I appeal to the common sense of the public, to which I have ever directed myself: I believe they have it, though I am sometimes half inclined to suspect that Mr. Wilkes has formed a truer judgment of mankind than I have. However, of this I am sure, that there is nothing else upon which to place a steady reliance. Trick, and low cunning, and addressing their prejudices and passions, may be the fittest means to carry a particular point; but if they have not common sense, there is no prospect of gaining for them any real permanent good. The same passions which have been artfully used by an honest man for their advantage, may be more artfully employed by a dishonest man for their destruction. I desire them to apply their common sense to this letter of Junius, not for my sake, but their own; it concerns them most nearly; for the principles it contains lead to disgrace and ruin, and are inconsistent with every notion of civil society.
The charges which Junius has brought against me, are made ridiculous by his own inconsistency and self-contradiction. He charges me positively with "a new zeal in
