LETTER XLIV.

TO THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH.

MY LORD, September 20, 1768. PERMIT me to have the honour of introducing you to a very amiable and valuable acquaintance. Mr. Ford is the gentle man I mean. Your Lordship will forgive the timidity and bashfulness of his first address, and, considering your quality, condescend to make him some advances. There is a similarity in your circumstances, to say nothing of your virtues and understanding, which may lay the foundation of a solid friendship between you for the rest of your lives. Undoubtedly you are not quite unacquainted with a character on which you appear to have formed your own. His case was singular, my Lord, and cannot fail of exciting some emotions of sympathy in your Lordship's breast. This worthy man found himself exposed to a most malicious prosecution for perjury. A profligate jury found him guilty, and a cruel jadge pronounced his sentence of imprisonment, pillory, and transportation. His mind was a good deal distressed in the course of this affair (for he too is a man of delicate feelings), but his character, like yours, was above the reach of malice. Not to keep your Lordship any longer in pain, I have the pleasure of telling you that, when law and justice had done their worst, a lady, in whom he seldom places any confidence at cards, was generous enough to stand his friend. Fortune discovered a flaw in the indictment; and now, my Lord, in spite of an iniquitous prosecution, in spite of conviction and sentence, he stands as fair in his reputation as ever he did. Your Lordship will naturally be struck with the resemblance between your case and his. Facts were so particularly stated against you that they could not be denied; the order in which they happened was demonstrated, and sentence was pronounced by the public. The affair was over, when up gets Tommy Ford, and discovers that the whole transaction passed in the last week of July instead of the first in August. This mistake, as it brought the object nearer to us, I called advancing. In your Lordship's country I presume it may properly be called a retreat. Here, however, the comparison

ends

my

Your friend escaped by a form of law. But you, my Lord, have been tried at a tribunal of honour and equity. The public, who are your judges, will not suffer mistake (however it may prove the badness of my heart to acknowledge it) to quash the indictment against you. You are convicted of having done a base and foolish action, in a manner the most despicable and absurd. Your punishment attends you in the contempt and detestation of mankind.

Your Lordship has been pleased to publish a long letter in the Gazetteer, to prove that all Sir Jeffery Amherst's military services are a mere fiction. You did not sign it, indeed, because you had lately signed another, containing the most express and authentic acknowledgment of those services in a style of applause not very distant from flattery. You will not now, it seems, allow him any share in the reduction of Louisbourg, or the conquest of Canada. Perhaps, after all, he never was in America. I am not a soldier, my Lord, nor will I pretend to determine what share of honour a general is entitled to for success, who must have borne the whole blame and disgrace if he had failed. Had the event been unfavourable, his officers, I dare say, would have been willing enough to yield their concern in it to their commander-in-chief. As to the rest, I have heard from military men that the judgment and capacity which make resistance useless or impracticable are rated much higher than even the resolution which overcomes it. When you, my Lord, and Mr. Ford are forgotten, this country will remember with gratitude, that Sir Jeffery Amherst had the honour of making sixteen French battalions prisoners of war; that he carried on the whole war in America at an expense less than the fortunes which some individuals had acquired by contracts and management in Germany; and that he did not put the savings into his own pocket.

If a British peerage be too high a reward for him, at least do him justice. Do not assure the public that he was no contented with a revenue of four thousand pounds a year, when you know that the income of his government and two regiments did not exceed two thousand three hundred, and that, until he was positively outraged, he never complained As I profess dealing ir facts, take the account :

As to a peerage, you would have done well to consider upor what sort of people this honour has been conferred for ter years past. Among the rest, we should be glad to know what were your Lordship's services or merits when you were created Baron of Harwich. I take for granted that they were of a different complexion from those of Sir J. A., since they have been so differently rewarded.

Here I shall conclude. You have sent Sir Jeffery Amherst to the plough. You have left him poor in every article of which a false fawning minister could deprive him; but you have lef him rich in the esteem, the love, and veneration of his country. You cannot now recall him by any offer of wealth or honours. Yet I foretell that a time will come when you yourself will be the cause of his return. Proceed, my Lord, as you have begun, and you will soon reduce this country to an extremity in which the wisest and best subjects must be called upon, and must be employed. Till then enjoy your triumph.

LUCIUS.

LETTER XLV.

TO THE FRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, October 6, 1768. SINCE my last letter was printed*, a question has been stated in the newspapers, which I think it incumbent upon me as an honest man to answer. Admitting my representation of the melancholy state of this country and of public credit to be strictly true, "what good purpose can it answer to discover such truths, and to lay our weakness open to the world?" One would think such a question hardly wanted a reply. If a real misfortune were lessened by concealment; if, by shutting our eyes to our weakness, we could give our enemies an opinion of our strength, none but a traitor would withdraw

* Miscellaneous Letter, No. 33.

the veil which covered the nakedness of his country. But if the contrary be true, if concealment serves only to nourish and increase the mischief, the conclusion is direct. A good subject will endeavour to rouse the attention of his country; he will give the alarm, and point out the danger against which she ought to provide. The policy of concealment is no better than the wisdom of a prodigal, who wastes his estate without reflection, and has not courage enough to examine his

accounts.

In my last letter I foretold the great fall of the stocks, which has since happened, and I now do not scruple to foretell that they must and will fall much lower. Yet I am not moved by the arts of stockjobbers, or by temporary rumours, magnified, if not created, for particular purposes in the alley These artifices are directed to maintain a fluctuation, not a continued fall. The principles on which my reasoning is founded are taken generally from the state of France and of this country. When I see our natural enemy strong enough not only to elude a material article of treaty *, but to set us at defiance while they conquer a kingdom †; and when I combine this appearance of strength with their natural restlessness, I cannot doubt of their taking the first opportunity to recover their lost honour by a fresh declaration of war. On the other hand, considering the hostile temper of the colonies towards us, the oppressive weight of a monstrous debt (to which a peace of six years has scarce given a sensible relief), and, above all, the misery, weakness, and distraction of our interior government, I cannot have a doubt that our enemies now have, or in a very little time will have, the fairest opportunity they can wish for to force us into a war. The conclusion to be drawn from these premises is obvious. It amounts to a moral certainty, and leaves no room for hope or apprehension.

To these, which are the most important circumstances of our situation, may well be added the high price of labour, the decay of trade, and the ruinous system on which it is conducted. Every minuter article conspires against us. The deficiency of the civil list must be paid, and cannot be paid

His Most Catholic Majesty, being a branch of the Bourbon dynasty--in the refusal of his ministers to discharge the Manilla ransom.

t Corsica.

'with less than 700,000. The India Company will yield to no terms which are not founded on an express acknowledg ment of their exclusive property in their conquests in Asia. How far their pretensions are just, is at least a doubtful question. Whether parliament will divest them of this property by a mere declaratory law, is a matter of the most important consideration. It would be a dreadful precedent, because it would shake every security of private property. Yet, even if that were determined, another question remains full of difficulty and danger; that is, in what manner the public will avail themselves of this great right, decided by nothing but a vote of parliament.

Sir, I am not affected by the rumours of the day. If the stocks rise or fall upon a report of tranquillity or tumult at Boston*, I am satisfied that it is owing to the arts and management of stockjobbers. But I see the spirit which has gone abroad through the colonies, and I know what consequences that spirit must and will produce. If it be determined to enforce the authority of the legislature, the event will be uncertain; but if we yield to the pretensions of America, there is no further doubt about the matter. From that moment they become an independent people, they open their trade with the rest of the world, and England is undone

In these circumstances, calamitous as they are, I yet think the uniform direction of a great and able minister might do much. His earliest care, I am persuaded, would be to provide a fund to support the first alarm and expense of a rupture with France. If prepared to meet a war, he might perhaps avoid it. His next object would be to form a pian of agreement with the colonies. He would consent to yield some ground to the Americans, if it were possible to receive a security from them that they never would advance beyond the line then drawn, upon conditions mutually agreed on. By an equitable offer of this kind, he would certainly unite this country in the support of his measures, and I am persuaded he would have the reasonable part of the Americans of his side.

These, Sir, unfortunately for us, are views too high and important even to be thought of while we are governed as we

* See note to Junius, Letter 39, vol. i. p. 298.