...gland, escaped absorption by Spain, seemed necessarily about to become an ally of the British king. Its harbors, during the last year of the ministry of Pombal, were shut against the vessels of the United States ; and congress, on the thirtieth of December, 1776, resenting the insult, was willing to incur its enmity, as the price of the active friendship of Spain. But when, two months later, on the twenty-...