endship and good faith. Surely
the persons, who (under the countenance of too high authority) have
talked so loudly of prejudging this question, entirely overlooked or
utterly forgot this part of it. What have these monstrous provisions to
do with the relative strength of the two armies, or with any point
admitting a doubt? What need here of a Court of Judicature to settle who
were the persons (their names are subscribed by their own hands), and to
determine the quality of the thing? Actions and agents like these,
exhibited in this connection with each other, must of necessity be
condemned the moment they are known: and to assert the contrary, is to
maintain that man is a being without understanding, and that morality is
an empty dream. And, if this condemnation must after this manner follow,
to utter it is less a duty than a further inevitable consequence from
the constitution of human nature. They, who hold that the formal
sanction of a Court of Judicature is in this case required before a
people has a right to pass sentence know not to what degree they are
enemies to that people and to mankind; to what degree selfishness,
whether arising from their peculiar situation or from other causes, has
in them prevailed over those faculties which are our common inheritance,
and cut them off from fellowship with the species. Most deplorable would
be the result, if it were possible that the injunctions of these men
could be obeyed, or their remonstrances acknowledged to be just. For,
(not to mention that, if it were not for such prompt decisions of the
public voice, misdemeanours of men high in office would rarely be
accounted for at all,) we must bear in mind, at this crisis, that the
adversary of all good is hourly and daily extending his ravages; and,
according to such notions of fitness, our indignation, our sorrow, our
shame, our sense of right and wrong, and all those moral affections, and
powers of the understanding, by which alone he can be effectually
opposed, are to enter upon a long vacation; their motion is to be
suspended--a thing impossible; if it could, it would be destroyed.

Let us now see what language the Portugueze speak upon that part of the
treaty which has incited me to give vent to these feelings, and to
assert these truths. 'I protest,' says General Friere, 'against Article
XVII., one of the two now under examination, because it attempts to tie
down the government of this kingdom not to bring to justice a