Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/81

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19. March, 1770.
 * SIR,

BELIEVE there is no man, however indifferent about the interests of this country, who will not readily confess that the situation, to which we are now reduced, whether it has arisen from the violence of faction, or from an arbitrary system of government, justifies the most melancholy apprehensions, and calls for the exertion of whatever wisdom or vigour is left among us. The King's answer to the remonstrance of the City of London, and the measures since adopted by the Ministry, amount to a plain declaration, that the principle, on which Mr. Luttrell was seated in the House of Commons, is to be supported in all its consequences, and carried to its utmost extent. The same spirit, which violated the freedom of election, now invades the declaration and bill of rights, and threatens to punish the subject for exercising a privilege, hitherto