Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/21

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DEDICATION.
vii

sacrifice those of the nation, is no check to a brutal degenerate mind. Without insisting upon the extravagant concession made to Harry the Eighth, there are instances, in the history of other countries, of a formal deliberate surrender of the public liberty into the hands of the sovereign. If England does not share the same fate, it is because we have better resources than in the virtue of either house of parliament.

I said, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all your rights, and that the right of the juries to return a general verdict is part of your constitution. To preserve the whole system, you must correct your legislature. With regard to any influence of the constituent over the conduct of the representative, there is little diference between a seat in parliament for seven years, and a seat for life. The prospect of your resentment is too remote; and although the