I SHALL begin this letter to your Lord­ship, with an extract of a letter I ad­dressed some time since to Lord Mansfield, because I know how exactly your Lordship's capa­city is fitted to think just as he thinks.

To him observed;—to your Lordship I repeat it.—

"That in matters of private property we see the same bias and inclination to depart from the decision of your predecessors, which you certainly [Page 74]ought to receive, as evidence of common law; in­stead of those certain positive rules, by which the judgment of a court of law should invariably be determined, you have fondly introduced your own unsettled notions of equity and substantial justice. Decisions given upon such principles, do not alarm the public so much as they ought, be­cause the consequence and tendency of each par­ticular instance is not observed, or regarded." But the day is now come, my Lord; the public have taken the alarm; your Lordship's lawless de­cision, in the court of Chancery, in the cause of Thickness and Liege, and the manner in which it was corruptly affirmed, in the House of Lords, has shook the kingdom to its very basis. Till that fatal day, my Lord, the supreme tribunal of this country stood un-impeached and un-polluted, as to matters of private property; but that was a day in which a deed was done, that even Lord Mans­field durst not become a partisan.

That day, my Lord, was only a grievous day to the appellant, but it will prove a fatal blow to Britain.

When the foundations of justice are so corrupt­ed, that the first law officer in the kingdom shall dare to stand forth, in the highest court of judica­ture, knowing that he has assistant judges, deter­mined to support him in reading letters containing the opinions of men not judges in that court, in order to affirm a decree unsupported by argument, and in direct contradiction to a former and recent judgment of that house, the day cannot be very remote, when the nation, the laws, and the violators of them will all be involved in one common ruin.

Your Lordship is now brought to a greater tri­bunal than even the House of Lords,

[Page 75] The Tribunal of the PUBLIC.

You stand charged, my Lord, at that awful bar, with setting at defiance those laws you were so shamefully appointed to support, in order to affirm a wicked decree, without law to sustain it, or an argument to give even a colour to shade it. You did it, my Lord, by the assistance of that Buck­horse Bully Lord Denbigh, who assasinated justice, and stifled every idea of honor or humanity; till he had driven every honest man, but Lord Cam­den, out of the House! He, it is true, was not to be menaced from his duty by the grossest lan­guage, nor frightened from his post by the foul­est fiend who ever appeared in human form.

Are you not afraid, my Lord, to lie down in your bed, knowing, for you do know it, that you have sacrificed a whole family to your vanity, and thereby ruined a gentleman, who has eight chil­dren; the eldest of whom is next heir to a seat in that house you have so openly dishonored, by plundering his father, and family, of their legal property.

I have seen, my Lord, a copy of this gentle­man's letter, written to his eldest son, now at Gi­braltar, the day after he was sacrificed at the altar of ministerial justice.

In that pathetic letter, my Lord, the highly injured, and deeply afflicted father, after informing his son with the foul doings of your Lordship, and your wicked coadjutors, adds,

"And now, my dear son, let me call upon you, as your affectionate father, and as your faithful friend (for be assured I am both) never to enter the House of Lords, without casting your eyes about you, and saying, in this house my father was [Page 76]defrauded of ten thousand pounds; and if ever you should be called to sit in judgment there, ne­ver take your seat in it, without looking up to hea­ven, and calling upon God, in a short prayer, to enable you upon every occasion to divest yourself of party zeal, all personal pique, all private resent­ment, and so to enlighten your mind, and direct your heart, that in all you say or do, it may be conformable to that godlike precept of doing as you would be done by. If you do not this; then, to God, I offer up this my fervent prayer, that you may never have any voice where justice ought to be administered."

Can your Lordship sustain the horrid reflection of the deed you have done? Of that BLACK DAY'S WORK! Can the soothing gentle man­ners of that flattering low born ^* Perrin, or the smiles of your obsequious Register, divert you from feeling the most pungent remorse? Or do they, by telling you, how much they approve your decree, make your pliant mind easy? My Lord, I know they tell you so; but I will tell you, my Lord, that they durst not say so to any lawyer.

There is but one opinion among them, and that is (you shall hear it, my Lord, while Junius can hold a pen, and you the seals) that Lord Mans­field singled your Lordship out as a vain, weak, and wicked wretch to support the same false, and unsettled doctrines in the Court of Chancery, which he has so long, and so shamefully practised in the Court of King's Bench; and which he has address enough to give sanction to, even without appearing in person, to appeals in the House of Lords.

When Lord Camden, with that gentleness of [Page 77]manners, which ever accompanies solid sense, and unshaken integrity, told your Lordship, that no man's opinion, however high his station, or how­ever great his abilities, if not a judge in that court, could be produced or read, least it should influence any of the Lords in their judgments; you had the boldness to stand forth, and casting down your hat, with which you ought to have hid your face, you persisted in reading Sir William De Grey's letter, because your bully, Lord Denbigh, said he would read another to the same purpose, if he had it.

Sir William De Grey's letter was then read by your Lordship! His opinion, it seems, coincided with the Duke of Chandois's, Lord Denbigh's, and the two Scotch Lords, who sat for Lord Mansfield.

By these worthy Peers, my Lord, and two si­lent Bishops, your Lordship's (I mean Sir William De Grey's) decree was affirmed without a division!

The week and feeble efforts of Lord Camden were overpowered by your Lordship's great abili­ties, and nobly sustained by Lord Denbigh, and your other auxiliary troops.

That Sir William De Grey's detection has pro­duced in him both shame and fear, is very obvious, for he never suspected you would so openly publish his secret instructions, as his letter to the appellant, Thickness, will clearly evince; and I make no doubt if I can prevail upon your Lordship to attend to what the world thinks, and to understand what I say, you will be equally ashamed; though I confess not equally criminal with Sir William De Grey. I say not equally criminal, my Lord, for God for­bid I should think the crimes of so contemptible a wretch as your Lordship are equal to those of a man as capable of torturing at once the laws, [Page 78]and involving them, and a whole family, in one common ruin, as even Lord Mansfield himself.

In a former paper (No. VII.) I gave your Lord­ship a copy of Sir William De Grey's first preva­ricating letter to the appellant, Thickness. On that letter I made but one comment. On this I shall, at present, make only one other. Either Sir William De Grey (I will not blot my paper with calling him a Chief-Justice) cannot support Lord Mansfield's decree, and is ashamed to repeat your Lordship's unmeaning jargon about substan­tive gifts, or he has received farther orders.

I shall conclude this letter to your Lordship, by observing that there are still a few people disposed to think favorably of you, and to impute the black part of this transaction to Sir William De Grey; because they confess the weakness of your head, and lament, as a national misfortune, that a man of such contemptible abilities, as your Lordship's, and at such a time too, should disgrace the British nation, in holding the highest law de­partment in it, without talents to acquit yourself with common decency, even in the lowest; but [Page 79]some men are still willing to hope your are ho­nest.

Now, my Lord, for their sake, and for your own also, either answer the following question fairly and openly, or for ever decline holding out lights to dazzel the world with false marks of your virtue or integrity. Would the selling a living, to Dr. Dodd, or his buying it of you, have been half so criminal as what you are now charged with?

Did not your late deceased brother, Mr. Benja­min Bathurst, keep his money, when he had any, at Messrs. Hoare's in Fleet-street? And did he not frequently over draw on that very respectable house? My Lord he did; you know he did; and did not you, his executor, when you settled the af­fairs, and possessed his property, refuse to allow that house a sum of money your necessitous bro­ther had over drawn upon it, under the shameful, shameful, did I say! under the infamous pretence, that they could not recover it, the time being lapsed!

If this be true, my Lord, and facts you know are obstinate things, the world will then be as fully satisfied about the rectitude of your heart, as they have always been about the extent of your genius. They will then be of one mind, as to your Lordship, whatever they think of JUNIUS.

I never yet knew a man perfectly sober, taking pains to convince every man he met, that he was so; but a drunken man is always acting the part of a sober one; when you rung the alarm about Dr. Dodd, I violently suspected you, and soberly set you down for the man all the world will now be­lieve you to be. And therefore I must repeat, what I said before, the nation will no longer bear with you; your Lordship cannot, after such foul pro­ceedings, hold the great seal.

[Page 80] Cambyses, King of Persia, finding that his Chief Justice, Sisamnes, had pronounced an unjust sentence, caused him to be executed and flayed, and with his skin covered the common seat of justice; then constituted Otanes, his son, judge in his room. He sat, my Lord, upon his father's skin, which probably put him in mind of his own: And Perrin will make the application for your Lordship; and, if he be not ashamed, remind your Lord­ship of the fate of the two time serving judges, Epsom and Dudley, who were hanged in the reign of Henry the Seventh. Of this transaction one of the greatest lawyers, and most upright judge this nation ever was blest with, makes this re­markable epiphonema.

"Qui eorum vestigus insistunt, eorum exitus prehorres cant.—Those that dare tread in their steps, let them dread or expect the same dismal end."

In my next I shall lay before the public some farther traits of your Lordship's public and private life, for be assured I will never drop my attention to you while you continue to hold the seals.

☞ The public are desired to observe the cunning of that most artful, as well as most wicked of men, Lord Mansfield. His Lordship first planned the affirming the decree, made by his Chan­cellor in the above cause, in order to reak his private vengeance on Thickness; and then, in a matter in which he was totally indifferent about the issue, he affects to correct Lords L—De­spencer, and Denbigh, for interfering in nice points of law. This reprimand was taken in good part, the two Lords were instanly convinced of their error. They made proper and pub­lic acknowledgment of their ignorance in the tythe cause, but Lord Denbigh's villany, in the former cause, is to pass unnoticed.