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Mr. Harris, our minister at Madrid, insisted, that the injured party had a right to unconditional reparation, and Grimaldi delayed his answer, that a council might be called. In a few days, orders were despatched to prince Masseran, by which he was commissioned to declare the king of Spain’s readiness to satisfy the demands of the king of England, in expectation of receiving from him reciprocal satisfaction, by the disavowal, so often required, of Hunt’s warning.

Finding the Spaniards disposed to make no other acknowledgments, the English ministry considered a war as not likely to be long avoided. In the latter end of November, private notice was given of their danger to the merchants at Cadiz, and the officers, absent from Gibraltar, were remanded to their posts. Our naval force was every day increased, and we made no abatement of our original demand.

The obstinacy of the Spanish court still continued, and, about the end of the year, all hope of reconciliation was so nearly extinguished, that Mr. Harris was directed to withdraw, with the usual forms, from his residence at Madrid.

Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful; having not swelled our first requisition with any superfluous appendages, we had nothing to yield, we, therefore, only repeated our first proposition, prepared for war, though desirous of peace.

About this time, as is well known, the king of France dismissed Choiseul from his employments. What effect this revolution of the French court had upon the Spanish counsels, I pretend not to be informed. Choiseul had always professed pacifick dispositions; nor is it certain, however it may be suspected, that he talked in different strains to different parties.

It seems to be almost the universal errour of historians to suppose it politically, as it is physically true, that every effect has a proportionate cause. In the inanimate action of matter upon matter, the motion produced can be but equal to the force of the moving power; but the operations of life, whether private or publick, admit no such laws. The caprices of voluntary agents laugh at calculation. It is not always that there is a strong reason for a great event. Obstinacy and flexibility, malignity and kindness, give place, alternately, to each other; and the reason of these vicissitudes, however important may be the consequences, often escapes the mind in which the change is made.

Whether the alteration, which began in January to appear in the Spanish counsels, had any other cause than conviction of the impropriety of their past conduct, and of the danger of a new war, it is not easy to decide; but they began, whatever was the reason, to relax their haughtiness, and Mr. Harris’s departure was countermanded.

The demands first made by England were still continued, and on January 22d, the prince of Masseran delivered a declaration, in which the king of Spain “disavows the violent enterprise of Buccarelli,” and promises “to restore the port and fort called Egmont, with all the artillery and stores, according to the inventory.”

To this promise of restitution is subjoined, that “this engagement to restore port Egmont cannot, nor ought, in any wise, to affect the question of the prior right of sovereignty of the Malouine, otherwise called Falkland’s islands.”

This concession was accepted by the earl of Rochford, who declared, on the part of his master, that the prince of Masseran, being authorized by his catholick majesty, “to offer, in his majesty’s name, to the king of Great Britain, a satisfaction for the injury done him, by dispossessing him of port Egmont;” and, having signed a declaration, expressing that his catholick majesty “disavows the expedition against port Egmont, and engages to restore it, in the state in which it stood before the 10th of June, 1770, his Britannick majesty will look upon the said declaration, together with the full performance of the engagement on the part of his catholick majesty, as a satisfaction for the injury done to the crown of Great Britain.”