SIR,

ITU. UU.

Tuesday Noon, February 5, 1771.

I DID not receive your letter until this day. I shall be very glad to hear what you have to communicate.

You need not advertise any notice.

C.

(Private.)

No. 31.

Monday, February 11, 1771. OUR correspondence is attended with difficulties. Yet I should be glad to see the paper you mention. Let it be left to-morrow without further notice. I am seriously of opinion that it will all end in smoke *.

C.

No. 32.

Monday, February 18, 1771. IF you are not grown too ministerial in your politics, I shall hope to see the inclosed announced to-morrow, and published on Wednesday t.

long debate ensued, of which no traces have been preserved, as strangers were rigidly excluded, and his Lordship's motion negatived by sixty-nine against twenty-two. But the important conclusion already intimated, that Junius was not a member of parliament, may be drawn from his desire to have open doors. Had he been a member of either house he would have had the privilege of entrée during the debate, and need not have been anxious about the admission of strangers. What a host of claimants are disposed of by this single consideration! Chatham, Dunning, Burke, Lord George Sackville, Colonel Barré, Lord Shelburne, Single Speech Hamilton, with numerous others, could not have been Junius, since all these were members of one or the other house of parliament. But till recently nothing less than a peer or M.P. was deemed high or good enough to be Junius.-ED. * In reference to a note from the Attorney-General for publishing Letter of Junius, No. 42, but which was never further proceeded upon.

This note accompanied Vindex, No. 90, of the Miscellaneous Letters. The printer had some scruples about publishing the whole of it; and in the Public Advertiser of Feb. 20 gave the usual mark, "A Letter," that a private letter was in waiting upon this subject. In consequence of which the subsequent note was received, dated Feb. 21.

No. 33

SIR, February 21, 1771. Ir will be very difficult, if not impracticable, for me to get your note. I presume it relates to Vindex*. I leave it to you to alter or omit as you think proper;-or burn it. I think the argument about Gibraltar†, &c., is too good to be lost. As to the satirical part, I must tell you (and with positive certainty) that our gracious is as callous as stockfish to everything but the reproach of cowardice. That alone is able to set the humours afloat. After a paper of that kind he won't eat meat for a week‡.

You may rely upon it the ministry are sick of prosecutions. Those against Junius cost the Treasury above six thousand pounds, and after all they got nothing but disgrace. After the paper you have printed to-day (signed Brutus §), one

* The following is a copy of the letter which Mr. Woodfall addressed to the author under the feigned name of Mr. John Fretly, and directed it to him at the New Exchange Coffee House in the Strand.

"SIR,

"To have deserved any portion of your good opinion affords me no small degree of satisfaction-to preserve it shall be my constant endeavour. Always willing to oblige you as much as lies in my power, I, with great avidity, open your letters; and sometimes without reading the contents, promise the publication. Such is my present situation, and I hope you will not be offended at my declining to publish your letter, as I am convinced the subject of it must, if I was to insert it, render me liable to very severe reprehension. That I am not grown too ministerial in my politics every day's paper will, I hope, sufficiently evince; though I rather hope some little regard to prudence will not by you be deemed squeamishness, or tend to lessen me in your opinion, as I shall ever think myself your

"Feb. 19, 1771.

"Much obliged humble Servant,

66 HENRY SAMPSON WOODFALL. "P.S. I shall wait your directions what to do with the paper in question, as I did not choose to trust it under cover till I was further acquainted with your pleasure."

† For the explanation of this passage, see Miscellaneous Letter 90, signed Vindex.

See vol. i. p. 288, note †.

§ This letter was addressed to Lord North, and, as it is short, it is here transcribed, in proof that Junius was not severe in his opinion of it, nor singularly acrimonious in the phraseology originally adopted by himself.

"MY LORD,

66 TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD NORTH.

"I never address your Lordship but I feel the utmost horror and indigna

would think you feared nothing. For my own part, I can very truly assure you that nothing would afflict me more than to have drawn you into a personal danger, because it admits of tion; for I consider you as a man totally regardless of your own honour and the welfare of your country.

"The severity of a writer cannot be supposed to give your Lordship any uneasiness. A minister whose schemes extend only to the exigencies of a year but little regards his present or future reputation; yet it is a duty we owe to the public to trace out and expose the villain, wherever we can perceive him working up the ruin of his country.

"The choice of your friends is an eminent indication of your abilities and the blackness of your heart.

"Nam quicumq; impudicus, adulter, ganeo, alea, manu, ventre, bona patria laceravit, quique alienum æs grande conflavit, immediately flies into your arms, and reimburses himself with the plunder of his country.

"Such are the guardians of our liberties and law: such are the men to whom our constitution is entrusted: and cannot we then without any particular discernment, or any remarkable acuteness of observation, trace out the origin of our present discontents?

"It would be needless to follow you through that maze of villany in which you have long delighted to wander; I shall only attack those measures which occur to our more immediate consideration.

"In what manner can you answer to your King for the scandalous prostitution of his crown and himself?

"In what manner can you answer to your country for the total disregard of its welfare and dignity?

"After all these formidable preparations; after all this expensive armament, you have made shift to patch up a temporary ignominious compromise, at the trifling expense of about three millions and the British honour.

"You imagine yourself sufficiently secured in the pursuit of your infamous intentions, and in the practice of every illegal and unconstitutional measure, by the countenance of the King. Rely not too much on that protection. His Majesty must not be suffered, through a blind and ridiculous attachment to an individual, or through a filial obedience which then becomes criminal, to ruin and subvert his infatuated kingdoms.

"Your late acquisition of Lord Suffolk will not do you much honour: he is of the same stamp with the rest of your adherents. His Lordship has given the world a very strong impression of his character and the disposition of his heart, by deserting his principal, and the cause in which he originally embarked, and by betraying that friendship which in the more early and virtuous time of his life he had contracted. His former party need not regret the loss of him, for they are by his desertion disencumbered of a—. "But I will now leave you, my Lord, to that mature insensibility which is only to be acquired by a steady perseverance in infamy.

"Every principle of conscience you have long ago been hardy enough to discard. There has not been an action in the last two years of your life but what separately deserves imprisonment. The time may come; and remember, my Lord, there is a very short period between a minister's imprisonment and his grave.-BRUTUS."

no recompense. A little expense is not to be regarded, and I hope these papers have reimbursed you. I never will send you anything that I think dangerous, but the risque* is yours, and you must determine for yourself.

All the above is private.

C.

No. 34.

Friday Noon, April 19, 1771. I HOPE you will approve of announcing the enclosed Junius to-morrow, and publishing it on Monday. If, for any reasons that do not occur to me, you should think it unadvisable to print it as it stands, I must entreat the favour of you to transmit it to Bingley, and satisfy him that it is a real Junius, worth a North Briton Extraordinary. It will be impossible for me to have an opportunity of altering any part of it

I am, very truly, your Friend,

C.

No. 35.

Thursday, June 20, 1771. I AM strangely partial to the enclosed §. It is finished with the utmost care. If I find myself mistaken in my judgment of this paper, I positively will never write again.

C.

Let it be announced to-morrow, Junius to the Duke of Grafton for Saturday.

I think Wilkes has closed well. resolution not to write any more ||.

I hope he will keep his

* This peculiarity of spelling the word risk is the author's. Junius, Letter 44, which was printed as requested.

The printer of the North Briton.

§ Junius, No. 49, to the Duke of Grafton.

In allusion to the dispute between Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Horne, conducted with great acrimony, till the former resolved, as here advised, not to answer after a definite period any additional letters, in consequence of the total occupation of his time in his canvass for the office of sheriff of London, for which he was then a candidate, and to which situation he ultimately suc

No. 36.

July 16, 1771. To prevent any unfair use being made of the enclosed, I entreat you to keep a copy of it. Then seal and deliver it to Mr. Horne. I presume you know where he is to be found*.

C.

No. 37

August 13, 1771. PRAY make an erratum for ultimate in the paragraph about the Duke of Grafton, it should be intimate. The rest is very correct. If Mr. Horne answers this letter handsomely and in point, he shall be my great Apollo.

No. 38.

Wednesday Noon, September 25, 1771. THE enclosed is of such importance, so very material, that it must be given to the public immediately‡.

ceeded. The following is the conclusion of the letter here spoken of, which was of course, addressed to Mr. Horne.

"Whether you proceed, Sir, to a thirteenth or a thirtieth letter is to me a matter of the most entire indifference. You will no longer have me your correspondent. All the efforts of your malice and rancour cannot give me a moment's disquietude. They will only torment your own breast. I am wholly indifferent about your sentiments of me, happy in the favourable opinion of many valuable friends in the most honourable connections, both public and private, and in the prospect of rendering myself eminently useful to my country. Formerly in exile, when I was urbe patriáque extorris, and torn from every sacred tie of friendship, I have moistened my bread with my tears. The rest of my life I hope to enjoy my morsel at home in peace and cheerfulness, among those I love and honour, far from the malignant eye of the false friend and the insidious hypocrite.

"I am, Sir, your humble Servant,

"JOHN WILKES." *Note enclosing Junius's Letter to the Rev. Mr. Horne, No. 52, vol. i.

p. 364.

Junius, Letter 54, vol. i. p. 387. This letter appeared on the 13th of August, 1771, though in the author's edition it is by mistake dated the 15th. The Letter referred to is Junius, No. 57, and was printed in the Public Advertiser, Saturday, Sept. 28, 1771.