FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



237 



the unstable foundation of a papal bull, by virtue of which 

 Spain might just as well claim Otaheite, the Sandwich Islands, 

 or New Zealand. 



As to the pretensions of Buenos Ayres, I shall only re- 

 mark, that in a paper transmitted by her government to Mr. 

 Baylies, charge-d'aff aires of the United States of North Ame- 

 rica, on the 14th August 1832, the advocate of her claims 

 asserts, that " it is a political absurdity to pretend that a 

 colony which emancipates itself, inherits the other territories 

 which the metropolis may possess. If that singular doctrine 

 were to be found in the code of nations, the Low Countries, 

 for example, on their independence being acknowledged, in 

 1648, would have succeeded to Spain in her rights to America ; 

 and in the same manner, the United States would have appro- 

 priated to themselves the British possessions in the East-Indies. 

 Inheritance, indeed ! the United States did not inherit the 

 rights of England in Newfoundland, notwithstanding its con- 

 tiguity ; and are they to inherit those which she may have to 

 the Malvinas, at the southern extremity of the continent, and 

 in the opposite hemisphere.^*** 



The writer of the preceding sentences, in his haste to attack 

 the United States of America for an assertion made by one of 

 their journalists, to the effect that the United States inherited 

 from Great Britain a claim to fish around the Falklands, must 

 have overlooked the simple fact, that his arguments were even 

 more applicable to Buenos Ayres than they were to the United 

 States of North America. 



When Captain Jewitt arrived at the Falklands, he found 

 more than thirty sail of vessels engaged there in the seal fishery, 

 besides others which were recruiting the health of their crews 

 after whaling or sealing voyages in the antarctic regions. By 

 the crews of these ships numbers of cattle and pigs were killed, 

 as well as horses, the wild descendants of those taken there 

 by Bougainville and his successors. 



* Papers relative to the origin and present state of the questions pend- 

 ing with the United States of America on the subject of the Malvinas 

 (Falkland Islands). Translated and printed at Buenos Ayres in 1832. 



