and its own virtues, had preserved to itself through ages its liberty, pure and inviolated by a foreign invader; the other a high-minded nation, which a tyrant, presuming on its decrepitude, had, through the real decrepitude of its Government, perfidiously enslaved.  What could be more delightful than to think of an intercourse beginning in this manner?  On the part of the Spaniards their love towards us was enthusiasm and adoration; the faults of our national character were hidden from them by a veil of splendour; they saw nothing around us but glory and light; and, on our side, we estimated their character with partial and indulgent fondness;—­thinking on their past greatness, not as the undermined foundation of a magnificent building, but as the root of a majestic tree recovered from a long disease, and beginning again to flourish with promise of wider branches and a deeper shade than it had boasted in the fulness of its strength.  If in the sensations with which the Spaniards prostrated themselves before the religion of their country we did not keep pace with them—­if even their loyalty was such as, from our mixed constitution of government and from other causes, we could not thoroughly sympathize with,—­and if, lastly, their devotion to the person of their Sovereign appeared to us to have too much of the alloy of delusion,—­in all these things we judged them gently:  and, taught by the reverses of the French revolution, we looked upon these dispositions as more human—­more social—­and therefore as wiser, and of better omen, than if they had stood forth the zealots of abstract principles, drawn out of the laboratory of unfeeling philosophists.  Finally, in this reverence for the past and present, we found an earnest that they were prepared to contend to the death for as much liberty as their habits and their knowledge enabled them to receive.  To assist them and their neighbours the Portugueze in the attainment of this end, we sent to them in love and in friendship a powerful army to aid—­to invigorate—­and to chastise:—­they landed; and the first proof they afforded of their being worthy to be sent on such a service—­the first pledge of amity given by them was the victory of Vimiera; the second pledge (and this was from the hand of their Generals,) was the Convention of Cintra.

The reader will by this time have perceived, what thoughts were uppermost in my mind, when I began with asserting, that this Convention is among the most important events of our times:—­an assertion, which was made deliberately, and after due allowance for that infirmity which inclines us to magnify things present and passing, at the expence of those which are past.  It is my aim to prove, wherein the real importance of this event lies:  and, as a necessary preparative for forming a right judgment upon it, I have already given a representation of the sentiments, with which the people of Great Britain and those of Spain looked upon each other.  I have indeed spoken