In the account of Lord Anson’s voyage round the world, there is dropped a hint that a settlement in the South Sea would be of great advantage to England in time of war. Lord Egmont, when at the head of the Admiralty, had adopted that idea, and caused possession to be taken for us of one of the Falkland Islands, a desolate rock near the straits of Magellan. According to the received code of European usurpation, prior occupancy or discovery implies right. To have taken nominal possession of another country, not before known to any of us invaders, constitutes property among Christian potentates, or robbers, and by that piratic jurisprudence, the Falkland Islands belonged to, though abandoned by, Spain. Our breach of this iniquitous seniority of claim was highly resented by the King of Spain, personally a hater of England ever since he had trembled before our navies, when only King of Naples, and had been humbled in the last war. The Governor of Buenos Ayres, within whose district lay the desert in question, was ordered (underhand) to dispossess us, and did. That intention had been known to our Administration some months before the Duke of Grafton quitted the reins; but, according to his custom, he had neglected the notice, or, with equal indifference, had intended to slubber over the quarrel in tame conferences with the Spanish ambassador here; and there the affair had dozed, till the “Favourite” sloop, arriving in the month of June, brought advice that our colony had been expelled from the island, and, by rousing the nation, awakened the Administration. Whether we had been the aggressors or not, was not a consideration to have weight with the people, much less with Opposition. Nothing was in the mouths of either but the insult; and whatever the Ministers thought, or whatever they proposed to bear, it was not openly that they dared to talk any language but war, or at least resentment. Orders were given to fit out fleets and to impress men, and a messenger set off for Madrid to demand immediate restitution of the island. The answer was very indefinite, and too unsatisfactory to bear publication. A categoric answer was then said to be demanded, but no such answer arrived. France talked peace; her finances were greatly in disorder; we trusted to their language or their situation; Spain behaved as depending on their support, or as resolved to extort it; but I must not too much anticipate events. A fire in the magazines at Portsmouth, to a considerable amount, and the authors of which were not discovered, was imputed rather to our friends the French than to Spain our enemy, and looked like a return for a discovery the former had made of some such design from hence. A young Irish officer of some birth, Gordon by name, who had fled for a duel, had been beheaded at Brest, and had been proved to have been in the pay of our Ambassador, Lord Harcourt.