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VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
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) 
[March, >|| 
live from Spain, the first inquiry naturally divides itself into two 
branches. 
" First — Had Spain any sovereign rights over the above-men- 
tioned places ? 
" Second — Did the Argentine Republic succeed to those rights ? 
"If it can be shown that Spain had no such rights, the ques- 
tion is terminated, unless the Argentine Republic should abandon 
all title under Spain, and claim an absolute vested sovereignty, 
original in itself. 
"If it should be shown afiirmatively that Spain had such 
rights, then it must be as clearly shown that the Argentine Re- 
public succeeded to them ; and if that can be shown, then it 
must also be shown that the Argentine Republic had authority to 
capture and detain American vessels and American citizens en- 
gaged in the fisheries at those places, without notifying the 
American government, or its representative here, officially, of such 
assumptions and such claims." 
The charge further stated, that the United States claimed no 
more than the privileges " which they had been accustomed to 
exercise in,common with other maritime nations." 
He then proceeded to discuss the nature of the title which 
civilized nations acquired over countries not inhabited, or inhabit- 
ed only by savages, by prior discovery, taking formal posses- 
sion, and by prior occupation. This branch of the argument was 
extended to a considerable length, but our limits forbid us from 
saying more than he admitted, that conditional rights accrued from 
discovery and taking formal possession, and positive rights from 
occupation. 
He then carefully traced the progressive discovery of these 
islands. 
Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese in the service of the Em- 
peror Charles V., entered the strait which bears his name in 
October, fifteen hundred and twenty, and was probably the origi- 
nal discoverer of the southern coast of Patagonia, and the northern 
coast of Terra del Fuego : — " More fortunate (says Mr. Bayhes) 
than Columbus, he not only left an undying name to the strait 
which he traversed, but he has fixed it eternally in the celestial 
regions of the southern hemisphere." Magellan made the first 
attempt to circumnavigate the world ; but, before the voyage was 
