482 
VOyAGB OF THE POTOMAC. 
[Marchv" 
baffled in the attempt to double the Cape of Good Hope, they 
have been brought upon short allowance. If there were als-o a 
de-pot of naval stores, vessels which had been crippled by the 
furious winds and storms of the southern seas, would -find these 
islands a convenient place for refitting ; such a depot might also 
be of service to the vessels engaged in the whale-fishery on the 
Brazil Banks. 
Considered in a military view, the Falkland's are a commandmg 
position, from their proximity to the track of navigation in pass- 
ing around Cape Horn, or through the Strait of Magellan. All 
the vessels engaged in the seal-fisheries at these and the adjacent 
islands would be exposed to the depredations of armed cruisers 
issuing from their various harbours, whose cruises could be easily 
extended, to the great annoyance of that rich trade which is 
carried on between Europe and the United States, and India and 
China. It is true, there is no timber or materials for ship- 
building on the islands, but a maritime people can always provide 
themselves with vessels. A piratical people, in possession of this 
station, could annoy the commerce of the world more effectually 
than all the piratical states of Barbary, and this evil the people 
of the United States, in some degree', have already experienced. 
Before the revolution, the North Americans, as they were termed 
in South America, had extended their voyages so far, that, in the 
language of Burke, the Falkland Islands were but a stage in the 
progress of their victorious industry. Soon after the peace"" of 
seventeen hundred and eighty-three, these voyages were resumed. 
The fisheries on the Brazil Banks and in the Pacific Ocean em- 
ployed a great number of vessels, many seamen, and much capital. 
The seal-fishery also became important, and our mariners fre- 
quented these desolate islands and coasts during the period of the 
Spanish domination without interruption, and their right to pursue 
this fishery there was never questioned by Spain : nothing was 
done to impeach or deny -it until June tenth, eighteen hundred and 
twenty-nine, when, during the temporary existence of a govern- 
ment at Buenos Ayres, originating in a mutiny, and disgraced by 
the murder of the chief magistrate, one Louis Vernet, a German 
adventurer and a naturahzed citizen of the United States, obtained 
a decree by which he was constituted civil and military gov- 
ernor of the Falkland Islands, Terra del Fuego, and the adjacent 
islands. 
