and it is the curse of this treaty, that the several parts of it are of such enormity as singly to occupy the attention and to destroy comparison and coexistence.  But the people of Great Britain are disgusted both with the one and the other.  They bewail the violation of the principle:  if the value of the things carried off had been in itself trifling, their grief and their indignation would have been scarcely less.  But it is manifest, from what has been said, that it was not trifling; and that therefore, (upon that account as well as upon others,) this permission was no less impolitic than it was unjust and dishonourable.

In illustrating these articles of the Armistice and Convention, by which the French were both expressly permitted and indirectly enabled to carry off their booty, we have already seen, that a concession was made which is still more enormous; viz. that all subjects of France, or of powers in alliance with France, domiciliated in Portugal or resident there, and all natives of Portugal who have accepted situations under the French government, &c., shall have their property of every kind guaranteed to them by the British army.  By articles 16th and 17th, their persons are placed under the like protection.  ‘The French’ (Article XVI.) ’shall be at liberty either to accompany the French army, or to remain in Portugal;’ ‘And the Portugueze’ (Article XVII.) ’shall not be rendered accountable for their political conduct during the period of the occupation of the country by the French army:  they all are placed under the protection of the British commanders, and shall sustain no injury in their property or persons.’

I have animadverted, heretofore, upon the unprofessional eagerness of our Generals to appear in the character of negotiators when the sword would have done them more service than the pen.  But, if they had confined themselves to mere military regulations, they might indeed with justice have been grievously censured as injudicious commanders, whose notion of the honour of armies was of a low pitch, and who had no conception of the peculiar nature of the service in which they were engaged:  but the censure must have stopped here.  Whereas, by these provisions, they have shewn that they have never reflected upon the nature of military authority as contra-distinguished from civil.  French example had so far dazzled and blinded them, that the French army is suffered to denominate itself ‘the French government;’ and, from the whole tenour of these instruments, (from the preamble, and these articles especially,) it should seem that our Generals fancied themselves and their army to be the British government.  For these regulations, emanating from a mere military authority, are purely civil; but of such a kind, that no power on earth could confer a right to establish them.  And this trampling upon the most sacred rights—­this sacrifice of the consciousness of a self-preserving principle, without which neither