Following the USS "Lexington" raid of 1831, Luis Vernet refused to continue as military and civil commander in the Falklands Islands. Governor Juan Rosas conferred upon Major Esteban Mestivier the appointment of interim military and civil commander on 10 September 1832. The announcement provoked a protest from the British minister in Buenos Aires, Henry Fox, on 28 September 1832, which like the protests of 1829 against Vernet's appointment, went unanswered apart from a brief acknowledgement. This, combined with the "Lexington" raid of 1831 spurred the British to send a naval patrol to re-assert sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.