diplomat and peace negotiator, was born in York in 1799, the son of Richard Southern, a barber.He attended school in York and entered Trinity College Cambridge as a sizar in 1814 and after graduating initially made a career as a literary historian and publicist. In 1820 he founded the Retrospective Review, a journal devoted to 16th and 17th century English literature; from 1824 he was also co-editor of Jeremy Bentham’s Westminster Review; from 1825 he owned and edited the London Magazine, and in 1833 he became private secretary to George William Frederick Villiers, later 4th Earl of Clarendon, British ambassador to Spain. In Madrid he learnt Spanish, became a diplomat, and later was transferred to become secretary to the British legation in Lisbon.

Minister in Buenos Aires

In the 1830s and 40s, Britain and France had been engaged in a complex and ineffectual military intervention around the River Plate. France concentrated on Uruguay, while Britain was concerned with Argentina, as many British merchants had settled around Buenos Aires and were suffering under various restrictions. The leader of Argentina, General Juan Manuel de ROSAS, wanted Uruguay and Paraguay to remain part of the Argentine Confederation and imposed a blockade of the River Plate to isolate rebels in Paraguay who wanted to secede from the Confederation (and who later declared Paraguay independent). Rosas closed the river Paraná by a ‘boom’ (a chain across the river), which brought trade in the area to a standstill and harmed British interests in South America. Britain and France sent military forces to oppose the blockade, and at the bend (vuelta) of the Paraná at a place called Obligado, there was a battle on 20 November 1845, in which the Anglo-French expedition broke Rosas’s chain, thus raising his blockade, and escorted upriver over a hundred merchant ships that had been waiting at Montevideo. The Argentine defenders lost the battle, but their heroic fight against the European forces inspired them with patriotism and united them behind Rosas. The Battle of the Vuelta de Obligado thus became one of the defining symbols of Argentina’s rise to nationhood.

Argentina’s simple agrarian economy had hardly been harmed by the trade embargo, but British trade was suffering, so Britain was keen to make peace, and appointed Henry Southern as Her Majesty’s Minister Plenipotentiary (effectively ambassador) to the Argentine Confederation in order to negotiate an end to hostilities. He was an ideal choice since he spoke fluent Spanish and had acquired considerable diplomatic experience in Spain and Portugal. An impressive patent of commission appointing him was drawn up in the form of an official letter signed by Queen Victoria and Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston at Buckingham Palace on 31 May 1848 – the British government suspected, rightly, that such a splendid document would flatter Rosas’s ego.

Britain would have preferred a simple low-level agreement to return a few captured Argentine ships, to confirm the evacuation of Martín García island, which Britain had briefly occupied, and a few other minor subjects such as ordering the saluting of Argentine vessels on the high seas, and hoped to reestablish full diplomatic relations beforehand. So Southern expected to negotiate a simple deal when he arrived at Buenos Aires on 5 October 1848 aboard the 4-gun paddle sloop HMS Alecto.

But Rosas had other ideas. Nominally, he was merely governor of Buenos Aires province, but that province was ‘charged’ with the foreign policy of the whole Confederation, which meant in practice that Rosaswas the dictator of Argentina and decided Argentine foreign policy by himself. He was a classic South American ‘caudillo’ (provincial strongman) – inspiring to his followers, shrewd in defence of his interests, but dictatorial and exceedingly touchy in matters of prestige. What he wanted was to raise Argentina to the rank of a proper power on the world stage, instead of being merely a scene of conflict without rights of its own, where colonial powers such as Britain and France could intervene at will.

Rosas received Southern cordially, but made it clear that he was only receiving him personally, not as an official British representative – he was not going to restore diplomatic relations with Britain until his demands had been met. And what he was demanding was a full-scale peace treaty, a convention of peace (in the 19th century ‘convention’ and ‘treaty’ were synonymous). In other words, he was forcing Britain to accept that during the complex military encounters in the preceding years, Argentina and Britain had been ‘belligerents’ – countries of equal rank waging war against each other. Britain was unwilling to accept that concept, but Rosas, by his rock-hard intransigence, in the end forced Britain to agree to all his demands.

The Convention of Peace

Rosas made Britain’s acceptance of a full, formal peace treaty a precondition of any negotiations and for the recognition of Southern as British ambassador. So in the end Britain and Argentina did sign the full peace treaty he desired. It was clear to both sides from the outset that what was being discussed was a peace treaty, or ‘Convention of Peace’, as it was called by both sides. The negotiations took several months, as Rosas argued every point at immense length and stoutly resisted any alterations of his plans – he was apt to fly into the opposite extreme if thwarted, so there might easily have been a diplomatic disaster and renewed hostilities. But Southern displayed immense patience and skill and managed to get Rosas to drop his plan for Britain to mediate between Rosas and General Oribe, the leader of Uruguay (and hence to help Rosas to make Uruguay join the Argentine Confederation). Apart from a few minor points Rosas got what he wanted, and on 3 March 1849 Argentine foreign minister Felipe ARANA sent Southern a draft of a ‘project of Treaty’ which met Rosas’s demands. On 6 March Southern sent a despatch to British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston (received on 15 May), stating that he was enclosing a ‘project of Treaty between Great Britain and Buenos Ayres, which had been confidentially transmitted by M. Arana, to be submitted to Her Majesty’s Government’.

The treaty’s title was ‘Convention for re-establishing the perfect relations of Friendship between Her Britannic Majesty and the Argentine Confederation’.The treaty says three times that it restores “perfect friendship” – in its title, in the Preamble and in Article VII. The word “perfect” is crucial – the treaty made the friendship between Britain and Argentina perfect and therefore comprehensive, which entailed the abandonment of Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands. After all, friendship between two countries cannot be perfect if there is a territorial dispute between them.

What was for Rosas the core of the treaty is expressed in Article V. It cements his central aim of establishing Argentina as an equal to the major powers – that was why he forced Britain to make this humiliating declaration: V. Her Britannic Majesty’s Government having declared, “that it is freely acknowledged and admitted that the Argentine Republic is in the unquestioned enjoyment and exercise of every right, whether of peace or war, possessed by any independent nation …”

Article V encapsulates Rosas’s victory: he had forced Britain to accept his belligerent rights as an equal partner on the world stage, on the same level as Britain or France, not a mere scene of interventions. That is why the object and purpose of the treaty was stated in its title: to reestablish perfect friendship between Britain and Argentina.

There were extensive leaks in Argentina about the forthcoming Convention of Peace, and the negotiations were widely reported in the British press. So even before the Convention was signed it was known in Britain that there was going to be a peace treaty between Britain and Argentina – and that it was going to end the Falklands dispute. A noteworthy aspect of the negotiations was that the Falkland Islands were never mentioned at all by either side. From Britain that was to be expected: Britain’s position was that the Falklands were British without question and had nothing to do with Argentina. From Rosas it was definitely not to be expected, since the Islands were (officially, at least) one of his grievances against Britain, but in all the months of negotiations he never once mentioned them, as Southern noted in a private letter to Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston on 13 June 1849.

That is important, since legal writers from Hugo Grotius in the 17th century up to today all agree that peace treaties are different from other treaties, in that they are comprehensive. Peace itself is comprehensive, after all – if there is fighting here or there, there is no peace. So it has always been accepted that peace treaties regulate all matters between their signatories, not only the ones that are explicitly mentioned. Thus what they do not say is as important as what they do say; legal writers agree that if any territories are to be adjusted in any way, they have to be mentioned in a peace treaty. Any territories not mentioned in a peace treaty are fixed by the treaty in the possession of the power that possessed them when the treaty was signed. So the non-mention of the Falklands in the treaty is highly significant – by not mentioning them, it fixed them permanently in Britain’s possession.

Southern kept Lord Palmerston informed of the progress of the negotiations in Buenos Aires, and Palmerston already knew that the result was to be a peace treaty. Moreover, he had received the ‘project of Treaty’ on 15 May, and knew that it did not mention the Falklands. Palmerston duly sent Southern authority to sign it, in the form of another splendidly worded Royal patent, signed by the Queen and himself at Balmoral on 27 August 1849. That date has since been represented in several Argentine works as the date of the treaty itself, which it was not.

The text was then written out by a professional copyist in copperplate handwriting, in Spanish and English, in two originals, one for each of the ‘Plenipotentiaries’ (Southern and Arana) and one for each government, each in two copies, with Spanish before English in the copies of each version for Argentina, and English before Spanish in the two copies for Britain. There were thus four copies in all.

Signature and Ratification

The two Plenipotentiaries’ copies were signed by Arana and Southern in Buenos Aires on Saturday 24 November 1849. That was the date of the treaty’s signing, but not yet the date of its coming into force. In Argentina the treaty is normally called ‘El tratado Arana-Southern’ (the ‘Arana-Southern treaty’) after its signatories, in order to obscure its original name, which was ‘The Convention of Peace’/’El Tratado de Pas’. In fact Arana had nothing to do with the treaty except to put his signature to it; it had been negotiated by Rosas entirely alone, without consulting Arana.

In the 19th century treaties only came into force once they had been ratified by both sides, so between the treaty’s signing and its ratification it was ‘in limbo’ – agreed and signed, but not yet in force. Southern expected that he would now be accepted as British minister and grew increasingly impatient that Rosas made no move to accept him. So Southern requested a meeting with Rosas, and the two men met on 10 December 1849 for what turned out to be an all-night session. Southern complained that Argentina’s behaviour in refusing to accept him as minister even though a treaty had been signed made it look as if Argentina had not been negotiating in good faith. Thereupon Rosas gave examples that he said proved Argentina’s good faith: Argentina had “dispensed with all pecuniary compensation” and had kept the Treaty of Commerce and Amity of 1825 in force throughout the hostilities. And he added: “It has not introduced the grave question which is pending of the Falkland Islands.”

At that, Southern interrupted him and said “All national differences are terminated by solemn and public Conventions of Peace…”.[1]That statement by Southern confirms that a peace treaty settles all matters, both mentioned and unmentioned. It establishes a new state of relations between countries and ‘re-sets the clock’. It therefore ends all disputes. Southern thus confirmed to Rosas that any Argentine title to the Falklands had been ended by the Convention of Peace. Rosas did not demur, but repeated Southern’s statement verbatim and without comment in his written reply to Southern. By simply repeating Southern’s statement, Rosas showed unambiguously that he accepted the ending of the Falklands dispute.

Rosas then went through the charade of protesting against Britain’s possession of the Falklands, as he had done every year in his ‘Message’ (Mensaje) to the Buenos Aires House of Representatives on 27 December 1849 – the text was immensely long, and the whole Message, on many subjects, was the longest he had ever given and ran to 453 pages in the original script. But his protest against Britain’s possession of the Falklands, which was likewise his longest ever, was merely symbolic, since it was in the ‘limbo’ period between the signing and the ratification of the Convention of Peace, in which he had already confirmed the ending of the Falklands dispute and his renunciation of the islands.

Rosas then went through another charade, of asking the House of Representatives to give him authority to sign the Convention, which they naturally did – like all parliaments in dictatorships, it was a mere rubber-stamp assembly that did whatever the dictator told it to do. On 24 January 1850 it duly gave Rosas authority to sign the Convention.

And at once Rosas’s behaviour towards Henry Southern changed. He officially received Southern as Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister to Buenos Aires, and underlined the significance of the occasion with elaborate ceremonies. He pardoned some prisoners; the city of Buenos Aires was illuminated; orchestras serenaded Rosas and Southern at their homes; Rosas sent his own private coach, rather than a government one, to bring Southern through cheering crowds to the reception at Rosas’s private house, and there was a firework display in the evening. All those things confirm that something major had happened – peace had been concluded between Argentina and Britain by the signing of a comprehensive peace treaty. If there had merely been an agreement to return a few ships, evacuate Martín García Island, confirm Argentina’s possession of two rivers, and order the saluting of Argentine vessels, there would have been no reason for such impressive ceremonies.

Amazingly, Felipe Arana, the foreign minister, who had actually signed the peace treaty, knew nothing of all this! He spent the day at his private house and was not invited to the celebrations – he did not even know that Southern was to be officially received as Minister on that day, and only learnt of Southern’s reception from the next day’s newspapers. That shows how misleading it is to call the Convention ‘the Arana-Southern Treaty’.

On 10 May 1850 Rosas signed the two government copies of the treaty (his own and the one for Britain), and the Convention was then ratified by both sides: on Wednesday 15 May 1850 Southern and Arana met again and signed a document of ratification.^[2] Thereupon it came into force. Argentina and Britain had made peace and ended all their differences. And that was that. The Falklands dispute between Argentina and Britain had ended. It is impossible to reconcile the Convention of Peace with any idea of a continuing Argentine title to the Falkland Islands.

Accordingly, there was no mention of the Falklands in any Message to the Argentine legislature for almost a century after 1849, until 1941. The dispute over the Falklands had been a persistent element in relations between Argentina and Britain for seventeen years from 1833 to 1849 inclusive, but after the ratification of the Convention of Peace on 15 May 1850 this ceased.

That date, Wednesday 15 May 1850, was the ‘critical date’ in the legal history of the Falkland Islands. It was the date on which the dispute between Argentina and Britain over the possession of the Falklands ended – Argentina had ceased to dispute Britain’s de facto title to the Falklands and had consented to Britain’s possession of the islands. Till then the islands had only been de facto British, and Argentina had kept her claim alive by regular protests, but the ratification of the Convention of Peace ended such title as Argentina had possessed (it was only partial anyway) and made theislands de jure British territory from that day onwards. That was the date on which the dispute ‘crystallised’, i.e. ceased to be active; it was the point at which Britain’s rights to the Falklands became absolute. In legal terms, the ratification of the Convention of Peace was a ‘vesting act’ which confirmed Britain’s existing rights in the Falklands and converted them into a full territorial title.

By the Convention of Peace, Britain acquired exclusive sovereign rights in the whole of the Islands. And after the critical date several things occurred that gave conclusive evidence of that ‘title already constituted’: Argentina ceased to protest for 38 years from 1850; Britain performed innumerable acts of jurisdiction in the Islands, without reaction from Argentina; and foreign countries indicated acceptance of Britain’s title by opening consulates in the Islands – there were ten countries with consulates in Stanley at various periods.

In legal terms, the Convention of Peace perfected Britain’s title to the Falklands, and subsequent events definitively confirmed that title once and for all. Henry Southern’s role in negotiating the treaty therefore marked a crucial milestone in the history of the Falkland Islands.After his posting in Buenos Aires, 1848-1851, he represented Britain in Brazil, where he died in Rio de Janeiro on 28 January 1853, aged only 53.

Henry Southern played an extremely important role in the history of the Falkland Islands, though he is omitted from most histories of the Islands. He represented Britain during the negotiations on a peace treaty between Britain and Argentina which ended a long campaign of Argentine protests against Britain’s possession of the Islands and confirmed Argentina’s acceptance that the Falklands were British territory.

Note on References

The Memorandum from Rosas to Southern, 15 December 1849, English translation enclosed in Southern’s despatch to Palmerston of 17 December 1849, is in the Public Record Office, Kew (PRO) FO 6 145, fol. 213 verso, and in the English translation of Southern’s memorandum to Rosas, 11 December 1849, enclosed in Southern’s despatch to Palmerston of 17 December 1849, in PRO FO 6 145, fol. 203 recto.

The English translation of Rosas’s reply to Southern’s memorandum, is in PRO FO 6 145, fol. 214 verso.

The Document of ratification, 15 May 1850, is in PRO FO 93/10/4.

Graham Pascoe