are at an end, you are still looking forward to rewards, which you cannot enjoy. No man is better acquainted with the bounty of government than you are. - ton impudence, Temeraire vieillard, aura sa recompense. But I will not descend to an altercation either with the impotence of your age, or the peevishness of your diseases. Your pamphlet*, ingenious as it is, has been so little read, that the public cannot know how far you have a right to give me the lie, without the following citation of your own words. Page 6-1. That he is persuaded that the motives, which he (Mr. Weston) has alledged, must appear fully sufficient, with or without the opinions of the surgeons. 2. That those very motives MUST HAVE BEEN the foundation, on which the Earl of Rochford thought proper, &c. 3. That he CANNOT BUT REGRET that the Earl of Rochford seems to have thought proper to lay the chirurgical re deceived, or our doughty Volunteer declares upon his honour an untruth. I cannot believe a misinformation, unless the world should have thought that no impertinent, expectant, old fellow, could have been found to dispatch so lame an errand but you. You seem ashamed of your generous distribution: I applaud your modesty; but it shall not be at the expense of truth. You did claim 400% out of 5001. for your own self; and there are, I suppose, at least half a dozen people who can attest it. And you shall find that I dare say something else to your mortification, if you suppose the world is not heartily tired of you, your petulance, and your crudities. I don't believe the governors of Bedlam indulge their patients with news-papers, or I should have supposed that Poetikastos had obtained his genteel residence there. The poor raving creature bawls aloud for swords and pistols, and requires the last argument instead of the best. The public has pronounced upon his reason the judgment of Felo de se, from his own pen;-I am so impressed with humanity as to wish the coroner may not have the trouble of passing the same sentence upon his person from his sword. I should, however, pity the elegant JUNIUS, who well deserves the thanks of the independent public, if he was obliged to take notice of every fool, sycophant, and bully. CRITO. EDIT. It is possible JUNIUS, though his information was generally accurate, was incorrect in attributing this pamphlet to Mr. Weston. For, in a letter inserted by Mr. Weston in the Public Advertiser a few months afterwards, October 14, he solemnly denies his having written this and a variety of pamphlets and letters attributed to him. EDIT. 79 ports before the King, in preference to all the other sufficient motives,' &c. Let the public determine whether this be defending government on their principles or your own. The style and language you have adopted are, I confess, not ill suited to the elegance of your own manners, or to the dignity of the cause you have undertaken. Every common dauber writes rascal and villain under his pictures, because the pictures themselves have neither character nor resemblance. But the works of a master require no index. His features and colouring are taken from nature. The impression they make is immediate and uniform; nor is it possible to mistake his characters, whether they represent the treachery of a minister, or the abused simplicity of a King. LETTER XI. JUNIUS. TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. MY LORD, 24 April, 1769. THE system you seemed to have adopted, when Lord Chatham unexpectedly left you at the head of affairs, gave us no promise of that uncommon exertion of vigour, which has since illustrated your character, and distinguished your administration. Far from discovering a spirit bold enough to invade the first rights of the people, and the first principles of the constitution, you were scrupulous of exercising even those powers, with which the executive branch of the legislature is legally invested. We have not yet forgotten how long Mr. Wilkes was suffered to appear at large, nor how long he was at liberty to canvass for the city* and coun * Prior to his offering himself for the county of Middlesex, Wilkes had become a candidate for the metropolis, and it was in consequence of his failure in the city, that he pressed forwards to the county. The populace, in both cases, were so numerously and so violently attached to him, that many serious riots were the consequence-and so outrageous were they in two or three instances, that the court party strenuously asserted that the city and even the palace itself were not free from danger. Of these riots, ty, with all the terrors of an outlawry hanging over him. Our gracious Sovereign has not yet forgotten the extraordi. riots, the most serious that occurred, were on the meeting of parliament, when the populace surrounded the King's Bench prison from an expectation of seeing Wilkes, who had then been elected member for Middlesex, liberated, in order to take his seat in the senate, in the course of which several persons were killed by the firing of the military; and on the counter address to that of the city being carried to St. James's by those who were deputed for this purpose; on which last occasion the riot act was read at the palace gate, and Lord Talbot, the lord-steward, had his staff of office broken in his hand. EDIT. • AS JUNIUS was extremely severe in his censures on Lord Mansfield, it is deemed a mere act of justice to extract a part of his lordship's speech on the reversal of Mr. Wilkes's outlawry, by which it will appear, such was the temper of the times, that the chief justice was even privately threatened upon the occasion, should his decision of the cause be in opposition to the popular opinion of the day. The extract is well worthy the reader's perusal, as a specimen of eloquence not often equalled, and rarely excelled; it forms the conclusion of his address. "I have now gone through the several errors assigned by the defendant, and which have been ingeniously argued, and confidently relied on by his counsel at the bar; I have given my sentiments upon them, and if upon the whole, after the closest attention to what has been said, and with the strongest inclination in favour of the defendant, no arguments which have been urged, no cases which have been cited, no reasons that occur to me are sufficient to satisfy me in my conscience and judgment that this outlawry should be reversed, I am bound to affirm it—and here let me make a pause. 66 Many arguments have been suggested, both in and out of court, upon the consequences of establishing this outlawry, either as they may affect the defendant as an individual, or the public in general. As to the first, whatever they may be, the defendant has brought them upon himself; they are inevitable consequences of law arising from his own act; if the penalty, to which he is thereby subjected, is more than a punishment adequate to the crime he has committed, he should not have brought himself into this unfortunate predicament, by flying from the justice of his country; he thought proper to do so, and he must take the fruits of his own conduct, however bitter and unpalatable they may be; and although we may be heartily sorry for any person who has brought himself into this situation, it is not in our power, God forbid it should ever be in our power, to deliver him from it; we cannot prevent the judgment of the law by creating irregularity in the proceedings; we cannot prevent the consequences of that judgment by pardoning the crime; if the defendant has any pretensions to mercy, those pretensions must be urged, and that power exercised in another place, where the constitution has wisely and necessarily vested it: the crown will judge for itself; it does not belong to us to inter fere nary care you took of his dignity and of the safety of his person, when, at a crisis which courtiers affected to call fere with punishment, we have only to declare the law; none of us had any concern in the prosecution of this business, nor any wishes upon the event of it; it was not our fault that the defendant was prosecuted for the libels upon which he has been convicted; I took no share in another place, in the measures which were taken to prosecute him for one of them; it was not our fault that he was convicted; it was not our fault that he fled; it was not our fault that he was outlawed; it was not our fault that he rendered himself up to justice; none of us revived the prosecution against him, nor could any one of us stop that prosecution when it was revived; it is not our fault if there are not any errors upon the record, nor is it in our power to create any if there are none; we are bound by our oath and in our consciences, to give such a judgment as the law will warrant, and as our reason can prove; such a judgment as we must stand or fall by, in the opinion of the present times, and of posterity; in doing it, therefore, we must have regard to our reputation as honest men, and men of skill and knowledge competent to the stations we hold; no considerations whatsoever should mislead us from this great object to which we ever ought, and I trust, ever shall direct our attention. But consequences of a public nature, reasons of state, political ones, have been strongly urged, (private anonymous letters sent to me, I shall pass over) open avowed publications which have been judicially noticed, and may therefore be mentioned, have endeavoured to influence or intimidate the court, and so prevail upon us to trifle and prevaricate with God, our consciences and the public: it has been intimated that consequences of a frightful nature will flow from the establishment of this outlawry; it is said the people expect the reversal, that the temper of the times demand it, that the multitude will have it so; that the continuation of the outlawry in full force, will not be endured; that the execution of the law upon the defendant will be resisted: these are arguments which will not weigh a feather with me. If insurrection and rebellion are to follow our determination, we have not to answer for the consequences, though we should be the innocent cause-we can only say Fiat justitia ruat cœlum; we shall discharge our duty without expectations of approbation, or the apprehensions of censure; if we are subjected to the latter unjustly, we must submit to it; we cannot prevent it, we will take care not to deserve it. He must be a weak man indeed who can be staggered by such a consideration. "The misapprehension, or the misrepresentation of the ignorant or the wicked, the Mendax Infamia, which is the consequence of both, are equally indifferent to, unworthy the attention of, and incapable of making any impression on men of firmness and intrepidity.—Those who imagine judges are capable of being influenced by such unworthy, indirect means, most grossly deceive themselves; and for my own part I trust that my temper, and the colour and conduct of my life, have clothed me with a suit of armour to shield me from such arrows. If I have ever supported the King's VOL. I. L measures; alarming, you left the metropolis exposed for two nights together, to every species of riot and disorder. The security of the royal residence from insult was then sufficiently provided for in Mr. Conway's firmness* and Lord Weymeasures; if I have ever afforded any assistance to government; if I have discharged my duty as a public or private character, by endeavouring to preserve pure and perfect the principles of the constitution, maintaining, unsullied, the honour of the courts of justice, and by an upright administration of, to give a due effect to the laws, I have hitherto done it without any other gift or reward than that most pleasing and most honourable one, the conscientious conviction of doing what was right. I do not affect to scorn the opinion of mankind; I wish earnestly for popularity; I will seek and will have popularity; but I will tell you how I will obtain it; I will have that popularity which follows, and not that which is run after. It is not the applause of a day; it is not the huzzas of thousands that can give a moment's satisfaction to a rational being; that man's mind must indeed be a weak one, and his ambition of a most depraved sort, who can be captivated by such wretched allurements, or satisfied with such momentary gratifications. I say with the Roman orator, and can say it with as much truth as he did, 'Ego hoc animo semper fui, ut invidiam virtute partam, gloriam non infamiam putarem: But the threats have been carried further; personal violence has been denounced, unless public humour be complied with; I do not fear such threats; I do not believe there is any reason to fear them: it is not the genius of the worst of men in the worst of times to proceed to such shocking extremities: but if such an event should happen, let it be so; even such an event might be productive of wholesome effects; such a stroke might rouse the better part of the nation from their lethargic condition to a state of activity, to assert and execute the law, and punish the daring and impious hands which had violated it; and those who now supinely behold the danger which threatens all liberty, from the most abandoned licentiousness, might, by such an event, be awakened to a sense of their situation, as drunken men are oftentimes stunned into sobriety. If the security of our persons and our property, of all we hold dear and valuable, are to depend upon the caprice of a giddy multitude, or to be at the disposal of a giddy mob; if, in compliance with the humours, and to appease the clamours of those, all civil and political institutions are to be disregarded or overthrown, a life somewhat more than sixty is not worth preserving at such a price, and he can never die too soon, who lays down his life in support and vindication of the policy, the government and the constitution of his country." EDIT. The Hon. Henry Seymour Conway was brother to Lord Hertford, and father of the present Mrs. Damer, who constitutes indeed his only issue. He had enjoyed several places of high rank and confidence at court during the beginning of his Majesty's reign, but was stripped of them all by the Duke of Grafton, in consequence of having voted in the lower house, in opposition to government, upon the question of General Warrants. He was |