make use of it. By laying in a moderate stock of reputation, you undoubtedly meant to provide for the future necessities of your character, that, with an honourable resistance upon record, you might safely indulge your genius, and yield to a favourite inclination with security. But you have discovered your purposes too soon; and, instead of the modest reserve of virtue, have shewn us the termagant chastity of a prude, who gratifies her passions with distinction, and prosecutes one lover for a rape, while she solicits the lewd embraces of another.

Your check turns pale; for a guilty conscience tells you, you are undone. Come forward, thou virtuous Minister, and tell the world by what interest Mr. Hine has been recommended to so extraordinary a mark of his Majesty's favour; what was the price of the patent he has bought, and to what honourable purpose the purchasemoney has been applied. Nothing less than many thousands could pay Colonel Burgoyne's expences at Preston. Do you dare to prosecute such a creature as Vaughan, while you are basely setting up the Royal Patronage to auction? Do you dare to complain of an attack upon your own honour, while you are selling the favours of the Crown, to raise a fund for corrupting the

morals of the people? And do you think it is possible such enormities should escape without impeachment? It is, indeed, highly your interest to maintain the present House of Commons. Having sold the nation to you in gross, they will undoubtedly protect you in the detail; for, while they patronize your crimes, they feel for their own.

JUNIUS.

LETTER XXXIV.

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

MY LORD,

December 12, 1769.

I FIND, with some surprise, that you are not supported as you deserve. Your most determined advocates have scruples about them, which you are unacquainted with; and though there be nothing too hazardous for your Grace to engage in, there are some things too infamous for the vilest prostitute of a news

paper to defend.* In what other manner shall we account for the profound submissive silence, which friends have observed upon you and your a charge, which called immediately for the clearest refutation, and would have justified the severest measures of resentiment? I did not attempt to blast your character by an indirect, ambiguous insinuation; but candidly stated to you a plain fact, which struck directly at the integrity of a privy counsellor, of a first commissioner of the treasury, and of a leading minister, who is supposed to enjoy the first share in his Majesty's confidence. In every one of these capacities, I employed the most moderate terms to charge you with treachery to your Sovereign, and breach of trust in your office. I accused you of having sold a patent place in the collec tion of the customs at Exeter to one Mr. Hine, who, unable, or unwilling, to deposit the whole purchase-money himself, raised part of it by contribution, and has now a certain Doctor Brooke quartered upon the salary for one hundred pounds

From the publication of the preceding to this date, not one word was said in defence of the Duke of Grafton. But vice and impudence soon recovered themselves, and the sale of the royal favour was openly avowed and defended. We acknowledge the piety of St. James's, but what is become of its morality?

† And by the same means preserves it to this hour.

a year. No sale by the candle was ever conducted with greater formality. I affirm, that the price at which the place was knocked down (and which, I have good reason to think, was not less than three thousand five hundred pounds) was, with your connivance and consent, paid to Colonel Burgoyne, to reward him, I presume, for the decency of his deportment at Preston; or to reimburse him, perhaps, for the fine of one thousand pounds, which, for that very deportment, the court of King's Bench thought proper to set upon him. It is not often that the Chief Justice and the Prime Minister are so strangely at variance in their opinions of men and things.

I thank God, there is not in human nature a degree of impudence daring enough to deny the charge I have fixed upon you. Your courteous secretary,* your confidential architect,† are silent as the grave. Even Mr. Rigby's countenance fails him. He violates his second nature, and blushes whenever he speaks of you. Perhaps the noble colonel himself will relieve you. No man is more tender of his reputation. He is not only

*Tommy Bradshaw.

+ M. Taylor. He and George Ross (the Scotch agent and worthy confidant of Lord Mansfield) managed the business,

nice, but perfectly sore, in every thing that touches his honour. If any man, for example, were to accuse him of taking his stand at a gaming-table, and watching, with the soberest attention, for a fair opportunity of engaging a drunken young nobleman at piquet, he would, undoubtedly, consider it as an infamous aspersion upon his character, and resent it like a man of honour. Acquitting him, therefore, of drawing a regular and splendid subsistence from any unworthy practices, either in his own house, or elsewhere, let me ask your Grace, for what military merits you have been pleased to reward him with military government? He had a regiment of dragoons, which, one would imagine, was at least an equivalent for any services he ever performed. Besides, he is but a young officer, considering his preferment; and, except in his activity at Preston, not very conspicuous. in his profession. But it seems the sale of a civil employment was not sufficient; and military governments, which were intended for the support of worn-out veterans, must be thrown into the scale, to defray the extensive bribery of a contested election. Are these the steps you take to secure to your Sovereign the attachment of his army? With what countenance dare you appear in the royal presence, branded, as