ipated and foreseen. I apply these rules, taken from the
intercourse between individuals, to the conduct of large bodies of men,
or of nations towards each other, because these are nothing but
aggregates of individuals; and because the maxims of all just law, and
the measures of all sane practice, are only an enlarged or modified
application of those dispositions of love and those principles of
reason, by which the welfare of individuals, in their connection with
each other, is promoted. There was also here a still more urgent call
for these courteous and humane principles as guides of conduct; because,
in exact proportion to the physical weakness of Governments, and to the
distraction and confusion which cannot but prevail, when a people is
struggling for independence and liberty, are the well-intentioned and
the wise among them remitted for their support to those benign
elementary feelings of society, for the preservation and cherishing of
which, among other important objects, government was from the beginning
ordained.

Therefore, by the strongest obligations, we were bound to be studious of
a delicate and respectful bearing towards those ill-fated nations, our
Allies: and consequently, if the government of the Portugueze, though
weak in power, possessed their affections, and was strong in right, it
was incumbent upon us to turn our first thoughts to that government,--to
look for it if it were hidden--to call it forth,--and, by our power
combined with that of the people, to assert its rights. Or, if the
government were dissolved and had no existence, it was our duty, in such
an emergency, to have resorted to the nation, expressing its will
through the most respectable and conspicuous authority, through that
which seemed to have the best right to stand forth as its
representative. In whatever circumstances Portugal had been placed, the
paramount right of the Portugueze nation, or government, to appear not
merely as a party but a principal, ought to have been established as a
primary position, without the admission of which, all proposals to treat
would be peremptorily rejected. But the Portugueze _had_ a government;
they had a lawful prince in Brazil; and a regency, appointed by him, at
home; and generals, at the head of considerable bodies of troops,
appointed also by the regency or the prince. Well then might one of
those generals enter a formal protest against the treaty, on account of
its being 'totally void of th