The only decent manner of introducing matter to this effect would have been by placing it as a bye clause of a provision that secured the Portugueze from further molestations, and merely alluding to it as a thing understood of course.  Yet, from the place which this specious article occupies, (preceding immediately the 16th and 17th which we have been last considering,) it is clear that it must have been intended by the French General as honey smeared upon the edge of the cup—­to make the poison, contained in those two, more palateable.

Thus much for the Portugueze, and their particular interests.  In one instance, a concern of the Spanish Nation comes directly under notice; and that Nation also is treated without delicacy or feeling.  For by the 18th article it is agreed, ’that the Spaniards, (4000 in number) who had been disarmed, and were confined on ship-board in the port of Lisbon by the French, should be liberated.’  And upon what consideration?  Not upon their right to be free, as having been treacherously and cruelly dealt with by men who were part of a Power that was labouring to subjugate their country, and in this attempt had committed inhuman crimes against it;—­not even exchanged as soldiers against soldiers:—­but the condition of their emancipation is, that the British General engages ’to obtain of the Spaniards to restore such French subjects, either military or civil, as have been detained in Spain, without having been taken in battle or in consequence of military operations, but on account of the occurrences of the 29th of last May and the days immediately following. ‘Occurrences!’ I know not what are exactly the features of the face for which this word serves as a veil:  I have no register at hand to inform me what these events precisely were:  but there can be no doubt that it was a time of triumph for liberty and humanity; and that the persons, for whom these noble-minded Spaniards were to be exchanged, were no other than a horde from among the most abject of the French Nation; probably those wretches, who, having never faced either the dangers or the fatigues of war, had been most busy in secret preparations or were most conspicuous in open acts of massacre, when the streets of Madrid, a few weeks before, had been drenched with the blood of two thousand of her bravest citizens.  Yet the liberation of these Spaniards, upon these terms, is recorded (in the report of the Court of Enquiry) ’as one of the advantages which, in the contemplation of the Generals, would result from the Convention!’

Finally, ’If there shall be any doubt (Article XIV.) as to the meaning of any article, it shall be explained favourably to the French Army; and Hostages (Article XX.) of the rank of Field Officers, on the part of the British Army and Navy, shall be furnished for the guarantee of the present Convention.’

I have now gone through the painful task of examining the most material conditions of the CONVENTION of CINTRA:—­the whole number of the articles is twenty-two, with three additional ones—­a long ladder into a deep abyss of infamy!—­