1 834.] FALKLAND ISLANBS. ^ 495 
jected to penalties and punishments for violations of soA^ereign 
jiirisdiction so assumed, while the subjects or citizens of other 
nations, committing the same violations, are unmolested, such par- 
tial selection is evidence of hostile feeling, at least, in the officer 
to whom the authority to punish is delegated ; ahd the government 
which justifies an officer who thus favours and spares the one, and 
punishes the other, when both are in pari delictu, must be con- 
sidered as avowing a preference injurious and hostile to the nation 
which suffers." 
He also called the attention of the government to the period 
when Vernet commenced his system of depredation, which was 
soon after the death of Mr. Forbes, " choosing a time for the ex- 
ercise of his powers in acts of despotism, when no high diplo- 
matic functionary was there to advocate and protect the interests 
and rights of his countrymen." 
He utterly denied the right of the Argentine Republic " to in- 
terrupt, molest, detain, or capture any vessels belonging to citi- 
zens of the United States, or any persons being citizens of those 
states, engaged in taking seals, or whales, or any species of fish 
or marine animals, in any of the waters, or on any of the shores 
or lands' of the Falkland Islands," or the other islands mentioned 
in the decree of the tenth of June, and claimed a restitution of all 
the captured vessels and property, and indemnity for all Ameri- 
can citizens who had been aggrieved ; and he respectfully sug- 
gested the restoration of the consul to his functions, until the 
views of the government of the United States could be ascer 
tained, declaring that the American government had always re- 
spected the feelings of the people among whom their consuls 
resided. 
This communication was answered by the minister of foreign 
affairs on the twenty-fifth of June, stating merely that explanations 
would be sought from Vernet, on which the governor would form 
his judgment 'and pronounce, "without pretending to impair the 
private rights of the citizens of the United States who might be 
aggrieved or injured, or to sacrifice either to exorbitant preten- 
sions those of Don Louis Vernet, and much less those public 
rights which, by the common law of nations, belonged to the Ar- 
gentine Republic as a sovereign and independent state." No 
