Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/74

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28
LETTERS OF

enterprize, which might fairly be attributed to his capacity as a general. It is you, Sir William, who make your friend appear awkward and ridiculous, by giving him a laced suit of tawdry qualifications, which nature never intended him to wear.

You say, he has acquired nothing but honour in the field. Is the ordnance nothing? Are the Blues nothing? Is the command of the army, with all the patronage annexed to it, nothing? Where he got these nothings I know not; but you at least ought to have told us when he deserved them.

As to his bounty, compassion, &c. it would have been but little to the purpose, though you had proved all that you have asserted. I meddle with nothing but his character as commander in chief; and though I acquit him of the baseness of selling commissions, I still assert that his military cares have never extended beyond the disposal of vacancies; and I am justified by the complaints of the whole army, when I say that, in this distribution, he consults nothing but parliamentary interests, or the gratification of his immediate dependents. As to his servile submission