24 ENGLISH NEUTRALITY. self to be proclaimed king, and succeeded in expelling the queen and her friends from most of her dominions. Terceira, one of the Azore Islands, remained faithful to her and in her possession. The Brazilian envoy at London applied to the British government for assistance, on the ground that the queen was the legitimate sovereign and Don Miguel a usurper. These facts were admitted by Lord Aberdeen, who refused assistance, however, assigning as the reason that, as England could not take notice of the merits of the domestic quarrels of another country, she must therefore conduct herself between the two according to the strict rule of duty governing neutral nations. About this time a number of Portuguese refugees arrived in England and took up their residence in Portsmouth. It was suspected (I quote the language of Phillimore) that they were derhand and dangerous war issued from the ports of France under the deceitful mask of peace and the pretended flag of the American colonies, The favorable reception that their agents found with the ministers of the court of Versailles, quickly encouraged them to form and execute the audacious project of establishing a place of arms in the country which had served them for an asylum. They bad brought with them, or knew how to fabricate, letters of marque in the name of the American Congress, who had the impudence to usurp all the rights of sovereignty. The partnership, whose interested views easily embarked in all their designs, fitted out ships that they had either built or purchased. They aimed them to cruise in the European seas; nay, even on the coasts of Great Britain. To save appearances, the captains of those corsairs hoisted the pretended American flag, but their crews were always composed of a great number of Frenchmen, who entered with impunity nuder the very eyes of their governors and the officers of the maritime provinces. And numerous swarms of these corsairs, animated by a spirit of rapine, sailed from the ports of France, and after cruising in the British seas, re-entered or took shelter in the same ports. * * * * * * * “ To the first representation of the king’s ambassadors upon the subject of the privateers which were fitted out in the ports of France under American colors, the ministers of his most Christian majesty replied, with expressions of surprise and indignation, and by a positive declaration that attempts so contrary to the faith of treaties and the public tranquillity should never be suffered. The train of events, of which a small number have been shown, soon manifested the inconstancy, or rather the falsehood, of the court of Versailles; and the king’s ambassador was ordered to represent to the French ministers the serious but inevitable consequences of their policy. He fulfilled his commission with all the consideration due to a respectable power, the preservation of whose friendship was desired, but wi'h a friendship worthy of a sovereign, and a nation little accustomed to do or to suffer injustice. The court of Versailles was called upon to explain its conduct and intentions without delay or evasion, and the king proposed to it the alternative of peace or war. France chose peace, in order to wound her enemy more surely and secretly, without having anything to dread from her justice. She severely condemned those succors and those armaments, that the principles of public equity would not permit her to justify. She declared to the king’s ambassador that she was resolved to banish the American corsairs immediately irom all the ports of France, never to return again; and that she would take, in future, the most rigorous precautions to prevent the sale of prizes taken from the subjects of Great Britain. The orders given to that effect astonished the partisans of the rebels, and seemed to check the progress of the evil; but subjects of complaint sprung up again daily; and the manner in which these orders were fir.-t eluded, then violated, and at length entirely forgotten by the merchants, privateers, nay, even by the royal officers, were not excusable by the protestations of friendship, with which the court of Versailles accompanied those infractions of peace, until the very moment that the treaty of alliance, which it had signed with the agents of the revolted American colonies, was announced by the French ambassador in L'ondon.”
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