ninety-five thousand pounds; by a preliminary protest of the King of
Spain, the South Sea Company is at once to pay sixty-eight thousand of
it: if they refuse, Spain, I admit, is still to pay the ninety-five
thousand pounds--but how does it stand then? The Assiento contract
is to be suspended; you are to purchase this sum at the price of an
exclusive trade, pursuant to a national treaty, and of an immense debt
of God knows how many hundred thousand pounds due from Spain to the
South Sea Company. Here, Sir, is the submission of Spain, by the
payment of a stipulated sum; a tax laid upon subjects of England,
under the severest penalties, with the reciprocal accord of an English
minister, as a preliminary that the convention may be signed; a
condition imposed by Spain in the most absolute, imperious manner, and
received by the Ministers of England in the most tame and abject. Can
any verbal distinctions, any evasions whatever, possibly explain away
this public infamy? To whom would we disguise it? To ourselves and to
the nation. I wish we could hide it from the eyes of every court in
Europe. They see Spain has talked to you like your master; they
see this arbitrary fundamental condition, and it must stand with
distinction, with a pre-eminence of shame, as a part even of this
convention.

This convention, Sir, I think from my soul, is nothing but a
stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expedient, to baffle
the resentment of the nation; a truce without the suspension of
hostilities on the part of Spain; on the part of England a suspension,
as to Georgia, of the first law of nature, self-preservation and
self-defence--surrender of the rights and trade of England to the
mercy of plenipotentiaries, and in this infinitely highest and sacred
point, future security, not only inadequate, but directly repugnant
to the resolutions of Parliament, and the gracious promise from the