panish peasantry, I might almost say, would not relax in
favour of Dupont, to be relaxed by a British army in favour of Junot?
Had the French commander at Lisbon, or his army, proved themselves less
perfidious, less cruel, or less rapacious than the other? Nay, did not
the pride and crimes of Junot call for humiliation and punishment far
more importunately, inasmuch as his power to do harm, and therefore his
will, keeping pace with it, had been greater? Yet, in the noble letter
of the Governor of Cadiz to Dupont, he expressly tells him, that his
conduct, and that of his army, had been such, that they owed their lives
only to that honour which forbad the Spanish army to become
executioners. The Portugueze also, as appears from various letters
produced before the Board of Inquiry, have shewn to our Generals, as
boldly as their respect for the British Nation would permit them to do,
what _they_ expected. A Portugueze General, who was also a member of the
regency appointed by the Prince Regent, says, in a protest addressed to
Sir Hew Dalrymple, that he had been able to drive the French out of the
provinces of Algarve and Alentejo; and therefore he could not be
convinced, that such a Convention was necessary. What was this but
implying that it was dishonourable, and that it would frustrate the
efforts which his country was making, and destroy the hopes which it had
built upon its own power? Another letter from a magistrate inveighs
against the Convention, as leaving the crimes of the French in Portugal
unpunished; as giving no indemnification for all the murders, robberies,
and atrocities which had been committed by them. But I feel that I shall
be wanting in respect to my countrymen if I pursue this argument
further. I blush that it should be necessary to speak upon the subject
at all. And these are men and things, which we have been reproved for
condemning, because evidence was wanting both as to fact and person! If
there ever was a case, which could not, in any rational sense of the
word, be prejudged, this is one. As to the fact--it appears, and sheds
from its own body, like the sun in heaven, the light by which it is
seen; as to the person--each has written down with his own hand, _I am
the man_. Condemnation of actions and men like these is not, in the
minds of a people, (thanks to the divine Being and to human nature!) a
matter of choice; it is like a physical necessity, as the hand must be
burned which is thrust into t