in the House of Lords boldly assumed that the convention
must be unsatisfactory, and even degrading, to the English people, and
he denounced it with all the eloquence and all the vigor of which he
was capable. Lord Hervey vainly appealed to the House to bear in mind
that the convention was not yet before them. "Let us read it," he
urged, "before we condemn it." Vain, indeed, was the appeal; the
convention was already condemned. The very description of it in the
speech from the throne had condemned it in advance.

[Sidenote: 1739--Petition against the Convention]

The convention was submitted to Parliament and made known to the
country. The reception it got was just what might have been expected.
The one general cry was that the agreement gave up or put aside every
serious claim made by England. Spain had not renounced her right of
search; the boundaries of England's new colonies had not been defined;
not a promise was made by Spain that the Spanish officials who had
imprisoned and tortured unoffending British subjects should be
punished, or even brought to any manner of trial. In the heated temper
of the public the whole convention seemed an inappropriate and highly
offensive farce. On February 23d the sheriffs of the City of London
presented to the House of Commons a petition against the convention.
The petition expressed the great concern and surprise of the citizens
of London "to find by the convention lately concluded between his
Majesty and the King of Spain that the Spaniards are so far from giving
up their (as we humbly apprehend) unjust pretension of a right to visit
and search our ships on the seas of America that this pretension of
theirs is, among others, referred to the future regulation and decision
of plenipotentiaries appointed on each side, whereby we apprehend it is
in some degree admitted." The petition referred to the "cruel
treatment of the English sailors whose hard fate has thrown them into
the {164} hands of the Spaniards," and added, with a curious mixture of
patriotic sentiment and practical, business-like selfishness, that "if
this cruel treatment of English seamen were to be put up with, and no
reparation demanded, it might have the effect"--of what, does the
reader think?--"of deterring the seamen from undertaking voyages to the
seas of America without an advance of wages, which that trade or any
other will not be able to support."

[Sidenote: 1739--Carteret's attack]

The same