ed him so far, as to appoint him to the high office of Secretary of State, an office which he had filled ever since, without hearing a word of the sentence. Let their Lordships then consider of the hardship of that sentence being urged against him, as a disqualification for a seat in that House, which had been deemed no disqualification whatever of his being a Privy Counsellor and a Secretary of State; two situations, surely of more dignity and of more importance, considering the form of the British constitution, than even a peerage, high and dignified as the honour undoubtedly was: nor did the matter of hardship merely consist in bringing the sentence forward now, but the making it a ground of censure. Would their Lordships sanction, confirm, and aggravate a sentence, pronounced by a court-military, without having the whole of the case before them? That would be to make the military law, sufficiently severe as it confessedly was at present, ten times more severe, by annexing to its judgment the censure of a civil court of judicature. Another part of the motion he could not but object to, and must take the liberty of saying, that it did not appear to him to be in the smallest degree consonant with justice. What he meant was, the annexing to the sentence of the court-martial, that comment which the executive power had taken A A upon itself to superadd. To the sentence of the court-martial he was bound by the laws military to submit: and to that sentence he had submitted: but would any man of honour say that he was answerable for the comment of the executive government? Undoubtedly he was not. The court-martial alone was competent to pronounce upon what they thought his conduct had been he was tried by them, not by the executive government. From the time he was called to the Privy Council to the present moment, and especially since he had accepted of that high office, he had endeavoured to serve his King and country to the best of his judgment. He would not pretend to cope with any man in respect to abilities: there were many he was persuaded more able than himself; but there were points in which he would not yield to all who had before been in the service of the crown. He defied any man to prove that the public ever had a servant who had shewed more unremitting assiduity, more close attention to the duties of his situation, or more zeal for promoting the interests of the country than he had done, from the moment of his accepting the high office he had lately filled till his resignation of it. With regard to the court-martial, it was impossible for him to procure a revision of the pro ceeding: it happened two-and-twenty years since, and every member who sat upon it, excepting two very respectable characters, Lord Robert Manners and Lord Bertie, had been dead and buried long ago: any attempt to investigate the motives which actuated the several members of the court was now impracticable; but after what he had said, he flattered himself their Lordships, in general, would agree with him, that he was a person competent to receive the honours his Majesty had been graciously pleased to bestow upon him; that he was not responsible to the executive government, which were, in the motion, annexed to the court-martial, and that it was neither expedient, necessary, nor becoming for that House to fly in the face of the indisputable prerogative of the crown, merely because the crown thought proper to bestow a reward on an old servant. The Duke of Grafton, Lord Southampton [formerly Colonel Fitzroy], the Earl of Abingdon, the Earl of Derby, and the Duke of Richmond, supported the motion, which was lost by a large majority. Thus terminated this unprecedented affair: and, it is worthy of remark, that nearly the whole of those who were in the minority, had been personally attacked by Junius. Some of these, not satisfied with the division of the House on the question, drew up a dissentient, as a further memorial of their opinions. Viscount Sackville was with difficulty restrained from sending the Marquis of Carmarthen a challenge, considering that throughout the business, he had pursued him in an unwarrantable, dishonourable manner. The first motion he would have overlooked, but this double attack betrayed a something more than the purport of the motion stated. Mr. Cumberland thus describes his feelings on this galling occasion. "The well known circumstances that occurred upon the event of his elevation to the peerage, made a deep and painful impression on his feeling mind; and if his seeming patience under the infliction of it, should appear to merit, in a moral sense, the name of virtue, that he had no title to be credited for, inasmuch as it was entirely owing to the influence of some who overruled his propensities, and made themselves responsible for his honour, that he did not betake himself to the same abrupt unwarrantable mode of dismissing this insult, as he had resorted to in a former instance. No man can speak from a more intimate knowledge of his feelings upon this occasion than I can; and if I was not on the side of those, who no doubt spoke well and wisely when they spoke for peace, it is one amongst the many errors and offences which I have yet to repent of. There was once a Sir Edward Sackville, whom the world has heard of, who probably would not have possessed himself with so much calmness and forbearance, as did a late noble head of his family, whilst the question I alluded to was in agitation, and he present in his place. It was by the medium of this noble personage, that Lord Viscount Sackville meditated to send that invitation he had prepared, when the interposition and well considered remonstrances of some of his nearest friends, in particular of Lord Amherst, put him by from his resolve, and dictated a conduct more conformable to prudence, but much less suited to his inclination. ร "The law that is sufficient for the redress of injuries does not always reach to the redress of insults; thus it comes to pass, that many men in other respects wise, and just, and temperate, not having resolution to be right in their own consciences, have set aside both reason and religion, and in compliance with the evil practices of the world about them, performed their bloody sacrifices, and immolated human victims to the idol of false honour. Truth obliges me to confess, that the friend of whom I am speaking, though possessing one of the best and kindest hearts that ever beat within a human breast, was with difficulty diverted from resorting a second time to that desperate remedy, which mo |