Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/230

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LETTERS OF

upheld in his insolence, because it would mortify the king!

Junius may choose to suppose that these things cannot happen! But, that they have happened, notwithstanding Mr. Wilkes's denial, I do aver. I maintain that Mr. Wilkes did commission Mr. Thomas Walpole to solicit for him a pension of one thousand pounds, on the Irish establishment, for thirty years; with which, and a pardon, he declared he would be satisfied: and that, notwithstanding his letter to Mr. Onslow, he did accept a clandestine, precarious, and eleemosynary pension from the Rockingham administration, which they paid in proportion to, and out of their salaries; and so entirely was it ministerial, that, as any of them went out of the ministry, their names were scratched out of the list, and they contributed no longer. I say, he did solicit the governments, and the embassy, and threatened their refusal nearly in these words—"It cost me a year and a half to write down the last administration; should I employ as much time upon you, very few of you would be in at the death." When these threats did not