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for these, and there is news from you that the Home Government will grant us the required assistance, and endorse our title to the Atol by annexation.
It only remains for us to beg of you, in submitting our request for the annexation of Pratas to the proper authorities, to make clear and emphatic to them the following points:-
(1) Admiralty Chart 2681 will show the relatively shorter distance of Pratas from British territory than from Japanese (Formosa) or American territory (Luzon). Therefore Pratas lies rightly within our sphere of influence.
(2) The Atol has been to the Chinese (in every case British subjects) only a fishing-ground, though the Japanese have exploited it vigorously and more to the purpose as marauders.
(3) No flag of any other nation but Great Britain has ever been hoisted over the Island, and no official sanction has ever been sought or obtained for the expeditions, other than British, which have hitherto been there. The Chinese and Japanese are the only others