the ministry*. It is true I have refused offers which a more prudent or a more interested man would have accepted. Whether it be simplicity or virtue in me, I can only affirm that I am in earnest†; because I am convinced, as far as my understanding is capable of judging, that the present ministry are driving this country to destruction; and you, I think, Sir, may be satisfied that my rank and fortune place me above a

COMMON BRIBE.

LETTER LV.

TO THE MARQUIS OF GRANBY.

JUNIUS.

MY LORD, May 6, 1769. You were once the favourite of the public. As a brave man you were admired by the army, as a generous man you were beloved. The scene is altered; and even your immediate dependants, who have profited most by your good nature, cannot conceal from you how much you have lost both in the affections of your fellow-soldiers and the esteem of your country. Your character, once spotless, once irreproachable, has been drawn into a public question; attacked with severity, defended

deceit, his learning discovered to be mere plagiarism, his boasted parts to consist altogether in memory. The flimsy affected, though unaffecting, superficialness of his private discourse was soon traced in the hollow and round period of his public declamations. Detestation took the place of esteem in the minds of many, hatred took possession of a few, and a contempt for him of all. Detected, detested, despised, in his real character, he now assumes a fictitious name; for Junius cannot deceive but where he is unknown.

"March 27, 1769.

"SILURUS."

*The letter here referred to is that addressed to the Duke of Grafton, on Mr. Weston's supposed vindication of his Grace, for the pardon of M'Quirk. See vol. i. p. 148.

+ Private Letter, No. 63.

This misleading paragraph is very amusing, supposing our demonstration of the authorship to be correct. His first aim was concealment; next, to give weight and authority to his political strictures; and both objects were most likely to be accomplished by artfully representing himself as a man of rank and position, possibly one of the great heads of parties—a Rockingham, Grenville, Temple, Shelburne, or even, as Mr. Macaulay usually calls him, "the great Lord Chatham."-Ed.

with imprudence, and, like the seat of war, ruined by the contention. Profligate as we are, the virtues of the heart are still so much respected that even the errors and simplicity of a good man are sacred against censure or derision. To a man of your Lordship's high rank and fortune, is there anything in the smiles of a court that can balance the loss of that affection (for surely it was something more cordial than esteem) with which you were universally received upon your return from Germany? You were than an independent gallant soldier. As far as you thought proper to mix in politics, you were the friend and patron of the people. Believe me, my

Lord, the highest rate of abilities could never have given you a more honourable station. From the moment you quitted that line, you have, perhaps, been better able to gratify some interested favourites, but you have disgraced yourself; and, to a man of your quality, disgrace is ruin.

You are now in the lowest rank of ministerial dependants. Your vote is as secure to administration as if you were a lord of trade, or a vice-treasurer of Ireland; and even Conway, at your Lordship's expense, has mended his reputation. I will not enter into a detail of your past conduct. You have enemies enough already, and I would not wish you to despair of recovering the public esteem. An opportunity will soon present itself. The people of England are good natured enough to make allowances for your mistakes, and to give you credit for correcting them. One short question will determine your character for ever. Does it become the name and dignity of Manners to place yourself upon a level with a venal tribe, who vote as they are directed, and to declare upon your honour, in the face of your country, that Mr. Luttrell is, or ought to be, the sitting member for the county of Middlesex? I appeal, bona fide, to your integrity as an honest man;—I even appeal to your understanding.

YOUR REAL FRIEND*.

*This is an undoubted Junius. The anxiety Junius felt for its appearance will be seen from his private note, No. 2, ante, p. 1, to Mr. Woodfall, informing him that "the great question [the expulsion of Wilkes] comes on on Monday, and Lord Granby is already staggered." The debate took place as expected, and the result was as stated in Dr. Good's note-Colonel Luttrell, with 296 votes, being declared duly elected, and Jack Wilkes, with 1143, rejected. From the Chatham Correspondence (vol. iii. p. 356) it appears that, one week prior to the appearance of the above letter of Your

LETTER LVI..

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, June 6, 1769. I WISH the Duke of Grafton had thought proper to take the opinion of our gracious Queen's solicitor-general before he pardoned M Quirk. That worthy lawyer is never at cross purposes with himself, and I dare say would have maintained the same doctrine in his closet which he has delivered in public. He says in his last volume, page 12, “ that the pains of death ought never to be inflicted, but when the offender appears incorrigible: which may be collected either from a repetition of minuter offences, or from the perpetration of some one crime of deep malignity, which of itself demonstrates a disposition without hope or probability of amendment; and in such cases it would be cruelty to the public to defer the punishment of such a criminal till he had an opportunity of repeating perhaps the worst of villanies."

What would this most respectable of all possible lawyers have thought of granting a pardon to a culprit who had not only been convicted of a repetition of offences, and those not minute but atrocious, but who had actually committed murder? He certainly would have called it something more than cruelty

Real Friend, Lord Granby visited the Earl of Chatham at Hayes, to confer with him on his conduct, especially in regard to the Middlesex election. Of this interview Earl Temple relates, that "Lord Granby has made his report to the Duke of Grafton of what passed with Lord Chatham. His Grace justified himself as well as he could in respect to the different things which he apprehended were found fault with at Hayes-was ready to do as Lord Chatham should direct when he came forth; but rather wondered that his Lordship should choose to see the King first, as it would be better for them to talk together and settle beforehand." These combined movements, Chatham's interview with Granby and the remonstrative epistle of Junius, had one and the same end in view-to weaken the Grafton ministry, now Chatham had left it, by detaching from it its greatest ornament, the Marquis of Granby. They succeeded at last; the Chatham and Junius pack worried the Marquis into a resignation, and perhaps to death; for he lived unhappily, and died suddenly not long after leaving the King's service. He had distinguished himself in the German war, possessed some talent and a noble heart.-ED.

* Sir William Blackstone. For the detail of M'Quirk's crime and pardon, see Junius's Letters, No. 8, vol. i. p. 138.

to the public. His knowledge of the laws would have told him that the purpose for which this villain was employed by the ministry was treason against the constitution *; that i was the highest aggravation of the crimes he committed ir prosecution of it; that murder, simply considered, is only ar injury to the individual who suffers, or, in the most enlarged sense, to society, in the loss of one of its members; but that when it is connected with, and founded on, the idea of destroying the constitution of the state (which, as far as Mr. Mac Quirk's labours could be supposed to operate, was certainly the case), it then comprehends every quality which can make an offence of this sort criminal in the eye of the law: the injury to the individual; a breach of the public peace and security in a civil light; and a violation of that political system on which the liberty and happiness of the community depend. Mr. Blackstone would have told the fiery Duke, that to pardon such an offender would not only be a most scandalous evasion of law and justice, but the grossest insult to the common understanding of the nation.

His Grace must then have applied to some lawyer of a more flexible character. There is a man, for instance, who seems to have hoarded up a treasure of reputation, not to last him through life, but to squander away at one moment, with a foolish indecent prodigality;-who is not ashamed to maintain an oral doctrine directly opposite to that which he had written, nor to deceive the representative, after instructing the collective body of the nation. This man would willingly have accommodated his authority to the purposes of administration; and as for himself, he could suffer no loss for which the vanity of an author would not have sufficiently consoled him. The respect due to his writings will probably increase with the contempt due to his character, and his works will be quoted when he himself is forgotten or despised.

SIMPLEX.

* In reference to Sir W. Blackstone's opinion relating to the Middlesex election. See Junius, No. 18, vol. i. p. 185.

LETTER LVII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, June 10, 1769. I AM an old reader of political controversy. I remember the great Walpolean battles; and am not a little diverted with the combats of party at this time. They are still carried on with ability and vigour. Long habit has taught me to pass by all the declamation with which the champions parade. I look upon it as no better than those flourishes of the back sword with which the great masters of my time in the amphitheatre entertained the spectators, merely to show their dexterity, but which made no part of the real engagement. I regard as nothing the trappings of panegyric with which they decorate their friends. I entirely overlook the dirt with which they so very liberally bespatter their enemies. Whenever a fact is touched upon, there I fix. When a distinct charge is made upon a minister, I look for a distinct and particular answer, that denies, or admitting, explains, or in some favourable manner accounts for the fact charged. If instead of this I find nothing more than a long paper, in which the author of the charge is called a thousand names, and the person accused is lifted up to the skies as a miracle of ability and virtue, I am obliged, as an equitable judge, to consider the cause not as defended, but as utterly abandoned; and the court must enter an admission by his own advocates of the charge against him.

The conduct and character of the Duke of Grafton have been for some time the object of controversy. In what manner have they been attacked and defended? Take as a specimen the controversy of the last week. Junius, whom the ministe rial writers appear very much to dread, and affect very much to despise, has made several particular charges upon his Grace. In one column I will state the charges, in the other the reader will see the answers, and he will thereby be the better enabled to judge of the spirit in which this dispute is carried on.