of Commons had no legal authority to establish the precedent; and the precedent itself is a mere fact, without any proof of right whatsoever.

YOUR Correspondent concludes with a question. of the simplest nature: Must a thing be wrong, because it has never been done before? No. But admitting it were proper to be done, that alone does not convey an authority to do it. As to the present case, I hope I shall never see the time, when not only a single person, but a whole county, and in effect the entire collective body of the people, may again be, robbed of their birth-right by a vote of the House of Commons. But if, for reasons which I am unable to comprehend, it be necessary to trust that house with a power so exorbitant and so unconstitutional, at least let it be given to them by an act of the legislature.

PHILO JUNIUS,

parliament; yet, in their representations to the nation at large, contrived, as often as possible, to blink that question; and to talk only of general expediency, and of the folly of suffering such a man as Wilkes, with his seditious abettors, to insult the great powers of the state, and to spread discontent and alarm throughout the empire. This strain of reasoning was but too successful, in the more distant parts of the kingdom. All could enter, more or less, into it. They were comparatively few, who could judge, with discernment, of the question of law.

LETTER

LETTER XVIII.

TO SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, SOLICITOR GENERAL TO HER MAJESTY.

TO distinguish, happily, the fitnesses of times, persons, places, actions, and words, is the truest evidence of that divinity of genius, which is alone able to preside with native authority, over the affairs of social life, and to sway, at will, the designs and passions of mankind. If of any other politician, or orator, ancient or modern, this is, assuredly, the power of JUNIUS. Nor has he, any where, more signally displayed it, than in this Letter to Sir William Blackstone. As JUNIUS stated in one of the preceding Letters; Sir William Blackstone had, in speaking in the House of Commons, on the question of the Middlesex election, uttered an opinion, that seemed to his opponents to contradict the doctrine of his Commentaries. The contradiction was, to the confusion of Blackstone, earnestly exposed by Mr. George Grenville. JUNIUS and others maliciously proclaimed to the public, with what shame the recreant lawyer had been overwhelmed. Blackstone, accustomed only to the praise of talents, of integrity, of juridical erudition, was unhappy and impatient, till he might shake off the disgrace. Anonymously, therefore, yet without disguising his manner of writing, and with no anxious care for concealment, he soon gave to the public, in answer to a publication by Sir William Meredith, a pamphlet, in which his own late conduct in the House of Commons was anxiously vindicated, and an elaborate attempt was made to reconcile the doctrine of his speech with that of his book. To that pamphlet, he added a postscript, in refutation of the reasoning in the Sixteenth of these Letters of JUNIUS. Besides, it was evident, that the severe reproaches before thrown out, by JUNIUS, against him, had contributed, perhaps, more than any thing else, to draw forth the whole publication.

Now, the happy discrimination of JUNIUS, was evinced in this, that he instantly saw all the advantage which was to be gained by entering the lists with Sir William Blackstone. He perceived the pamphlet to be Sir William's own'; and probably had private information, confirming the internal evidence of the piece itself. He was aware, that the fame of having triumphed over Blackstone, would add to his au

thority,

thority, much new weight with those who were unable to judge for themselves, of the conclusive force of his arguments. He saw, too, where it might be proper to press hard upon his opponent; where to treat him with seeming candour and gentleness; how to make both gentleness and severity combine, to accumulate confusion on the head of the lawyer; how to refute, in a very few pages, the lengthened reasonings of a bulky pamphlet.

With these views, and with address thus masterly, does JUNIUS open

this attack upon Blackstone. He pointedly states, in it, his reasons for thinking Sir William the author of the treatise which he is about to refute. They are forcible; and, I suppose, unanswerable. In an analysis of that treatise, he considers it as divided into an attack on Mr. Grenville's character, and a defence of Blackstone's own. Grenville was accused of inconsistency; as having been the first to persecute Mr. Wilkes, though, in regard to the Middlesex election, he seemed now his zealous defender: but, JUNIUS alledges that the defence of the rights of the freeholders of Middlesex, implied no approbation of the first errors of Mr. Wilkes. He was accused of having insidiously waited to ensnare, and triumph over Blackstone; but, JUNIUS maintains, that he had rather confided in Blackstone's erudition and integrity, and had sought opportunity to do him honour. Sir William Meredith once, on the question concerning ge· neral warrants, the keen adversary of Grenville, was blamed in Blackstone's pamphlet, as having joined in misrepresentation, the man whom he, before, so fiercely persecuted: JUNIUS denies, that it was misrepresentation in which Mr. Grenville and Sir William Meredith agreed. Quoting the very words from Blackstone's Commentaries, he proves, that the law, as explained in that work, recognized not those disqualifications for election, under which the House' of Commons had excluded Mr. Wilkes from his seat for Middlesex. He then shews, that Wilkes's was not merely a particular case that could not be foreseen, belonging to a class that was, in the Commentaries, actually enumerated, but constituted the only instance which had been hitherto exhibited of a new class in which a multitude of cases might be comprehended, though it had been, till now, utterly unknown both to Blackstone and to the constitution. The acute discrimination with which JUNIUS pursues and consummates this argument, seems to set him, both as a lawyer and a logician, greatly above the man whose inconsistencies and clumsy apology, he impugns. The peroration is happy. It could not but leave a sting in the bosom

of

of him to whom it was addressed. It was adapted to make the public delest him as an apostate from truth, which he had himself once taught, and could not yet steadily deny.

SIR,

29. July, 1769.

I SHALL make you no apology for consi dering a certain pamphlet, in which your late conduct is defended, as written by yourself. The personal interest, the personal resentments, and above all, that wounded spirit, unaccustomed to reproach, and I hope not frequently conscious of deserving it, are signals which betray the author to us as plainly as if your name were in the title-page. You appeal to the public in defence of your reputation. We hold it, Sir, that an injury offered to an individual is interesting to society. On this principle, the people of England made common cause with Mr. Wilkes. On this principle, if you are injured, they will join in your resentment. I shall not follow you through the insipid form of a third person, but address myself to you directly.

You seem to think the channel of a pamphlet more respectable, and better suited to the dignity of your cause, than that of a newspaper. Be it so. Yet if newspapers are scurrilous, you must confess they are impartial. They give us, without any apparent preference, the wit and argument of the ministry, as well as the abusive dulness of the opposition. The scales are equally poised. It is not the printer's

printer's fault, if the greater weight inclines the balance.

YOUR pamphlet, then, is divided into an attack upon Mr. Grenville's character, and a defence of your own. It would have been more consistent, perhaps, with your professed intention, to have confined yourself to the last. But anger has some claim to indulgence, and railing is usually a relief to the mind. I hope you have found benefit from the experiment. It is not my design to enter into a formal vindication of Mr. Grenville, upon his own principles. I have neither the honour of being personally known to him, nor do I pretend to be completely master of all the facts. I need not run the risque of doing an injustice to his opinions, or to his conduct, when your pamplet alone carries, upon the face of it, a full vindication of both.

YOUR first reflection is, that Mr. Grenville* was, of all men, the person who should not have complained of inconsistence with regard to Mr. Wilkes.

It is not the printer's fault, &c.] Letters from advocates for the measures of the ministry were, at this time, published in the same newspapers in which those of JUNIUS appeared. The irony of this and the two preceding periods, is admirably strong and happy.

* Mr. Grenville had quoted a passage from the Doctor's excellent Commentaries, which directly contradicted the doctrine maintained by the Doctor in the House of Commons.

That Mr. Grenville was, of all men, &c.] Mr. Grenville was minister when a general warrant was issued against the authors and printers of the North Briton. Yet, he was now the advocate o the rights of the abettors of Wilkes. This was the inconsistency with which Blackstone charged him. C c

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