'What an effect,' says the Governor of Cadiz, 'must it have upon the people,' (he means the Spanish people,) 'to know that a single soldier was carrying away 2580 livres tournois!' What an effect, (he might have said also,) must it have upon the French!--I direct the reader's attention to this, because it seems to have been overlooked; and because some of the public journals, speaking of the Convention, (and, no doubt, uttering the sentiments of several of their readers,)--say 'that they are disgusted with the transaction, not because the French have been permitted to carry off a few diamonds, or some ingots of silver; but because we confessed, by consenting to the treaty, that an army of 35,000 British troops, aided by the Portugueze nation, was not able to compel 20,000 French to surrender at discretion.' This is indeed the root of the evil, as hath been shewn; 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.