By articles 16th and 17th, their _persons_ are placed under the like protection.

'The French' (Article XVI.) 'shall be at liberty either to accompany the French army, or to remain in Portugal;' 'And the Portugueze' (Article XVII.) 'shall not be rendered accountable for their political conduct during the period of the occupation of the country by the French army: they all are placed under the protection of the British commanders, and shall sustain no injury in their property or persons.' I have animadverted, heretofore, upon the unprofessional eagerness of our Generals to appear in the character of negotiators when the sword would have done them more service than the pen.

But, if they had confined themselves to mere military regulations, they might indeed with justice have been grievously censured as injudicious commanders, whose notion of the honour of armies was of a low pitch, and who had no conception of the peculiar nature of the service in which they were engaged: but the censure must have stopped here.

Whereas, by these provisions, they have shewn that they have never reflected upon the nature of military authority as contra-distinguished from civil.

French example had so far dazzled and blinded them, that the French army is suffered to denominate itself '_the French government_;' and, from the whole tenour of these instruments, (from the preamble, and these articles especially,) it should seem that our Generals fancied themselves and their army to be _the British government_.