CAKE OF THE HARRIET. 187 



citizens or subjects of oue nation only are subjected to penalties and 

 'punishments for violations of sovereign jurisdiction so assumed, while 

 the subjects or citizens of other nations, committing ( he same violations, 

 are unmolested, such partial selection is evidence of hostile feeling, at 

 least, in the Officer to whom the authority to punish is delegated, and the 

 Government which justifies an officer who thus favors and spares the 

 one and punishes the other, when both are in purl delicti!, must be 

 considered as avowing a preference, injurious and hostile to the nation 

 which suffers. 



But had the governor, in the exercise of his authority, confined him- 

 self merely to the capture of American vessels, and to the institution of 

 processes before the regular tribunals which administer the laws in 

 this country, with the sole view of ascertaining whether transgressions 

 against the laws and the sovereignty of this Republic had or had not 

 been committed, and had he so done in strict pursuance of his delegated 

 authority, yet, in view of the Government of the United States, even 

 an exercise of authority thus limited, would have been an essential vio- 

 lation of their maritime rights; and the undersigned is instructed and 

 authorized to say that they utterly deny the existence of any right in 

 this Republic to interrupt, molest, detain, or capture any vessels he 

 longing to citizens of the United States of America, or any persons 

 being citizens of those States, engaged in taking seals, or whales, or 

 any species offish or marine animals, in any of the waters, or on any of 

 the shores or lands, of any or either of the Falkland Islands, Terra del 

 Fuego, Cape Horn, or any of the adjacent islands in the Atlantic 

 Ocean. 



In consequence of these repeated outrages on American property 

 and American citizens, it has become the solemn and imperative but 

 unpleasant duty of the undersigned, as the representative of the 

 United States of America, to demand in their behalf a, restitution of 

 all captured property belonging to citizens of the United States now 

 in the possession of this Government, or in the possession of Don Luis 

 Vernet, claiming under its appointment to be the military and civic 

 governor of the Falkland Islands, Terra del FuegO, and all the islands 

 in the Atlantic Ocean adjacent[to] Cape Horn, and ample indemnity for 

 all other property of American citizens which has been seized, sold, or 

 destroyed by said Vernet, or persons acting under his orders; and full 

 and ample immunity and reparation for all consequential injuries and 

 damages arising therefrom, and lull indemnity to all American citizens 

 from personal wrongs, whether from detention, imprisonment, or per- 

 sonal indi unities. 



The American Charge (V Affaires to the Buenos Ay res Minister.' 1 



BtrENOS ATRES, 10th July, 1832. 

 The undersigned, charge d'affaires from the United States of Amer- 

 ica near this Government, has the honor to inform his excellency the 

 minister of grace and justice, charged provisionally with the depart; 

 ment of foreign affairs, that he has received no answer to the inquiry 

 which he had the honor to submit to him in his communication of the 

 36th ultimo, and which was of the following purport, that his Government 



>Soe British and Foreign State Papers, 1832-'33, Vol. 20, p. 338. 



