Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/131

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you have distributed to carry the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes, or even your secretary's share in the last subscription, would have kept the Turks at your devotion. Was it economy, my Lord? or, did the coy resistance you have constantly met with in the British senate, make you despair of corrupting the divan? Your friends indeed have the first claim upon your bounty, but if five hundred pounds a year can be spared in pension to Sir John Moore, it would not have disgraced you to have allowed something to the secret service of the public.

You will say, perhaps, that the situation of affairs at home demanded and engrossed the whole of your attention. Here, I confess, you have been active. An amiable accomplished prince ascends the throne, under the happiest of all auspices, the acclamations and united affections of his subjects. The first measures of his reign, and even the odium of a favourite, were not able to shake their attachment. Your services, my Lord, have been more successful. Since you were permitted to take the lead, we have seen the natural effects of a system of government at once both odious and contemptible. We