Jump to content

Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/107

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.

supposed to descend, made such frequent use of them in his public declarations, that at last the people also found it necessary to appeal to heaven in their turn. Your administration has driven us into circumstances of equal distress;—beware at least how you remind us of the remedy.

You have already much to answer for. You have provoked this unhappy gentleman to play the fool once more in public life, in spite of his years and infirmities, and to show us, that, as you yourself are a singular instance of youth without spirit, the man who defends you is a no less remarkable example of age without the benefits of experience. To follow such a writer minutely, would, like his own periods, be a labour without end. The subject too has been already discussed, and is sufficiently understood. I cannot help observing, however, that, when the pardon of Mac Quirk was the principal charge against you, it would have been but a decent compliment to your grace's understanding, to have defended you upon your own principles. What credit does a man deserve, who tells us plainly, that the facts set forth in the King's proclamation were not