Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/286

276 murders committed at home, and for national infamy incurred abroad; who screened Lord Mansfield; who imprisoned the magistrates of the metropolis for asserting the subject's right to the protection of the laws; who erased a judicial record, and ordered all proceedings in a criminal suit to be suspended;—this very house of commons have graciously consented that their own members may be compelled to pay their debts, and that contested elections shall, for the future, be determined with some decent regard to the merits of the case. The event of the suit is of no consequence to the crown. While parliaments are septennial, the purchase of the sitting member, or of the petitioner, makes but the difference of a day.—Concessions such as these are of little moment to the sum of things; unless it be to prove that the worst of men are sensible of the injuries they have done us, and perhaps to demonstrate to us the imminent danger of our situation. In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float, and are preserved; while every thing solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever. JUNIUS.