Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/266

256 keep their ground;—the King is defrauded; and the navy of England may perish for want of the best and finest timber in the island. And all this is submitted to, to appease the duke of Grafton!—to gratify the man who has involved the king and his kingdom in confusion and distress; and who, like a treacherous coward, deserted his sovereign in the midst of it!

has been a strange alteration in your doctrines, since you thought it advisable to rob the Duke of Portland of his property, in order to strengthen the interest of Lord Bute's son-in-law before the last general election. Nullum tempus occurrit regi was then your boasted motto, and the cry of all your hungry partizans. Now it seems a grant of Charles the Second to one of his bastards is to be held sacred and inviolable! It must not be questioned by the King's servants, nor submitted to any interpretation but your own.—My Lord, this was not the language you held, when it suited you to insult the memory of the glorious deliverer of England from that detested family, to which you are still more nearly allied in principle than in blood.—In the name of decency and