LETTER X.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, December 19, 1767. Is there be any man in this country who thinks that the combination lately entered into at Boston is merely a matter of interior economy, by which we are either not essentially affected, or of which we have no right to complain, I may safely pronounce that that man knows nothing of the condition of the British commerce, nor of the condition of the British finances. It might be happy for us if we were all in the same state of ignorance. To foresee a danger when every chance of avoiding it hath been wilfully cut off, is but a painful and useless sagacity, and to shut our eyes to inevitable ruin, serves at least to keep the mind a little longer in a thoughtless security

In this way I imagine any man must reason who is insensible of the consequence of the successive enterprises of the colonies against Great Britain, or who beholds them with indifference. I will not suppose that the bulk of the British people is sunk into so criminal a state of stupidity; that there does exist a particular set of men base and treacherous enough to have enlisted under the banners of a lunatic*, to whom they sacrificed their honour, their conscience, and their country, in order to carry a point of party and to gratify a personal rancour, is a truth too melancholy and too certain for Great Britain. These were the wretched ministers who served at the altar, whilst the high priest himself, with more than frantic fury, offered up his bleeding country a victim to America. The gratitude of the colonies shows us what thanks are due to such men. They will not even keep measures with their friends, for they hate the traitors, though the treachery hath been useful to them. The colonies are even eager to show that they regard the interests of the men (who to serve them gave up everything that men ought to hold dear, except their places) as little as they do the interests of their mother country, and will not comply so far with the promising engagements made for them here as even to con

* Lord Chatham.

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ceal their malignant intentions until their friends are out of place. Such is the certain effect of conferring benefits upon an American.

Whatever has been hitherto the delusion of the public upon this subject, I fancy we are by this time completely undeceived. Our good friends in America have been impatient to relieve us from all our mistakes about them and their loyalty, and if we do not open our eyes now, we had better shut them for ever.

It would be to no purpose at present to renew a discussion of the merits of the Stamp Act, though I am convinced that even the people who were most clamorous against it either never understood, or wilfully misrepresented every part of it. But it is truly astonishing that a great number of people should have so little foreseen the inevitable consequence of repealing it, and particularly that the trading part of the city should have conceived that a compliance which acknowledged the rod to be in the hand of the Americans, could ever induce them to surrender it. They must have been rather weaker than ourselves if they ever paid their debts, when they saw plainly that by withholding them they kept us in subjection. In the natural course of things, the debtor should be at the mercy of his creditor rather than a tyrant over him; but it seems that for these three years past, wherever America hath been concerned, every argument of reason, every rule of law, and every claim of nature, has been despised or reversed. We have not even a tolerable excuse for our folly. The punishment has followed close upon it; and that it must be so was as evident to common sense, as probable in prospect, as it is now certain in experience. There was indeed one man who wisely foresaw every circumstance which has since happened, and who, with a patriot's spirit, opposed himself to the torrent*. He told us that, if we thought the loss of outstanding debts and of our American trade a mischief of the first magnitude, such an injudicious compliance with the terms dictated by the colonies, was the way to make it sure and unavoidable. It was ne moriare, mori. We see the prophecy verified in every particular, and if this great and good man was mistaken in any one instance, it was, perhaps, that he did not expect his predictions to be fulfilled so soon as they have been.

Mr. George Grenville.

This being the actual state of things, it is equally vain to attempt to conceal our situation from our enemies, as it is impossible to conceal it from ourselves. The taxes and duties necessarily laid upon trade, in order to pay the interest of a debt of one hundred and thirty millions, are so heavy that our manufactures no longer find a vent in foreign markets. We are undersold and beaten out of branches of trade of which we had once an almost exclusive possession. The progress towards a total loss of our whole foreign trade has been rapid; the consequence of it must be fatal. We had vainly hoped that an exclusive commerce with our colonies (in whose cause a great part of the very incumbrances which have destroyed our foreign trade were undertaken) would have rewarded us for all our losses and expense, and have made up any deficiency in the revenue of our customs. We had a right to expect this exclusive commerce from the gratitude of the Americans, from their relation to us as colonists, and from their own real interest, if truly understood. But unfortunately for us, some vain, pernicious ideas of independence and separate dominion, thrown out and fomented by designing seditious spirits in that country, and encouraged and confirmed here by the treachery of some and the folly of others, have cut off all those just hopes, those well-founded expectations. While we are granting bounties upon the importation of American commodities, the grateful inhabitants of that country are uniting in an absolute prohibition of the manufactures of Great Britain. To doubt that the example will be followed by the rest of the colonies, would be rejecting every evidence which the human mind is capable of receiving. To be mad is a misfortune, but to rave in cold blood is contemptible.

The enterprises of the Americans are now carried to such a point that every moment we lose serves only to accelerate our perdition. If the present weak, false, and pusillanimous administration are suffered to go on in abetting and supporting the colonies against the mother country, if the King should take no notice of this last daring attack upon our commerce, the only consequence will be that the contest, instead of being undertaken while we have strength to support it, will be reserved not for our posterity, but to a time when we ourselves shall have surrendered all our arms to the people with whom we are to contend-nor will that period be distant.

If the combination at Boston be not a breach of any standing law (which I believe it is) ought it not to be immediately declared so by an act of the legislature? It is true that private persons cannot be compelled to buy or sell against their will; but unlawful combinations, supported by public subscription and public engagements, are, and ought to be, subject to the heaviest penalties of the law. I shall only add, that it is the common cause of this nation, and that a vigorous and steady exertion of the authority of Great Britain would soon awe à tumultuous people, who have grown insolent by our injudicious forbearance, and trampled upon us because we submitted to them*.

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LETTER XI.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. MR. WOODFALL, December 22, 1767. YOUR correspondent of yesterday, Mr. Macaronit, in his account of the new ministerial arrangements, has thrust in a aboured bombast panegyric on the Earl of Chatham, in which he tells us, that this country owes more to him than it can ever repay." Now, Mr. Woodfall, I entirely agree with Mr. Macaroni that this country does owe more to Lord Chatham than it ever can repay, for to him we owe the greatest part of our national debt, and THAT I am sure we never can repay. I mean no offence to Mr. Macaroni, nor any of your gentlemen authors who are so kind to give us citizens an early peep behind the political curtain, but I cannot bear to see so much incense offered to an Idol‡ who so little deserves it.

I am yours, &c.

DOWNRIGHT.

*This letter was without a signature, and could not, therefore, be announced, but was thus noticed on the day previous to its publication: "C.'s favour is come to hand." For a further continuance of this subject, see Miscellaneous Letters, Nos. 29 and 31.

This writer had furnished the printer with a list of the supposed changes in administration.

See the conclusion of Miscellaneous Letter, No. 4, and Private Letter, No. 23, in which the same term is applied to Lord Chatham. But these inferences of Dr. Good are negatived by the knowledge subsequently obtained of the real sentiments of Junius in respect of Lord Chatham. Ötherwise Downright is short and pointed enough for a Junius.—ED.

LETTER XII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, February 16, 1768. A MINISTER Who in this country is determined to do wrong should not only be a man of abilities, but of uncommon courage. To invade the rights, or to insult the understanding of a nation qualified to judge well, and privileged to speak freely, upon public measures, requires a portion of audacity unacquainted with shame, or of power which knows no control. Whether it be owing to a hardy disposition, or to the conceit of unlimited power, or to mere stolid ignorance, I know not, but it is too apparent that the present ministry, in everything they do, or attempt to do, are determined to set the understanding and the spirit of the English people at defiance. In a succession of illegal or unconstitutional acts, the instance of to-day ought at once to remind us of what they have done already, and to alarm us against what they may attempt hereafter. We have reason to thank God and the legislature that some of the most flagitious of their enterprises have been happily defeated. Their endeavour to establish a suspending power in the crown met with all the contempt it deserved†; nor have they yet quite succeeded in emancipating the colonies from the authority of the British legislature. But when open and direct attacks upon the constitution have failed, a bad ministry will naturally have recourse to some more artful measures, by which the prerogative of the crown may be extended, and the purposes of arbitrary power answered as effectually, and more securely to themselves. When attempts of this insidious nature are made, it is the duty of every subject, be his situation what it may, to point out the danger to

* This appears to be the germ of the after amendment in the Dedication (v. i. p. 87), on the danger of bad precedents; "what yesterday was fact, today is doctrine." But this does not prove that the present communication is by Junius, as he may have either improved on his own first expression, or that of another. Both the style and tenour of the argument, however, agree well with Junius, and the dissatisfaction evinced towards Lord Chatham further on, and noticed by Dr. Good, is not inconsistent with his known sentiments at an early period.-ED.

See this subject further discussed in Junius, Letter 60, vol. i. P. 418.