or by what excess of folly has it happened, that those ungracious acts, which have distinguished your administration, and which I doubt not were entirely your own, should carry with them a strong appearance of personal interest, and even of personal enmity in a quarter, where no such interest or enmity can be supposed to exist, without the highest injustice and the highest dishonour? On the other hand, by what judicious management have you contrived it, that the only act of mercy, to which you have ever advised your Sovereign, far from adding to the lustre of a character, truly gracious and benevolent, should be received with universal disapprobation and disgust? I shall consider it as a ministerial measure, because it is an odious one, and as your measure, my Lord Duke, because you are the minister.
As long as the trial of this chairman was depending, it was natural enough that government should give him every possible encouragement and support. The honourable service for which he was hired, and the spirit with which he performed it, made common cause between your grace and him. The minister, who by secret corruption invades
