506 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[March, 
but he expected, from the similarity of the republican forms of the 
governments of both nations, and from a recollection of the early- 
recognition of the independence of their republic by the govern- 
ment of the United States, and their uniformly amicable dispo- 
sitions since, that, on consideration of their complaints, full justice 
would be done." ■ 
He concluded by informing the minister that he was authorized 
to conclude a commercial treaty " on free and reciprocal terms." 
The correspondence between the American charge d'affaires 
and the Argentine minister appears at this period to have been 
suspended for some days. The former, however, appears to have 
kept his main object steadily in view, and persevered in his en^ 
deavours to bring the government of Buenos Ayres to a distinct 
avowal or disavowal of their right to capture American vessels 
or American citizens engaged in the fisheries, and thus to reduce 
the questions in issue to a single point. After waiting a reason- 
able time for the minister to answer the inquiry in the note of 
the twenty-sixth of June or the sixth of August, he addressed to 
him another note, recalling his attention to the subject, and re- 
newing the inquiry. .^''-:'Z^ 
On the fourteenth of August the minister transmitted to Mr. 
Baylies a long memorial of Vernet, who was then for the first 
time styled Political and Military Commandante of the Falk- 
land Islands," accompanied with a communication of an extra- 
ordinary character, in which the charge was accused of attempt- 
ing to change, by a violent effort, the ground of negotiation, for the 
purpose of keeping out of view "the daring and cruel outrage 
committed at the islands by Mr. Duncan ;" and then followed a 
long train of abusive epithets, in which Duncan was berated in 
the most exaggerated and hyperbolical style. The minister 
declared that the perfidy, ferocity, black anger, and barbarity of the 
American commander, and the enormity of his outrage, attacking 
the settlement by surprise and with deception, Hke a highway 
robber or pirate, had excited universal astonishment, wounded 
intensely the honour and dignity of the two republics, outraging 
and insulting the Argentine nation, and tarnishing the credit and 
reputation of the United States. Vernet was likened to one who 
had been robbed, and had caught the robber with the booty in his 
hands. The minister, in an awkward attempt to identify Duncan 
