p or lose, as well as
ourselves.

When the admiralty were told, in June, of the warning given to Hunt,
they were, I suppose, informed that Hunt had first provoked it by
warning away the Spaniards, and naturally considered one act of
insolence as balanced by another, without expecting that more would be
done on either side. Of representations and remonstrances there would be
no end, if they were to be made whenever small commanders are uncivil to
each other; nor could peace ever be enjoyed, if, upon such transient
provocations, it be imagined necessary to prepare for war. We might
then, it is said, have increased our force with more leisure and less
inconvenience; but this is to judge only by the event. We omitted to
disturb the publick, because we did not suppose that an armament would
be necessary.

Some months afterwards, as has been told, Buccarelli, the governour of
Buenos Ayres, sent against the settlement of port Egmont a force which
ensured the conquest. The Spanish commander required the English
captains to depart, but they, thinking that resistance necessary, which
they knew to be useless, gave the Spaniards the right of prescribing
terms of capitulation. The Spaniards imposed no new condition, except
that the sloop should not sail under twenty days; and of this they
secured the performance by taking off the rudder.

To an inhabitant of the land there appears nothing in all this
unreasonable or offensive. If the English intended to keep their
stipulation, how were they injured by the detention of the rudder? If
the rudder be to a ship, what his tail is in fables to a fox, the part
in which honour is placed, and of which the violation is never to be
endured, I am sorry that the Favourite suffered an indignity, but cannot
yet think it a cause for which nations should slaughter one another.

When Buccarelli's invasion was known, and the dignity of the crown
infringed, we demanded reparation and prepared for war, and we gained
equal respect by the moderation of our terms, and the spirit of our
exertion. The Spanish minister immediately denied that Buccarelli had
received any particular orders to seize port Egmont, nor pretended that
he was justified, otherwise than by the general instructions by which
the American governours are required to exclude the subjects of other
powers.

To have inquired whether our settlement at port Egmont was any violation
of the Spanish rights, had been to enter upon a discussion,