the Commons, and I suppose the lord mayor and the courtly aldermen will commit the printer for us to release. Another scene will probably open with the Lords. JUNIUS has observed, "the arbitrary power they have assumed of imposing fines, and committing during pleasure, will now be exercised in its fullest extent." The progress of the business I suspect will be this-a bitter libel against Pomfret, Denbigh, or Talbot, attacking the peer personally, not in his legislative or judicial capacity, will appear. His Lordship, passion's slave, will complain to the House. They will order the printer into custody and set a heavy fine. The Sheriffs the next morning will go to Newgate, examine the warrant of commitment, and, like the angel to Peter, take the prisoner by the hand and conduct him out of prison; afterwards they will probably make their appeal to the public against the usurpation of their Lordships, and their entirely setting aside the power of juries in their proceedings.

Are there more furious wild beasts to be found in the upper den than the three I have named? Miller, the printer of the London Evening Post, at No. 2, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row, is the best man I know for this business. He will print whatever is sent him. He is a fine Oliverian soldier. I intend a manifesto with my name on Monday to give spirit to the printers, and to shew them who will be their protector. I foresee it will make the two houses more cautious, but it is necessary for our friends, and the others shall be baited till they are driven into the snare. Adieu. JOHN WILKES.

LETTERS

OF

JUNIUS.

DEDICATION

TO THE

ENGLISH NATION.

I DEDICATE to You a collection of Letters, written by one of Yourselves for the common benefit of us all. They would never have grown to this size, without Your continued encouragement and applause*. To me they originally owe nothing, but a healthy, sanguine constitution. Under Your care they have thriven. To You they are indebted for whatever strength or beauty they possess. When Kings and Ministers are forgotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and when measures are only felt in their remotest consequences, this book will, I believe, be found to contain principles, worthy to be transmitted to posterity. When You leave the unimpaired, hereditary freehold to Your children, You do but half Your duty. Both liberty and property are precarious, unless the possessors have sense and spirit enough to defend them.This is not the language of vanity. If I am a vain man, my gratification lies within a narrow circle. I am the sole depositary of my own secret, and it shall perish with mef.

See Private Letters, No. 5. in which the author, shortly after his appearance before the public under the signature of JUNIUS, expresses an intention to discontinue writing under that name; nor would he in all probability have persevered, but for the reason assigned above. EDIT.

This must be understood only in general terms. From the following passage in Private Letters, No. 8. it is obvious that there were persons to whom

VOL. I.

A

If an honest, and, I may truly affirm, a laborious zeal for the public service has given me any weight in Your esteem, let me exhort and conjure You never to suffer an invasion of Your political constitution, however minute the instance may appear, to pass by, without a determined, persevering resistance. One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate, and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, to-day is doctrine. Examples are supposed to justify the most dangerous measures, and where they do not suit exactly, the defect is supplied by analogy.-Be assured that the laws, which protect us in our civil rights, grow out of the constitution, and that they must fall or flourish with it. This is not the cause of faction, or of party, or of any individual, but the common interest of every man in Britain. Although the King should continue to support his present system of government, the period is not very distant, at which You will have the means of redress in Your own power. It may be nearer perhaps than any of us expect, and I would warn You to be prepared for it. The King may possibly be advised to dissolve the present parliament a year or two before it expires of course, and precipitate a new election, in hopes of taking the nation by surprize. If such a measure be in agitation, this very caution may defeat or prevent it*.

I cannot doubt that You will unanimously assert the freedom of election, and vindicate Your exclusive right to choose

whom the writer unbosomed himself; although there is still every reason for believing that such persons formed, as he has expressed it above, only a narrow circle.-"The last letter you printed was idle and improper, and, I assure you, printed against my own opinion. The truth is there are people about me, whom I would wish not to contradict, and who had rather see JUNIUS in the papers, ever so improperly, than not at all." EDIT.

* The object to have been accomplished by obtaining a new parliament does not appear to have been of sufficient force to have precipitated such a measure; and was, in consequence, relinquished: on which account the parliament in question was not dissolved till September 30th, 1774, after having existed six years, four months, and twenty-one days. Many of the letters of JUNIUS turning upon the elective franchise, and the necessity of triennial parliaments, the reader may not be displeased to see, at one view, the respective dates of the dissolution and re-assembling of the several parliaments during the present reign.

Met