foreseen that, if they returned Mr. Walpole again, he would again be rejected; but they never could infer, from a resolution by which the candidate with the fewest votes was declared not duly elected, that at a future election, and in similar circumstances, the House of Commons would reverse their resolution, and receive the same candidate as duly elected, whom they had before rejected.

This, indeed, would have been a most extraordinary way of declaring the law of parliament, and what I presume no man, whose understanding is not at crosspurposes with itself, could possibly understand.

If, in a case of this importance, I thought myself at liberty to argue from suppositions rather than from facts, I think the probability, in this instance, is directly the reverse of what the ministry affirm; and that it is much more likely that the House of Commons, at that time, would rather have strained a point in favour of Mr. Taylor, than that they would have violated the law of parliament, and robbed Mr. Taylor of a right legally vested in him, to gratify a refractory borough, which, in defiance of them, had returned a person branded with the strongest mark of the displeasure of the house.

But really, Sir, this way of talking, for I cannot call it argument, is a mockery of the common understanding of the nation, too gross to be endured. Our dearest interests are at stake. An attempt has been

VOL. I.

made, not merely to rob a single county of its rights, but, by inevitable consequence, to alter the constitution of the House of Commons. This fatal attempt has succeeded, and stands as a precedent recorded forever. If the ministry are unable to defend their cause by fair argument founded on facts, let them spare us at least the mortification of being amused and deluded like children. I believe there is yet a spirit of resistance in this country, which will not submit to be oppressed; but I am sure there is a fund of good sense in this country, which cannot be deceived.

JUNIUS.

LETTER XVII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER

SOME of the less skilful or more pertinacious advocates for the decision of the House of Commons on the Middlesex election, were disposed to overlook every thing in the contest, but the turpitude of Wilkes's moral character, the turbulent refractoriness of the freeholders of Middlessx, the indefinite extent of the privilege of parliament, and the unreasonableness of exciting discontent throughout the nation, on account of a single act of doubtful legality by its representatives.

A quotation from a pamphlet by one of these advocates of the ministry, and a letter by another, had appeared in the Public Advertiser, since the publication of JUNIUS's last Letter. The object of the present Letter, is, to refute what those persons had advanced. He finds little difficulty in maintaining what he had before, indeed, sufficiently evinced; that it was law, not general reason nor expediency, by which alone the contest might be decided; and that the House of Commons could possess, under the right of privilege of parliament, no authority but what was, at least, either expressed in statutes, or established by a train of clear, unexceptionable precedents. He urges, that the ministry themselves did not presume to maintain that, if there were even usefulness or equity in the annihilation of the votes of the obnoxious electors of Middlesex, the House of Commons could, by a simple resolution, make it law. He deprecates the recurrence of any similar exercise of an usurped authority by that House; and expresses a wish that, if it be thought necessary to endow the representatives of the Commons with such a power, it should at least be conferred by one regular and solemn act of the whole legislature.

This Letter is less masterly than that which immediately precedes it; but the purpose for which it was written, was comparatively alight. It appears as an auxiliary epistle from PHILO-JUNIUS.

SIR,

1. August, 1769. It will not be necessary for JUNIUS to take the trouble of answering your correspondent G. A. or the quotation from a speech without doors, published in your paper of the 28th of last month. The speech appeared before JUNIUS's Letter; and, as the author seems to consider the great proposition, on which all his argument depends, viz. that Mr. Wilkes was under that known legal incapacity of which JUNIUS speaks, as a point granted, his speech is in no shape an answer to JUNIUS, for this is the very question in debate.

As to G. A. I observe, first, that if he did not admit JUNIUS's state of the question, he should have shewn the fallacy of it, or given us a more exact one; -secondly, that considering the many hours and days which the ministry and their advocates have wasted, in public debate, in compiling large quartos, and collecting innumerable precedents, expressly to prove; that the late proceedings of the House of Commo.is are warranted by the law, custom, and practice of parliament, it is rather an extraordinary supposition, to be made by one of their own party, even for the sake of argument, that no such statute, no such custom of parliament, no such case in point, can be produced.

A point granted in no shape an answer.] Even from the pen of JUNIUS, this phraseology is not to be approved as elegant or pure. It is evidently vulgar; and the use of-in no shape—is indefensibly incorrect.

G. A. may, however, make the supposition with safety. It contains nothing but literally the fact, except that there is a case exactly in point, with a decision of the house diametrically opposite to that which the present House of Commons came to in favour of Mr. Luttrell.

The ministry now begin to be ashamed of the weakness of their cause; and as it usually happens with falsehood, are driven to the necessity of shifting their ground, and changing their whole defence. At first we were told, that nothing could be clearer than that the proceedings of the House of Commons were justified by the known law and uniform custom of parliament. But now, it seems, if there be no law, the House of Commons have a right to make one; and if there be no precedent, they have a right to create the first:-for this, I presume, is the amount of the questions proposed to JUNIUS. If your correspondent had been at all versed in the law of parliament, or generally in the laws of this country, he would have seen that this defence is as weak and false as the former.

The necessity of shifting their ground.] JUNIUS, with good reason, supposed the ministry to be willing to urge, in defence of the obnoxious decision of the House of Commons, all arguments, whether good or bad, that might have any weight with any understandings. This induced him to discuss and refute, not only their capital arguments, but even the weakest they could produce with any shew of plausibility; since there were none so weak as not to influence some minds.