did or would write a letter of this sort upon so delicate a matter, without first laying it before his Majesty's most confiden ized us in the beginning to have demanded, and would, in all probability, nave induced Spain to consent to, an immediate, perfect, and equitable settlement of all the points in discussion between the two crowns; but all preparation having been neglected, the national safety was left depending rather upon accidental alterations in the internal circumstances of our neighbours than in the proper and natural strength of the kingdom; and this negligence was highly aggravated by the refusal of administration to consent to an address, proposed by a noble Lord in this House last session, for a moderate and gradual augmentation of our naval forces. 5. Because the negotiation, entered into much too late, was, from the commencement, conducted upon principles as disadvantageous to the wisdom of our public councils as it was finally concluded in a manner disgraceful to the honour of the crown of Great Britain; for it appears that the court of Madrid did disavow the act of hostility as proceeding from particular instructions, but justified it under her general instructions to her governors, under the oath by them taken, and under the established laws of America. This general order was never disavowed nor explained; nor was any disavowal or explanation thereof ever demanded by our ministers and we apprehend that this justification of an act of violence under general orders, established laws, and oaths of office, to be far more dangerous and injurious to this kingdom than the particular enterprise which has been disavowed, as it evidently supposes that the governors of the Spanish American provinces are not only authorized, but required, without any particular instructions, to raise great forces by sea and land, and to invade his Majesty's possessions in that part of the world, in the midst of profound peace. 6. Because this power, so unprecedented and alarming, under which the Spanish governor was justified by his court, rendered it the duty of our ministers to insist upon some censure or punishment upon that governor, in order to demonstrate the sincerity of the court of Madrid, and of her desire to preserve peace, by putting at least some check upon those exorbitant powers asserted by the court of Spain to be given to her governors. But although our ministers were authorized, not only by the acknowledged principles of the law of nations, to call for such censure or punishment, but also by the express provision of the seventeenth article of the treaty of Utrecht, yet they have thought fit to observe a profound silence on this necessary article of public reparation. If it were thought that any circumstances appeared in the particular case of the governor, to make an abatement or pardon of the punishment advisable, that abatement or pardon ought to have been the effect of his Majesty's clemency, and not an impunity to him, arising from the ignorance of our ministers in the first principles of public law, or their negli gence or pusillanimity in asserting them. 7. Because nothing has been had or demanded as a reparation in damage for the enormous expense and other inconveniences arising from the cor fessed and unprovoked violence of the Spanish forces in the enterprise agains Falkland's Islands, and the long subsequent delay of justice. It was not re cessary to this demand that it should be made in any improper or offensive tial servants, and taking the King's express orders upon it. It speaks, then, the unanimous sentiments of them all. His language, but in that style of accommodation which has ever been used by able negotiators. 8. Because an unparalleled and most audacious insult has been offered to the honour of the British flag, by the detention of a ship of war of his Ma jesty's, for twenty days after the surrender of Port Egmont, and by the indig nity of forcibly taking away her rudder: this act could not be supported upon any idea of being necessary to the reduction of the fort, nor was any such necessity pretended. No reparation in honour has been demanded for this wanton insult, by which his Majesty's reign is rendered the unhappy æra in which the honour of the British flag has suffered the first stain with entire impunity. 9. Because the Spanish declaration, which our ministers have advised his Majesty to accept, does in general words imply his Majesty's disavowal of some acts on his part tending to disturb the good correspondence of the two courts, when it is notorious that no act of violence whatsoever had been committed on the part of Great Britain. By this disavowal of some implied aggression in the very declaration, pretended to be made for reparation of the injured dignity of Great Britain, his Majesty is made to admit a supposition contrary to truth, and injurious to the justice and honour of his crown. 10. Because in the said declaration the restitution is confined to Port Egmont, when Spain herself originally offered to rede Falkland's Islands. It is known that she made her forcible attack on pretence of title to the whole, and the restitution ought, therefore, not to have been confined to a part only; nor can any reason be assigned why the restitution ought to have been made in narrower or more ambiguous words than the claims of Spain, on which her act of violence was grounded, and her offers of restitution originally made. 11. Because the declaration, by which his Majesty is to obtain possession of Port Egmont, contains a reservation or condition of the question of a claim of prior right of sovereignty in the Catholic King to the whole of Falkland's Islands, being the first time such a claim has ever authentically appeared in any public instrument jointly concluded on by the two courts. No explanation of the principles of this claim has been required, although there is just reason to believe that these principles will equally extend to restrain the liberty and confine the extent of British navigation. No counter claim has been made on the part of his Majesty to the right of sovereignty in any part of the said island ceded to him; any assertion whatsoever of his Majesty's right of sovereignty has been studiously avoided from the beginning to the accomplishment of this unhappy transaction, which, after the expense of millions, settles no contest, asserts no right, exacts no reparation, affords no security, but stands as a monument of reproach to the wisdom of the national councils, of dishonour to the essential dignity of his Majesty's crown, and of disgrace to the hitherto untainted honour of the British flag. After having given these reasons, founded on the facts which appeared from the papers, we think it necessary here to disclaim an invidious and injurious imputation, substituted in the place of fair argument, that they who will not approve of this convention are for precipitating their cuntry into the Majesty pronounces, in common with the rest, his own condemnation in that of this unworthy transaction. The moderate reparation to his Majesty's honour for the injury is not obtained unconditionally; that is, in the only way which he himself and his servants thought indispensable. A humiliating stipulation for referring the discussion of the prior right is a defeasance of the reparation. It wounds irreparably the honour of the King as a private man, and the glory of the kingdom; but when that stipulation carries along with it also a private insinuation or encouragement to the Catholic King to hope, and most probably, not to say certainly, an calamities of war. We are as far from the design, and we trust much further from the act, of kindling the flame of war, than those who have advised his Majesty to accept of the declaration of the Spanish ambassador. We have never entertained the least thought of invalidating this public act; but if ministers may not be censured, or even punished for treaties, which, though valid, are injurious to the national interest and honour, without a supposition of the breach of public faith in this House, that should censure or punish, or of a breach of the laws of humanity in those who propose such censure or punishment, the use of the peers, as a controul on ministers, and as the best as well as highest council of the crown, will be rendered of no avail. We have no doubt but a declaration more adequate to our just pretensions, and to the dignity of the crown, might have been obtained without the effusion of blood, not only from the favourable circumstance of the conjuncture, but because our just demands were no more than any sovereign power who had injured another through inadvertence or mistake ought, even from regard to its own honour, to have granted; and we are satisfied that the obtaining such terms would have been the only secure means of establishing a lasting and honouraide peace. AUDLEY, RICHMOND, Because, though the disavowal may be considered as humiliating to the court of Spain, the declaration and acceptance, under the reservation of the question of prior right, do not, in my opinion, after the heavy expenses incurred, either convey a satisfaction adequate to the insult on the honour of Great Britain, or afford any reasonable grounds to believe that peace, on the terms of honour, can be lasting. RADNOR. express assurance, that not only Port Egmont now restored to us. but the whole island. shall in due time, as soon as they dare, be surrendered to the crown of Spain. No words can express the meanness or folly of such a proceeding. Our tame submission to France in the Corsican business has drawn this atrocious insult upon us. This insult, accompanied with the indignities contained by the minister's own confession in the convention, will renew to us, in the mouths of the proud and triumphant Spaniards, the ignominious title of Gallinas del mar, and we shall deservedly become a byeword of contempt amongst the nations. The only reparation which it can be pretended that Spain makes, is the temporary restitution of Port Egmont. Restoring to me my possessions violently seized is an act of justice, not of reparation: but with what indelible shame shall we be covered, when it is seen that we pitifully traffic away what was insultingly wrested from us, and yield the whole to the any pretence or colour whatever? aggressor under mitted after repeated notices of our right, in full peace: it The insult was comwas an insult, not only to the flag of England hitherto spotless, but to the whole majesty of the kingdom, by direct hostilities committed as in time of actual war, so as to enforce a formal capitulation; a proceeding till now unheard of, submitted to with a meanness and treachery on the part of our rulers, which nothing can now palliate. We deceive ourselves if we think the peace can be maintained by pusillanimity and baseness. Remember 66 under a convention that satisfaction to which he has so just His Majesty cannot accept a title, without entering into any engagements to procure it."* A Member of one House of l'arliament in mourning for the honour of his king and country. See this subject further discussed in Junius, Letter 42, vol. i. and notes appended to it. P 310 LETTER LXXXIX. TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. SIR, February 16, 1771. It is proper the public should be informed that, upon Lord Gower's election to be a knight of the garter, there were but four knights present, besides the Sovereign, and the Duke of Gloucester was lugged in to be one of them. He intreated, he begged, he implored, but all to no purpose. Poor Peg Trentham was forced to submit to an election, which, by the statutes of the order, is void. Ashmole informs us, that "tc make up a complete chapter of election, there should be assembled six knights companions at the least, besides the Sovereign; the due observance of which hath been so strict formerly, that elections have been deferred, where chapters have been deficient in that number." * The same fact is related, and probably by the same correspondent, in the following article of the Public Advertiser, February 15, 1771: A correspondent has sent us the following remarks on the London Gazette, published by authority. "This lying paper contains the following unprecedented article:-'St. James's, Feb. 11. This day a chapter of the most noble order of the garter was held in the great council chamber, when Granville Levison Gower, Earl Gower, being first knighted, was afterwards elected and invested with the garter, ribbon, and George, with the usual solemnity.' It is most notorious to a great concourse of nobility and gentry then present, that there were only assisting the best of Kings, the Dukes of Gloucester, Newcastle, and Northumberland; consequently it is impossible that any election can have been made, the statutes of the order requiring the presence of the Sovereign with six knights. The best of Kings, whose duty it is to preserve the laws inviolable, could, to be sure, on no consideration, not even the election of that most worthy peer the Earl Gower into this noble order, be prevailed upon in the face of all England to set the example of openly violating the statutes which have hitherto been so religiously respected and observed through so many ages. Had there been an election, the Gazette would have proclaimed it in the usual form-the knights present would have been enumerated and named. It is impossible that the best of Kings can be a party to the illegally smuggling in a knight upon that most noble order, in the same manner as a knight for the county of Middlesex has been smuggled into the House of Commons. If this article of news could be true, would not the kingdom have reason to lament that all order, decency, and respect for ancient rules and establishment is now broken through by the person whose peculiar duty and interest it is to preserve them? Is the Court itself so unpopular, or is the subject of his Majesty's favour so unworthy, that it was, after ten days waiting, impossible to procure the attendance of more than the King's own |