Page:Thorpe (1819) A commentary on the treaties.pdf/58

54 I assert that it is the bounden duty of the civilized world to combine and compel her to relinquish the trade, and if I err, I err with high authority; for Vattel says in his Preliminary Discourse, “ The object of the great society established by nature between all nations, is the interchange of mutual assistance for their improvement, and the first general law that we discover in the very object of the society of nations is, that each individual nation is bound to contribute every thing in her power, to the happiness and perfection of all the others.” Does not Portugal prevent Africa from obtaining this desired perfection at which other nations have arrived? does she not deprive her inhabitants “ of the blessings of peace and of innocent commerce E” Does she not destroy their happiness by dragging them to slavery and subjecting them to every misery the most obdurate master may choose to inﬂict? And has not the King of Portugal thrown aside the mantle of his infallibility, and, from his declaration in this treaty, acknowledged the principle, by the violation of which, he has established his own error? therefore is it not an abandonment of the Sovereigns’ duty if they do not interfere and arrest the progress of so calamitous an evil? !

This load of guilt is maintained on the principle “That the rights and liberties of independent nations ought not to be encroached on,