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The conviction of M'Quirk had reduced you to a dilemma in which it was hardly possible for you to reconcile your political interest with your duty. You were obliged either to abandon an active, useful partizan, or to protect a felon from public justice. With your usual spirit, you preferred your interest to every other consideration; and, with your usual judgment, you founded your determination upon the only motives which should not have been given to the public.

I have frequently censured Mr. Wilkes's conduct, yet your advocate reproaches me with having devoted myself to the service of sedition. Your Grace can best inform us for which of Mr. Wilkes's good qualities you first honoured him with your friendship; or how long it was before you discovered those bad ones in him, at which, it seems, your delicacy was offended. Remember, my Lord, that you continued your connexion with Mr. Wilkes, long after he had been convicted of those crimes, which, you have since taken pains to represent in the blackest colours of blasphemy and treason. How unlucky it is, that the first instance you have given us of a scrupulous regard to decorum, is united with a breach of a moral obligation! For my own part, my Lord, I am proud to affirm, that if I had been weak enough to form such a friendship, I would never have been base enough to betray it. But let Mr. Wilkes's character be what it may, this, at least, is certain, that circumstanced as he is, with regard to the public, even his vices

plead for him. The people of England, have too much discernment to suffer your Grace to take advantage of the failings of a private character, to establish a precedent by which the public liberty is affected, and which you may hereafter, with equal ease and satisfaction, employ to the ruin of the best men in the kingdom. Content yourself, my Lord, with the many advantages, which the unsullied purity of your own character has given you over your unhappy, deserted friend. Avail yourself of all the unforgiving piety of the court you live in, and bless God that "you are not as other men are; extor"tioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publi"can." In a heart void of feeling, the laws of honour and good faith may be violated with impunity, and there you may safely indulge your genius. But the laws of England shall not be violated, even by your holy zeal to oppress a sinner; and, though you have succeeded in making him a tool, you shall not make him the victim of your ambition.

JUNIUS.

LETTER X.

TO MR. EDWARD WESTON.

SIR,

April 21, 1769.

I SAID you were an old man without the benefit of experience. It seems you are also a volun. teer, with the stipend of twenty commissions; and, at a period when all prospects are at an end, you are still looking forward to rewards, which you cannot enjoy. No man is better acquainted with the bounty of government than you are.

-Ton impudence,

Temeraire vieillard, aura sa recompence.

But I will not descend to an altercation either with the impotence of your age, or the peevishness of your diseases. Your pamphlet, ingenious as it is, has been so little read, that the public cannot know how far you have a right to give me the lie, without the following citation of your own words:

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Page 6th." 1. That he is persuaded that the mo"tives which he (Mr. Weston) has alledged, must

appear fully sufficient, with or without the opinions "of the surgeons.

"2. That those very motives MUST HAVE BEEN the "foundation on which the Earl of Rochford thought proper, &c.

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"3. That he CANNOT BUT REGRET, that the Earl of Rochford seeins to have thought proper to lay the

chirurgical reports before the king, in preference to "all the other sufficient motives," &c.

Let the public determine whether this be defending government on their principles or your own.

The style and language you have adopted, are, I confess, not ill suited to the elegance of your own manners, or to the dignity of the cause you have undertaken. Every common dauber writes rascal and villain under his pictures, because the pictures them. selves have neither character or resemblance. But the works of a master require no index; his features and colouring are taken from nature; the impression they make is immediate and uniform: nor is it possible to mistake his characters, whether they represent the treachery of a Minister, or the abused simplicity of a King,

JUNIUS.

LETTER XI.

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

MY LORD,

April 24, 1769.

THE system you seemed to have adopted, when Lord Chatham, unexpectedly, left you at the head of affairs, gave us no promise of that uncommon exertion of vigour which has since illustrated your character, and distinguished your administration. Far from discovering a spirit bold enough to invade the first rights of the people, and the first principles of the constitution, you were scrupulous of exercising even those powers with which the executive branch of the legislature is legally invested. We have not yet forgotten how long Mr. Wilkes was suffered to appear at large, nor how long he was at liberty to canvas for the city and county, with all the terrors of an outlawry hanging over him. Our gracious Sovereign has not yet forgotten the extraordinary care you took of his dignity, and of the safety of his person, when, at a crisis which courtiers affected to call alarming, you left the metropolis exposed, for two nights together, to every species of riot and disorder. The security of the royal residence from insult was then sufficiently provided for in Mr. Conway's firmness, and Lord Weymouth's discretion; while the Prime Minister of

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