e'll sign a
convention, but we'll keep your subjects prisoners, prisoners in Old
Spain; the West Indies are remote; Europe shall be witness how we use
you.'

Sir, as to the inference of an admission of our right not to be
searched, drawn from a reparation made for ships unduly seized and
confiscated, I think that argument is very inconclusive. The right
claimed by Spain to search our ships is one thing, and the excesses
admitted to have been committed in consequence of this pretended
right, is another; but surely, Sir, reasoning from inferences and
implication only, is below the dignity of your proceedings, upon a
right of this vast importance. What this reparation is, what sort of
composition for your losses, forced upon you by Spain, in an instance
that has come to light, where your own commissaries could not in
conscience decide against your claim, has fully appeared upon
examination; and, as for the payment of the sum stipulated (all
but seven and twenty thousand pounds, and that, too, subject to a
drawback), it is evidently a fallacious nominal payment only. I will
not attempt to enter into the detail of a dark, confused, and scarcely
intelligible account; I will only beg leave to conclude with one word
upon it, in the light of a submission, as well as of an adequate
reparation. Spain stipulates to pay to the Crown of England
ninety-five thousand pounds; by a preliminary protest of the King of
Spain, the South Sea Company is at once to pay sixty-eight thousand of
it: if they refuse, Spain, I admit, is still to pay the ninety-five
thousand pounds--but how does it stand then? The Assiento contract
is to be suspended; you are to purchase this sum at the price of an
exclusive trade, pursuant to a national treaty, and of an immense debt
of God knows how many hundred thousand pounds due from Spain to the
South Sea Company. Here, Sir, is the submission of Spain, by the
payment of a stipulated sum; a tax laid upon subjects of England,
under the severest penalties, with the reciprocal accord of an English
minister, as a preliminary that the convention may be signed; a
condition imposed by Spain in the most absolute, imperious manner, and
received by the Ministers of England in the most tame and abject. Can
any verbal distinctions, any evasions whatever, possibly explain away
this public infamy? To whom would we disguise it? To ourselves and to
the nation. I wish we could hide it from the eyes of every court in
Europe. The