Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/174

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as you are. By your doctrine, Sir, they have the power; and laws, you know, are intended to guard against what men may do, not to trust to what they will do.

Upon the whole, Sir, the charge against you is of a plain, simple nature: It appears even upon the face of your own pamphlet. On the contrary, your justification of yourself is full of subtlety and refinement, and in some places not very intelligible. If I were personally your enemy, I should dwell, with a malignant pleasure, upon those great and useful qualifications which you certainly possess, and by which you once acquired, though they could not preserve to you the respect and esteem of your country; I should enumerate the honours you have lost, and the virtues you have disgraced: but having no private resentments to gratify, I think it sufficient to have given my opinion of your public conduct, leaving the punishment it deserves to your closet and to yourself.

JUNIUS.