ABSTRACT
The naval defeat of France and Spain at Trafalgar in 1805 meant British supremacy on the seas, while Napoleon tried to keep his supremacy on land and prevent the British from landing on the Continent. Spain obtained British recognition of its sovereignty over the Malvinas by Nootka Sound agreement only two decades before its colonies in the New World began their movement for independence from Spanish rule. According to Parish, when the British left the islands in 1774, they had left marks of possession, and other formalities had been observed indicating rights of ownership and intention to resume occupation—a blatant untruth. Britain justified its seizure of the islands on the basis of its brief possession of them during the eighteenth century, a questionable basis when the so-called secret agreement is taken into account. Britain contended that it had never accepted any rights of the Buenos Aires government to the islands and had protested both Vemet’s and Mestivier’s appointments as governors.
