faith and scrupulous adherence to justice has never been called in question. To define the exact extent to which each party should have pushed their claims is not an easy task; but an impartial investigator would begin by carefully separating the original rights of the French from those rights which they acquired by the convention. Much of the subsequent clamour in England against the authors of that treaty sprung from the error of confounding these essentially distinct grounds of argument. Conquest being the sole foundation of the first, defeat, if complete, extinguished them, if incomplete, nullified a part only. Now the issue of the appeal to arms not having been answerable to the justice of the cause, an agreement ensued, by which a part was sacrificed for the sake of the remainder, and upon the terms of that agreement the whole question of right hinges. If the French were not prisoners of war, it follows that they had not forfeited their claims founded on the right of conquest, but they were willing to exchange an insecure tenure of the whole for a secure tenure of a part. The difficulty consisted in defining exactly what was conceded, and what should be recovered from them. With respect to the latter, the restitution of plunder acquired anterior to the convention was clearly out of the question: if officially made, it was part of the rights bargained for, and if individually, to what tribunal could the innumerable claims which would follow such an article be referred? Abstract notions of right in such matters are misplaced. If an army surrenders at discretion, the victors may say with Brennus, “Woe to the vanquished;” but a convention implies some weakness, and must be weighed in the scales of prudence, not in those of justice. CHAPTER VI. The interview that took place at Vimiero between don Bernardim Freire d’Andrada and sir Hew Dalrymple has been already noticed as the commencement of an intrigue of some consequence. The Portuguese general objected at the time to the armistice just concluded with Kellerman, ostensibly upon general grounds, but really, as it appeared, to sir Hew, because the bishop and junta of Oporto were not named in the instrument. At the desire of Freire, one Ayres Pinto de Souza was received at the English head-quarters as the protector of Portuguese interests during the subsequent negotiation. He was soon apprised that a treaty for a definitive convention was on foot, and both himself and his general were invited to state their views and wishes before any further steps were taken. Neither of them took any notice of this invitation, but when the treaty was concluded clamoured loudly against it.