and prior settlement.  And by such titles almost all the dominions of the earth are holden, except that their original is beyond memory, and greater obscurity gives them greater veneration.  Should we allow this plea to be annulled, the whole fabrick of our empire shakes at the foundation.  When you suppose yourselves to have first descried the disputed island, you suppose what you can hardly prove.  We were, at least, the general discoverers of the Magellanick region, and have hitherto held it with all its adjacencies.  The justice of this tenure the world has, hitherto, admitted, and yourselves, at least, tacitly allowed it, when, about twenty years ago, you desisted from your purposed expedition, and expressly disowned any design of settling, where you are now not content to settle and to reign, without extorting such a confession of original right, as may invite every other nation to follow you.

To considerations such as these, it is reasonable to impute that anxiety of the Spaniards, from which the importance of this island is inferred by Junius, one of the few writers of his despicable faction, whose name does not disgrace the page of an opponent.  The value of the thing disputed may be very different to him that gains and him that loses it.  The Spaniards, by yielding Falkland’s island, have admitted a precedent of what they think encroachment; have suffered a breach to be made in the outworks of their empire; and, notwithstanding the reserve of prior right, have suffered a dangerous exception to the prescriptive tenure of their American territories.

Such is the loss of Spain; let us now compute the profit of Britain.  We have, by obtaining a disavowal of Buccarelli’s expedition, and a restitution of our settlement, maintained the honour of the crown, and the superiority of our influence.  Beyond this what have we acquired?  What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island, thrown aside from human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer; an island, which not the southern savages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of Siberia; of which the expense will be perpetual, and the use only occasional; and which, if fortune smile upon our labours, may become a nest of smugglers in peace, and in war the refuge of future bucaniers.  To all this the government has now given ample attestation, for the island has been since abandoned, and, perhaps, was kept only to quiet clamours, with an intention, not then wholly concealed, of quitting it in a short time.

This is the country of which we have now possession, and of which a numerous party pretends to wish that we had murdered thousands for the titular sovereignty.  To charge any men with such madness approaches to an accusation defeated by its own incredibility.  As they have been long accumulating falsehoods, it is possible that they are now only adding another to the heap, and that they do not mean all that they profess.  But of this faction what evil may not be credited?  They have hitherto shown no virtue, and very little wit, beyond that mischievous cunning for which it is held, by Hale, that children may be hanged!