The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

From a late London Morning Chronicle.

To the Printer.

Shall venture to intrude upon your paper with a few cursory remarks upon the Whipper of Saturday the 5th instant. The writer begins with a sort of historical account of the life of Jonathan Britain, whereby it appears that Britain has rose, by a sort of climax, from one villainy to another, until he arrived to the highest summit of iniquity, that of an incendiary and a principal conspirator and agent in distressing his native country by a most infernal conflagration, and of attempting the life of the King. Though I give the daemon due credit, yet I must make some observations on the assassination plot. It is there said, "that Britain was to fire at the King, and Rogers was to walk at a small distance with more powder and ball, in case the first did not take place." This circumstance appears to be more ridiculously concerted, and not in the least feasible. Could Britain or his associates such adepts in villainy, conceive that if he missed upon the first fire, that the devil would have assisted them in a second ? or can it be supposed that even the snap of the cock of the pistol, though without a flash of powder, could pass unnoticed ? This circumstance seems incredible, yet I shall attempt not to take from him the least particle of his glory of being capable and willing to make such an inhuman sacrifice. Now a short word on the convention affair. The account given and positively affirmed to be true, that a letter was wrote to Lord Halifax to receive 5000l. of Pefcot, Grote and Co. bankers, appears totally false by the solemn oaths. of those bankers and partners made before the Lord Mayor of London, in flat contradiction to such assertion, and who are men of unquestionable veracity. If his evidence appears false, and fully contradicted, in so material a point, what must become of the rest of it ? Who will believe it? Suppose this bribery matter was in a course of legal examination, and this part of the evidence should be positively confuted, would not the whole fall to the ground and become totally invalid ? Most certainly it would. The falsity of this assertion must destroy the testimony of Lord Bute's receiving 5000l. from Grimaldi, through the hands of Choiseul, and what makes it more improbable is, the Spaniards knew that our Ministry did not, at that time of day, want to be bribed into pacific measures, we being then unprepared either for the offensive or defensive. If a peace was purchased on any hand, the generality of the people rather thought that England became the purchasers. I do not attempt to palliate crimes but merely to make some observation on the inconsistency of this detail. Upon the whole, the narrative may be possible; but until the incontestable proofs appear, they must be esteemed improbable, and as fully irreconcileable, as Junius's account of the stop put to the sale of timber in Whittlebury forest, by the Duke of Grafton, the timidity of the treasury in with-drawing the warrant granted for that purpose, and the King's humility in yielding up his prerogative merely upon his Grace's mandate. All allow Junius to be very picturesque, but his detestation and calumny make most odious drapery. The multitude are too apt to be fond of a tale of scandal but inconsistencies & improbabilities render their favourite contemptible.

W.