The execution of the convention had not been carried on thus far without much trouble and contestation. Lord Proby, the English commissioner appointed to carry the articles of the treaty into effect, was joined by major-general Beresford on the 5th, and their united labours were scarcely sufficient to meet the exigencies of a task in the prosecution of which disputes hourly arose. Anger, the cupidity of individuals, and opportunity, combined to push the French beyond the bounds of honour and decency, and several gross attempts were made to appropriate property which no interpretation of the stipulations could give a colour to; amongst the most odious were the abstraction of manuscripts and rare specimens of natural history from the national museum, and the invasion of the deposito publico, or funds of money awaiting legal decision for their final appropriation. Those dishonest attempts were met and checked with a strong hand, and at last a committee, consisting of an individual of each of the three nations, was appointed by the commissioners on both sides. Their office was to receive reclamations, to investigate them, and to do justice by seizing upon all contraband baggage embarked by the French. This measure was attended with excellent effect. It must, however, be observed, that the loud complaints and violence of the Portuguese, and the machinations of the bishop of Oporto, seem to have excited the suspicions of the British, and influenced their actions more than the real facts warranted; for the national character of the Portuguese was not then understood, nor the extent to which they supplied the place of true reports, by the fabrication of false ones, generally known. Writers have not been wanting to exaggerate the grounds of complaint. The English have imputed fraud, and evasions of the most dishonourable kind to the French, and the latter have retorted by accusations of gratuitous insult and breach of faith, asserting that their soldiers when on board the British ships were treated with cruelty in order to induce them to desert. It would be too much to affirm that all the error was on one side, but it does appear reasonable and consonant to justice to decide, that as the French were originally aggressors and acting for their own interest, and that the British were interfering for the protection of the Portuguese, any indecorous zeal upon the part of the latter, if not commendable, was certainly more excusable than in their opponents. Upon the ground of its being evidently impossible for him to know what was doing in his name, the British commissioners acquitted Junot of any personal impropriety of conduct, and his public orders, which denounced severe punishments for such malpractices, corroborated this testimony; yet Kellerman, in his communications with sir Hew Dalrymple, did not scruple to insinuate matter to the duke’s disadvantage. But, amidst all these conflicting accusations, the British commander’s personal good