Clarke, either before or after his decease, authorize you to supersede the verdict of a jury, and the sentence of the law. Now, my Lord, let me ask you, Has it never occurred to your Grace, while you were withdrawing this desperate wretch from that justice which the laws had awarded, and which the whole people of England demanded against him, that there is another man, who is the favourite of his country, whose pardon would have been accepted with gratitude, whose pardon would have healed all our divisions*? Have you quite forgotten that this man was once your Grace's friend? Or is it to murderers only that you will extend the mercy of the crown? These are questions you will not answer, nor is it necessary. The character of your private life, and the uniform tenour of your public conduct, is an answer to them all. JUNIUS. John Wilkes, formerly, and before the duke of Grafton had abandoned the party of Lord Chatham, and had formed a party for himself, was one of his Grace's most confidential friends. He was at this time confined in the King's Bench prison, having surrendered himself to the jurisdiction of the court of this name, by which the sentence of outlawry had been pronounced against him. The immediate cause of the ministerial persecution of Wilkes, was the zeal with which he had opposed the existing cabinet, and especially the odium and disgrace in which the ministry had involved themselves by issuing a general warrant to seize all the papers and persons of whomsoever they suspected to be concerned in writing the forty-fifth number of the famous political and periodical paper called the North Briton, a joint publication of John Wilkes, Charles Churchill, and Lord Temple. The question of general warrants was hereby necessarily brought before the public. The popular resentment was roused against the abettors of such a measure to the highest point of irascibility; and Wilkes, upon the next general election that ensued, was chosen member of parliament for the county of Middlesex, notwithstanding his outlawry, as a proof of the utter contempt in which the ministry were at this time held by the nation, rather than out of any personal regard for Wilkes himself, whose own misconduct must otherwise have been the ruin of him.EDIT. LETTER IX. TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. MY LORD, 10 April, 1769. I HAVE SO good an opinion of your Grace's discernment, that when the author of the vindication of your conduct assures us, that he writes from his own mere motion, without the least authority from your Grace*, I should be ready enough to believe him, but for one fatal mark, which seems to be fixed upon every measure, in which either your personal or your political character is concerned.-Your first attempt to support Sir William Proctor ended in the election of Mr. Wilkes; the second ensured success to Mr. Glynn. The extraordinary step you took to make Sir James Lowther lord paramount of Cumberland, has ruined his interest in that county for evert. The House List of Directors was cursed with the concurrence of government‡; and even the miserable Dingley could not escape the misfortune of your Grace's protection§. With this uniform experience before us, we are authorized to suspect, that when a pretended vindication of your principles and conduct in reality contains the bitterest reflections upon both, it could not have been written without your immediate direction and assistance. The author indeed calls God to witness for him, with all the * He alludes to a pamphlet containing a long and laboured vindication of the Duke of Grafton, attributed to the pen of Mr. Edward Weston, writer of the Gazette. EDIT. † See note upon the Nullum Tempus bill, JUNIUS No. LVII. in which the contest between Sir James Lowther and the Duke of Portland is detailed at large. EDIT. + At this period the whole four and twenty directors were annually chosen, and ten gentlemen, whose names were not inserted in the house list, were elected, notwithstanding the influence of government was exerted in its support. EDIT. This unfortunate person had been persuaded by the Duke of Grafton to set up for Middlesex, his Grace being determined to seat him in the House of Commons, if he had but a single vote. It happened unluckily, that he could not prevail upon any one freeholder to put him in nomination, and it was with difficulty he escaped out of the hands of the populace. sincerity, and in the very terms of an Irish evidence, to the best of his knowledge and belief. My Lord, you should not encourage these appeals to heaven. The pious Prince, from whom you are supposed to descend, made such frequent use of them in his public declarations, that at last the people also found it necessary to appeal to heaven in their turn. Your administration has driven us into circumstances of equal distress;-beware at least how you remind us of the remedy. You have already much to answer for. You have provoked this unhappy gentleman to play the fool once more in public life, in spite of his years and infirmities, and to shew us, that, as you yourself are a singular instance of youth without spirit, the man who defends you is a no less remarkable example of age without the benefit of experience. To follow such a writer minutely would, like his own periods, be a labour without end. The subject too has been already discussed, and is sufficiently understood. I cannot help observing, however, that, when the pardon of Mac Quirk was the principal charge against you, it would have been but a decent compliment to your Grace's understanding, to have defended you upon your own principles. What credit does a man deserve, who tells us plainly, that the facts set forth in the King's proclamation were not the true motives on which the pardon was granted, and that he wishes that those chirurgical reports, which first gave occasion to certain doubts in the royal breast, had not been laid before his Majesty. You see, my Lord, that even your friends cannot defend your actions, without changing your principles, nor justify a deliberate measure of government, without contradicting the main assertion on which it was founded. The conviction of Mac Quirk had reduced you to a dilemma, in which it was hardly possible for you to reconcile your political interest with your duty. You were obliged either to abandon an active useful partisan, or to protect a felon from public justice. With your usual spirit, you preferred your interest to every other consideration; and with your usual judgment, you founded your determination upon the only motives, which should not have been given to the public. I have frequently censured Mr. Wilkes's conduct, yet your advocate reproaches me with having devoted myself to the service of sedition. Your Grace can best inform us, for which of Mr. Wilkes's good qualities you first honoured him with your friendship, or how long it was before you discovered those bad ones in him, at which, it seems, your delicacy was offended. Remember, my Lord, that you continued your connexion with Mr. Wilkes long after he had been convicted of those crimes, which you have since taken pains to represent in the blackest colours of blasphemy and treason. How unlucky is it, that the first instance you have given us of a scrupulous regard to decorum is united with the breach of a moral obligation! For my own part, my Lord, I am proud to affirm, that, if I had been weak enough to form such a friendship, I would never have been base enough to betray it. But, let Mr. Wilkes's character be what it may, this at least is certain, that, circumstanced as he is with regard to the public, even his vices plead for him. The people of England have too much discernment to suffer your Grace to take advantage of the failings of a private character, to establish a precedent by which the public liberty is affected, and which you may hereafter, with equal ease and satisfaction, employ to the ruin of the best men in the kingdom.-Content yourself, my Lord, with the many advantages, which the unsullied purity of your own character has given you over your unhappy deserted friend. Avail yourself of all the unforgiving piety of the court you live in, and bless God that you "are not as other men are; extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.” In a heart void of feeling, the laws of honour and good faith may be violated with impunity, and there you may safely indulge your genius. But the laws of England shall not be violated, even by your holy zeal to oppress a sinner; and though you have succeeded in making him the tool, you shall not make him the victim of your ambition. JUNIUS. LETTER X. TO MR. EDWARD WESTON. SIR, 21 April, 1769. I SAID you were an old man without the benefit of experience. It seems you are also a volunteer with the stipend of twenty commissions*; and at a period when all prospects * Under the presumption that the pamphlet alluded to in the preceding letter, entitled a “Vindication of the Duke of Grafton,” was written by Mr. Weston, and which was avowedly defended by the author, whoever he was, in the Public Advertiser, under the signature of a "Volunteer in the Government's Service," the following short letter, addressed to that gentleman, obviously from the pen of JUNIUS, appeared in the same paper. TO THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD WESTON. SIR, April 20, 1769. YOUR age, though oppressed with bodily and mental infirmities, which, for the world's edification, you have published to it, demands some respect, or the cause you have embarked in, would entitle you to none. The last glimmerings of your expiring taper, however, do your hero no honour; and I fear the principle that has kindled it obtains you no credit. You are a privy counsellor in Ireland, writer of the Gazette, comptroller of the salt-office, a clerk of the signet, and a pensioner on the Irish establishment: such is the Volunteer! And you may remember when you were under secretary of state, the division of 500l. among the people left to your discretion, of which you modestly claimed 4001. for yourself. So honest, so upright, and so disinterested is the man! Let JUNIUS be the dirty rascal you call him, I know, you know, and the world knows, what you are.CRITO. This letter produced a short reply from the Volunteer, in which he denies that Mr. Weston is the author of the pamphlet, or of the letters under that signature; and one from Poetikastos, who attacks JUNIUS in the following words: "You conclude your despicable vindication of an honour which you do not possess, by asserting 'that you are a master in the art of representing the treachery of the minister, and the abused simplicity of a —— Villain! of whom? You, who write under the name of JUNIUS, are a base scoundrel. You lie; and you may find out who gives you the lie." These letters occasioned the under written answer: TO THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD WESTON. April 27, 1769. THE old fox has been unkenneiled, but is ashamed of his stinking tail. Either several people of intelligence and consideration have been grossly deceived, |