PREFACE ΤΟ THE SECOND VOLUME. I THINK it necessary to introduce this volume by a few words of observation. Its appearance has been delayed much more than I could reasonably have expected; but the cause has been a laborious research in the State-paper Office, for materials to render the work more correct. An error in the first volume, p. 180, has been pointed out to me: I have said that Mr. Pratt, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was made a peer by the title of Earl Camden; he was created a Baron, and did not attain the higher title till 1786. While that volume was in the press, a pamphlet on the subject of Falkland's Islands was published by Mr. L. B. Mackinnon, describing them in 1838 and 1839, with a climate, possibilities of commercial and agricultural advantages, and productions both vegetable and animal, very different from those which, relying on the best authorities, I had attributed to them. How much the aspect of this territory may have been changed in a period of seventy years is not worth much inquiry; but it is important to ascertain that, as we did not enter into the contest with Spain without abundant cause, we did not relinquish it without ample satisfaction, and did not tarnish our honour by any clandestine compact to renounce the territory for which we had been contending. Dr. Johnson was perfectly right in maintaining that Falkland's Islands, as a possession, were not worth the hazard and cost of a war; but, as a point of honour, a much less object would have been a justification. Our honourable feelings were fully appeased by the |
