tion only fhift hands; if the wealthy commoner gives the bribe, inftead of the potent Peer, is the ftate better served by this exchange? Is the real emancipation of the borough effected, becaufe new parchment bonds may poffibly fuperfede the old ? To fay the truth, wherever fuch practices prevail, they are equally criminal, and deftructive of our freedom. The rest of your declamation is fcarce worth confidering, excepting for the elegance of the language. Like Hamlet in the play, you produce two pictures; you tell us, that one is not like the Duke of Bedford; then you bring a moft hideous caricatura, and tell us of the resemblance; but multum abludit imago. All your long tedious accounts of the minifterial quarrels, and the intrigues of the cabinet, are reducible to a few fhort lines; and to convince you, Sir, that I do not mean to flatter any minifter, either paft or prefent, thefe are my thoughts; they feem to have acted like lovers, or children; have * pouted, quarrelled, cried, kiffed, and been friends again, as the objects of defire, the minifterial rattles, have been put into their hands. But fuch VOL. I. proceedings Сс *Sir William gives us a pleasant account of men, who, in his opinion at least, are the best qualified to govern an empire. proceedings are very unworthy of the gravity and dignity of a great nation. We do not want men of abilities; but we have wanted steadiness; we want unanimity your letters, Junius, will not contribute thereto. You may one day expire by a flame of your own kindling. But it is my humble opinion that lenity and moderation, pardon and oblivion, will disappoint the efforts of all the feditious in the land, and extinguish their wide spreading fires. I have lived with this fentiment; with this I fhall die. WILLIAM DRAPER. LET LETTER XXXI TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVER SIR, TISER. 13 08. 1769. IF F Sir Williain Draper's bed be a bed of tortures, he has made it for himself. I fhall never interrupt his repose. Having changed the fubject, there are parts of his last letter not undeferving of a reply. Leaving his private character and conduct out of the question, I fhall confider him merely in the capacity of an author, whofe labours certainly do no discredit to a news-paper. We fay, in common discourse, that a man may be his own enemy, and the frequency of the fact makes the expreffion intelligible. But that a man fhould be the bittereft enemy of his friends, implies a contradiction of a peculiar nature. There is fomething in it, which cannot be conceived without a confusion of ideas, nor expreffed without a folecifm in language. Sir William Draper is ftill that fatal friend Lord Granby found him. Yet Yet I am ready to do juftice to his generofity; if indeed it be not fomething more than generous, to be the voluntary advocate of men, who think themselves injured by his affiftance, and to confider nothing in the cause he adopts, but the difficulty of defending it. I thought however he had been better read in the hiftory of the human heart, than to compare or confound the tortures of the body with thofe of the mind. He ought to have known, though perhaps it might not be his intereft to confefs, that no outward tyranny can reach the mind. If confcience plays the tyrant, it would be greatly for the benefit of the world, that she were more arbitrary, and far lefs placable, than fome men find her. But it feems I have outraged the feelings of a father's heart.Am I indeed fo injudicious? Does Sir William Draper think I would have hazarded my credit with a generous nation, by fo grofs a violation of the laws of humanity; Does he think I am fo little acquainted with the firft and nobleft characteristic of Englishmen? Or how will he reconcile fuch folly with an underftanding fo full of artifice as mine? Had he been a father, he would have been but little offended with the severity of the reproach, for his mind would have been filled with the juftice of it. He would would have feen that I did not infult the feelings of a father, but the father who felt nothing. He would have trufted to the evidence of his own paternal heart, and boldly denied the poffibility of the fact, inftead of defending_it. Against whom then will this honeft indignation be directed, when I affure him that this whole town beheld the Duke of Bedford's conduct, upon the death of his fon, with horror and aftonishment. Sir William Draper does himself but little honour in oppofing the general fenfe of his country. The people are feldom wrong in their opinions,-in their fentiments they are never mistaken. There may be a vanity perhaps in a fingular way of thinking;— but when a man profeffes a want of those feelings, which do honour to the multitude, he hazards fomething infinitely more important than the character of his understanding. After all, as Sir William may possibly be in earnest in his anxiety for the Duke of Bedford, I fhould be glad to relieve him from it. He may reft affured that this worthy nobleman laughs, with equal indifference at my reproaches, and Sir William's distress about him. But here let it ftop. Even the Duke of Bedford, infenfible as he is, will confult the tranquillity of his life, in not provoking the moderation of my temper. If, from the profoundest contempt, |