Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/282

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
272
LETTERS OF

What judge ever challenged a juryman but Lord Mansfield?—Who was that judge, who, to save the King's brother, affirmed that a man of the first rank and quality, who obtains a verdict in a suit for criminal conversation, is entitled to no greater damages than the meanest mechanic?—Lord Mansfield.—Who is it makes commissioners of the great seal?—Lord Mansfield.—Who is it that forms a decree for those commissioners, deciding against Lord Chatham, and afterwards (finding himself opposed by the judges) declares, in parliament, that he never had a doubt that the law was in direct opposition to that decree?—Lord Mansfield.—Who is he that has made it the study and practice of his life to undermine and alter the whole system of jurisprudence in the court of King's bench?—Lord Mansfield. There never existed a man but himself who answered exactly to so complicated a description. Compared to these enormities, his original attachment to the pretender (to whom his dearest brother was confidential secretary) is a virtue of the first magnitude. But the hour of impeachment will come, and neither he nor Grafton shall escape me. Now let them make common cause against England and the house of Hanover. A Stuart and a Murray should sympathise with each other.