CASE OF THE HARRIET. 191 



These remarks, touching the original rights of Spain and the deriv- 

 ative rights of the Argentine Republic, the rights of free fishery, and 

 the propriety of notice when dormant and unclaimed rights are asserted 

 and resumed, are offered for the consideration of his excellency. 



####### 



If the Argentine Kepublic can show conclusively that Spain was 

 possessed of rights over the Falkland Islands, Tierra del Fuego, Cape 

 Horn, and the islands adjacent in the Atlantic Ocean of such a high 

 and sovereign character as to justify the exclusion of the citizens of 

 the United States of America from the fisheries there; if this Eepublic 

 can show that Spain has relinquished, renounced, or in any way lost 

 her sovereign rights to the regions above mentioned, and that such 

 sovereignty has become absolutely vested in herself, and if she can 

 further show that, having acquired such rights, and being about to 

 exercise them, by inflicting penalties and forfeitures upon the persons 

 and property of the citizens of a friendly nation, for exercising privi- 

 leges which they had been long accustomed to use, she is justified in 

 withholding all official notice of the acquisition of such rights and of 

 her intention so to exercise them from the government or the resident 

 representative of such nation, then, although the American Govern- 

 ment might have some reason to complain of unceremonious and un- 

 friendly treatment, there might, perhaps, have been no cause of coni- 

 Xdaint, on the ground of a violation of positive rights. 



