attended to them, when fair and just opportunities presented themselves, I should have thought him unfeeling, and void of reflection indeed. How are any man's friends or relations to be provided for, but from the influence and protection of the patron? It is unfair to suppose that Lord Granby's friends have not as much merit as the friends of any other great man If he is generous at the public expense, as Junius invidiously calls it, the public is at no more expense for his lordship's friends than it would be if any other set of men possessed those offices. The charge is ridiculous!

The last charge against Lord Granby is of a most serious and alarming nature indeed. Junius asserts that the army is mouldering away for want of the direction of a man of common abilities and spirit. The present condition of the army gives the directest lie to his assertions. It was never upon a more respectable footing with regard to discipline, and all the essentials that can form good soldiers. Lord Ligonier delivered a firm and noble palladium of our safeties into Lord Granby's hands, who has kept it in the same good order in which he received it. The strictest care has been taken to fill up the vacant commissions with such gentlemen as howe the glory of their ancestors to support, as well as their own, and are doubly bound to the cause of their king and country, from motives of private property as well as public spirit. The adjutant-general*, who has the immediate care of the troops after Lord Granby, is an officer who would do great honour to any service in Europe, for his correct arrangements, good sense, and discernment upon all occasions, and for a punctuality and precision which give the most entire satisfaction to all who are obliged to consult him. The reviewing generals, who inspect the army twice a year, have been selected with the greatest care, and have answered the important trust reposed in them in the most laudable manner. Their reports of the condition of the army are much more to be credited than those of Junius, whom I do advise to atone for his shameful aspersions, by asking pardon of Lord Granby, and the whole kingdom, whom he has offended by his abominable scandals. In short, to turn Junius's own battery against him,

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I must assert, in his own words, that he has given strong assertions without proof, declamation without argument, and violent censures without dignity or moderation."

WILLIAM DRAPER*.

LETTER III.

TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF THE BATH.

SIR, February 7, 1769. THE defence of Lord Granby does honour to the goodness of your heart. You feel, as you ought to do, for the reputation of your friend, and you express yourself in the warmest language of the passions. In any other cause, I doubt not, you would have cautiously weighed the consequences of committing your name to the licentious discourses and malignant opinions

* As a correspondent of Junius in this and several other letters, the following short notice of Sir William Draper cannot be unacceptable to the reader. It is taken from Mr. Chalmers's Appendix to the Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the supposititious Shakespeare Papers, p. 80.

"Sir William, as a scholar, had been bred at Eton, and King' College, Cambridge; but he chose the sword for his profession. In India he ranked with those famous warriors, Clive and Laurence. In 1761 he acted at Bellisle, as a Brigadier. In 1763 he commanded the troops who conquered Manilla, which place was saved from plunder, by the promise of a ransom that was never paid. His first appearance, as an able writer, was in his clear refutation of the objections of the Spanish court. His services were rewarded with the command of the sixteenth regiment of foot, which he resigned to Colonel Gisborne, for his half-pay of £200 Irish. This common transaction furnished Junius with many a sarcasm. Sir William had scarcely closed his contest with that formidable opponent, when he had the misfortune to lose his wife, who died on the 1st of September, 1769. As he was foiled, he was, no doubt, mortified; and he set out, in October of that year, to make the tour of the Northern Colonies, which had now become objects of notice, and scenes of travel. He arrived at Charlestown, South Carolina, in January, 1770; and travelling northward he arrived, during the summer of that year, in Maryland; where he was received with that hospitality which she always paid to strangers, and with the attentions that were due to the merit of such a visitor.

From Maryland, Sir William passed on to New York, where he married Miss De Lancy, a lady of great connections there, and agreeable endowments, who died in 1778, leaving him a daughter. In 1779 he was appc mted Lieutenant-Governor of Minorca: a trust which, however discharged, ended unhappily He died at Bath, on the 8th of January, 1787."

of the world. But here, I presume, you thought it would be a breach of friendship to lose one moment in consulting your understanding; as if an appeal to the public were no more than a military coup de main, where a brave man has no rules to follow but the dictates of his courage. Touched with your generosity, I freely forgive the excesses into which it has led you; and, far from resenting those terms of reproach, which, considering that you are an advocate for decorum, you have heaped upon me rather too liberally, I place them to the account of an honest, unreflecting indignation, in which your cooler judgment and natural politeness had no concern. I approve of the spirit with which you have given your name to the public; and, if it were a proof of anything but spirit, I should have thought myself bound to follow your example. I should have hoped that even my name might carry some authority with it*, if I had not seen how very little weight or consideration a printed paper receives even from the respectable signature of Sir William Draper.

You begin with a general assertion, that writers, such as I am, are the real cause of all the public evils we complain of. And do you really think, Sir William, that the licentious pen of a political writer is able to produce such important effects? A little calm reflection might have shown you, that national calamities do not arise from the description, but from the real character and conduct of ministers. To have supported your assertion, you should have proved that the present ministry are unquestionably the best and brightest characters of the kingdom: and that, if the affections of the colonies have been alienated, if Corsica† has been shamefully abandoned, if commerce languishes, if public credit is threatened with a new

*

This expression will receive some farther light from a feature of himself incidentally introduced by Junius in a letter omitted in his own edition, but inserted in the present, Miscellaneous Letter, No. 54, as also from other views of his sentiments and conduct as casually evinced in the Private Letters.

Corsica, in modern times, was first subjugated by the Genoese, who made use of so much insolence and oppression, as to induce the natives to throw off the yoke, and endeavour to recover their independence. The contest was long and severe, and the Corsicans were reduced to beggary in the generous struggle. Nieuhoff and Paoli chiefly figured as leaders of the Corsicans, the first of whom was actually elected king, but could not maintain his throne against the invaders. The Corsicans applied to many foreign

debt, and your own Manilla ransom most dishonourably given up*, it has all been owing to the malice of political writers, who will not suffer the best and brightest of characters (meaning still the present ministry) to take a single right step for the honour or interest of the nation. But it seems you were a little tender of coming to particulars. Your conscience insinuated to you that it would be prudent to leave the characters of Grafton, North, Hillsborough, Weymouth, and Mansfield to shift for themselves; and truly, Sir William, the part you have undertaken is at least as much as you are equal to.

Without disputing Lord Granby's courage, we are yet to learn in what articles of military knowledge nature has been so very liberal to his mind. If you have served with him, you ought to have pointed out some instances of able disposition and well-concerted enterprise, which might fairly be attributed to his capacity as a general. It is you, Sir William, who make your friend appear awkward and ridiculous, by giving him a laced suit of tawdry qualifications, which nature neve intended him to wear.

courts for assistance, among the rest to Great Britain; and Lord Shelburne was one of the warmest supporters of their cause, and most desirous when in administration to engage in it. But his colleagues opposed him, and the cause of Corsica was abandoned, though the citizens of London contributed largely to its support. Yet the Genoese could not totally subdue it; and in consequence they sold it to France to be subdued by the French arms; and the tyranny which was at first exercised over it by the Genoese, it was now doomed to suffer from the French. Poland, Norway, Cracow, and Hungary afford subsequent and ready historical parallels to this brief advertence to the past history of Corsica.-ED.

* In the preceding war with Spain, Sir William (then Col. Draper) had commanded an expedition against the Spanish settlements in the Philippine Isles. It succeeded completely; and the capital of Manilla was taken by assault. Yet the generous conquerors, instead of plundering the city, consented to accept for the value of the spoil bills drawn upon the Spanish Government adequate to its supposed amount. These bills the Spanish Government undertook to pay, but dishonourably forfeited its word on their becoming due. Sir William Draper, on his return from India, repeatedly pressed the English minister to interpose upon the subject, on behalf of himself and his fellowsoldiers. The English minister, however, did not interposc. Draper vas personally rewarded by an election into the order of the Bath, in conjunction with certain pecuniary emoluments referred to in this correspondence; while his colleague, Admiral Cornish, together with the soldiers and sailors under their commands, were suffered to live and die without redress.

You say, he has acquired nothing but honour in the field. Is the Ordnance nothing? Are the Blues nothing? Is the command of the army, with all the patronage annexed to it, nothing? Where he got these nothings I know not; but you at least ought to have told us where he deserved them.

As to his bounty, compassion, &c., it would have been but little to the purpose, though you had proved all that you have asserted. I meddle with nothing but his character as commander-in-chief; and though I acquit him of the baseness of selling commissions, I still assert that his military cares have never extended beyond the disposal of vacancies; and I am justified by the complaints of the whole army, when I say that, in this distribution, he consults nothing but parliamentary interests, or the gratification of his immediate dependants. As to his servile submission to the reigning ministry, let me ask whether he did not desert the cause of the whole army when he suffered Sir Jeffrey Amherst to be sacrificed, and what share he had in recalling that officer to the service? Did he not betray the just interests of the army, in permitting Lord Percy to have a regiment? And does he not at this moment give up all character and dignity as a gentleman, in receding from his own repeated declarations in favour of Mr. Wilkes?

In the two next articles I think we are agreed. You candidly admit, that he often makes such promises as it is a virtue in him to violate, and that no man is more assiduous to provide for his relations at the public expense. I did not urge the last as an absolute vice in his disposition, but to prove that a careless disinterested spirit is no part of his character; and as to the other, I desire it may be remembered, that I never descended to the indecency of inquiring into his convivial hours. It is you, Sir William Draper, who have taken pains to represent your friend in the character of a drunken landlord, who deals out his promises as liberally as his liquor, and will suffer no man to leave his table either sorrowful or sober. None but an intimate friend, who must frequently have seen him in these unhappy, disgraceful moments, could have described him so well.

The last charge, of the neglect of the army, is indeed the most material of all. I am sorry to tell you, Sir William, that, in this article, your first fact is false; and as there is nothing more painful to me than to give a direct contradiction to a