that, from the first, they reasoned thus within
themselves:--'If the act be indeed so criminal as there is cause to
believe that the public will pronounce it to be; and if it shall
continue to be regarded as such; great odium must sooner or later fall
upon those who have appointed the agents: and this odium, which will be
from the first considerable, in spite of the astonishment and
indignation of which the framers of the Convention may be the immediate
object, will, when the astonishment has relaxed, and the angry passions
have died away, settle (for many causes) more heavily upon those who, by
placing such men in the command, are the original source of the guilt
and the dishonour. How then is this most effectually to be prevented? By
endeavouring to prevent or to destroy, as far as may be, the odium
attached to the act itself.' For which purpose it was suspected that the
rejoicings had been ordered; and that afterwards (when the people had
declared themselves so loudly),--partly upon the plea of the good faith
of the Nation being pledged, and partly from a false estimate of the
comparative force of the two obligations,--the Convention, in the same
selfish spirit, was carried into effect: and that the ministry took upon
itself a final responsibility, with a vain hope that, by so doing and
incorporating its own credit with the transaction, it might bear down
the censures of the people, and overrule their judgment to the
super-inducing of a belief, that the treaty was not so unjust and
inexpedient: and thus would be included--in one sweeping
exculpation--the misdeeds of the servant and the master.

But,--whether these suspicions were reasonable or not, whatever motives
produced a determination that the Convention should be acted
upon,--there can be no doubt of the manner in which the ministry wished
that the people should appreciate it; when the same persons, who had
ordered that it should at first be received with rejoicing, availed
themselves of his Majesty's high authority to give a harsh reproof to
the City of London for having prayed 'that an enquiry might be
instituted into this dishonourable and unprecedented transaction.' In
their petition they styled it also 'an afflicting event--humiliating and
degrading to the country, and injurious to his Majesty's Allies.' And
for this, to the astonishment and grief of all sound minds, the
petitioners were severely reprimanded; and told, among other
admonitions, 'that it was