vulsion of the whole kingdom. You may live to make the experiment, but no honest man can

IF

May 30, 1769.

the measures in which you have been most successful had been supported by any tolerable appearance of argument, I should have thought my time not ill employed in continuing to examine your conduct as a Minister, and stating it fairly to the public. But when I see questions of the highest national importance carried as they have been, and the first principles of the constitution openly violated, without argument or decency, I confess I give up the cause in despair. The meanest of your predecessors had abilities sufficient to give a colour to their measures. they invaded the rights of the people, they did not dare to offer a direct insult to their under

If

standing; and, in former times, the most venal Parliaments made it a condition, in their bargain with the Minister, that he should furnish them with some plausible pretences for selling their country and themselves. You have had the merit of introducing a more compendious system of government and logic. You neither address your self to the passions, nor to the understanding, but simply to the touch. You apply yourself immediately to the feelings of your friends; who, contrary to the forms of Parliament, never enter heartily into a debate until they have divided.

Relinquishing, therefore, all idle views of amendment to your Grace, or of benefit to the public, let me be permitted to consider your character and conduct, merely as a subject of curious speculation. There is something in both which distinguishes you, not only from all other Ministers, but all other men. It is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do right by mistake. It is not that your indolence and your activity have been equally misapplied, but that the first uniform principle, or, if I may call it, the genius of your life, should have carried you through every possible change and contradiction of conduct, without the momentary im→ putation or colour of a virtue ; and that the

wildest spirit of inconsistency should never have once betrayed you into a wise or honourable action. This, I own, gives an air of singularity to your fortune, as well as to your disposition. Let us look back, together, to a scene, in which a mind like yours will find nothing to repent of, Let us try, my Lord, how well you have supported the various relations in which you stood to your Sovereign, your country, your friends, and yourself. Give us, if it be possible, some excuse to posterity, and to ourselves, for submitting to your administration. If not the abilities of a great minister, if not the integrity of a patriot, or the fidelity of a friend, show us, at least, the firmness of a man. For the sake of your mistress, the lover shall be spared. I will not lead her into public as you have done; nor will I insult the memory of departed beauty. Her sex, which alone made her amiable in your eyes, makes her respectable in mine.

The character of the reputed ancestors of some men, has made it possible for their descendants to be vicious in the extreme, without being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue even to their legitimate posterity; and you may look back

with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your descent, my Lord, than the register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheritance of reputation. There are some hereditary strokes of character, by which a family may bẹ as clearly distinguished, as by the blackest features of the human face. Charles the First lived and died a hypocrite. Charles the Second was a hypocrite of another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. At the distance of a century, we see their different characters happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and severe, without religion, profligate without gaiety, you live like Charles the Second, without being an amiable companion; and, for aught I know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr.

You had already taken your degrees with credit, in those schools in which the English nobility are formed to virtue, when you were introduced to Lord Chatham's protection.* From Newmarket, White's, and the opposi

To understand these passages, the reader is referred to a noted pamphlet, called, the History of the Minority.

sition, he gave you to the world with an air of popularity, which young men usually set out with, and seldom preserve: grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for business; too young for treachery; and, in short, a patriot of no unpromising expectations. Lord Chatham was the earliest object of your political wonder and attachment; yet you deserted him, upon the first hopes that offered of an equal share of power with Lord Rockingham. When the late Duke of Cumberland's first negociation failed, and when the favourite was pushed to the last extremity, you saved him, by joining with an administration, in which Lord Chatham had refused to engage. Still, however, he was your friend: and you are yet to explain to the world, why you consented to act without him; or why, after uniting with Lord Rockingham, you deserted and betrayed him. You complained, that no measures were taken to satisfy your patron; and that your friend, Mr. Wilkes, who had suffered so much for the party, had been abandoned to his fate. They have since contributed, not a little, to your present plenitude of power; yet, I think, Lord Chatham has less reason than ever to be satisfied: and, as for Mr. Wilkes, it is, perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should have so many compensations to make in