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

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

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