forms of a constitution, which our ancestors vainly hoped would be immortal; and as for your personal character, I will not, for the honour of human nature, suppose that you can wish to have it remembered. The condition of the presenttimes is desperate indeed; but there is a debt due to those who come after us, and it is the historian's office to punish, though he cannot correct. I do not give you to posterity as a pattern to imitate, but as an example to deter; and as your conduct comprehends every thing that a wise or honest minister should avoid, I mean to make you a negative instruction to your successors for ever.

JUNIUS.

LETTER XIII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR,

12 June, 1769. THE Duke of Grafton's friends, not finding it convenient to enter into a contest with JUNIUS, are now reduced to the last melancholy resource of defeated argument, the flat general charge of scurrility and falsehood. As for his stile, I shall leave it to the critics. The truth of his facts is of more importance to the public. They are of such a nature, that I think a bare contradiction will have no weight with any man, who judges for himself. Let us take them in the order in which they appear in his last letter.

1. Have not the first rights of the people, and the first principles of the constitution been openly invaded, and the very name of an election made ridiculous by the arbitrary appointment of Mr. Luttrell?

2. Did not the Duke of Grafton frequently lead his mistress into public, and even place her at the head of his table, as if he had pulled down an ancient* temple of Venus, and

• Miss Parsons had at this time surpassed the prime both of her youth and beauty.

See this anecdote related more in detail in Miscellaneous Letters, NO. XX. EDIT.

could bury all decency and shame under the ruins? Is this the man who dares to talk of Mr. Wilkes's morals?

3. Is not the character of his presumptive ancestors as strongly marked in him, as if he had descended from them in a direct legitimate line? The idea of his death is only prophetic; and what is prophecy but a narrative preceding the fact?

4. Was not Lord Chatham the first who raised him to the rank and post of a minister, and the first whom he abandoned?

5. Did he not join with Lord Rockingham, and betray him?

6. Was he not the bosom friend of Mr. Wilkes, whom he now pursues to destruction?

7. Did he not take his degrees with credit at Newmarket, White's, and the Opposition?

8. After deserting Lord Chatham's principles, and sacrificing his friendship, is he not now closely united with a set of men, who, though they have occasionally joined with all parties, have in every different situation, and at all times, been equally and constantly detested by this country?

9. Has not Sir John Moore a pension of five hundred pounds a year?-This may probably be an acquittance of favours upon the turf; but is it possible for a minister to offer a grosser outrage to a nation, which has so very lately cleared away the beggary of the civil list, at the expense of more than half a million?

10. Is there any one mode of thinking or acting with respect to America, which the Duke of Grafton has not successively adopted and abandoned?

11. Is there not a singular mark of shame set upon this man, who has so little delicacy and feeling as to submit to the opprobrium of marrying a near relation of one who had debauched his wife?-In the name of decency, how are these amiable cousins to meet at their uncle's table?-It will be a scene in Ædipus, without the distress.-Is it wealth, or wit, or beauty, or is the amorous youth in love? VOL. I.

N

The rest is notorious. That Corsica has been sacrificed to the French: that in some instances the laws have been scandalously relaxed, and in others daringly violated; and that the King's subjects have been called upon to assure him of their fidelity, in spite of the measures of his servants.

A writer, who builds his arguments upon facts such as these, is not easily to be confuted. He is not to be answered by general assertions, or general reproaches. He may want eloquence to amuse or persuade, but, speaking truth, he must always convince.

PHILO JUNIUS.

LETTER XIV.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, 22 June, 1769. The name of Old Noll is destined to be the ruin of the house of Stuart. There is an ominous fatality in it, which even the spurious descendants of the family cannot escape. Oliver Cromwell had the merit of conducting Charles the first to the block. Your correspondent OLD NOLL*, appears to have the same design upon the Duke of Grafton. His arguments consist better with the title he has assumed, than with the principles he professes; for though he pretends to be an advocate for the Duke, he takes care to give us the best reasons, why his patron should regularly follow the fate of his presumptive ancestor. Through the whole course of the Duke of Grafton's life, I see a strange endeavour to unite contradictions, which cannot be reconciled. He marries to be divorced; he keeps a mistress to remind him of conjugal endearments, and he chooses such friends, as it is a virtue in him to desert. If it were possible for the genius of that accomplished president, who pronounced sentence upon Charles the first, to be revived in some modern sycophant*, his Grace, I doubt not, would by sympathy discover him among the dregs of mankind, and take him for a guide in those paths, which naturally conduct the minister to the

scaffold.

The assertion that two thirds of the nation approve of the acceptance of Mr. Luttrell (for even Old Noll is too modest to call it an election) can neither be maintained nor confuted by argument. It is a point of fact, on which every English gentleman will determine for himself. As to lawyers, their profession is supported by the indiscriminate defence of right and wrong, and I confess I have not that opinion of their knowledge or integrity, to think it necessary that they should decide for me upon a plain constitutional question. With respect to the appointment of Mr. Luttrell, the chancellor has never yet given any authentic opiniont. Sir Fletcher Norton is indeed an honest, a very honest man; and the Attorney Generals is ex officio the guardian of liberty, to

* It is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the name of Bradshaw.

-AUTHOR.

And as little so that Old Noll was the nick name of Oliver Cromwell. There is a peculiar severity in the comparison of the two periods and the two families. The Duke of Grafton was descended from the Stuarts; and Bradshaw was the name of the president of the regicide court, which, under the secret influence of Oliver Cromwell, (or Old Noll) condemned Charles the first to death. Bradshaw was the name of the Duke of Grafton's private secretary at the present moment, and JUNIUS here insinuates that he was also the author of the letter signed Old Noll, which had a chance of proving as fatal to his Grace's cause, as ever the names of Bradshaw or Old Noll had proved fatal to his Grace's ancestor.

Bradshaw, before his present appointment, had been an under-clerk in the war-office, and was raised to the rank of private secretary, for his activity and dispatch of business. In the month of May, 1772, he was appointed a lord of the admiralty.

For a further account, see Letter xxxvI. note. EDIT. † Lord Camden. EDIT.

+ At this time Chief Justice in Eyre, and just appointed a privy counsellor, with a salary of 30001. EDIT.

Mr. De Grey, afterwards Lord Walsingham. EBIT.

take care, I presume, that it shall never break out into a criminal excess. Doctor Blackstone is solicitor to the Queen. The Doctor recollected that he had a place to preserve, though he forgot that he had a reputation to lose. We have now the good fortune to understand the Doctor's principles, as well as writings. For the defence of truth, of law, and reason, the Doctor's book may be safely consulted; but whoever wishes to cheat a neighbour of his estate*, or to rob a country of its rightst, need make no scruple of consulting the Doctor himself.

The example of the English nobility may, for aught I know, sufficiently justify the Duke of Grafton, when he indulges his genius in all the fashionable excesses of the age; yet, considering his rank and station, I think it would do him more honour to be able to deny the fact, than to defend it by such authority. But if vice itself could be excused, there is yet a certain display of it, a certain outrage to decency, and violation t public decorum, which, for the benefit of society, should never be forgiven. It is not that he kept a mistress at home, but that he constantly attended her abroad. It is not the private indulgence, but the public insult of which I complain. The name of Miss Parsons would hardly have been known, if the first lord of the treasury had not led her in triumph through the Opera House, even in the presence of the Queent. When we see a man act in this manner, we may admit the shameless depravity of his heart, but what are we to think of his understanding?

His Grace, it seems, is now to be a regular domestic man, and as an omen of the future delicacy and correctness of his