One who has read the foregoing chapters will recognize many misleading statements in this letter. The first sentence falsely gives the impression, though it does not make the positive statement, that the King of Spain had ordered the occupation of Nootka. Hence there was some ground for suspecting that the Spanish Government had ordered Martinez’s violent proceedings. Martinez arrived at Nootka almost two months earlier than the date given in the note. June 21 was the date of the formal act of possession. This error seems to have been due to carelessness, since no motive is apparent, and the correct date is given in the documents which Floridablanca had at hand. The note does not mention the fact, clearly stated in the same documents, that the first packet boat and the other vessel accompanying it from Macao were really English, though nominally Portuguese; and the impression is given that they were allowed to go absolutely free as were the American vessels. No mention whatever is made of the _Princess Royal_ which was also sent as a prize to Mexico, though this is plainly stated in the documents. Instead of telling that four English ships were captured, the impression is given that there was only one. The gravest misstatement is that the English prisoners had been liberated. As pointed out above, this was probably inferred from the statement in the second letter of Florez that he thought that they ought to be liberated, but would leave his successor to do it--a very insufficient ground for such a positive assertion. As a matter of fact, they were not liberated for more than three months after Floridablanca wrote the instructions which this note embodied.[219] But the gravity of the note did not lie in its errors or prevarications. The serious part of it was the demand that the English King should punish his subjects for doing what Leeds had declared to Merry only a few days before they had a perfect right to do, namely, to trade and make settlements on the Northwest Coast. The further request that the English Government should give strict orders to prevent such enterprises in the future was virtually demanding that England should forever refrain from exercising this right. Such demands could only be acquiesced in when made upon a weak government by a strong one. English pride could not brook them. The narrative which was prepared in the foreign office and published by the Government[220] says: His Majesty’s ministers conceiving the circumstance of seizing a British ship in time of peace to be an offense against the law of nations and an insult to His Majesty, lost no time in taking the only step in their powers.[221] A fortnight after receiving the Spanish note Leeds replied in a tone equally imperious. After reviewing the facts as given by Campo and referring to the demands of the Spanish Court, he said: