490 fOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. [Marcll, 
would seem, that some person should be charged with the inter- 
ests of the United States ex necessitate rei ; and if there be no 
secretary of legation, none would seem so proper for such service 
as the consul residing at the seat of government ; we mean, espe- 
cially, in all matters relating to commerce. 
Dignity is never to be trifled with — it is sometimes extremely 
troublesome to those who assume it and still wish to do business, 
and it is better to wave its punctilios, even in diplomatic inter- 
course : but being once assumed, it is a derogation to abandon it : 
the consul's notes should have been rejected in the outset, or at 
least after the first intimation that he had transcended his authority, 
or not at all. 
While the consul and the minister were engaged in these dis- 
cussions, Captain Duncan, with Davison for a pilot, sailed on the 
ninth of December for the Falklands, where he arrived on the thirty- 
first. He did no more than spike some guns which were lying on 
the beach, and which he had good reason to suppose were to be 
used in vessels which were to be employed in the capture of 
American sealers and whalers : as much of the plundered property 
as he could find he restored to the right owners : he arrested 
seven men who were proved to have been concerned in the cap- 
ture of the vessels, among whom was one Brisbane, a British sub- 
ject, who had been the chief agent in the atrocities of Vernet : 
the remainder of the settlers be brought away at their own re- 
quest, who complained much of the deceptions which had been 
practised upon them by Vernet: some of the Guachos, who 
formed a part of this settlement, fled to the interior : he seized no 
hona-fide property of Vernet's, and scrupulously respected all 
private property : after despatching the Shallop (whose flag was 
changed) with its crew to Staten-land, to relieve the seamen there, 
he left the Falklands, returned to the river, and anchored at 
Montevideo on the seventh of February, eighteen hundred and 
thirty-two, from whence he addressed a note to the government, 
, offering to surrender his prisoners if they would give an assurance 
that they acted under their authority. : 
Commodore George W. Rogers, who had been appointed to 
the command of the Brazil squadron, arrived at the river, in the 
United States schooner Enterprise, and hoisted his flag on board 
the Warren, Captain Cooper. The commodore found himself in 
