e to, is
included under the name of his _baggage_;--therefore this was something
more; and what it was--is apparent. No part of their property, says the
Armistice, shall be _wrested from them_. Who does not see in these words
the consciousness of guilt, an indirect self-betraying admission that
they had in their hands treasures which might be lawfully taken from
them, and an anxiety to prevent that act of justice by a positive
stipulation? Who does not see, on what sort of property the Frenchman
had his eye; that it was not property by right, but their
_possessions_--their plunder--every thing, by what means soever
acquired, that the French army, or any individual in it, was possessed
of? But it has been urged, that the monstrousness of such a supposition
precludes this interpretation, renders it impossible that it could
either be intended by the one party, or so understood by the other. What
right they who signed, and he who ratified this Convention, have to
shelter themselves under this plea--will appear from the 16th and 17th
articles. In these it is stipulated, 'that all subjects of France, or of
Powers in alliance with France, domiciliated in Portugal, or
accidentally in the country, shall have their property of every
kind--moveable and immoveable--guaranteed to them, with liberty of
retaining or disposing of it, and passing the produce into France:' the
same is stipulated, (Article XVII.) for such natives of Portugal as have
sided with the French, or occupied situations under _the French
Government_. Here then is a direct avowal, still more monstrous, that
every Frenchman, or native of a country in alliance with France, however
obnoxious his crimes may have made him, and every traitorous Portugueze,
shall have his property guaranteed to him (both previously to and after
the reinstatement of the Portugueze government) by the British army! Now
let us ask, what sense the word property must have had fastened to it in
_these_ cases. Must it not necessarily have included all the rewards
which the Frenchman had received for his iniquity, and the traitorous
Portugueze for his treason? (for no man would bear a part in such
oppressions, or would be a traitor for nothing; and, moreover, all the
rewards, which the French could bestow, must have been taken from the
Portugueze, extorted from the honest and loyal, to be given to the
wicked and disloyal.) These rewards of iniquity must necessarily have
been included; for, on our s