in any wife to affect the question of the prior right of fovereignty of the Malouine otherwife called Falkland's Inlands.

This conceffion was accepted by the Earl of Roch ford, who declared on the part of his master, that the prince of Majeran being authorized by his catholick majefty, to offer in his majesty's name to the king of Great Britain, a fatisfaction for the injury done him by . difpoffeffing him of Port Egmont, and having figned a declaration expreffing that his catholick majesty difavows the expedition against Port Egmont, and engages to restore it in the ftate in which it ftood before the 10th of June 1770, his Britannick majefty will look upon the faid declaration, together with the full performance of the engagement on the part of his catholick majefty, as a fatisfaction for the injury done to the crown of Great Britain.

This is all that was originally demanded. The expedition is difavowed, and the island is reftored. An injury is acknowledged by the reception of Lord Roch ford's paper, who twice mentions the word injury and twice the word fatisfaction.

The Spaniards have ftipulated that the grant of poffeffion fhall not preclude the question of prior right, a question which we shall probably make no hafte to discuss, and a right of which no formal refignation was ever required. This referve has fupplied matter for much clamour, and perhaps the English miniftry would have been better pleafed had the declaration been without it. But when we have obtained all that was asked, why fhould we complain that we have not more? When the poffeffion is conceded, where is the evil that the right, which that con

ceffion supposes to be merely hypothetical, is referred to the Greek calends for a future difquifition? Were the Switzers lefs free or lefs fecure, because after their defection from the house of Auftria they had never been declared independent before the treaty of Weftphalia? Is the king of France lefs a fovereign because the king of England partakes his title?

If fovereignty implies undisputed right, scarce any prince is a fovereign through his whole dominions; if fovereignty confifts in this, that no fuperiour is acknowledged, our king reigns at Port Egmont with fovereign authority, Almost every new acquired territory is in fome degree controvertible, and till the controverfy is decided, a term very difficult to be fixed, all that can be had is real poffeffion and actual dominion.

This furely is a fufficient answer to the feudal gab, ble of a man who is every day leffening that splendour of character which once illuminated the kingdom, then dazzled, and afterwards inflamed it; and for whom it will be happy if the nation fhall at last difmifs him to nameless obfcurity, with that equipoife of blame and praife which Corneille allows to Richlieu, a man who, I think, had much of his merit, and many of his faults.

Chacun parle à fon gré de ce grand Cardinal,

Mais pour moi je n'en dirai rien;

Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal,

Il m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien..

To push advantages too far is neither generous nor juft. Had we infifted on a conceffion of ante

cedent

cedent right, it may not mifbecome us, either as moralifts or politicians, to confider what Grimaldi could have answered. We have already, he might fay, granted you the whole effect of right, and have not denied you the name. We have not said that the right was ours before this conceffion, but only that. what right we had, is not by this conceffion vacated. We have now for more than two centuries ruled large tracts of the American continent, by a claim which perhaps is valid only upon this confideration, that no power can produce a better; by the right of discovery and prior settlement. And by fuch titles almost all the dominions of the earth are holden, except that their original is beyond memory, and greater obfcurity. gives them greater veneration. Should we allow this plea to be annulled, the whole fabrick of our empire Thakes at the foundation. When you fuppofe yourselves to have first descried the difputed ifland, you fuppofe what you can hardly prove. We were at least the general discoverers of the Magellanick region, and have hitherto held it with all its adjacencies. The juftice of this tenure the world has hitherto admitted, and yourselves at leaft tacitly allowed it, when about twenty years ago you defifted from your purpofed expedition, and exprefsly difowned any defign of fettling, where you are now not content to fettle and to reign, without extorting fuch a confeffion of original right, as may invite every other nation to follow you.

To confiderations fuch as thefe, it is reasonable to impute that anxiety of the Spaniards, from which I 4

the

the importance of this island is inferred by Junius, one of the few writers of his defpicable faction whose name does not difgrace the page of an opponent. The value of the thing difputed may be very different to him that gains and him that lofes it. The Spaniards, by yielding Falkland's Iland, have admitted a precedent of what they think encroachment; have fuffered a breach to be made in the outworks of their empire; and, notwithstanding the reserve of prior right, have fuffered a dangerous exception to the prefcriptive tenure of their American territories.

Such is the lofs of Spain; let us now compute the profit of Britain. We have, by obtaining a difavowal of Buccarelli's expedition, and a reftitution of our settlement, maintained the honour of the crown, and the fuperiority of our influence. Beyond this what have we acquired? What, but a bleak and gloomy folitude, an ifland thrown afide from human ufe, ftormy in winter, and barren in fummer; an ifland which not the fouthern favages have dignified with habitation; where a garrifon must be kept in a flate that contemplates with envy the exiles of Siberia; of which the expence will be perpetual, and the ufe only occafional; and which, if fortune fmile upon our labours, may become a neft of fmugglers in peace, and in war the refuge of future Buccaniers. To all this the government has now given ample atteftation, for the island has been fince abandoned, and perhaps was kept only to quiet clamours, with an intention, not then wholly concealed, of quitting it in a fhort time.

This

This is the country of which we have now poffeffion, and of which a numerous party pretends to wish that we had murdered thousands for the titular fovereignty. To charge any men with fuch madness, approaches to an accufation defeated by its own incredibility. As they have been long accumulating falfehoods, it is poffible that they are now only adding another to the heap, and that they do not mean all that they profefs. But of this faction what evil may not be credited? They have hitherto fhewn no virtue, and very little wit, beyond that mifchievous cunning for which it is held by Hale that children may be hanged,

As war is the last of remedies, cuncta prius tentanda, all lawful expedients must be used to avoid it. As war is the extremity of evil, it is furely the duty of those whose station intrufts them with the care of nations, to avert it from their charge. There are difeafes of animal nature which nothing but amputation can remove; fo there may, by the depravation of human paffions, be fometimes a gangrene in collective life for which fire and the fword are the neceffary remedies; but in what can skill or caution be better fhewn than preventing fuch dreadful operations, while there is yet room for gentler methods?

It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind fee war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never prefented its evils to their minds, confider it as little more than a fplendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. Some indeed muft perish in the most fuccessful field,

but