firm and noble palladium of our fafeties into Lrod Granby's hands, who has kept it in the fame good order in which he received it. The ftrictest care has been taken to fill up the vacant commiffions, with fuch gentlemen as have the glory of their ancestors to support, as well as their own, and are doubly bound to the cause of their king, and country, from motives of private property, as well as public fpirit. The adjutant-general who has the immediate care of the troops after Lord Granby, is an officer who would do great honour to any 1ervice in Europe, for his correct arrangements, good fenfe and difcernment upon all occafions, and for a punctuality and precision which give the most entire fatisfaction to all who are obliged to confult him. The reviewing generals, who inspect the army twice a year, have been selected with the greatest care, and have anfwered the important trust repofed in them in the moft laudable manner. Their reports of the condition of the army are much more to be credited than thofe of Junius, whom I do advise, to attone for his fhameful afperfions, by asking pardon of Lord Granby and the whole kingdom, whom he has offended by his abominable scandals. In short, to turn Junias's own battery against him, I muft affert, in his own words, "that he has given strong affertions without proof, declamation mation without argument, and violent cenfure without dignity or moderation." S Jan. 26, 1769. WILLIAM DRAPER. LETTER III. TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF Y SIR, THE BATH. our defence of Lord G―y does honour to the goodness of your heart. You feel, as you ought to do for the reputation of your friend, and you express yourself in the warmest language of the paffions. In any other caufe, I doubt not, you would have cautiously weighed the confequences of committing your name to the licentious dif courfes and malignant opinions of the world. But here, I prefume, you thought it would be a breach of friendship to lose one moment in confulting your understanding; as if an appeal to the public were no more than a military coup de main, where a brave man has no rules to follow but the dictates of his courage. Touched with your generosity, I freely forgive the exceffes C 3 into into which it has led you; and, far from refentting those terms of reproach, which, confidering that you are an advocate for decorum, you have heaped upon me rather too liberally, I place them to the account of an honest unreflecting indignation in which your cooler judgment and natural politenefs had no concern. I approve of the fpirit, with which you have given your name to the public; and if it were a proof of any thing but fpirit, I fhould have thought myself bound to follow your example. I fhould have hoped that even my name might carry fome authority with it, if I had not seen how very little weight or confideration a printed paper receives even from the refpectable fignature of Sir William Draper. You begin with a general affertion, that, writers, fuch as I am, are the real caufe of all the public evils we complain of. And do you really think, Sir William, that the licentious pen of a political wtiter is able to produce fuch important effects! A little calm reflection might have fhewn you, that national calamities do not arife from the defcription, but from the real character and conduct of ministers. To have fupported your affertion, you should have proved that the present ministry are unquestionably the beft and rightest characters of the kingdom; and that, if the affections of the colonies have been alienated, if Corfica has been been shamefully abandoned, if commerce languishes, if public credit is threatened with a new debt, and your own Manilla ranfom most difhonourable given up, it has all been owing to the malice of political writers, who will not fuffer the best and brightest of characters (meaning ftill the present miniftry) to take a fingle right ftep for the honour and interest of the nation. But it feems you were a little tender of coming to particulars. Your confcience infinuated to you, that it would be prudent to leave the characters of G-n, N-th, H-gh, W-th, and M-d, to shift for themselves; and truly Sir William, the part you have undertaken is at least as much as you are equal to. Without difputing Lord G-'s courage, we are yet to learn in what articles of military knowledge nature has been so very liberal to his mind. If you have served with him, you ought to have pointed out fome inftances of able difpofition and well-concerted enterprize, which might fairly be attributed to his capacity as a general. It is you, Sir William, who make your friend appear aukward and ridiculous, by giving him a laced fuit of tawdry qualifications, which nature never intended him to wear. You fay, he has acquired nothing but honour in the field. Is the Ordnance nothing? Are the C 4 Blues nothing? Is the command of the army, with all the patronage annexed to it, nothing? Where he got these nothings I know not; but you at least ought to have told us where he deserved them. As to his bounty, compaffion, &c. it would have been but little to the purpose, though you had proved all that you have afferted. I meddle with nothing but his character as c―r in ch—; and though I acquit him of the bafenefs of felling commiffions, I ftill affert that his military cares have never extended beyond the difpofal of vacancies: and I am juftified by the complaints of the whole army, when I fay that, in this diftribution, he confults nothing but p-y interests, or the gratification of his immediate dependantsAs to his fervile fubmiffion to the reigning minifry, let me afk whether he did not defert the caufe of the whole army, when he suffered Sir Jeffery Amherst to be facrificed, and what fhare he had in recalling that officer to the fervice, Did he not betray the just interest of the army, in permitting Lord P--y to have a regiment? And does he not at this moment give up all character and dignity as a gentleman, in receding from his own repeated declarations in favour of Mr. Wilkes. In |