XXII. 1786. BOOK of Portugal; is excellently watered by navigable rivers and lagunes; abounds in fish, game, and provisions of all sorts; furnishes every necessary for raising cattle and stock, and is clothed with woods producing the most valuable kinds of timber. The soil is said to be superior to that of any of our West-India islands, the air incomparably more salubrious, and the climate more healthy. In this beautiful country the native Indians have yet been able to maintain their independence in opposition to the power of Spain; and they have invariably indicated a disposition to cultivate the alliance and friendship of Great Britain. By the present treaty the Mosquito settlements were formally and explicitly relinquished, as they had already virtually been by the 6th article of the general treaty of 1783. In return the boundaries of the English settlements on the coast and bay of Honduras were somewhat extended, but in such manner, and on such conditions, as to leave the king of Spain in full possession of his territorial rights and exclusive dominion. In a political view this convention answered a valuable purpose, as it removed a probable source of national disagreement. But the claims of humanity and justice were not sufficiently attended to. For the Mosquito settlers, who had from time immemorial occupied their lands and habitations under the protection of the English government, XXII. 1786. and who amounted to many hundred families in BOOK number, were peremptorily commanded to evacuate the country of the Mosquitoes, without exception, in the space of eighteen months, nothing farther being stipulated in their favor, than that his Catholic majesty "shall order his governors to grant to the said English so dispersed all possible facilities for their removal to the settlements agreed upon by the present convention." The greatest confusion, consternation, and distress, among this unhappy people, was the inevitable result of this barbarous edict of expulsion, which, with the cold-blooded politicians of Europe, at the distance of 3000 miles, passed only for a regulation of commerce. An affecting representation of their distresses, and an humble petition for some sort of indemnification from the government which had thus carelessly abandoned them to their fate, was subsequently presented to the Board of Treasury; but it does not appear to have excited any attention. By "the insolence of office," the sighs of the oppressed are regarded as a species of insult. On the 31st of October in the present year (1786) died the princess Amelia, last survivor of the nu merous issue of king George II. at the advanced age of 75 years. Her immense riches she devised, by a gross affront to the reigning family, and by a species of flagrant injustice to the nation, by whose XXII. 1787. BOOK bounty she had acquired them, to the landgrave of Hesse, nearest in blood of her German relations. She had not appeared at court for many years, being highly disgusted, not merely with the personal disrespect with which she conceived herself treated, but with the Tory and high-church maxims and policy of the present reign, so different from those of the former. Scarcely were the ap. pearances of decency preserved by the court on the occasion of her decease. Session of Debates on On the re-assembling of parliament, January 23, parliament. 1787, the first object of debate which presented the com- itself was the commercial treaty with France. On treaty with the 12th of February the house resolved itself into mercial France. a committee on this subject, when Mr. Pitt entered into a most able and eloquent vindication of the measure, though, in the opinion of impartial per sons, the treaty sufficiently spoke its own merits, Mr. Pitt declared in energetic terms his abhor. rence of the maxim, that any nation was destined to be the natural and unalterable foe of another. It had no foundation in the experience of nations, or in the history of men. It was a libel on the constitution of political societies, and supposed the existence of infernal malignity in our original frame. "France (Mr. Pitt said) in most of our wars had been the aggressor; but her assurances and frankness in the present negotiation were such as to entitle her to a return of confidence. It XXII. 1787. was indeed ridiculous to imagine that the French BOOK would consent to yield advantages without the idea of compensation. The treaty would doubtless be a benefit to them; but he did not hesitate to say it would be a much greater benefit to us. She gained for her wines and other productions a great and opulent market. We did the same for our manufactures to a far greater degree. She procured a market of eight millions of people, we a market of twenty-four millions. Both nations were disposed and prepared for such a connection. France, by the peculiar dispensation of Providence, was gifted, perhaps more than any other country upon earth, with what made life desirable, in point of soil, climate, and natural productions, in the most fertile vineyards, and the richest harvests. Britain, on the other hand, possessing these advantages in an inferior degree, had, from the happy freedom of its constitution, and the equal security of its laws, risen to a state of commercial grandeur, and acquired the ability of supplying France with the requisite conveniences of life, in exchange for her natural luxuries." Very plausible objections were nevertheless sug gested by the leaders of opposition against this treaty, and predictions hazarded of the injury which would be sustained by Great Britain in consequence of this measure, which were far from being eventually verified, and which it is therefore XXII. 1787. BOOK Superfluous to particularize. Such, nevertheless, was the impression made upon the house by the arguments advanced, that no less than 162 members divided against the minister on a motion for an address to his majesty, declaratory of the approbation of the house; which was ultimately carried by a majority of 76 voices. The opposition in the house was not however supported, as in the case of the Irish propositions, by any commercial clamors beyond its walls. And Mr. Pitt accurately and satisfactorily accounted for this difference, by observing "that in the former instance the clamors of the manufacturers, though he thought them founded in error, had been general and violent, because they perceived no great and positive advantage in the intercourse to balance the apprehended evil of a rivalry and competition, England being already in possession of the Irish market. But now that they saw so manifest and valuable a benefit to be reaped, they were willing to hazard the possibility of the injury.” The topic on which the opposition insisted with the most advantage, and indeed the only real difficulty respecting the execution of this treaty, arose from its palpable inconsistency with the famous Methuen treaty, concluded with Portugal early in the present century, in conformity to which the duties on Portugal wines were to bear in future the proportion of only two-thirds of those import |