multitude of other officers to oversee and manage the revenues and distribution of the crown lands, I hold it to be highly unconstitutional, as well as absurd, to introduce the person of the sovereign as claiming an indulgence to himself for neglects which are properly the neglects of his servants. But admitting the excuse of public employment for private negligence to be valid, let us see how far it will reach. If the sovereign, on account of his high occupations, be entitled to such a privilege, his ministers certainly have a claim to their share of it. The lords, who are hereditary counsellors of the crown; the judges; every member of the House of Commons; and ambassadors sent abroad, may all plead public employment; nor can there be any good reason alleged why every officer engaged in the public service, from the high chancellor down to the bum-bailiff, should not be allowed his proportion of nullum tempus, according to their several ranks, and the time they continue in employment. But it were endless to refute arguments which have neither truth nor meaning. The maxim, that nullum tempus occurrit regi, if ever, could only be true under the feudal government *. It was then a national interest to preserve the royal demesne entire, because the support of the royal dignity depended upon it. The king, out of this revenue, defrayed the expense of his family and government, and never applied for aids to the people but upon pretence of extraordinary emergencies. By preserving this separate property to the king, the people in effect preserved their own, and therefore admitted without reluctance a maxim introduced by the lawyers of the crown, since it tended to deter individuals from invading a branch of royal revenue, any deficiency in which must have been made good out of the public stock. Nothing less than a reason of this public nature could have procured submission to a doctrine full of hardship and oppression to the subject, and which, in favour of the crown, directly contradicted those rules of common law by which the possession of property between man and man was secured. The reasoning of this writer on the feudal consequences of the old law maxim, that no "delay will bar the right of the Crown," is ingenious, but has ceased to be of legal force. In civil actions, relating even to landed property, the Queen, like a subject, is limited to sixty years; and after fifty-five years' possession a grant from the Crown may be presumed, unless a statute has prohibited such a grant.-ED. To revive and enforce a maxim of this sort, when not one of the reasons subsist on which it was originally founded, when the king's family and government are supported by a fixed revenue of eight hundred thousand pounds raised upon the people, is certainly a most unwarrantable and a most dangerous attempt. Under the present board of treasury, the reign of Empson and Dudley seems to flourish again; and where is the man who can say his liberty or his property is secure to him if antiquated doctrines and obsolete laws may be brought to life at the breath of a young, inconsiderate, arbitrary minister, and scnt abroad to attack every subject whom he shall think proper to call an enemy to government? A minister capable of recommending such measures to the crown, calls to my mind the idea which our ancestors had of some black magician conjuring up infernal spirits from the depths of the earth and of the sea, and letting them loose to the destruction of mankind. Delusions of this sort have indeed been long since exploded; but there are other diabolical arts, which certainly do exist, which ministers practise but which I hope will be as little able to maintain themselves against the improved understanding and well-directed firmness of the English nation *. C. LETTER XX. For the Public Advertiser. April 23, 1768. TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON †. MY LORD, Is it enough that Abra should be great PERMIT me to congratulate your Grace upon a piece of good *This may or may not be a letter of Junius; but the general tenour of its reasoning is congenial to him. He might be opposed to the ministry, and yet not to Lord Chatham; although Lord Chatham was the chief cause of ministerial weakness, his continued indisposition preventing his acting efficiently in its direction.-ED. This may be a letter of Junius, but not in his best style; it is redolent of his sympathies and aversions, and its matériel was often re-dressed with augmented piquancy.-ED. fortune which few men, of the best established reputation, have been able to attain to. The most accomplished persons have usually some defect, some weakness in their characters, which diminishes the lustre of their brighter qualifications. Tiberius had his forms; Charteris now and then deviated into honesty; and even Lord Bute prefers the simplicity of seduction to the poignant pleasures of a rape. But yours, my Lord, is a perfect character: through every line of public and of private life you are consistent with yourself. After doing everything, in your public station, that a minister might reasonably be ashamed of, you have determined, with a noble. spirit of uniformity, to mark your personal history by such strokes as a gentleman, without any great disgrace to his assurance, might be permitted to blush for. I had already conceived a high opinion of your talents and disposition. Whether the property of the subject, or the general rights of the nation were to be invaded; or whether you were tired of one lady, and chose another for the honourable companion of your pleasures; whether it was a horse-race, or a hazard-table, a noble disregard of forms seemed to operate through all your conduct. But you have exceeded my warmest expectations. Highly as I thought of you, your Grace must pardon me when I confess that there was one effort which I did not think you equal to. I did not think you capable of exhibiting the lovely Thais at the opera-house, of sitting a whole night by her side, of calling for her carriage yourself, and of leading her to it through a crowd of the first men and women in this kingdom. To a mind like yours, my Lord, such an outrage to your wife, such a triumph over decency, such insult to the company, must have afforded the highest gratification. When all the ordinary resources of pleasure were exhausted, this, I presume, was your novissima voluptas. It is of lasting nature, my Lord, and I dare say will give you as much pleasure upon reflection, as it did in the enjoyment. After so honourable an achievement, a poet's imagination could add but one ray more to the lustre of your character. Obtain a divorcet, marry the lady, and I do not doubt but Mr. Miss Parsons, afterwards Lady Maynard. The Duke of Grafton was, subsequently to the date of this letter, divorced from Miss Liddel, then Duchess of Grafton, and married, not the lady in Bradshaw will be civil enough to give her away, with an honest, artless smile of approbation. SIR, LETTER XXI. TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. April 23, 1768. If I were to characterize the present ministry from any single virtue which shines predominant in their administration, I should fix upon duplicity as the proper word to express it. I would not here be misunderstood: I do not by this mean only the little sneaking quality, commonly called doubledealing, which every pettifogging rascal may attain to, but that real duplicity of character which our ministers have assumed to themselves, by which every member of their body acts in two distinct capacities, and, Janus-like, bears two faces and two tongues, either of which may give the lie to the other without danger to his reputation. This is the present catholic political faith, which, unless a man believes, he shall not get a place; and if people would attend to this, they would be able to account for many of our great men's actions, which are unaccountable any other way. By this rule a man may say as a judge that the loss of an Englishman's liberty for twenty-four hours only is grievous beyond estimation; and then as a minister may declare, that forty days' tyranny is a trifling burthen, which any Englishman may bear*. As a member of parliament, a man may give his word that a certain bill shall be dropped; and the next day, as a chancellor of the exchequer, may bring it into the house. A first lord of the treasury may deciare upon his honour that he has no concern in India stock; but there is nothing in this to hinder him as a private man from having a share with any young lady of virtue to the amount of 20,000l. In those cases, you see, the duplicity of character in which question, but Miss Wrottesley, niece to the Duchess of Bedford. See Junius, Letter 12, vol. i. p. 153. * In allusion to Lord Camden's opinion upon the power of the Crown to suspend an Act of Parliament. See the subject further discussed in Junius, Letter 60, vol. i. P. 471. they act covers the parties from all sort of blame; but I will now do honour to the noble Duke, who, from under the footstool of gouty legs*, has crept into the elbow chair, who, though green in years, is ripe in devices. It is he who has carried this double-faced virtue to its greatest pitch. He has not only practised it with great success in public affairs, but has also lately introduced it into dealings between man and man. Everybody knows the story of nullum tempus, and the application of it to rob the Duke of Portland of 30,000l. The Duke of Grafton (as set forth in a case lately published) upon a representation, before any proceedings were had in the affair, did actually promise to the Duke of Portland, "That no step should be taken towards the decision of the matter in question till his Grace's title should be stated, referred to, and reported on by the proper officer, and fully and maturely considered by the board of treasury." Had the Duke of Portland been fully apprised of the new doctrine of the twofold state of ministers, he would have considered this promise (as it was really meant) as illusory, and only an expedient to lull him asleep while the business was going on. But his Grace knew no more of this maxim than if he had been an India director, and thought that a promise was a promise in whatever character it was given; so while he, in full confidence, was preparing the proofs of his right, the affair in dispute was given away, and the new grant to Sir James Lowther made out, signed and sealed in the treasury, without ever “his Grace's title being stated, referred to, or reported on, by the proper officer, or fully and maturely considered by the board." Lest any one should think that I partially ascribe this conduct of the Duke of Grafton to my favourite principle of two natures, when it ought to be laid to some other of his Grace's virtues, I shall here quote a reply to the Duke of Portland's case, lately published (as it is said) under the auspices of the treasury, where this doctrine is defended with equal modesty and truth. The writer begins by admitting the promise, which he says was inadvertently given by the Duke of Grafton; but then, says he, "since he was the king's servant, and had no title to the making this promise, he perceived he was *Lord Chatham's. |