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he) I were to allow all this, it will only prove that the law of election was different in queen Anne's time from what it is at present."

This, indeed, is more than I expected. The principle, I know, has been maintained in fact; but I never expected to see it so formally declared. What can he mean? Does he assume this language to satisfy the doubts of the people, or does he mean to rouse their indignation? Are the ministry daring enough to affirm, that the house of commons have a right to make and unmake the law of parliament, at their pleasure? Does the law of parliament, which we are often told is the law of the land, does the common right of every subject of the realm, depend upon an arbitrary, capricious vote of one branch of the legislature? The voice of truth and reason must be silent.

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The ministry tell us plainly, that this is no longer a question of right, but of power and force alone. What was law yesterday is not law to-day and now, it seems, we have no better rule to live by, than the temporary discretion and fluctuating integrity of the house of commons.

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Professions of patriotism are become stale and ridiculous. For my own part, I claim nc merit from endeavoring to do a service to my fellow-subjects. I have done it to the best of my understanding: and, without looking for the approbation of other men, my conscience is satisfied. What remains to be done, concerns the collective body of the people. They are now to determine for themselves, whether they will firmly and constitutionally assert their rights, or make an humble, slavish surrender of them at the feet of the ministry. To a generous mind there cannot be a doubt. We owe it to our ancestors, to serve entire those rights which they have delivered to our care We owe it to our posterity, not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed. But, if it were possible for us to be insensible of these sacred claims, there is yet an obligation binding upon ourselves, from which nothing can acquit us; a personal interest, which we cannot surrender. To alienate even our own rights, would be a crime as much more enormous than suicide, as a life of civil security and freedom is superior to a bare existence; and if life be the bounty of Heaven, we scornfully reject the noblest part of the gift, if we consent to surrender that certain rule of living, without which the condition of human nature is not only miserable but contemptible. JUNIUS.

LETTER XXI.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. SIR, August 22, 1769. I must beg of you to print a few lines in explanation of some passages of my last letter, which, I see, have been misunderstood.

1. When I said that the house of commons never meant to found Mr. Walpole's incapacity on his expulsion only, I meant no more than to deny the general proposition, that expulsion alone creates the incapacity. If there be any thing ambiguous in the expression, I beg leave to explain it, by saying, that, in my opinion, expulsion neither creates nor in any part contributes to create the incapacity in question 2. I carefully avoided entering into the merits of Mr. Walpole's case. I did not inquire whether the house of commons acted justly, or whether they truly declared the law of parliament. My remarks went only to their apparent meaning and intention, as it stands declared in their own resolution.

3. I never meant to affirm, that a commitment to the Tower created a disqualification. On the con

trary, I considered that idea as an absurdity, into which the ministry must inevitably fall if they reasoned right upon their own principles.

The case of Mr. Wollaston speaks for itself. The ministry assert, that expulsion alone creates an absolute, complete incapacity to be re-elected to sit in the same parliament. This proposition they have uniformly maintained, without any condition or modification whatsoever. Mr. Wollaston was expelled, re-elected, and admitted to take his seat in the same parliament. I leave it to the public to determine, whether this be plain matter of fact, or mere nonsense or declamation. JUNIUS.

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As this cannot be conveniently reconciled with our general proposition, it may be necessary to shift our ground, and look back to the cause of Mr. Wollaston's expulsion. From thence it will appear clearly, that," although he was expelled, he had not rendered himself a culprit, too ignominious to sit in parliament; and that, having resigned his employment, he Vide Serious was no longer incapacitated by law." Considerations, page 23. Or thus: "The house, somewhat inaccurately, used the word expelled; they should have called it a motion." Vide Mungo's Case considered, page 11. Or, in short, if these arguments should be thought insufficient, we may fairly deny the fact. For example: "I affirm that he was not re-elected. The same Mr. Wollaston, who was expelled, was not again elected. The same individual, if you please, walked into the house, and took his seat there; but the same person, in law, was not admitted a member of that parliament from which he had been discarded." Vide Letter to Junius, page 12.

SECOND FACT.

Mr. Walpole, having been committed to the Tower, and expelled, for a high breach of trust, and notorious corruption in a public office, was declared incapable, etc.

ARGUMENT.

From the terms of this vote, nothing can be more evident, than that the house of commons meant to fix the incapacity upon the punishment, and not upon the crime; but, lest it should appear in a different light to weak, uninformed persons, it may be advisable to gut the resolution, and give it to the public, with all possible solemnity, in the following terms, viz.: "Resolved, that Robert Walpole, esq., having been that session of parliament expelled the house, was and is incapable of being elected a member to serve in that present parliament." Vide Mungo, on the Use of Quotations, page 11.

JUNIUS.

PHILO JUNIUS.

N. B. The author of the answer to sir William | takes away all dignity from distress, and makes Meredith seems to have made use of Mungo's quota even calamity ridiculous.” 66 That the declartion: for, in page 18, he assures us, atory vote of the 17th of February, 1769, was, indeed, a literal copy of the resolution of the house in Mr. Walpole's case."

THIRD FACT.

His opponent, Mr. Taylor, huving the smallest number of votes at the next election, was declared not duly

elected.

ARGUMENT.

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This fact we consider as directly in point, to prove, that Mr. Luttrell ought to be the sitting member, for The burgesses of Lynn could the following reasons: draw no other inference from this resolution but this; that, at a future election, and in case of a similar return, the house would receive the same candidate as duly elected whom they had before rejected." Vide This, their Postscript to Junius, page 37. Or thus: resolution, leaves no room to doubt what part they would have taken, if, upon a subsequent re-election of Mr. Walpole, there had been any other candidate in competition with him: for by their vote, they could have no other intention than to admit such other candidate." Vide Mungo's Case considered, page 39. Or, take it in this light: the burgesses of Lynn having, in defiance of the house, retorted upon them a person whom they had branded with the most ignominious marks of their displeasure, were thereby so well entitled to favor and indulgence, that the house could do no less than rob Mr. Taylor of a right legally vested in him, in order that the burgesses might be apprised of the law of parliament; which law the house took a very direct way of explaining to them, by resolving that the candidate with the fewest votes was not duly elected: "And was not this much more equitable, more in the spirit of that equal and substantial justice which is the end of all law, than if they had violently adhered to the strict maxims of law?" Vide Serious Considerations, pages 33 and 34. “And if the present house of commons had chosen to follow the spirit of this resolution, they would have received and established the candidate with the fewest votes." Vide Answer to sir W. M., page 18.

Permit me now, sir, to show you, that the worthy Dr. Blackstone sometimes contradicts the ministry, as well as himself. The speech without doors asserts, page 9th, "That the legal effect of an incapacity, founded on a judicial determination of a competent court, is precisely the same as that of an incapacity created by an act of parliament." Now for the doctor. "The law, and the opinion of the judge, are not always convertible terms, or one and the same thing; since it sometimes may happen, that the judge may mistake the law." Commentaries, vol. i, p. 71.

The answer to sir W. M. asserts, page 23, "That the returning officer is not a judicial, but a purely ministerial officer. His return is no judicial act." At 'em again doctor. The sheriff, in his judicial capacity, is to hear and determine causes of forty shillings' value, and under, in his county court. He has also a judicial power in divers other civil cases.

LETTER XXIII.

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD.

MY LORD,

September 19, 1769. You are so little accustomed to receive any marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if, in the following lines, a compliment or expression of applause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery of your established character, and, perhaps an insult to your understanding. You have nice feelings my lord, if we may judge from your resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving offense, where you have so little deserved it, I shall leave the illustration of your virtues to other hands. Your friends have a privilege to play upon the easiness of your temper, or, possibly, they are better acquainted with your good qualities than I You have done good by stealth. The rest is am. upon record. You have still left ample room for The speculation, when panegyric is exhausted.

You are, indeed, a very considerable man. highest rank, a splendid fortune, and a name, glorious, till it was yours, were sufficient to have supported you with meaner abilities than I think you possess, From the first, you derive a constitutional claim to respect; from the second, a natural extensive authority; the last created a partial expectation of hereditary virtues. The use you have made of these uncommon advantages might have been more honorable to yourself, but could not be more instructive to mankind. We may trace it in the veneration of your country, the choice of your friends, and in the accomplishment of every sanguine hope which the public might have conceived from the illustrious name of Russell.

The eminence of your station gave you a commanding prospect of your duty. The road which led to honor was open to your view. You could not lose it by mistake, and you had no temptation to depart from it by design. Compare the natural dignity and importance of the highest peer of England: the noble independence which he might have maintained in parliament; and the real interest and respect which he might have acquired, not only in parliament, but through the whole kingdom: compare these glorious distinctions, with the ambition of holding a share in government, the emoluments of a place, the sale of a borough, or the purchase of a corporation; and though you may not regret the virtues which create respect, you may see with anguish how much real importance and authority you have lost. Consider the character of an independent, virtuous duke of Bedford; imagine what he might be in this country: then reflect If it be possible one moment upon what you are. for me to withdraw my attention from the fact, I will tell you in theory what such a man might be.

Conscious of his own weight and importance, his conduct in parliament would be directed by nothing but the constitutional duty of a peer. He would conHe sider himself as a guardian of the laws. Willing to support the just measures of government, but determined to observe the conduct of a minister with suspicion, he would oppose the violence of faction with as much firmness as the encroachments of prerogative.

is likewise to decide the elections of knights of the shire (subject to the control of the house of commons,) to judge of the qualification of voters, and to return such as he shall determine to be duly elected." Vide Commentaries, vol. i. p. 332.

What conclusion shall we draw from such facts, and such arguments, such contradictions? I cannot express my opinion of the present ministry more exactly than in the words of sir Richard Steele, "That we are governed by a set of drivellers, whose folly

He would be as little capable of bargaining with the minister for places for himself or his dependents, as of descending to mix himself in the intrigues of opposition. Whenever an important question called for his opinion in parliament, he would be heard by the most profligate minister with deference and re

spect.

His authority would either sanction or disgrace the measures of government. The people would look up to him as to their protector; and a virtuous prince would have one honest man in his dominions, in whose integrity and judgment he might safely confide. If it should be the will of Providence to afflict him with a domestic misfortune, he would submit to the stroke with feeling, but not without dignity. He would consider the people as his children, and receive a generous heartfelt consolation, in the sympathizing tears and blessings of his country.

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judgment, you have carried your own system into execution. A great man, in the success, and even in the magnitude, of his crimes, finds a rescue from contempt. Your grace is every way unfortunate. Yet I will not look back to those ridiculous scenes, by which, in your earlier days, you thought it an honor to be distinguished; the recorded stripes, the public infamy, your own sufferings, or Mr. Rigby's fortitude These events undoubtedly left an impression, though not upon your mind. To such a mind, it may, perhaps, be a pleasure to reflect, that there is hardly a corner of any of his majesty's kingdoms, except France, in which, at one time or other, your valuable life has not been in danger. Amiable man! we see and acknowledge the protection of Providence, by which you have so often escaped the personal detestation of your fellow subjects, and are still reserved for the public justice of your country.

Your grace may probably discover something more intelligible in the negative part of this illustrious character. The man I have described would never prostitute his dignity in parliament, by an indecent violence, either in opposing or defending a minister. He would not at one moment rancorously persecute, at another basely cringe to, the favorite of his sovereign. After outraging the royal dignity with peremptory conditions, little short of menace and hostility, he would never descend to the humility of soliciting an interview with the favorite, and of offering to recover, at any price, the honor of his friendship. Though deceived, perhaps, in his youth, he would not, through the course of a long life, have invariably chosen his friends from among the most profligate of mankind. His own honor would have forbidden him from mixing his private pleasures or conversation with jockeys, gamesters, blasphemers, gladiators, or buffoons. He would then have never felt, much less would he have submitted to, the dishonest necessity of engaging in the interests and intrigues of his dependents; of supplying their vices, or relieving their beggary, at the expense of his country. He would not have betrayed such ignorance, or such contempt, of the constitution, as openly to avow, in a court of justice, the purchase and sale of a borough. He would not have thought it consistent with his rank in the state, or even with his personal importance, to be the little tyrant of a little corporation.* He would never have been insulted with virtues which he had labored to extinguish; nor suffered the disgrace of a mortifying defeat, which has made him ridiculous and contemptible even to the few by whom he was not detested. I reverence the afflictions of a good man; his sorrows are sacred. But how can we take part in the distresses of a man whom we can neither love or esteem: or feel for a calamity of which he himself is insensible? Where was the father's heart, when he could look for, or find, an immediate consolation for the loss of an only son, in consultations and bargains for a place at court, and even in the misery of ballot-was your turn to be a tyrant, because you had been a ing at the India House?

Your history begins to be important at that auspicious period, at which you were deputed to represent the earl of Bute at the court of Versailles. It was an honorable office, and executed with the same spirit with which it was accepted. Your patrons wanted an ambassador who would submit to make concessions, without daring to insist upon any honorable condition for his sovereign. Their business required a man who had as little feeling for his own dignity, as for the welfare of his country; and they found him in the first rank of the nobility. Belleisle, Goree, Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, Martinique, The Fishery, and the Havana, are glorious monuments of your grace's talents for negotiation. My lord, we are too well acquainted with your pecuniary character. to think it possible that so many public sacrifices should have been made without some private compensations. Your conduct carries with it an internal evidence, beyond all the legal proofs of a court of justice. Even the callous pride of lord Egremont was alarmed.† He saw and felt his own dishonor in corresponding with you: and there certainly was a moment at which he meant to have resisted, had not a fatal lethargy prevailed over his faculties, and carried all sense and memory away with it.

Admitting, then, that you have mistaken or deserted those honorable principles which ought to have directed your conduct; admitting that you have as little claim to private affection as to public esteem, let us see with what abilities, with what degree of

I will not pretend to specify the secret terms on which you were invited to support an administration which lord Bute pretended to leave in full possession of their ministerial authority, and perfectly masters of themselves. He was not of a temper to relinquish power, though he retired from employment. Stipulations were certainly made between your grace and him, and certainly violated. After two years' submission you thought you had collected strength enough to control his influence, and that it

slave. When you found yourself mistaken in your opinion of your gracious master's firmness, disappointment got the better of all your humble discretion, and carried you to an excess of outrage to his person, as distant from true spirit, as from all decency

* The duke had lately lost his only son by a fall from whipped the duke, with equal justice, severity, and per

his horse.

At this interview. which passed at the house of the late lord Eglintoune, lord Bute told the duke, that he was determined never to have any connection with a man who had so basely betrayed him.

In an answer in chancery, in a suit against him to recover a large sum, paid him by a person whom he had undertaken to return to parliament for one of his grace's boroughs, he was compelled to repay the money.

*Of Bedford, where the tyrant was held in such contempt and detestation, that, in order to deliver themselves from him. they admitted a great number of strangers to the freedom. To make his defeat truly ridiculous, he tried his whole strength against Mr. Horne, and was beaten upon his own ground.

* Mr. Heston Humphrey, a country attorney, horseseverance, on the course at Litchfield. Rigby and lord Trentham were also cudgelled in a most exemplary manner. This gave rise to the following story; When the late king heard that sir Edward Hawke had given the French a drubbing, his majesty, who had never received that kind of chastisement, was pleased to ask lord Chesterfield the meaning of the word.-"Sir," says lord Chesterfield, "the meaning of the word-But here comes the duke of Bedford, who is better able to explain it to your majesty than I am."

This man, notwithstanding his pride and Tory principles, had some English stuff in him. Upon an official letter he wrote to the duke of Bedford, the duke desired to be recalled, and it was with the utmost difficulty that lord Bute could appease him.

Mr. Grenville, lord Halifax, and lord Egremont.

and respect.* After robbing him of the rights of a king, you would not permit him to preserve the honor of a gentleman. It was then lord Weymouth was nominated to Ireland, and despatched (we well remember with what indecent hurry) to plunder the treasury of the first fruits of an employment, which you well knew he was never to execute.†

This sudden declaration of war against the favorite, might have given you a momentary merit with the public, if it had either been adopted upon principle, or maintained with resolution. Without looking back to all your former servility, we need only observe your subsequent conduct, to see upon what motives you acted. Apparently united with Mr. Grenville, you waited until lord Rockingham's feeble administration should dissolve in its own weakness. The moment their dismission was suspected, the moment you perceived that another system was adopted in the closet, you thought it no disgrace to return to your former dependence, and solicit once more the friendship of lord Bute. You begged an interview, at which he had spirit enough to treat you with contempt.

It would now be of little use to point out by what a train of weak, injudicious measures, it became necessary, or was thought so, to call you back to a share in the administration. The friends, whom you did not in the last instance desert, were not of a character to add strength or credit to government: and, at that time, your alliance with the duke of Grafton, was, I presume, hardly foreseen. We must look for other stipulations to account for that sudden resolution of the closet, by which three of your dependents† (whose characters, I think, cannot be less respected than they are) were advanced to offices, through which you might again control the minister, and probably engross the whole direction of affairs.

The possession of absolute power is now once more within your reach. The measures you have taken to obtain and confirm it, are too gross to escape the eyes of a discerning, judicious prince. His palace is besieged; the lines of circumvallation are drawing round him; and, unless he finds a resource in his own activity, or in the attachment of the real friends of his family, the best of princes must submit to the confinement of a state prisoner, until your grace's death, or some less fortunate event, shall raise the siege. For the present, you may safely resume that style of insult and menace, which even a private gentleman cannot submit to hear without being contemptible. Mr. M'Kenzie's history is not yet forgotten; and you may find precedents enough of the mode in which an imperious subject may signify his pleasure to his sovereign. Where will this gracious monarch look for assistance, when the wretched Grafton could forget his obligations to his master, and desert him for a hollow alliance with such a man as the duke of Bedford!

Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness; let us suppose that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified, in the fear as well as the hatred of the people; can age itself for*The ministry having endeavored to exclude the dowager out of the Regency Bill, the earl of Bute determined to dismiss them. Upon this, the duke of Bedford demanded an audience of the reproached bim in plain terms with his duplicity, baseness, falsehood, treachery, and hypocrisy; repeatedly gave him the lie, and left him in convulsions.

He received three thousand pounds for plate and equipage money.

When earl Gower was appointed president of the council, the king, with his usual sincerity, assured him, that he had not had one happy moment since the duke of Bedford left him.

+ Lords Gower, Weymouth, and Sandwich.

get that you are now in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? And is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement? For shame, my lord! let it not be recorded of you, that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider that, although you cannot disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigor of the passions.

Your friends will ask, perhaps, Whither shall this unhappy old man retire? Can he remain in the metropolis, where his life has been so often threatened, and his palace so often attacked? If he returns to Woburn, scorn and mockery await him. He must create a solitude round his estate, if he would avoid the face of reproach and derision. At Plymouth, his destruction would be more than probable; at Exeter, inevitable. No honest Englishman will ever forget his attachment, nor any honest Scotchman forgive his treachery, to lord Bute. At every town he enters, he must change his liveries and name. Whichever way he flies, the hue and cry of the country pursues him.

In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of his administration have been more sensibly felt; his virtues better understood; or, at worst, they will not, for him alone, forget their hospitality. As well might Verres have returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, my lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people, plundered, insulted, and oppressed, as they have been, will not always be disappointed.

You can

It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene. no more fly from your enemies, than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my lord, you may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger, and though you cannot be safe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice of those pernicious friends, with whose interests you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you have sacrificed every thing that ought to be dear to a man of honor. They are still base enough to encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum as with the laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last; and that as you lived without virtue, you should die without repentance.

SIR,

LETTER XXIV.

TO JUNIUS.

JUNIUS.

September 14, 1769. Having accidentally seen a republication of your I had sold the companions of my success, I am again letters, wherein you have been pleased to assert, that obliged to declare the said assertion to be a most infamous and malicious falsehood; and I again call upon you to stand forth, avow yourself, and prove the charge. If you can make it out to the satisfaction of any one man in the kingdom, I will be content to be thought the worst man in it; if you do not, what must the nation think of you? Party has nothing to do in this affair: you have made a personal attack upon my honor, defamed me by a most vile calumny, which might possibly have sunk into oblivion, had

last letter shall be short; for I write to you with reluctance, and I hope we shall now conclude our correspondence forever.

Had you been originally, and without provocation, attacked by an anonymous writer, you would have some right to demand his name. But in this cause you are a volunteer. You engaged in it with the unpremeditated gallantry of a soldier. You were content to set your name in opposition to a man who would probably continue in concealment. You understood the terms upon which we were to correspond, and gave at least a tacit assent to them. After volwhat possible right have you to know me under any other? Will you forgive me if I insinuate to you, that you foresaw some honor in the apparent spirit of coming forward in person, and that you were not quite indifferent to the display of your literary quali fications.

You cannot but know, that the republication of my letters was no more than a catch-penny contrivance of a printer, in which it was impossible I should be concerned, and for which I am no way answerable. At the same time, I wish you to understand, that if I do not take the trouble of reprinting these papers, it is not from any fear of giving offense to sir William Draper.

not such uncommon pains been taken to renew and perpetuate this scandal, chiefly because it has been told in good language; for I give you full credit for your elegant diction, well-turned periods, and Attic wit: but wit is oftentimes false, though it may appear brilliant; which is exactly the case of your whole performance. But, sir, I am obliged, in the most serious manner, to accuse yon of being guilty of falsities. You have said the thing that is not. To support your story, you have recours to the following irresistible argument: "You sold the companions of your victory, because, when the 16th regiment was given to you, you were silent. The conclusion is in-untarily attacking me, under the character of Junius, evitable." I believe that such deep and acute reasoning could only come from such an extraordinary writer as Junius. But, unfortunately for you, the premises, as well as the conclusion, are absolutely false. Many applications have been made to the ministry, on the subject of the Manilla ransom, since the time of my being colonel of that regiment. As I have for some years quitted London, I was obliged to have recourse to the honorable colonel Monson, and sir Samuel Cornish, to negotiate for me. In the last autumn, I personally delivered a memorial to the earl of Shelburne, at his seat in Wiltshire. As you have told us of your importance, that you are a person of rank and fortune, and above a common bribe, you may, in all probability, be not unknown to his lordship, who can satisfy you of the truth of what I say. But I shall now take the liberty, sir, to seize your battery, and turn it against yourself. If your puerile and tinsel logic could carry the least weight or conviction with it, how must you stand affected by the inevitable conclusion, as you are pleased to term it? According to Junius, silence is guilt. In many of the public papers, you have been called, in the most direct and offensive terms, a liar and a coward. When did you reply to these foul accusations? You have been quite silent, quite chopfallen: therefore, because you was silent, the nation has a right to pronounce you to be both a liar and a coward, from your own argument. But, sir, I will give you fair play; I will afford you an opportunity to wipe off the first appellation, by desiring the proofs of your charge against me. Produce them! to wipe off the last, produce yourself. People cannot bear any longer your lion's skin, and the despicable imposture of the old Roman name which you have affected. For the future, assume the name of some modern* bravo and dark assassin: let your appellation have some affinity to your practice. But if I must perish, Junius, let me perish in the face of day: be for once a generous and open enemy. I allow that Gothic appeals to cold iron, are no better proofs of a man's honesty and veracity, than hot iron and burning ploughshares are of female chastity; but a soldier's honor is as delicate as a woman's: it must not be suspected. You have dared to throw more than a suspicion upon mine: you cannot but know the consequences, which even the meekness of Christianity would pardon me for, after the injury you have done me.

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Your remarks upon a signature adoped merely for distinction, are unworthy of notice: but when you tell me I have submitted to be called a liar and a coward, I must ask you, in my turn, whether you seriously think it any way incumbent on me to take notice of the silly invectives of every simpleton who writes in a newspaper; and what opinion you would have conceived of my discretion, if I had suffered myself to be the dupe of so shallow an artifice?

Your appeal to the sword, though consistent enough with your late profession, will neither prove your innocence, nor clear you from suspicion. Your complaints with regard to the Manilla ransom, were, for a considerable time, a distress to government. You were appointed (greatly out of your turn) to the command of a regiment; and during that administration we heard no more of sir William Draper. The facts of which I speak may, indeed, be variously accounted for; but they are too notorious to be denied; and I think you might have learned, at the university, that a false conclusion is an error in argument, not a breach of veracity. Your solicitations, I doubt not, were renewed under another administration. Admitting the fact, I fear an indifferent person would only infer from it, that experience had made you acquainted with the benefits of complaining. Remember, sir, that you have yourself confessed, that. considering the critical situation of this country, the ministry are in the right to temporize with Spain. This confession reduces you to an unfortunate dilemma By renewing your solicitations, you must either mean to force your country into a war at a most unseasonable juncture, or having no view or expectation of that kind, that you look for nothing but a private compensation to yourself.

As to me, it is by no means necessary that I should be exposed to the resentment of the worst and the most powerful men in this country, though I may be indifferent about yours. Though you would fight, there are others who would assassinate.

But, after all, sir, where is the injury? You assure me, that my logic is puerile and tinsel; that it earries not the least weight or conviction; that my premises are false, and my conclusions absurd. If this be a just description of me, how is it possible for such a writer to disturb your peace of mind, or to injure a character so well established as yours? Take care, sir William, how you indulge this unruly tem

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