ated, that the valiant warrior
may not for the future be confounded with, and treated as, a treacherous
spy; nor innocent travellers, provided with regular passes, visiting a
country either for business or for pleasure, be imprisoned, like men
taken while combating with arms in their hands.

You remember, no doubt, from history, that many of our ships--that,
during the reigns of George I. and II., carried to Ireland and Scotland,
and landed there, the adherents and partisans of the House of Stuart were
captured on their return or on their passage; and that your Government
never seized the commanders of these vessels, to confine them as State
criminals, much less to torture or murder them in the Tower. If I am not
mistaken, the whole squadron which, in 1745, carried the Pretender and
his suite to Scotland, was taken by your cruisers; and the officers and
men experienced no worse or different treatment than their fellow
prisoners of war; though the distance is immense between the crime of
plotting against the lawful Government of the Princes of the House of
Brunswick, and the attempt to disturb the usurpation of an upstart of the
House of Bonaparte. But, even during the last war, how many of our ships
of the line, frigates, and cutters, did you not take, which had landed
rebels in Ireland, emissaries in Scotland, and malefactors in Wales; and
yet your generosity prevented you from retaliating, even at the time when
your Sir Sidney Smith, and this same unfortunate Captain Wright, were
confined in our State prison of the Temple! It is with Governments as
with individuals, they ought to be just before they are generous. Had
you in 1797, or in 1798, not endured our outrages so patiently, you would
not now have to lament, nor we to blush for, the untimely end of Captain
Wright.

From the last time that this officer had appeared before the criminal
tribunal which condemned Georges and Moreau, his fate was determined on
by our Government. His firmness offended, and his patriotism displeased;
and as he seemed to possess the confidence of his own Government, it was
judged that he was in its secrets; it was, therefore, resolved that, if
he refused to become a traitor, he should perish a victim. Desmarets,
Fouche's private secretary, who is also the secretary of the secret and
haute police, therefore ordered him to another private interrogatory.
Here he was offered a considerable sum of money, and the rank of an
admiral in ou