Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/200

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190
LETTERS OF

LETTER L.


TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.


9. July, 1771.
MY LORD,

THE influence of your Grace's fortune still seems to preside over the treasury.—The genius of Mr. Bradshaw inspires Mr. Robinson[1]. How remarkable it is (and I speak of it not as a matter of reproach, but as something peculiar to your character) that you have never yet formed a friendship, which has not been fatal to the object of it; nor adopted a cause, to which, one way or other, you have not done mischief! Your attachment is infamy while it lasts; and, whichever way it turns, leaves ruin and disgrace behind it. The deluded girl who yields to such a profligate, even while he is constant, forfeits her reputation as well as her innocence, and finds herself abandoned at last to misery and shame.—

  1. By an intercepted letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, it appeared, that the friends of government were to be very active in supporting the ministerial nomination of sheriff.