way they shall incline. Your country unites the characters, and gives you credit for them both. For my own part, I see nothing inconsistent in your conduct. You began with betraying the people, you conclude with betraying the king.

*

In your treatment of particular persons, you have preserved the uniformity of your character. Even Mr. Bradshaw declares, that no man was ever so ill used as himself. As to the provision you have made for his family, he was entitled to it by the house he lives in. The successor of one chancellor might well pretend to be the rival of another. It is the breach of private friendship which touches Mr. Bradshaw; and, to say the truth, when a man of his rank and abilities had taken so active a part in your affairs, he ought not to have been let down at last with a miserable pension of fifteen hundred pounds a-year. Colonel Luttrell, Mr. Onslow, and Governor Burgoyne, were equally engaged with you, and have rather more reason to complain than Mr. Bradshaw. These are men, my lord, whose friendship you should have adhered to on the same principle on which you deserted Lord Rockingham, Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, and the Duke of Portland. We can easily account for your violating your engagements with

A pension of 1500l. per annum, insured upon the four onehalf per cents. (he was too cunning to trust to Irish security) for the lives of himself and his sons. This gentleman, who a very few years ago, was clerk to a contractor for forage, and afterwards exalted to a petty post in the war-office, thought it necessary, as soon as he was appointed secretary to the treasury, to take that great house in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, in which the Earl of Northington had resided while he was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. As to the pension, Lord North very solemnly assured the House of Commons, that no pension was ever so well deserved as Mr. Bradshaw's. N. B. Lord Camden and Sir Jeffrey Amherst are not near so well provided for; and Sir Edward Hawke, who saved the state, retires with two thousand pounds a-year on the Irish establishment, from which he, in fact, receives less than Mr. Bradshaw's pension.

men of honour; but why should you betray your natural connections? Why separate yourself from Lord Sandwich, Lord Gower, and Mr. Rigby, or leave the three worthy gentlemen above-mentioned to shift for themselves? With all the fashioable indulgence of the times, this country does not abound in characters like theirs; and you may find it a difficult matter to recruit the black catalogue of your friends.

The recollection of the royal patent you sold to Mr. Hine obliges me to say a word in defence of a man, whom you have taken the most dishonourable means to injure. I do not refer to the sham prosecution which you affected to carry on against him. On that ground, I doubt not, he is prepared to meet you with tenfold recrimination, and set you at defiance. The injury you had done him affects his moral character. You knew, that the offer to purchase the reversion of a place, which has heretofore been sold under a decree of the court of Chancery, however imprudent in his situation, would no way tend to cover him with that sort of guilt which you wished to fix upon him in the eyes of the world. You laboured then, by every species of false suggestion, and even by publishing counterfeit letters, to have it understood, that he had proposed terms of accommodation to you, and had offered to abandon his principles, his party, and his friends. You consulted your own breast for a character of consummate treachery, and gave it to the public for that of Mr. Vaughan. I think myself obliged to do this justice to an injured man, because I was deceived by the appearances thrown out by your grace, and have frequently spoken of his conduct with indignation. If he really be, what I think him, honest, though mistaken, he will be happy in recovering his reputation, though at the expence of his understanding. Here, I see, the matter is likely to rest.

Your grace is afraid to carry on the prosecution. Mr. Hine keeps quiet possession of his purchase; and Governor Burgoyne, relieved from the apprehension of refunding the money, sits down, for the remainder of his life, infamous and contented.

I believe, my lord, I may now take my leave of you for ever. You are no longer that resolute minister, who had spirit to support the most violent measures; who compensated for the want of good and great qualities, by a brave determination, which some people admired and relied on, to maintain himself without them. The reputation of obstinacy and perseverance might have supplied the place of all the absent virtues. You have now added the last negative to your character, and meanly confessed, that you are destitute of the common spirit of a man. Retire, then, my lord, and hide your blushes from the world; for with such a load of shame, even black may change its colour. A mind such as yours, in the solitary hours of domestic enjoyment, may still find topics of consolation. You may find it in the memory of violated friendship; in the afflictions of an accomplished prince, whom you have disgraced and deserted; and in the agitations of a great country, driven, by your counsels, to the brink of destruction.

The palm of ministerial firmness is now transferred to Lord North. He tells us so himself, and with the plenitude of the ore rotundo*; and I am ready enough to believe, that, while he can keep his place, he will not easily be persuaded to resign it. Your grace was the firm minister of yesterday: Lord North is the firm minister of today. To-morrow, perhaps his majesty, in his wisdom, may give us a rival for you both. You are too well ac

* This eloquent person has got as far as the discipline of Demosthenes. He constantly speaks with pebbles in his mouth, to improve his articulation.

quainted with the temper of your late allies, to think it possible, that Lord North should be permitted to govern this country. If we may believe common fame, they have shown him their superiority already. His majesty is indeed too gracious to insult his subjects, by choosing his first minister from among the domestics of the Duke of Bedford. That would have been too gross an outrage to the three kingdoms. Their purpose, however, is equally answered by pushing forward this unhappy figure, and forcing it to bear the odium of measures which they in reality direct. Without immediately appearing to govern, they possess the power, and distribute the emoluments of government as they think proper. They still adhere to the spirit of that calculation, which made Mr. Luttrell representative of Middlesex. Far from regretting your retreat, they assure us very gravely, that it increases the real strength of the ministry. According to this way of reasoning, they will probably grow stronger, and more flourishing, every hour they exist; for, I think, there is hardly a day passes in which some one or other of his majesty's servants does not leave them to improve by the loss of his assistance. But, alas! their countenances speak a different language. When the members drop off, the main body cannot be insensible of its approaching dissolution. Even the violence of their proceedings is a signal of despair. Like broken tenants, who have had warning to quit the premises, they curse their landlord, destroy the fixtures, throw every thing into confusion, and care not what mischief they do to the estate.

JUNIUS.

M

LETTER XXXVII.

TO

THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR,

March 19, 1770.

I BELIEVE there is no man, however indifferent about the interests of this country, who will not readily confess, that the situation to which we are now reduced, whether it has arisen from the violence of faction, or from an arbitrary system of government, justifies the most melancholy apprehensions, and calls for the exertion of whatever wisdom, or vigour is left among us. The king's answer to the remonstrance of the city of London, and the measures since adopted by the ministry, amount to a plain declaration, that the principle, on which Mr. Luttrell was seated in the House of Commons, is to be supported in all its consequences, and carried to its utmost extent. The same spirit, which violated the freedom of election, now invades the declaration and bill of rights, and threatens to punish the subject for exercising a privilege, hitherto undisputed, of petitioning the crown. The grievances of the people are aggravated by insults; their complaints. not merely disregarded, but checked by authority; and every one of those acts, against which they remonstrated, confirmed by the king's decisive approbation. At such a moment, no honest man will remain silent, or inactive. However distinguished by rank, or property, in the rights of freedom we are all equal. As we are Englishmen, the least considerable man among us has an interest equal to the proudest nobleman, in the laws and