Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/90

This page has been validated.
80
LETTERS OF

a well-repeated lesson is widely distant from the animated expression of the heart.

This distinction, however, is only true with respect to the measure itself. The consequences of it reach beyond the minister, and materially affect his Majesty's honour. In their own nature they are formidable enough to alarm a man of prudence, and disgraceful enough to afflict a man of spirit. A subject, whose sincere attachment to his Majesty's person and family is founded upon rational principles, will not, in the present conjuncture, be scrupulous of alarming, or even of afflicting, his Sovereign. I know there is another sort of royalty, of which his Majesty has plenty of experience. When the loyalty of Tories, Jacobites, and Scotchmen, has once taken possession of an unhappy Prince, it seldom leaves him without accomplishing his destruction. When the poison of their doctrines has tainted the natural benevolence of his disposition, when their insidious counsels have corrupted the stamina of his government, what antidote can restore him to his political health and honour, but the firm sincerity of his English subjects?