your deserting your Sovereign, in the midst of that distress, in which you and your new friends. have involved him. One would think, my Lord, you might have taken this spirited resolution before you had dissolved the last of those early connexions, which once, even in your own opinion, did honour to your youth; before you had obliged Lord Granby to quit a service he was attached to; before you had discarded one chancellor, and killed another. To what an abject condition have you laboured to reduce the best of Princes, when the unhappy man, who yields at last to such personal instance and solicitation, as never can be fairly employed against a subject, feels himself degraded by his compliance, and is unable to survive the dis graceful honours which his gracious Sovereign had compelled him to accept! He was a man of spirit, 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 lesson for evert.

Now, my Lord, let us consider the situation to which you have conducted, and in which

* The Bedford Party.

+ The most secret particular of this detestable transaction shall in due time be given to the public. The people shall know what kind of iman they have to deal with..