pofitions, nor is it certain, however it may be fufpected, that he talked in different ftrains to different parties. It seems to be almost the univerfal error of historians to fuppofe it politically, as it is phyfically true, that every effect has a proportionate caufe. In the inanimate action of matter upon matter, the motion produced can be but equal to the force of the moving power; but the operations of life, whether private or publick, admit no fuch laws. The caprices of voluntary agents laugh at calculation. It is not always that there is a ftrong reason for a great event. Obftinacy and flexibility, malignity and kindnefs, give place alternately to each other, and the reafon of these viciffitudes, however important may be the confequences, often escapes the mind in which the change is made. Whether the alteration which began in January to appear in the Spanish counfels, had any other cause than conviction of the impropriety of their paft conduct, and of the danger of a new war, it is not eafy to decide; but they began, whatever was the reafon, to relax their haughtinefs, and Mr. Harris's departure was countermanded. The demands first made by England were ftill continued, and on January 22d, the prince of Masferan delivered a declaration, in which the king of Spain difavows the violent enterprife of Buccarelli, and promifes to restore the port and fort called Egmont, with all the artillery and ftores, according to the inventory. To this promife of reftitution is fubjoined that this engagement to restore Port Egmont, cannot, nor ought cagbt in any wife to affect the queflion of the prior right of fovereignty of the Malouine otherwife called Falkland's Inlands. This conceffion was accepted by the Earl of Rochford, who declared on the part of his master, that the prince of Mafferan 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 bim by difpoffeffing him of Port Egmont, and having figned a declaration expreffing that his catholick majefty disavows the expedition against Port Egmont, and engages to restore it in the ftate in which it stood before the 10th of June 1770, bis Britannick majefty will look upon the faid declaration, together with the full performance of the engagement on the part of his catbolick majesty, as a fatisfaction for the injury done to the crown of Great Britain. This is all that was originally demanded. The expedition is disavowed, and the island is reftored. An injury is acknowledged by the reception of Lord Rochford'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 queftion of prior right, a question which we fhall probably make no hafte to discuss, and a right of which no formal refignation was ever required. This reserve has fupplied matter for much clamour, and perhaps the English ministry would have been better pleased had the declaration been without it. But when we have obtained all that was afked, why should we complain that we have not more? When the poffeffion is conceded, where is the evil that the right, which that E 4 that conceffion fuppofes 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 undifputed right, fcarce any prince is a fovereign through his whole dominions; if fovereignty confifts in this, that no fuperior 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 anfwer to the feudal gabble of a man who is every day leffening that fplendour 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 laft difmifs him to namelefs 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 a fon gre de ce grand Cardinal, 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 say, granted you the whole effect of right, and have not denied you the name. We have not faid 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 shakes at the foundation. When you fuppose yourselves to have first defcried the difputed iland, you fuppofe what you can hardly prove. We were at least the general difcoverers 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 least tacitly allowed it, when about twenty years ago you defifted from your purposed expedition, and expressly 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 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 Inland, 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 fettlement, 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 island thrown afide from human use, ftormy in winter, and barren in fummer; an ifland which not the fouthern favages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison muft be kept in a ftate 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 ifland 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. |