represent the people. A House of Commons so formed would involve a contradiction and the grossest confusion of ideas; but there are some ministers, my Lord, whose views can only be answered by reconciling absurdities, and making the same proposition, which is false and absurd in argument, true in fact.

This measure, my Lord, is however attended with one consequence, favourable to the people, which I am persuaded you did not foresee*. While the contest lay between the ministry and Mr. Wilkes, his situation and private character gave you advantages over him, which common candour, if not the memory of your former friendship, should have forbidden you to make use of. To religious men, you had an opportunity of exaggerating the irregularities of his past life;-to moderate men you held forth the pernicious consequences of faction. Men, who with this character, looked no farther than to the object before them, were not dissatisfied at seeing Mr. Wilkes excluded from parliament. You have now taken care to shift the question; or, rather, you have created a new one, in which Mr. Wilkes is no more concerned than any other English gentleman. You have united this country against you on one grand constitu

*The reader is desired to mark this prophecy.

tional point, on the decision of which our existence as a free people, absolutely depends. You have asserted, not in words but in fact, that representation in parliament does not depend upon the choice of the freeholders. If such a case can possibly happen once, it may happen frequently; it may happen always-and if three hundred votes by any mode of reasoning whatsoever, can prevail against twelve hundred, the same reasoning would equally have given Mr. Luttrell his seat with ten votes, or even with one. The consequences of this attack upon the constitution are too plain and palpable not to alarm the dullest apprehension. I trust you will find, that the people of England are neither deficient in spirit nor understanding, though you have treated them, as if they had neither sense to feel, nor spirit to resent. We have reason to thank God and our ancestors, that there never yet was a minister in this country, who could stand the issue of such a conflict; and with every prejudice in favour of your intentions, I see no such abilities in your Grace, as should entitle you to succeed in an enterprize, in which the ablest and basest of your predecessors have found their destruction. You may continue to deceive your gracious master with false representations of the temper and condition of his subjects. You may com

mand a venal vote, because it is the common established appendage of your office. But never hope that the freeholders will make a tame surrender of their rights, or that an English army will join with you in overturning the liberties of their country. They know that their first duty, as citizens, is paramount to all subsequent engagements, nor will they prefer the discipline, nor even the honours of their profession, to those sacred original rights, which belonged to them before they were soldiers, and which they claim and possess as the birthright of English

men.

Return, my Lord, before it be too late, to that easy insipid system, which you first set out with. Take back your mistress* ;-the name of friend may be fatal to her, for it leads to treachery and persecution. Attend Newmarket. Mr.

Indulge the people. Luttrell may again

vacate his seat; and Mr. Wilkes, if not persecuted, will soon be forgotten. To be weak and inactive is safer than to be daring and criminal; and wide is the distance between a riot of the populace and a convulsion of the whole

*The Duke, about this time, had separated himself from Ann Parsons, but proposed to continue united with her, on some platonic terms of friendship, which she rejected with contempt. His baseness to this woman is beyond description or belief.

kingdom. You may live to make the experiment, but no honest man can wish you should survive it.

LETTER XII.

JUNIUS.

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

MY LORD,

30 May, 1769.

If the measures in which you have been most successful, had been supported by any tolerable appearance of argument, I should have thought my time not ill employed, in continuing to examine your conduct as a minister, and stating it fairly to the public. But when I see questions, of the highest national importance, carried as they have been, and the first principles of the constitution openly violated, without argument or decency, I confess, I give up the cause in despair. The meanest of your predecessors had abilities sufficient to give a colour to their measures. If they invaded the rights of the people, they did not dare to offer a direct insult to their understanding; and, in former times, the most venal parliaments made it a condition, in their bargain with the minister, that he should furnish them with some plausible pretences for selling their country and them

selves. You have had the merit of introducing a more compendious system of government and logic. You neither address yourself to the passions, nor to the understanding, but simply to the touch. You apply yourself immediately to the feelings of your friends, who, contrary to the forms of parliament, never enter heartily into a debate, until they have divided.

Relinquishing, therefore, all idle views of amendment to your Grace, or of benefit to the public, let me be permitted to consider your character and conduct merely as a subject of curious speculation.-There is something in both, which distinguishes you not only from all other ministers, but all other men. It is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do right by mistake. It is not that your indolence and your activity have been equally misapplied, but that the first uniform principle, or, if I call it the genius of your life, should have carried you through every possible change and contradiction of conduct, without the momentary imputation or colour of a virtue; and that the wildest spirit of inconsistency should never once have betrayed you into a wise or honourable action. This, I own, gives an air of singularity to your fortune, as well as to your disposition. Let us look back together to a scene, in which a mind like yours will find

may