1834.] 
FALKLAND ISLANDS. 
491 
a situation which presented only a choice of difficulties. The honour 
or the peace of the American nation might be affected by his con- 
duct. It was his desire to maintain friendly relations with the 
wayward government of Buenos Ayres, but he was not disposed 
to make unreasonable or humiliating concessions to sooth their 
rage or gratify their caprices. After weighing all the circum- 
stances, he' resolved to proceed to Buenos Ayres. 
In the rneantime the news of Duncan's transactions had reached 
the city, and the community there were thrown into a paroxysm 
of rage. The consul was suspended. The newspapers were 
filled with inflammatory publications. On the fourteenth of Feb- 
ruary a proclamation was issued by the delegate government, 
signed by Don Juan Ramon Balcarse and Don Manuel I. Garcia, 
two of the ministry, in which the conduct of Duncan was de- 
nounced in language of the most violent and inflammatory char- 
acter ; and while magnifying their own magnanimity and forbear- 
ance, and duly eulogizing their own honour, they could find no 
greater indulgence for Duncan than to stigmatize him as a public 
robber, who had invaded, " with rancorous fury, their ancient col- 
ony, in the midst of profound peace ;" and they declared that the 
unanimous explosion of indignation at this odious outrage was 
fully justified, &c. &c. At the same time a circular letter, signed 
by the same ministers, was issued to the governors of the several 
provinces, composing, according to their denomination, the Argen- 
tine Republic, repeating the same denunciations of the American 
commander. In this paroxysm the government admitted what 
they had carefully abstained from admitting before,— that Vernet 
was the civil and military governor of the Falkland Islands. The 
consul was suspended on the alleged ground of " a notable ir- 
regularity in his ideas and language" in his official correspond- 
ence, which had been closed two months before, and was held 
with an individual not then a member of the government. 
To the note in wliich he was informed that his functions were 
suspended, the consul replied that he had received no intimation 
from his own government to suspend his , functions, neither had he 
any authority to appoint a substitute (a course suggested by the 
government of Buerios Ayres). He concluded by declaring, that 
the responsibility of the act of suspension rested on the govern- 
