to my most formidable enemy. Poverty I had rolled on, and _that_ was
not denied: he granted the poverty, but it was dependent on the
barbarism of the Gombroonians. It seems that in the central forests
of Gombroonia there were diamond mines, which my people, from their
low condition of civilization, did not value, nor had any means of
working. Farewell, therefore, on _my_ side, to all hopes of enduring
peace, for here was established, in legal phrase, _a lien_ forever
upon my island, and not upon its margin, but its very centre, in favor
of any invaders better able than the natives to make its treasures
available. For, of old, it was an article in my brother's code of
morals, that, supposing a contest between any two parties, of which
one possessed an article, whilst the other was better able to use it,
the rightful property vested in the latter. As if you met a man with
a musket, then you might justly challenge him to a trial in the art
of making gunpowder; which if you _could_ make, and he could _not_,
in that case the musket was _de jure_ yours. For what shadow of a right
had the fellow to a noble instrument which he could not "maintain" in
a serviceable condition, and "feed" with its daily rations of powder
and shot? Still, it may be fancied that, since all the relations between
us as independent sovereigns (whether of war, or peace, or treaty)
rested upon our own representations and official reports, it was surely
within my competence to deny or qualify as much as within his to assert.
But, in reality, the _law_ of the contest between us, as suggested by
some instinct of propriety in my own mind, would not allow me to proceed
in such a method. What he said was like a move at chess or draughts,
which it was childish to dispute. The move being made, my business
was--to face it, to parry it, to evade it, and, if I could, to overthrow
it. I proceeded as a lawyer who moves as long as he can, not by blank
denial of facts, (or _coming to an issue_,) but by _demurring_, (_i.e._,
admitting the allegations of fact, but otherwise interpreting their