carried for government, or the refentment of a court to be gratified.

These principles and proceedings, odious and contemptible as they are, in effect are no lefs injudicious. A wife and generous people are roufed by every appearance of oppreffive, unconftitutional measures, whether thofe measures are fupported only by the power of government, or marked under the forms of a court of justice. Prudence and felf-prefervation will oblige the most moderate difpofitions to make common caufe, even with a man whofe conduct they cenfure, if they fee him perfecuted in a way which the real fpirit of the laws will not juftify. The facts, on which these remarks are founded, are too notorious to require an application.

This, Sir, is the detail. In one view, behold a nation overwhelmed with debt; her revenues wafted; her trade declining; the affections of her colonies alienated; the duty of the magiftrate transferred to the foldiery; a gallant army, which never fought unwillingly but against their fellowfubjects, mouldering away for want of the direction of a man of common abilities and fpirit; and in the laft inftance, the adminiftration of -juftice become odious and fufpected to the whole body of the people. This deplorable scene admits of but one addition-that we are governed by counfels, from which a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison,-no relief but death.

If, by the immediate interpofition of Providence, it were poffible for us to escape a crifis fo full of terror and despair, pofterity will not believe the hiftory of the prefent times. They will either conclude that our diftreffes were imaginary, or that we had the good fortune to be governed by men of acknowledged integrity and wifdom: they will not believe it poffible, that their ancestors could have furvived or recovered

from fo defperate a condition, while a Duke of Grafton was Prime Minister, a Lord North Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Weymouth and a Hilfborough Secretaries of Státe, a Granby Commander in Chief, and Mansfield Chief Criminal Judge of the kingdom.

JUNIUS.

LETTER II.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLICK AD

VERTISER.

SIR,

Jan. 26. 1769, THE kingdom fwarms with fuch numbers of felonious robbers of private character and virtue, that no honeft or good man is fafe; efpecially as these cowardly bafe affaffins ftab in the dark, without having the courage to fign their real names to their malevolent and wicked productions. Á writer, who figns himself Junius, in the Publick Advertiser of the 21ft inftant, opens the deplorable fituation of his country in a very affecting manner; with a pompous parade of his candour and decency, he tells us, that we fee diffenfions in all parts of the empire, an univerfal fpirit of diftruft and diffatisfaction, and a total lofs of respect towards us in the eyes of foreign powers. But this writer, with all his boafted candour, has not told us the real caufe of the evils be fo pathetically enumerates. I fhall take the liberty to explain the cause for him. Junius and fuch writers as himself occafion all the mifchief complained of, by falfely and maliciously traducing the best characters in the kingdom. For when our deluded people at home, and foreigners abroad, read the poisonous and inflammatory libels that are daily published with impunity, to

vilify thofe who are any way diftinguished by their good qualities and eminent virtues: when they find no notice taken of, or reply given to, these flanderous tongues and pens, their conclufion is, that both the minifters and the nation have been fairly defcribed; and they act accordingly. I think it therefore the duty of every good citizen to stand forth, and endeavour to undeceive the publick, when the vileft arts are made use of to defame and blacken the brighteft cha→ racters among us. An eminent author affirms it to be almost as criminal to hear a worthy man , traduced, without attempting his juftification, as to be the author of the calumny against him. For my own part, I think it a fort of mifprifion of treafon against fociety. No man, therefore, who knows Lord Granby, can poffibly hear fo good and great a character moft vilely abused, without a warm and juft indignation against this Junius, this high-prieft of envy, malice, and all uncharitablenefs, who has endeavoured to facrifice our beloved commander in chief at the altars of his horrid deities. Nor is the injury done to his lordship alone, but to the whole nation, which may too foon feel the contempt, and confequently the attacks, of our late enemies, if they can be induced to believe that the perfon, on whom the safety of thefe kingdoms fo much depends, is unequal to his high ftation, and destitute of thofe qualities which form a good general. One would have thought that his lordship's fervices in the cause of his country, from the battle of Culloden to his moft glorious conclufion of the late war, might have entitled him to common refpect and decency at leaft: but this uncandid indecent writer has gone fo far as to turn one of the most amiable men of the age into a ftupid, unfeeling, and fenfelefs being, poffeffed indeed of a perfonal courage, but void of thofe effential

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effential qualities which diftinguish the commarder from the common foldier.

A very long, uninterrupted, impartial, I will add, a most difinterefted friendship with Lord Granby, gives me the right to affirm, that all Junius's affèrtions are falfe and fcandalous. Lord Granby's courage, though of the brightest and most ardent kind, is among the loweft of his numerous good qualities; he was formed to excel in war, by Nature's liberality to his mind as wellas perfon. Educated and inftructed by his moft noble father, and a moft fpirited as well as excellent fcholar, the prefent Bishop of Bangor, he was trained to the niceft fenfe of honour, and to the trueft and nobleft fort of pride, that of never doing or fuffering a mean action. A fincere love and attachment to his king and country, and to their glory, firft impelled him to the field, where he never gained aught but honour. He impaired, through his bounty, his own fortune for his bounty, which this writer would in vain depreciate, is founded upon the nobleft of the human affections; it flows from a heart melting to goodnefs, from the moft refined humanity. Can a nan, who is defcribed as unfeeling and void of reflection, be conftantly employed in feeking proper objects on whom to exercife thofe glorious virtues of compaffion and generofity? The diftreffed officer, the foldier, the widow, the orphan, and a long lift befides, know that vanity has no fhare in his frequent donations; he gives, because he feels their distresses. Nor has he ever been rapacious with one hand, to be bountiful with the other yet this uncandid Junius would infinuate, that the dignity of the commander in chief is depraved into the bafe office of a commiffion-broker that is, Lord Granby bargains for the fale of commiffions; for it must have this meaning, if it has any at all. But where is the man living who can

juftly

juftly charge his lordship with fuch mean practices? Why does not Junius produce him? Junius knows that he has no other means of wounding this hero, than from fome miffile weapon, fhot from an obfcure corner: He feeks, as all defamatory writers do,

Spargere voces

In Vulgum ambiguas

to raise a fufpicion in the minds of the people. But I hope that my countrymen will be no longer impofed upon by artful and defigning men, or by wretches, who, bankrupts in bufinefs, in fame, and in fortune, mean nothing more than to involve this country in the fame common ruin with themselves. Hence it is, that they are conftantly aiming their dark and too often fatal weapons against those who ftand forth as the bulwark of our national fafety. Lord Granby was too confpicuous a mark not to be their object. He is next attacked for being unfaithful to his promifes and engagements: Where are Junius's proofs? Although I could give fome inftances, where a breach of promife would be a virtue, efpecially in the cafe of those who would pervert the open, unfufpecting moments of convivial mirth, into fly, infidious applications for preferment or partysystems, and would endeavour to furprize a good man, who cannot bear to fee any one leave him diffatisfied, into unguarded promifes. Lord Granby's attention to his own family and relations is called felfifh. Had he not attended to them, when fair and juft opportunities prefented themfelves, I fhould 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 C 3

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