George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[254] and on the twenty-first of September made an honor-

Chap. XI.} 1779.

able capitulation. The Spaniards planned the recovery of East Florida, prepared to take the posts of Pensacola and Mobile, and captured or expelled from Honduras the British logwood cutters. In Europe their first act was the siege of Gibraltar.

Still more important were the consequences of the imperious manner in which Great Britain violated the maritime rights of neutrals, substituting its own will alike for its treaties and the law of nations. But these events, which for half a century scattered the seeds of war, need to be explained at large.