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 petition was presented to the House of Lords by the Duke of Bedford. Lord Carteret moved that the petitioners should be heard by themselves, and, if they should desire it, by counsel. It was agreed, after some debate, that the petitioners should be heard by themselves in the first instance, and that if afterwards they desired to be heard by counsel their request should be taken into consideration. Lord Chesterfield in the course of the debate contrived ingeniously to give a keen stroke to the convention while declaring that he did not presume as yet to form any opinion on it, or to anticipate any discussion on its merits. "I cannot help," he said, "saying, however, that to me it is a most unfavorable symptom of its being for the good of the nation when I see so strong an opposition made to it out-of-doors by those who are the most immediately concerned in its effects."