APPENDIX. 



161 



cially to the Spanish ministers, since it is only a private regulation 

 ^ith regard to our own convenience ; yet, as I am inclined to think, 

 from what passed formerly upon this subject, that they will rather 

 be pleased at this event, your Excellency may, if they mention it to 

 you, freely avow it, without entering into any other reasonings 

 thereon. It must strike your Excellency that this is likely to dis- 

 courage them from suspecting designs, which they must now plainly 

 see never entered into our minds. I hope they will not suspect, or 

 suffer themselves to be made believe, that this was done at the re- 

 quest, or to gratify the most distant wish, of the French court ; for 

 the truth is, that it is neither more nor less than a small part of an 

 economical naval regulation." 



M. Moreno will perceive that the above authentic papers, which 

 have been faithfully extracted from the Volumes of Correspondence 

 with Spain, deposited in the State Paper Office, contain no allusion 

 whatever to any secret understanding between the two Governments, 

 at the period of the restoration of Port Egmont and its dependencies 

 to Great Britain, in 1771, nor to the evacuation of Falkland's 

 Islands, in 1774, as having taken place for the purpose of fulfilling 

 any such understanding. On the contrary, it will be evident to 

 M. Moreno, that their contents afford conclusive inference that no 

 such secret understanding could have existed. 



The undersigned need scarcely assure M. Moreno, that the cor- 

 respondence which has been referred to, does not contain the least 

 particle of evidence in support of the contrary supposition, enter- 

 tained by the Government of the United Provinces of the Rio de la 

 Plata, nor any confirmation of the several particulars related in 

 M. Moreno's note. 



The undersigned trusts, that a perusal of these details will satisfy 

 M. Moreno, that the protest which he has been directed to deliver 

 to the undersigned, against the re- assumption of the sovereignty of 

 the Falkland Islands by his Majesty, has been drawn up under an 

 erroneous impression, as well of the understanding under which the 

 declaration and counter- declaration relative to the restoration of Port 

 Egmont and its dependencies were signed and exchanged between 

 the two courts, as of the motives which led to the temporary relin- 

 quishment of those islands^ by the British Government; and the 



