"On this business of America I confess I am serious, even to sadness. I have had but one opinion concerning it since I sat, and before I sat in parliament. I honestly

and solemnly declare, I have in all seasons adhered to the system of 1766, for no other reason than that I think it laid deep in your truest interests, and that, by limiting the exercise, it fixes on the firmest foundations, a real, consistent, well-grounded authority in parliament. Until you come back to that system, there will be no peace for England'."

"No man can believe, that at this time of day I mean to lean on the venerable memory of a great man, whose loss we deplore in common. Our little party differences have been long ago composed; and I have acted more with him, and certainly with more pleasure with him, than ever I acted against him. Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville was a first-rate figure in this country. With a masculine understanding, and a stout and resolute heart, he had an application undissipated and unwearied. He took public business not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy; and he seemed to have no delight out of this house, except in such things as some way related to the business that was to be done with

Burke's Works, Vol. II. p. 439.

in it. If he was ambitious, I will say this for him, his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was to raise himself not by the low pimping politics of a court, but to win his way to power, through the laborious gradations of public service; and to secure himself a wellearned rank in parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business.

He was bred in a profession. He was bred to the law, which is, in my opinion, one of the first and noblest of human sciences; a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding, than all the other kinds of learn-; ing put together; but it is not apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion'."

Let the reader compare the opinions contained in the above extracts with the following, taken almost at hazard, from different productions of JUNIUS, and he will have no difficulty in determining that the writer of the one set could not be the writer of the other.

"To prove the meaning and intent of the. legislature, will require a minute and tedious deduction. To investigate a question of law demands some labour and attention, though very

little genius or sagacity. As a practical profession, the study of the law requires but a moderate portion of abilities. The learning of a pleader is usually upon a level with his integrity. The indiscriminate defence of right and wrong contracts the understanding, while it corrupts the heart. Subtlety is soon mistaken for wisdom, and impunity for virtue. If there be any instances upon record, as some there are undoubtedly, of genius and morality united in a lawyer, they are distinguished by their singularity, and operate as exceptions'."

"Whenever the question shall be seriously. agitated, I will endeavour (and if I live, will assuredly attempt it,) to convince the English nation, by arguments to my understanding unanswerable, that they ought to insist upon a triennial, and banish the idea of an annual parliament. * * I am convinced that, if shortening the duration of parliaments (which in effect is keeping the representative under the rod of the constituent) be not made the basis of our new parliamentary jurisprudence, other checks or improvements signify nothing"."

"When the Septennial Act passed, the legis lature did what, apparently and palpably, they

1 Vol. II. p. 411, 412 of the present edition.

2 Id. p. 445.

had no power to do; but they did more than people in general were aware of; they, in effect disfranchised the whole kingdom for four years'."

"It would be to no purpose at present to renew a discussion of the merits of the Stamp Act, though I am convinced that even the people who were most clamorous against it, either never understood, or wilfully misrepresented every part of it. But it is truly astonishing that a great number of people should have so little foreseen the inevitable consequence of repealing it.

* There was indeed one man, [G. Grenville] who wisely foresaw every circumstance which has since happened, and who, with a pa. triot's spirit, opposed himself to the torrent. He told us, that, if we thought the loss of outstanding debts, and of our American trade, a mischief of the first magnitude, such an injudi. cious compliance with the terms dictated by the colonies, was the way to make it sure and unavoidable. It was ne moriare, mori. We see the prophecy verified in every particular, and if this great and good man was mistaken in any one instance, it was, perhaps, that he did not expect his predictions to be fulfilled so soon as they have been*."

"It is not many months since you gave me

' Vol. II. p. 447.

2 Id. p. 512, 513.

*

an opportunity of demonstrating to the nation, as far as rational inference and probability could extend, that the hopes which some men seemed to entertain, or to profess at least, with regard to America, were without a shadow of foundation. *** But whatever were their views or expectations, whether it was the mere enmity of party, or the real persuasion that they had but a little time to live in office, every circumstance that I then foretold is confirmed by experience. *We find ourselves at last reduced to the dreadful alternative of either making war upon our colonies, or of suffering them to erect themselves into independent states. It is not that I hesitate now upon the choice we are to make. Every thing must be hazarded. But what infamy, what punishment do those men deserve, whose folly or whose treachery hath reduced us to this state, in which we cannot give up the cause without a certainty of ruin, nor maintain it without such a struggle as must shake the empire. Conway since last December has, in the face of the House of Commons, defended the resistance of the colonies upon what he called revolution principles. * If we look for their motives, we shall find them such as weak and interested men usually act upon. They were weak enough to hope that the crisis of Great

Mr.