LETTER II.

TO THE

PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR,

January, 26, 1769.

THE kingdom swarms with such numbers of felonious robbers of private character and virtue, that no honest or good man is safe; especially as these cowardly, base assassins stab in the dark, without having the courage to sign their real names to their malevolent and wicked productions. A writer, who signs himself Junius, in the Public Advertiser of the 21st instant, opens the deplorable situation of his country, in a very affecting manner. With a pompous parade of his candour and decency, he tells us, that we see dissensions in all parts of the empire, an universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction, and a total loss of respect towards us in the eyes of foreign powers. But this writer, with all his boasted candour, has not told us the real cause of the evils he so pathetically enumerates. I shall take the liberty to explain the cause for him. Junius, and such writers as himself, occasion all the mischief complained of, by falsely and maliciously traducing the best characters in the kingdom: for when our deluded people at home, and foreigners abroad, read the poisonous and inflam

matory libels that are daily published with impunity, to vilify those who are any way distinguished by their good qualities and eminent virtues; when they find no notice taken of, or reply given to these slanderous tongues and pens, their conclusion is, that both the ministers and the nation have been fairly described, and they act accordingly. I think it, therefore, the duty of every good citizen to stand forth, and endeavour to undeceive the public, when the vilest arts are made use of to defame and blacken the brightest characters among us. An eminent author affirms it to be almost as criminal to hear a worthy man traduced, without attempting his justification, as to be the author of the calumny against him. For my own part, I think it a sort of misprision of treason against society. No man, therefore, who knows Lord Granby, can possibly hear so good and great a character most vilely abused, without a warm and just indignation against this Junius, this high-priest of envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, who has endeavoured to sacrifice our beloved commander in chief, at the altars of his horrid deities. Nor is the injury done to his Lordship alone, but to the whole nation, which may too soon feel the contempt and consequently the attacks, of our late enemies, if they can be induced to believe, that the person on whom the safety of these kingdoms so much depends, is unequal to his high station, and destitute of those qualities which form a good general. One would have thought that his Lordship's services in the cause of his country, from the battle of Culloden to his most glo