Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/180

170

22. May, 1771.
 * SIR,

ERY early in the debate upon the decision of the Middlesex election, it was well observed by Junius, that the house of commons had not only exceeded their boasted precedent of the expulsion, and subsequent incapacitation, of Mr Walpole, but that they had not even adhered to it strictly, as far as it went. After convicting Mr Dyson of giving a false quotation from the Journals, and having explained the purpose which that contemptible fraud was intended to answer, he proceeds to state the vote itself by which Mr. Walpole's supposed incapacity was declared, viz:—"Resolved, That Robert Walpole, Esq. having been this session of parliament committed a prisoner to the Tower, and expelled this house, for a high breach of trust in the execution of his office, and notorious corruption when secretary at war, was and is incapable of being