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ftanding, as to imagine, that I would rifque my credit with them, by the invention of falfhoods, when they know that I cannot make you more ridiculous and deteftable, than by painting you as you are. They will not think me fo abfurd ly obftinate, as to continue to defend an inadvertency, when the world in general must be convinced of my error. It would not be my intereft to do it. The candid and penetra ting will believe me when I declare, that fenfible of the uncertainty of all human evidence, I shall not unwillingly retract, where I have erred without intention; nor be backward to remedy, by a proper recantation, the evils a too hafty judgment might otherwife occafion. Let me leave my countrymen less ignorant of their real interests, and I fhall not anxiously folicit the reputation of infallibility; let me but arrive at truth in matters of this importance, and I care not through what channels I receive her. I fhall neither be ungrateful for the affiftance of the friends of liberty, nor deaf to the information of her enemies. Every hint on fubjects fo interesting, fhall receive its due confideration; and to him who deferves an answer, it fhall not be refused.

After fuch profeffions of impartiality; after the many proofs of my candour your Grace has already experienced; you will not fear my being hereafter unjuft alone to you. You have formed a defign worthy of the peculiarity of your talents. Your prudence in the choice of your colleagues has been exemplary. Your amiable Sovereign feems at length to be bleffed in the poffeffion of what he hath fo long in vain required; fervants whose patriotifm his measures would not offend, whose intrepid villainy their confequences could not difcourage, While the court, that den of flavery, rings with eulogiums on minifterial firmness, think not that Junius is blinded to your merits. Think not that he will ever deny a plaudit to the qualifications that have raifed you to the place you hold in the confidence of the Sovereign, and the efleem of the people-to that amazing ftrength of understanding that hath rendered you too well acquainted with the commands of reafon ever by mistake to act according to her dictates; too knowing in the paths of virtue, ever to blunder into the right to that exquifite policy that hath hitherto preserved you from shame and deftruction; that hath fhewn you at once too seriously deteftable to be laughed at, and too deteftably ridiculous ta be detefted. The fabulous legends of pious anchorites pretend not to an unremitted obfervance of the duties of religion; you alone can boaft an unerring continuance in the paths of infamy, No folitary virtue hath fullied the glories of your career, nor

hath

hath your anxious attention to the ruin of your country ever known an intermiffion. Greatness like this will not lofe its reward. England will hereafter triumph in having produced the first of villains; and St. North, St. Sandwich, St. Mansfield, and St. Grafton, cannot fail of canonization, from every votary of the infernal deity their actions evidently worship.

From the London Packet, Dec. 13.

JUNIUS.

An authentic Account of the Trial of the Caufes between the Duke of Portland, and Sir James Lowther, on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

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FTER the council was drawn up ten deep on each fide, and the judges feated in their robes, and the special jury from Cumberland impaneled, and the mufty rolls of parchment scattered round the court from all the offices in the kingdom, Mr. Wedderburn opened a short cafe for Sir James Lowther, in the cause of the foreft of Inglewood, fhewing, that the Forest of Inglewood and the Honor of Penrith had been held as feparate and diftinct manors from the earliest times down to the grant to the Earl of Portland by King William, when their feveral rights had been blended together, and ever fince enjoyed by the Portland family, under a grant for the Honor of Penrith. This he endeavoured to prove, to the fatisfaction of the learned jury, by a hundred pipe rolls, in the most crabbed Latin that ever grated the ear of man. He then called for fome leafes, to prove the defendant in poffeffion under the Duke of Portland, and fome parole evidence that proved the premiffes contended for to be within the Foreft of Inglewood: and, laftly, the lease from the crown to Sir James Lowther, to establish his right.

In reading this paper, after all the faid and aforefaid furze, heaths, waftes, fhrubs, waterways, rights, members, appurtenances, courts, royalties, regalities, &c. &c. they came to the words "thirteen fhillings and four-pence" as the referved rent to the crown. At which words the judges ftarted instantaneously, as if ftruck with an electrical fhock, declaring the leafe was contrary to the civil lift act of the first of Queen Anne, which enacts, that in all leafes from the crown there thall be referved the antient or most usual rent, the rent paid for twenty years back, a reasonable rent, or one third of the clear annual profit, none of which were fulfilled by thirteen fhillings and four-pence. The objection feemed to be totally new to the council for Sir James Lowther, who appeared to be more shocked than even the Judges themselves. The

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court gave them an hour to recover their fenfes, and confult together. In the mean while, the folemn expectations of the audience were changed to a ridiculous laughter. The jurymen dined in court to the fatisfaction of the fpectators, while Mr. Woodhoufe, the Duke of Portland's attorney, with the agility of a waiter, ferved up the repaft. When the fatal clock had founded the hour, Sir James Lowther's council returned in a train like a mourning proceffion from the Abbey; they endeavoured to mutter forth fuch arguments as nobody would then liften to, alledging, "that one third of the profits was referved to the crown by covenants in the leafe. That this was the only mode of complying with the intent of the law, where the rent was fluctuating or uncertain, and could not be ascertained, as was the cafe of courts and royalties. That the refervation intended by the law was to be taken in a liberal fenfe, the fecuring fuch and fuch profits to the crown without establishing, by a narrowed conftruction, fuch principles as must defeat the execution of the act. That with regard to the rent for the laft twenty years, the fum referved was many millions of times more than that, which indeed had been nothing. That with respect to a reasonable rent, there was hardly a man in court, when he beheld the council, briefs, proceedings and pipe rolls, and calculated the charges they must have coft Sir James Lowther, for recovering the eftate for the Crown after the expiration of three lives, who would not think, that including these circumftances, thirteen and four-pence was as much as Sir James Lowther ought to pay. That respecting the antient rent, there was no evidence on the rolls to thew that the royalties and courts have ever ftood in separate charge," But the Judge, without a reply, ordered the cryer to roar aloud for John Dent, who making no answer, was nonfuited.

Thus, to the honor of the laws of this country, the civil lift act, which was made to protect the property of the Crown, for the benefit of the Public, was the means of depriving the Public for ever of the benefit of a large eftate which had been ufurped from it: and the fame act which had been made, in confequence of the exorbitant grants to the first Earl of Portland, was now the means of confirming his ufurpations to his posterity.

The day following the caufe for the foccage Manor of Carlifle came on to be tried. It was opened by Mr. Wedderburne with great elegance and force, feeming to rise on his former defeat and his retreat to the caftle. He faid that it had been given out by the other fide to cover the weakness of

their

their caufe under popular clamour, that his client had chole this fpot to try the queftion upon, from fome particular cir cumftances which might render the poffeffion of the Duke of Portland doubtful. That he difclaimed every fubterfuge of that kind: that he admitted and allowed the Duke of Portland in poffeffion: that he wished to try the fair merits of the queftion, What right his Grace had to fuch poffeffion? which had been much mifreprefented to the world. He boldly afferted that the title of the Duke of Portland was fo faulty in every refpect, and his ufurpation fo late as the year twenty-nine, without a colour of right, and that no modern conveyancer would have depended on it between man and man, much less against the rights of the public which had ever been held facred. That the pity and compaffion which had been called forth on this occafion was wholly unmerited, and could only arife from the perfonal qualifications of the noble Duke, forgetting the circumftances of his predeceffors.-That the queftion before the court was not that of a perfon who had paid a valuable confideration for property, but that of a family who after having received the most unbounded grants from King William in perpetuity over half the counties of England larger than had been beftowed on a subject, had likewife ufurped large poffeffions and even the demefne lands of the antient crown of England, without any juft pretence whatfoever. That he undertook to prove from the earliest period of our records in the northern counties, that the Caftle and Manor of Carlifle had been in the poffeffion of the crown, and regularly continued till the year 1729, when the Duke of Portland under the colour of his Grant, of the honour of Penrith had got poffeffion. That fo far from the honour or Manor of Penrith conveying the Caftle and Manor of Carlisle, that he would fhow they had ever been held by feparate grants even poffeffed by the fame perfons.'

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Mr. Wedderburne then called his evidence, which chiefly confifted of ancient records, dry, tedious and unentertaining in the reading all parties were now, bufily employed endeavouring to catch at every doubtful word or entry. But at last on the Friday following at eleven o'clock in the morning Mr. Wedderburne compleated his proofs.

Then began the war of tongues.

The council for the Duke of Portland refted their defence wholly on the defects in Sir James Lowther's lease. They firft obferved that sol. the referved rent in the leafe was not the ancient or most usual rent, or any rent within the Civil Lift act.That the leafe to the Earl of Cumberland it is

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true referved sol. rent, and that all the leafes from Queen Henrietta Maria and Queen Catherine stated that fum. But the learned gentlemen obferved, that the Earl of Cumberland had the Caftle in his leafe which Sir James Lowther had not, that therefore the premifes could not be the fame. That Sit James Lowther had mines included in his leafe, which the Earl of Cumberland had not. That altho' it was true there were no mines open on the premises yet they might be found in the courfe of the three lives or thirty years. That befides trees were both granted and excepted in Sir James Lowther's leafe, which was not the cafe in the Earl of Cumberland's, and though it was also true that there was not a tree on the whole premises, yet they likewife might grow up in the time of the leafe, as the life of a man in the eye of the law was a thousand years.

Mr. Wedderburn answered thefe objections by fhewing that Sir James Lowther's leafe could not be deemed difcordant to the civil lift act, by containing a lefs quantity of the fame premises, and paying an equal rent as the antient leffor.That with ref pect to mines, as there were none on the premises, there could be no rational dispute about them.-But he was well informed that the first lawyer that ever fat in Weftminster-hall (hinting Lord Hardwick) had given his opinion that mines were not included within the poffible meaning of the civil lift act, more especially when unopened, fince they could be fubject to no rational calculation whereby to fix the rent to be referved. That all leafes of mines from the crown had, ever fince paffing the act, been let under covenant in the lease to account for certain profits as were the terms under which Sir James Lowther held, with a condition of forfeiting the leafe in cafe of failure. That fuch was the best and only method of fecuring the intereft of the public on fuch property as afforded no method of calculation, fo as to comply with the exact words of the Civil Lift act. That in cafe the judges determined otherwife, fuch a decifion would fet half the property of the kingdom, held under leafes from the Crown, afloat. That all trees being fully excepted in the leafe, and no trees being on the premiffes; the anfwer was compleat. The judges declared their opinions against all other parts of the exceptions, except one, but referved this point, namely, the mines for a fpecial verdict. The council for the D. of P. then proceeded to ftate another objection to Sir J. Lowther's leafe, by fhowing he had not fet forth the value of the premises in his petition, neither the other leafes he had received from the crown, both which were required by the firft of Henry IVth. Mr. Wedderburn replied, to the fatisfaction of the court,

that

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