Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/228

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it is not from any fear of giving offence to Sir William Draper.

Your remarks upon a signature adopted merely for distinction, are unworthy of notice: but when you tell me I have submitted to be called a liar and a coward, I must ask you, in my turn, whether you seriously think it any way incumbent on me to take notice of the silly invectives of every simpleton who writes in a news-paper; and what opinion you would have conceived of my discretion, if I had suffered myself to be the dupe of so shallow an artifice?

Your appeal to the sword, though consistent enough with your late profession, will neither prove your innocence, nor clear you from suspicion.—Your complaints with regard to the Manilla ransom, were, for a considerable time, a distress to government. You were appointed (greatly out of your turn) to the command of a regiment; and during that administration we heard no more of Sir William Draper. The facts of which I speak may, indeed, be variously accounted for; but they are too notorious to be denied; and I think