I cannot quit this subject without taking notice of the manifesto issued by the Court on the detection of the conspiracy. The spirit of despotic government never defined itself with so much truth, or with less modesty, than in that singular piece: I say nothing of the ridiculous bombast in which it is clothed; but the following maxims of an arbitrary Court ought to be inscribed in our seats of Legislature and of Law, by the side of the humane rules of our Government, that we might know how justly to value the one, and avoid whatever tends to approach it to the other. “Whereas,” says the Portuguese manifesto, “all presumptions of the law are held for so many every way unquestionable truths, and for so many full and uncontrovertible proofs, and lay the person who has them against him, under the incumbency of producing other contrary proofs of such strength and efficacy, as may conclusively destroy them, &c.;” and the next paragraph adds, “Whereas, the law presumes, that he who has been once bad, will be always bad in crimes of the same species with that he has already committed, &c.” Could one imagine that two assertions, so repugnant to all ideas of justice, were produced as instances of condescension and moderation? and yet, in the beginning of the first of these paragraphs, it is maintained, that the presumptions of the law, which condemn the ringleaders or heads of the said conspiracy to be punished thereby with all the rigours of the law, would amply suffice, without the proofs which the Court had obtained. Are Lisbon and London so distant as these notions, and our establishment of juries, and the methods by which the latter are bound to proceed? While our Army in Germany lay on the defensive, the fatal distempers incident to a camp raged there, and in particular carried off the Duke of Marlborough. The command of the English devolved on Lord George Sackville, between whom and Prince Ferdinand there was by no means any cordiality. Both liked to govern, neither was disposed to be governed. Prince Ferdinand had gained an ascendant over the Duke of Marlborough, and Lord George had lost it; sufficient groundwork for their enmity. Lord Granby, the next in rank to Lord George, was an honest, open-hearted young man, of undaunted spirit, and no capacity; and if he wanted any other recommendation to Prince Ferdinand besides these ductile qualities, he drank as profusely as a German. Lord George’s haughtiness lost this young man, as he had the Duke of Marlborough; Prince Ferdinand knew better how to bend in order to domineer.