with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not left a fingle good quality upon record to infult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your defcent, my Lord, than the regifter of a marriage, or any troublefome inheritance of reputation. There are fome heriditary Atrokes of character, by which a family may be as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of the human 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 severe 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 those schools, 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 usually fet out with, and seldom preferve-grave and plaufible enough to be thought fit for business; too young for treachery; and VOL. I.

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in fhort, a patriot of no unpromifing expectations. Lord Chatham was the earliest objeft of your political wonder and attachment; yet you deferted him, upon the first hopes that offered of an equa fhare of power with Lord Rockingham. When the Duke of Cumberland's first negociation failed, and when the favourite was pushed to the last extremity, you faved him, by joining with an administration, 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 deferted 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 has been abandoned to his fate. They have fince contributed, not a little, to your prefent plentitude of power; yet, I think, Lord Chatham has less reason than ever to be satisfied; and as for Mr. Wilkes, it is perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should have so many compenfations to make in the clofet for your former friendship with him. Your gracious master understands your character, and makes you a perfecutor, because you have been a friend.

Lord Chatham formed his laft adminiftration upon principles which you certainly concurred in,

or

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 secretly supported in the clofet, you foon forced him to leave you to yourfelf, and to withdraw his name from an adminiftration, which had been formed on the credit of it. You had then a prospect of friendships better fuited to your genius, and more likely to fix your difpofition. Marriage is the point on which every rake is ftationary 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 of the political zodiac, from the Scorpion, in which you ftung Lord Chatham, to the hopes of a Virgin in the house of Bl--s--y. 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 B-d's might have been secured to you by the aufpicious marriage of your late das with his nephew. But ties of this tender nature cannot be drawn too close; and it may poffibly be a part of the D- of B-f-d's ambition, after making her an honest woman, to work a miracle of the fame fort upon your G-. This worthy Nobleman has long dealt in virtue. There has been a large confumption of it in his own family;

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and, in the way of traffick, I dare fay he has bought and fold more than half the representative integrity of the nation.

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In a political view, this union is not imprudent. The favour of princes is a perishable commodity. 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 D- of B--f--d ufualy 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 obferve, with fufpicion, by what degrees an artful fervant grows upon his mafter from the firft ulimited profeffions of duty and attachment to the painful representation of the neceffity of the royal fervice, and foon, in regular progreffion, to the humble indolence of dictating in all the obfequious forms of peremptory submiffion. The interval is carefully employed in forming connexions, creating intereft, collecting a party and laying the foundation of double marriages, until the deluded prince, who thought he had found a creature prostitute to his fervice, and infignificant

enough

enough to be always dependant upon his pleasure, finds him at laft too ftrong to be commanded, and too formidable to be removed.

Your Grace's public conduct, as a minifter, is but the counter-part of your private hiftory, the fame inconfiftency, the fame contradictions. In America we trace you, from the first oppofition to the Stamp Act, on principles of convenience, to Mr. Pitt's furrender of the right; then forward to Lord Rockingham's surrender of the fact; then back again to Lord Rockingham's declaration of the right; then forward to taxation with Mr. Townfhead: and in the laft inftance, from the gentle Conway's undetermined difcretion to blood and compulfion with the D of Bf-d: 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 minister? or is it the vibra tion of a pendulum? Had you no opinion of your own, my Lord? or it was the gratification of betraying every party with which you have 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 domeftic and foreign policy.