Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/381

 are gone lor ever. I will then consider how this matter stands under the treaty."'' He proceeds then to show- by authority, the rules by which treaties are to be con- strued; and demonstrates, that a treat}^ can confer no benefit unless it be mutually observed with good faith: that perfidy on either side, is a forfeiture of all its ad- vantages; that the stipulations of a treaty are in the nature of conditions precedent; that a breach on either side dissolves the covenant altogether, and places the parties on the general ground which they occupied before the treaty; that Great Britain had violated the treaty, in the moment of its ratification, by carrying ojff our slaves, and detaining with an armed force those posts of which she had stipulated the immediate sur- render; that the pretence of her having acted thus as a retaliatory measure for the non-payment of the debts, was an insult to common understanding, because she began her infractions before any experiment had been made of a recovery of the debts; that the notion of a reprisal, preceding any injury — and a retaliation in ad- vance, of any wrong on the opposite side, was so far from mitigating her oflTence, that it was a daring insult on the honour and good faith of this nation! Having by a series of authorities directly in point, established the right of the American nation to regard the treaty as abolished by any perfidious infraction of it, on the part of Great Britain, he shows next, that those infractions were established by the pleadings in the cause; because the defendant by his several pleas had specified those infractions, and the plaintiff, by demurring to the pleas, had admitted the truth of their averments.

Great Britain then, as a 'nation, having by her own perfidy forfeited all right to insist upon the tveaty, and

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