where a breach of promise would be a virtue, especially in the case of those who would pervert the open, unsuspecting moments of convivial mirth, into sly, insidious applications for preferment, or party systems, and would endeavour to surprise a good man, who cannot bear to see any one leave him dissatisfied, into unguarded promises. Lord Granby's attention to his own family and relations is called selfish. Had he not attended to them, when fair and just opportunities presented themselves, I should have thought him unfeeling, and void of reflection indeed. How are any man's friends or relations to be provided for, but from the influence and protection of the patron? It is unfair to suppose that Lord Granby's friends have not as much merit as the friends of any other great man: If he is generous at the public expence, as JUNIUS invidiously calls it, the public is at no more expence for his lordship's friends, than it would be if any other set of men possessed those offices. The charge is ridiculous!

The last charge against Lord Granby is of a most serious and alarming nature indeed. JUNIUS asserts, that the army is mouldering away for want of the direction of a man of common abilities and spirit. The present condition of the army gives the directest lie to his assertions. It was never upon a more respectable footing with regard to discipline, and all the essentials that can form good soldiers. Lord Ligonier delivered a firm and noble palladium of our safeties into Lord Granby's hands, who has kept it in the same good order in which he received it. The strictest care has been taken to fill up the vacant commissions, with such gentlemen as have the glory of their ancestors to support, as well as their own, and are doubly bound to the cause of their king and country, from motives of private property, as well as public spirit. The adjutant-general*, who has the immediate care of the troops after Lord Granby, is an officer who would do great honour to any service in Europe, for his correct arrangements, good sense and discernment upon all occasions, and for a punctuality and precision which give the most en

Harvey. EDIT.

tire satisfaction to all who are obliged to consult him. The reviewing generals, who inspect the army twice a year, have been selected with the greatest care, and have answered the important trust reposed in them in the most laudable manner. Their reports of the condition of the army are much more to be credited than those of JUNIUS, whom I do advise to atone for his shameful aspersions, by asking pardon of Lord Granby, and the whole kingdom, whom he has offended by his abominable scandals. In short, to turn JUNIUS's own battery against him, I must assert, in his own words, "that he has given strong assertions without proof, declamation without argument, and violent censures without dignity or moderation."

WILLIAM DRAPER*.

• As a correspondent of JUNIUS in this and several other letters, the following short notice of Sir William Draper cannot be unacceptable to the reader. We take it by Mr. Chalmers's permission from his Appendix to the Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the supposititious Shakespeare papers, p. 80.

"Sir William, as a scholar, had been bred at Eton, and King's college, Cambridge; but, he chose the sword, for his profession. In India, he ranked with those famous warriors Clive, and Laurence. In 1761, he acted at Bellisle, as a Brigadier. In 1763, he commanded the troops who conquered Manilla, which place was saved from plunder, by the promise of a ransom, that was never paid. His first appearance, as an able writer, was in his clear refutation of the objections of the Spanish court. His services were rewarded with the command of the sixteenth regiment of foot, which he resigned to Colonel Gisborne, for his half-pay of 2001. Irish: This common transaction furnished JUNIUS with many a sarcasm. Sir William had scarcely closed his contest with that formidable opponent, when he had the misfortune to lose his wife, who died on the 1st of September, 1769. As he was foiled, he was, no doubt, mortified. And he set out, in October of that year, to make the tour of the Northern Colonies, which had now become objects of notice, and scenes of travel. He arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, in January, 1770; and travelling northward, he arrived, during the summer of that year, in Maryland; where he was received with that hospitality which she always paid to strangers, and with the attentions, that were due to the merit of such a visitor.

“From Maryland, Sir William passed on to New York, where he married Miss De Lancy, a lady of great connections there, and agreeable endowments, who died in 1778; leaving him a daughter. In 1779, he was appointed Lieutenant-governor of Minorca; a trust, which, however discharged, ended unhappily. He died at Bath, on the 8th of January, 1787.”

LETTER III.

TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF THE BATH.

SIR, 7 February, 1769. THE defence of Lord Granby does honour to the goodness of your heart. You feel, as you ought to do, for the reputation of your friend, and you express yourself in the warmest language of the passions. In any other cause, I doubt not, you would have cautiously weighed the consequences of committing your name to the licentious discourses and malignant opinions of the world. But here, I presume, you thought it would be a breach of friendship to lose one moment in consulting your understanding; as if an appeal to the public were no more than a military coup de main, where a brave man has no rules to follow, but the dictates of his courage. Touched with your generosity, I freely forgive the excesses into which it has led you; and, far from resenting those terms of reproach, which, considering that you are an advocate for decorum, you have heaped upon me rather too liberally, I place them to the account of an honest unreflecting indignation, in which your cooler judgment and natural politeness had no concern. I approve of the spirit with which you have given your name to the public; and, if it were a proof of any thing but spirit, I should have thought myself bound to follow your example. I should have hoped that even my name might carry some authority with it*, if I had not seen how very little weight or consideration a printed paper receives even from the respectable signature of Sir William Draper.

You begin with a general assertion, that writers, such as I am, are the real cause of all the public evils we complain of. And do you really think, Sir William, that the licentious

This expression will receive some farther light from a feature of himselfincidentally introduced by the author in a letter omitted in his own edition, but inserted in the present work, Miscellaneous Letter, No. LIV. as also from other views of his sentiments and conduct as casually evinaed in the Private Letters. EDIT.

pen of a political writer is able to produce such important effects? A little calm reflection might have shewn you, that national calamities do not arise from the description, but from the real character and conduct of ministers. To have supported your assertion, you should have proved that the present ministry are unquestionably the best and brightest characters of the kingdom: and that, if the affections of the colonies have been alienated, if Corsica has been shamefully abandoned, if commerce languishes, if public credit is threatened with a new debt, and your own Manilla ransom most dishonourably given upt, it has all been owing to the

Corsica, in modern times, was first subjugated by the Genoese, who made use of so much insolence and oppression, as to induce the natives to throw off the yoke, and endeavour to recover their independence. The contest was long and severe, and the Corsicans were reduced to beggary in the generous struggle. Nieuhoff and Paoli chiefly figured as leaders of the Corsicans, the first of whom was actually elected king, but could not maintain his throne against the invaders. The Corsicans applied to many foreign courts for assistance, and among the rest to Great Britain; and Lord Shelburne (afterwards Marquis of Lansdown) was one of the warmest supporters of their cause, and most desirous, when in administration, to engage in it. But his colleagues opposed him, and the cause of Corsica was abandoned, though the citizens of London contributed largely to its support. Yet the Genoese could not totally subdue it; and in consequence they sold it to France to be subdued by the French arms: and the tyranny which was at first exercised over it by the Genoese, it was now doom. ed to suffer from the French. Reader, mark the result!-Corsica is at this moment reaping an ample revenge: for through the medium of Bonaparte she is now loading both France and Genoa with as severe a tyranny as herself ever submitted to from either. EDIT.

In the preceding war with Spain, Sir William (then Col. Draper) had commanded an expedition against the Spanish settlements in the Philippine Isles. It succeeded completely; and the capital of Manilla was taken by assault. Yet the generous conquerors, instead of plundering the city, consented to accept for the value of the spoil, bills drawn upon the Spanish government adequate to its supposed amount. These bills the Spanish government undertook to pay, but dishonourably forfeited its word on their becoming due. Sir William Draper, on his return from India, repeatedly pressed the English minister to interpose upon the subject, on behalf of himself and his fellow-soldiers. The English minister however did not interpose: Draper was personally rewarded by an election into the order of the Bath, in conjunction with certain pecuniary emoluments referred to in this correspondence; while his colleague, Admiral Cornish, together with the soldiers and sailors under their commands were suffered to live and die altogether without redress. EDIT.

malice of political writers, who will not suffer the best and brightest of characters (meaning still the present ministry) to take a single right step for the honour or interest of the nation. But it seems you were a little tender of coming to particulars. Your conscience insinuated to you, that it would be prudent to leave the characters of Grafton, North, Hillsborough, Weymouth, and Mansfield, to shift for themselves; and truly, Sir William, the part you have undertaken is at least as much as you are equal to.

Without disputing Lord Granby's courage, we are yet to learn in what articles of military knowledge nature has been so very liberal to his mind. If you have served with him, you ought to have pointed out some instances of able disposition and well-concerted enterprize, which might fairly be attributed to his capacity as a general. It is you, Sir William, who make your friend appear aukward and ridiculous, by giving him a laced suit of tawdry qualifications, which nature never intended him to wear.

You say, he has acquired nothing but honour in the field. Is the Ordnance nothing? Are the Blues nothing? Is the command of the army, with all the patronage annexed to it, nothing? Where he got these nothings I know not; but you at least ought to have told us where he deserved them.

As to his bounty, compassion, &c. it would have been but little to the purpose, though you had proved all that you have asserted. I meddle with nothing but his character as commander in chief; and though I acquit him of the baseness of selling commissions, I still assert that his military cares have never extended beyond the disposal of vacancies; and I am justified by the complaints of the whole army, when I say that, in this distribution, he consults nothing but parliamentary interests, or the gratification of his immediate dependants. As to his servile submission to the reigning ministry, let me ask, whether he did not desert the cause of the whole army, when he suffered Sir Jeffery Amherst to be sacrificed*, and what share he had in recalling that officer to

See upon this subject our author's Miscellaneous Letters subscribed Lucius, and particularly that of Atticus, Letter LI. EDIT.