But the silent toleration of suspected guilt is a degree of depravity far below that which openly incites, and manifestly protects it. To pardon a pirate may be injurious to mankind; but how much greater is the crime of opening a port, in which all pirates shall be safe! The contraband trader is not more worthy of protections; if, with Narborough, he trades by force, he is a pirate; if he trade secretly, he is only a thief. Those who honestly refuse his traffick, he hates, as obstructers of his profit; and those, with whom he deals, he cheats, because he knows that they dare not complain. He lives with a heart full of that malignity, which fear of detection always generates in those, who are to defend unjust acquisitions against lawful authority; and when he comes home, with riches thus acquired, he brings a mind hardened in evil, too proud for reproof, and too stupid for reflection; he offends the high by his insolence, and corrupts the low by his example. Whether these truths were forgotten, or despised; or, whether some better purpose was then in agitation, the representation made in Anson's voyage had such effect upon the statesmen of that time, that, in 1748, some sloops were fitted out for the fuller knowledge of Pepys's and Falkland's islands, and for further discoveries in the South sea. This expedition, though, perhaps, designed to be secret, was not long concealed from Wall, the Spanish ambassadour, who so vehemently opposed it, and so strongly maintained the right of the Spaniards to the exclusive dominion of the South sea, that the English ministry relinquished part of their original design, and declared, that the examination of those two islands was the utmost that their orders should comprise.