| Show I f j FAMOUS FORTY IYE We insert today John Wilkes most famous North Briton It is old in history his-tory buy new in Utah and as many friends have for years desired to have it we publish it It was intended to have Junius Letters to Lord Mansfield on this number also published at the same time but they were crowded cut IXo XLV Saturday April 231763 The North Briton makes his appeal to the good sense and to the candor of the English nation In the present unsettled amt fluctuating state of the administration administra-tion he is really fearful of falling into involuntary errors and he does not wish to mislead All his reasonings have been built on the strong foundation of facts j and he is not yet informed of the whole interior state of government with such minute precision as now to venture the submitting his crude ideas of the present political crisis to the discerning and impartial im-partial public The Scottish minister has indeed retired Is his influence at an end Or does he still govern by the three wretched tools of his power who to their indelible infamy have supported the most odious of his measures the late ignominious Peace and the wicked extension of the arbitrary I mode of excise The North Briton I has been steady in his opposition to angle a-ngle insolent incapable despotic minister min-ister and is equally ready mnttie service of his country coaibat the tripleheaded < J r Cerberean administration if the Scot is to assume that motly form By him every arrangement to this hour has been made and the notification has been so regularly sent by letter under his hand It therefore there-fore seems clear to a demonstration that he intends only to retire into that situation situa-tion which he held before he first took the seals I mean the dictating to every part of the kings administration The worth Briton desires to be understood as haying pledged himself a firm and intrepid in-trepid assertor of the rights of his fellow subjects and of the liberties of Whigs and Englishmen 4 The Kings speech has always been considered by the legislature and by the public at large as the speech of the minister min-ister It has regularly at the the beginning be-ginning of every session of parliament been referred by both houses to the consideration con-sideration of a committee and has been generally canvassed with the utmost freedom when the minister of the crown has been obnoxious to the nation The ministers of this free country conscious of the undoubted privileges of so spirited a people and with the terrors of parliament before their eyes have ever been cautions no less with regard to the matter than to the expressions of speeches which they have advised the sovereign to make from the throne at the opening of each session They well knew that an honest house of parliament true to their trust could not f 1 to detect the fallacious arts or to rem na rate against the daring acts of violence committed by any minister The speech at the close of the session has ever been considered as the most secure method of promulgating the favorite court creed among the vulgar because the parliament which is the constitutional guardian of the liberties of the people has in this case no opportunity op-portunity of remonstrating or of impeaching im-peaching any wicked servant of the crown crownThis week has given the public the most abandoned instance of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on mankind The ministers speech of last Tuesday is not to be parelleled in the annals of this country I am in doubt whether the imposition is greater on the sovereign or on the nation Every friend of his country must lament that a prince of so many great and amiable qualities whom England truly reveres can be brought to give the sanction of his sacred name to the most odious measures and to the most unjustifiable public declarations from a throne ever renowned for truth honor and unsullied virtue I am sure all foreigners especially the King of Prussia will hold the minister in contempt con-tempt and abhorrence He has made our sovereign declare My expectations have been fully answered by the happy effects which the several allies of my crown have derived irom this salutary measure of the definitive treaty The powers of war with my good brother the King of Prussia have been induced to agree to such terms of accommodation accom-modation as that great prince has approved and the success which has attended my negotiation has necessarily and immediately diffused the blessings of peace through very part of Europe The infamous fallacy of this whole sentence is apparent to all mankind man-kind for it is known that the king of Prussia did not barely approve but absolutely ab-solutely dictated as conqueror every article of the terms of peace No advantage ad-vantage of any kind has accrued to that magnanimous prince from our negotiation but he was basely deserted by the Scottish Scot-tish prime minister of England He was known by every court in Europe to be scarcely on better terms of friendship here than at Vienna and he was be rayed by us in the treaty of peace What a strain of insolence therefore is I it in a minister to lay claim to what he is conscious all his efforts tended to prevent pre-vent and meanly to arrogate to himself a share in the fame and glory of one of the greatest princes the world has ever seen The king of Prussia however has gloriously kept all his former conquests and stipulated security for his allies even for the elector of Hanover I know in what light this great prince is considered in Europe and in what manner he has been treated here among other reasons perhaps for some contemptuous expressions expres-sions he may have used of the Scot expressions ex-pressions which are every day echoed by the while body of Englishmen through the southern portion of this island The preliminary articles of peace were such as have drawn the contempt of mankind man-kind on our wretched negotiators All our most valuable conquests were agreed to be restored and the East India Compa ny would have been infalliby ruined by a single article of this fallacious and baneful bane-ful negotiation NO hireling of the minister min-ister has been hardy enough to dispute this yet the minister himself has made our sovereign declarethe satisfaction which he felt at the approaching reestablishment of peace upon conditions so honorable to his crown and so beneficial to his people As to the entire approbation tion of parliament which is so vainly boasted of the world knows how that was obtained The large debt on the civil list already above half a year in arrear shows pretty clear the transactions transac-tions of the winter It is however remarkable re-markable that the ministers speech dwells on the entire approbation iven by Parliament to the Preliminary Articles which I will venture to say he must be ashamed of for he has been brought to confess the total want of that knowledge accuracy and precision by which such immense advantages both of trade and territory were sacrificed to our inveterate enemies These gross blunders are indeed in-deed in some measure set right by the Definite Treaty yet the most important articles relative 0to cession commerce and the fishery remain as they were with respect to the French The proud and feeble Spaniard too does not renounce but only desists from all pretentions which he may have formed to tlieright of fishingwhere Only about the island of Newfoundland till a favorite oppor tunity arises of insisting on it there as well as elsewhere II The minister cannot forbear even in the kings speech insulting us with a dull repetition of the word economy I did not expect so Boon tohear that word again after it had been so lately exploded and more than once by a most numerous audience hissed off the stag of our Eng ish theatres It is held in derision by the voice of the people and every tongue I loudly proclaim the universal contempt I I in which these empty professions are j i held by this nation Let the public be I informed of a single instance of economy f except indeed in the household Is a regiment which was completed as to its complement of officers on the Tuesday and broke on the Thursday a proof of economy Is the pay cf the Scottish Master Elliot to he voted by an English parliament under the head of economy Is tins among a thousand others one of the convincing proofs of a firm resolution to form government on a plan of strict economy Is it not notorious that in the reduction of the army not the least attention has been paid to it Many unnecessary expenses have been incurred only to increase the power of the crown that is to create more lucrative lucra-tive jobs for the creatures of the minister minis-ter The staff indeed is broke but the discerning part of mankind immediately comprehended the mean subterfuge and resented the indignity put upon so brave an officer as Marshal Ligonier That step was taken to give the whole power of the army to the crown that is to the minister minis-ter Lord Ligonier is now no longer at r the head of the army but Lord Bute in effect is I mean that every preferment given by the crown will be found still to be obtained by his enormous influence and to be bestowed only on the creatures the Scottish faction The nation is still in the same deplorable state while he governs gov-erns and can make the tools of his power pursue the same odious measures I Such a retreat as he intends can only I mean the personal indemnity which I hope guilt will never fInd from an injured in-jured nation The negotiations of the late inglorious peace and the excise will haunt him wherever he goes and the terrors of the just resentment which he must be sure to meet from a brave an insulted in-sulted people and which must finally crush him will be forever before his eyes In vain such a minister the foul dregs of his power the tools of corruption and despotism preach up in the speech that spirit of concord and that obedience to the laws which is essential to good order or-der They have sent the spirit of discord dis-cord through the land and I will prophecy pro-phecy that it will never be extinguished but by the extinction of their power Is the spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the peace and excise through this nation Is it expected between an insolent in-solent exciseman and a peer gentleman gen-tleman freeholder or farmer whose private houses are now made liable to be entered and searched at pleasure Gloucestershire Hereford shire and in general all the cider counties coun-ties are not surely the several counties which are alluded to in the speech The spirit of concord hath not gone forth among them but the spirit of liberty has and a noble opposition has been given to the wicked instruments of oppression A nation as sensible as the English will see that a spirit of concord when they are oppressed means a tame submission to injury and that a spirit of liberty ought then to arise and I am sure ever will in proportion to the weight of the grievance they feel Every legal attempt of a contrary tendency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable resistance re-sistance warranted by the spirit of the English Constitution A despotic minister will always endeavor endea-vor to dazzle his Prince with highflown ideas of the prerogative and honor of the crown which the minister will make a parade of firmly maintaining I wish as much as any man in the kingdom to seethe see-the honor of the crown maintained in a manner truly becoming royalty I lament to see it sunk even to prostitution What a shame was it to see the security of this country in point of military force complimented com-plimented away contrary to the opinion of royalty itself and sacrificed to the prejudices pre-judices and to the ignorance of a set of people the most unfit from every consideration to be consulted con-sulted on a matter relative to the security of the honse of Hanover I wish to see the honor of the crown religiously re-ligiously asserted with regard to our allies and the dignity of it scrupulously maintained with regard to foreign princes Is it possible such an indignity can have happened such a sacrifice of the honor of the crown of England as that a minister should have already kissed his majestys hand on being appointed ap-pointed to the most insolent and ungrateful ungrate-ful court in the world without a previous assurance of that reciprocal nomination which the meanest court in Europe would insist upon before she proceeded to an act otherwise so derogatory to her honor But ElectoralP olicy has ever been obsequious to the court of Vienna and forgets the insolence with the Count Colloredo left England Upon a principle prin-ciple of dignity and economy Lord Stor mont a Scottish peer of the loyal house of Murray kissed his majestys hand I think on Wednesday in the Easter week but this ignominous act has not yet disgraced the nation in the London Gazette The ministry are not ashamed of doing this thing in private they are only afraid of the publication Was it a tender regard for the honor of the late King or of his present majesty that invited to court Lord George Sackville in these first days of peace to share in the general satisfaction which all good courtiers received in the indignity offered to Lord Ligonier on the advancement of Was it to show princely gratitude grati-tude to the eminent services of the accomplished ac-complished general of the house of Brunswick who has had so great a share I in rescuing Europe from the yoke of France and whose nephew we hope soon to see made happy in the possession I of the most amiable princess in the world Or is meant to assert the honor i of the crown only against the united wishes of a loyal and affectionate people founded in a happy experience of the talents ability integrity and virtue of those who have had the glory of re deeming their country from bondage and ruin in order to support by every art of corruption and intimidarion a weak dis jointed incapable set ofI will not call them anything but 1lini ter8by whom the Facorite still meditates to rule this kingdom with a rod of iron The Stuart line has ever been intoxicated intoxi-cated with the slavish doctrines of the absolute independent unlimited power of the crown Some of that line were so weakly advised as to endeavor to reduce them into practice but English the nation na-tion was too spirited to suffer the least encroachment en-croachment on the ancient liberties of this kingdom The king of England is f only the first magistrate of this country i but is invested by the law with the whole I executive power He is however responsible re-sponsible to his people for the due execution exe-cution of the royal functions in the choice of ministers etc equal with the meanest of his subjects in his particular I duty The personal character of our present pres-ent amiable sovereign makes us easy and happy that so great a power is lodged I in such hands but the Favoriet has given too just cause for him to escape the general I gen-eral odium The prerogative of the crown is to exert the constitutional powers entrusted en-trusted to it in a way not of blind favor partiality but of wisdom and judgment judg-ment This is the spirit of our constitution constitu-tion The people too have their prerogative preroga-tive and I hope the fine words of Dray den will be graven on our hearts Freedom is the English subjects prerogative I preroga-tive |
