494 VOYAGE OP THE POTOMAC. [March, 
Englishmen, North Americans, Monte videans, and Buenos Ayreans 
— the two last, for the most part (as it is said), were the sweepings 
of the prisons at Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. There were no 
indications of a national colony authorized by law, nothing but a 
band of wild and lawless adventurers. A German, naturalized in 
North America, had delegated his powers to a citizen of the United 
States (one Metcalf, from Portland, in Maine), and directed him 
to seize the vessels, and imprison the persons of his own country- 
men ; and the principal agent in his outrages against the fisher- 
men was one Matthew Brisbane, a British subject. Duncan in- 
tended no insult to the authorities of Buenos Ayres ; but under his 
general instructions to protect American commerce and American 
citizens, he did his duty. 
While things were in this unsettled state, and early in June, 
eighteen hundred and thirty-two, the Honourable Francis Baylies, 
who had been appointed charge d'affaires from the United States 
to the Argentine Republic, arrived at Buenos Ayres in the sloop- 
of-war Peacock. Mr. Baylies had left the United States before 
the news of Captain Duncan's transactions at the Falklands had 
reached this country ; and instead of being instructed, according 
to the suggestions of the governor of the chamber of deputies, to 
offer reparation and indemnity for Duncan's act, he was instructed 
to demand reparation and indemnity for Vernet's acts ; which in- 
structions, when he had ascertained that every attempt at honour- 
able conciliation had failed, he carried into effect, by addressing 
the communication of June twentieth to the minister of grace 
and justice then charged with the department of foreign affairs, 
Don Manuel Vicente de Maza. In this communication the acts 
of Vernet were set forth at large, which were followed with sun- 
dry comments. With respect to the discrimination made by Ver- 
net between English and American vessels, Mr. Baylies said 
" that it might happen that nations would sometimes mistake their 
rights and attempt to establish sovereign jurisdiction over territo- 
ries not clearly their own, or to which their title might be dis- 
puted ; and that other nations, whose rights might be affected by 
such assumptions, were not necessarily obliged, in the first instance, 
perhaps, to regard acts enforcing such jurisdiction as intrinsically 
and absolutely hostile, if their operation were equal and indiscrimi- 
nating. But if the citizens or subjects of one nation only are sub- 
