expence of his understanding. They who love him least make no question of his courage, while his friends dwell chiefly on the facility of his disposition. Admitting him to be as brave as a total absence of all feeling and reflection can make him, let us see what sort of merit he derives from the remainder of his character. If it be generosity to accumulate in his own person and family a number of lucrative employments; to provide, at the public expence, for every creature that bears the name of Manners; and, neglecting the merit and services of the rest of the army, to heap promotions upon his favourites and dependants, the present Commander in Chief is the most generous man alive. Nature has been sparing of her gifts to this noble lord; but where birth and fortune are united, we expect the noble pride and independence of a man of spirit, not the servile, humiliating complaisance of a courtier. As to the goodness of his heart, if a proof of it be taken from the facility of never refusing, what conclusion shall we draw from the indecency of never performing? And if the discipline of the army be in any degree preserved, what thanks are due to a man, whose cares, notoriously confined to filling up vacancies, have degraded the office of Commander in Chief to a broker of commissions? With respect to the navy, I shall only say, that this country is so highly indebted to Sir Edward Hawke, that no expence should be spared to secure to him an honourable and affluent retreat. The pure and impartial administration of justice is perhaps the firmest bond to secure a cheerful submission of the people, and to engage their affections to government. It is not sufficient that questions of private right and wrong are justly decided, nor that judges are superior to the vileness of pecuniary corruption. Jefferies himself, when the court had no interest, was an upright judge. A court of justice may be subject to another sort of bias, more important and pernicious, as it reaches beyond the interest of individuals, and affects the whole community. A judge under the influence of government, may be honest enough in the decision of private causes, yet a traitor to the public. When a victim is marked out by the ministry, this judge will offer himself to perform the sacrifice. He will not scruple to prostitute his dignity, and betray the sanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary point is to be carried for government, or the resentment of a court to be gratified. These principles and proceedings, odious and contemptible as they are, in effect are no less injudicious. A wise and generous people are roused by every appearance of oppressive, unconstitutional measures, whether those measures are supported openly by the power of government, or masked under the forms of a court of justice. Prudence and selfpreservation will oblige the most moderate dispositions to make common cause, even with a man whose conduct they censure, if they see him persecuted in a way, which the real spirit of the laws will not justify*. 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 wasted; her trade declining; the affections of her colonies alienated; the duty of the magistrate transferred to the soldiery; a gallant army, which never fought unwillingly but against their fellow subjects, mouldering away for want of the direction of a man of common abilities and spirit; and, in the last instance, the administration of justice become odious and suspected to the whole body of the people. This deplorable scene admits but 'of one addition-that we are governed by counsels, from which a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but death. If, by the immediate interposition of Providence, it were possible for us to escape a crisis so full of terror and despair, posterity will not believe the history of the present times. They will either conclude that our distresses were imaginary, or that we had the good fortune to be governed by men of acknowledged integrity and wisdom: they will not believe it possible that their ancestors could have survived, or re * Mr. Wilkes. EDIT. covered from so desperate a condition, while a Duke of Grafton was Prime Minister, a Lord North Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Weymouth and a Hillsborough Secretaries of State, a Granby Commander in Chief, and a Mansfield chief criminal judge of the kingdom. JUNIUS. LETTER II. TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 26 January, 1769. THE kingdom swarms with such numbers of felonious robbers of private character and virtue, that no honest or good man is safe; especially as these cowardly, base assassins stab in the dark, without having the courage to sign their real names to their malevolent and wicked productions. A writer, who signs himself JUNIUS, in the Public Advertiser of the 21st instant, opens the deplorable situation of this country in a very affecting manner; with a pompous parade of his candour and decency, he tells us, that we see dissentions in all parts of the empire, an universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction, and a total loss of respect towards us in the eyes of foreign powers. But this writer, with all his boasted candour, has not told us the real cause of the evils he so pathetically enumerates. I shall take the liberty to explain the cause for him. JUNIUS, and such writers as himself, occasion all the mischief complained of, by falsely 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 those who are any way distinguished by their good qualities and eminent virtues; when they find no notice taken of, or reply given to these slanderous tongues and pens, their conclusion is, that both the ministers and the nation have been fairly described; and they act accordingly. I think it therefore the duty of every good citizen to stand forth, and endeavour to unde ceive the public, when the vilest arts are made use of to defame and blacken the brightest characters among us. An eminent author affirms it to be almost as criminal to hear a worthy man traduced, without attempting his justification, as to be the author of the calumny against him. For my own part, I think it a sort of misprision of treason against society. No man therefore who knows Lord Granby, can possibly hear so good and great a character most vilely abused, without a warm and just indignation against this JUNIUS, this high-priest of envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, who has endeavoured to sacrifice 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 soon feel the contempt, and consequently the attacks of our late enemies, if they can be induced to believe that the person on whom the safety of these kingdoms so much depends, is unequal to his high station, and destitute of those qualities which form a good general. One would have thought that his lordship's service in the cause of his country, from the battle of Culloden to his most glorious conclusion of the late war, might have entitled him to common respect and decency at least; but this uncandid, indecent writer has gone so far as to turn one of the most amiable men of the age into a stupid, unfeeling, and senseless being; possessed indeed of a personal courage, but void of those essential qualities which distinguish the commander from the common soldier. A very long, uninterrupted, impartial, I will add, a most disinterested friendship with Lord Granby, gives me the right to affirm, that all JUNIUS's assertions are false and scandalous. Lord Granby's courage, though of the brightest and most ardent kind, is among the lowest of his numerous good qualities; he was formed to excel in war by nature's liberality to his mind as well as person. Educated and instructed by his most noble father, and a most spirited as well as excellent scholar, the present bishop of Bangor*, he was trained to the nicest sense of honour, and to the truest and no* Dr. John Ewer. EDIT. blest sort of pride, that of never doing or suffering a mean action. A sincere love and attachment to his king and country, and to their glory, first 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 noblest of the human affections, it flows from a heart melting to goodness from the most refined humanity. Can a man, who is described as unfeeling, and void of reflection, be constantly employed in seeking proper objects on whom to exercise those glorious virtues of compassion and generosity? The distressed officer, the soldier, the widow, the orphan, and a long list besides, know that vanity has no share 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 insinuate, that the dignity of the commander in chief is depraved into the base office of a commission broker; that is, Lord Granby bargains for the sale of commissions; for it must have this meaning, if it has any at all. But where is the man living who can justly charge his lordship with such mean practices? Why does not JUNIUS produce him? JUNIUS knows that he has no other means of wounding this hero, than from some missile weapon, shot from an obscure corner: He seeks, as all such defamatory writers do, spargere voces In vulgum ambiguas to raise suspicion in the minds of the people. But I hope that my countrymen will be no longer imposed upon by artful and designing men, or by wretches, who, bankrupts in business, in fame, and in fortune, mean nothing more than to involve this country in the same common ruin with themselves. Hence it is, that they are constantly aiming their dark and too often fatal weapons against those who stand forth as the bulwark of our national safety. Lord Granby was too conspicuous a mark not to be their object. He is next attacked for being unfaithful to his promises and engagements: Where are JUNIUS's proofs? Although I could give some instances, |