I AM preparing a paper, which you shall have on or before Saturday night. Advertise it for Monday '. JUNIUS on Monday. C. If any enquiry is made about these papers, I shall rely on your giving me a hint. SIR, N° 2. Friday, May 5th, 17692. It is essentially necessary that the inclos ed should be published to-morrow, as the great I JUNIUS, Letter xi. 2 This note was addressed to Mr. Woodfall, with a desire that it should be opened by himself only." " question comes on on Monday, and Lord Granby is already staggered'. If you should receive an answer to it, you will oblige me much by not publishing it, till after Monday. C. 'The letter is printed in the Miscellaneous Collection, No. LV. and the great question alluded to was upon the Middlesex petition against the seating of Col. Luttrell for that county. The debate took place on Monday the 8th of May in the House of Commons, and continued from half past one o'clock in the afternoon, till half past four the next morning, when, upon a division, there appeared for the petition 152, against it 221. The speakers on this occasion, in favour of the petition, were Mr. Dowdeswell, Lord J. Cavendish, Mr. Wedderburne, Mr. Grenville, Mr. Cornwall, Mr. Burke, Mr. Seymour, and Sir George Saville: those against it, Mr. Stanley, Sir G. Osborne, Dr. Blackstone, Mr. W. Ellis, Mr. Thurlow, Mr. C. J. Fox, Mr. Moreton, and Sir F. Norton. In consequence of the rejection of the petition to the House of Commons, the following was soon afterwards presented to the King; which we insert, as we shall also, in their due places, those of London and Westminster, upon similar subjects, with a view of giving some idea of the general politics of the day, and the warmth of the respective controversies that distinguished it. "TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. "The humble petition of the Freeholders of the County of Middlesex. "Most gracious Sovereign, "We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Freeholders of the County of Middlesex, beg leave with all affectionate submission and humility, to throw ourselves at your your royal feet, and humbly to implore your paternal attention to those grievances of which this county and the whole nation complain, and those fearful apprehensions with which the whole British empire is most justly alarmed. "With great grief and sorrow, we have long beheld the endeavours of certain evil-minded persons, who attempt to infuse into your royal mind, notions and opinions of the most dangerous and pernicious tendency, and who promote and counsel such measures as cannot fail to destroy that harmony and confidence which should ever subsist between a just and virtuous Prince, and a free and loyal people. "For this disaffected purpose they have introduced into every part of the administration of our happy, legal constitution, a certain unlimited and indefinite discretionary power; to prevent which is the sole aim of all our laws, and was the sole cause of all those disturbances and revolutions which formerly distracted this unhappy country; for our ancestors, by their own fatal experience, well knew that in a state where discretion begins, law, liberty and safety end. Under the pretence of this discretion, or, as it was formerly, and has been lately called-Law of state-we have seen "English subjects, and even a member of the British Legislature, arrested by virtue of a general warrant issued by a secretary of state, contrary to the law of the land. "Their houses rifled and plundered, their papers seized, and used as evidence upon trial.— "Their bodies committed to close imprisonment.— "The Habeas Corpus eluded. "Trial by jury discountenanced, and the first law officer of the crown publicly insinuating that juries are not to be trusted. "Printers punished by the ministry in the supreme court without a trial by their equals, without any trial at all.— "The remedy of the law for false imprisonment debarred and defeated. "The |