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Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/162

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LETTERS OF

whelmed with confusion, and almost bereft of his faculties.—But in truth, Sir, I have left no room for an accommodation with the piety of St. James's. My offences are not to be redeemed by recantation or repentance. On one side, our warmest patriots would disclaim me as a burthen to their honest ambition. On the other, the vilest prostitution, if Junius could descend to it, would lose its natural merit and influence in the cabinet, and treachery be no longer a recommendation to the royal favour.

The persons, who, till within these few years, have been most distinguished by their zeal for high-church and prerogative, are now, it seems, the great assertors of the privileges of the house of commons. This sudden alteration of their sentiments or language, carries with it a suspicious appearance. When I hear the undefined privileges of the popular branch of the legislature exalted by Tories and Jacobites, at the expense of those strict rights which are known to the subject and limited by the laws, I cannot but suspect, that some mischievous scheme is in agitation, to destroy both law and privilege, by opposing them to each

other.