Qreat Britain.
Venezuela. No. 4 (1896) Further
documents relating to the questior
of boundary between Britii
and Venezuela.

c

suiana

London, 1B96.

vvv

>Y_M_E"VMVEI&Sfl!rY' • iLn_B__&&iEir •

Acquired by Exchange

VENEZUE LA. No. 4 (1896).

FURTHER DOCUMENTS

EELATING TO TUB

QUESTION OF BOUNDARY

BETWEEN

BRITISH GUIANA AND VENEZUELA.

DESPATCH EROM HER MAJESTY'S AMBASSADOR AT WASHINGTON,
INCLOSING THE EIRST PART OE THE BRIEE FOR VENEZUELA.

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Further Documents relating to the Question of Boundary
between British Guiana and Venezuela.

Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquess of Salisbury. — (Received July 30.)
My Lord, Washington, July 21, 1896.
I HAVE reported to your Lordship that Mr. James J. Storrow, the newly-
appointed Counsel for Venezuela, was engaged in the preparation of the Venezuelan
Case for presentation to the Commission named by the United States' Government to
investigate and report upon the true divisional line between the Republic of Venezuela and
British Guiana.
1 have now the honour to inclose copies of the first part of that statement, entitled
" Introduction and Summary." I have, &c.
(Signed) JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE.

Inclosure.
Brief submitted by Venezuela to the Commission appointed "to Investigate and Report upon
the true Divisional Line between the Republic of Venezuela and British Gruiana."
James J. Storrow,
William L. Scruggs, of Counsel.
Legal Adviser of the Venezuelan Government
and Special Counsel before the Boundary
Commission. First Part. — Introduction and Summary.
On January 10, 1880, Lord Salisbury wrote that the Essequibo River was the Blue Book. 2_5.
¦boundary "claimed by Venezuela as that to which she was justly entitled," and that, to
admit this, " would involve the surrender of a province now inhabited by 40,000 British
subjects, and which has been in the uninterrupted possession of Holland and of Great
Britain successively for two centuries."
The claim to which tbat consequence is imputed will be dealt with by another hand,
and it may then appear that the alleged uninterrupted possession has been but the
continued repetition of a wrong, such as works no j ustification of it, and that so long as
England refuses either compromise or arbitration, Venezuela may properly stand upon
her strict right, however long the depredations upon that right may have been going on,
or however considerable, as to population, may have been its extent. But the object of
this paper is to assert for Venezuela a right which will not involve the interruption of
any peaceable possession by any British subject, nor require a single one of Lord
Salisbury's 40,000 to change his allegiance in order to preserve his home.
Venezuela has offered to relieve the British ministry from the embarrassment to Blue Book 418.
which Lord Salisbury refers. In 1890, asking for arbitration, it proposed to recognize Ven. Corr.', 239.
in Great Britain a right to its settlements on both banks of the Essequibo : to reserve for
itself the banks of the Orinoco, which the treaty of Aranjuez had recognized as Spanish,
and which every English ministry, except Lord Salisbury's, had offered to so recognize ;
and to arbitrate the rest, which consisted entirely of territory where, even then, England
had no settlements ; but the offer was refused.
The settlement of the Dutch, and of the English, their successors, has never
extended beyond the rich alluvial land of the sea-coast and the river estuaries. This
paper will assume for the sake of argument that England may have a right, by occupa
tion, wherever its people have had their established homes, we will not say for two
centuries, but for a single generation ; but we assert that England can have no title by
[766] B 2

occupation to 40,000 square miles in which, during Lord Salisbury's " two centuries,
neither the Dutch nor the English ever had a settlement.
Now we propose to show: , ,
1. The Spanish, in 1500, discovered Guayana, and soon established themselves so
strongly that no other Power has ever been able to penetrate inland beyond the reacn
of its ships' guns; the most noted failures being those of Raleigh in 1595-1616.
_?. The earliest Dutch attempt at settlement was after this ; and consisted first in
an occasional touching for trade near the mouth of the Essequibo, where the Spaniards
already had had a fort ; and, certainly not before 1621, a first attempt at settlement. _
3. The settlements of the Dutch and of the English were confined to the rich
alluvial swamps on the tide water of the ocean and of the river estuaries ; they never
had nor attempted to have any settlement in the basin of the Cuyuni and Mazeruni
above their lower cataracts, nor on the Essequibo above its lowest cataracts, nor in the
coast region west of the Pomeroon.
4. The British claim has, confessedly no basis except occupation ; the attempt this
paper combats is an attempt to extend it beyond the occupation. Now the facts as they
are proved, and the rules of law applied even to the facts alleged, not only give no support
to this attempt, but are specifically and affirmatively fatal to it.
For: (a.) The British allegation is that at or before 1700 the Dutch had a temporary
"post "in the Cuyuni basin and a "post" at Barima Point (though there is no credible
proof of the latter). But the sources of information referred to show that these were at
most mere shops for friendly trade with the older settlements of the Spaniards. Such
" posts " are not an assertion of hostile dominion ; they are a recognition that the
Spaniards were already established there.
(b.) It is alleged that in the next century, and between 1755 and 1770, the Dutch
had for a short time a second " post " in the Cuyuni basin, and a second at Barima
Point. That they had something at or near each of those places at that time is true.
But it turns out from the contemporaneous documents from the Spanish and Dutch
archives, that these were temporary huts, chiefly, if not entirely, for slave raids on the
Spanish Indians ; that the Spaniards sent expeditions against each as soon as discovered,
destroyed both, carried away as prisoners the occupants of one, while the occupants of the
other escaped.
The Spaniards asserted their right to do this on the ground of territorial sovereignty ;
the States'-General complained to the King of Spain, but they got no redress, never
afterwards renewed their attempts, and indeed abandoned their claim. It is upon these
acts of attempted occupation (if they could be dignified by that word) that the English
base their claim to the gold regions ofthe southern part ofthe Cuyuni ' basin, and of the
Barama and Barima Rivers, and the still more monstrous claim to hold the mouth of the
Orinoco, whose entire basin, nearly as large as France and Spain combined, has always
been held by Spain and its successors, and by no one else.
5. The actual settlements of the Spaniards and the Dutch were separated by 150 miles
of forest, in which no white man lived. There are two rules of law which designate
where, between them, the boundary-line shall run : —
Twiss, c. 8. PhiUi- (a.) When, either by nature or by the habits of the settlers, a tract has been
more, §§ 226 .< .eg., defined, the rule is that the first occupation of a part is, in law, an entry upon and
and^authonties on p0SSessi0D. of the whole. But the entry of a second claimant cannot displace the leo-al
p' ' m*'a' possession of the first beyond the actual occupation of that second. :
(b.) AVhere, between the settlements of two nations in a country otherwise wild
there are features which form a natural barrier or line of demarcation, and which in a
long series of years have not been overpassed nor attempted to be overpassed bv the
actual settlements of either party, the law makes that line the international boundary
Now there is such a tract, defined by such a line ; the Dutch and English settlement
have never attempted to overpass it. This line also defines the tract from which aS
already stated, the Spaniards expelled the Dutch posts, and no part of which eit'h S
Dutch or English ever again attempted to rest in until the invasion by an armed Enel"6}.
force, after the discovery of gold, about a dozen years ago. **
The British claim, therefore, is limited to their settled districts, and cannot rp» h
the ultra-settlement region. reacn
. . to The facts, more fully stated, are as follows : —
dlsco-er'the'fir-t 1. Spain, about 1500, discovered the north-eastern part of South America \V__. '
m explore, and the a few years its explorers had coasted the whole of Guiana and sailed ut. tl.o n •
fir.t to occupy. m , _ _ , • „ P Orinoco,
* These reference., apparently to a subsequent pait of the Brief} are left blank in the oH<rinaU

Soon they brought back stories of gold, and, in the space of forty years, more than
twenty expeditions penetrated Guiana to search for it. They were all Spanish, but their
reports excited other nations. Raleigh devoted twenty years and all his fortune to the
effort to acquire those riches for himself and his country. He sent out four expeditions,
the first and last of which (1596, 1616) he led. But he never was able to penetrate the
country, because everywhere the Spaniards confronted him. His last expedition, of Spain held ti>e lanJ
fourteen ships, on the success of which he risked his life, captured, sacked, and burned against aU tomeu,
"Old Guayana," a Spanish town on the Orinoco. But it could not maintain itself, and P- , »V'a-
within four weeks retreated before the Spaniards, irretrievably ruined. Raleigh's son
was killed ; his Lieutenant, Keymis, committed suicide in despair ; and Raleigh, on his
return to England, went to the block.
After that, other freebooters ravaged its coasts as far as the guns of their ships
could reach, but no one was ever able to effect a lodgment on the shores of Guiana, or
to penetrate to the interior. Spain prevented it.
Against such a history it is useless to quibble about the exact size of the Spanish
settlements. Spain possessed the land, and so strongly as to hold it against all comers.
The Spaniards settled on the lower Orinoco, at or near St. Thome, not merely, or
indeed chiefly, for the value of that spot in itself, but because it was the entrance to the
interior. By it they went in ; by holding it they kept every one else out. We must
look at the large region as one integral whole, of which, by nature and in history the
landing on the Orinoco was a part. This part was occcupied because it was part of a
larger whole, and because the occupation of this part practically gave control of the
whole. Such an occupation of such an entrance is, in law, possession of the whole ; at
least, if the purpose be followed up. And it was.
The Spaniards reached towards the interior not merely with their expeditions, but
with their civil settlements and their extensive mission villages. This was done so
thoroughly, and by Spaniards alone, that we find to-day a vast region pervaded with ^nd made it
Spanish language, Spanish names, Spanish religion, and Spanish habits, and where no Spanish land.
European civilization has been received from any nation except from Spain.
2. The English claim is that the Dutch obtained a title by occupation, and that, by Entrii.h title rests
conquest and Treaty, between 1796 and 1814, the British succeeded to the Dutch title, on occupation.
Assuming for the purposes of this argument, that a title can be so acquired for this case, what did the
the real inquiry is, What did the Dutch occupy ? DlItch occl,Pv ?
They came by sea to the mouth of the Essequibo, and sailed part way up its estuary.
There and there only (we do not speak of their Berbice and Surinam settlements to tlie
south, which are not here material) they settled. Until the middle of tlie last century
they were barely strong enough to live. Two Companies that fostered them became
insolvent. In 1735, 150 years after their alleged first landing, Essequibo had but 150
whites and 3,000 negroes. All their cultivation, all their houses, and all their use of the See Map.
soil west of the Essequibo, were within 2 or 3 miles of the Atlantic coast, not reaching
to the Pomeroon River, along the Essequibo estuary itself, and 5 or 10 miles up the
banks of the Essequibo, the Cuyuni, and the Mazeruni, above their confluence, but below
their lowest cataracts and on tide water. The English extended substantially no further.
Thus it came to pass that between the Dutch-English settlements and the Spanish towns
and Missions there intervened about 150 miles of unbroken forest without settlements,
and that constitutes, in substance, the disputed territory.
3. There were several well-known rules which bear upon such a case : — The law about
(a.) The Spaniards were the first to occupy the country, and in such case the occupation.
material occupation of a substantial part, in name of the whole, i_, in law, possession Authorities ubi
of the whole. But here the Spaniards also, in fact, excluded all other persons from the sup., and p. ,
interior of Guiana, and this, of itself, is held by all jurists to be a most decisive act of *»/'«•
dominion. (_>..) Against such, or against any possession, a second comer may, in the absence of
other controlling elements, acquire title by open, notorious, adverse occupation, if
continued long enough ; but in such case his title is limited to his actual occupation.
Now the Dutch were the second comers, for they did not attempt to settle until after
the failure of the Raleigh expeditions had proved the fact and the strength of Spanish
possession. (c.) The English assert a right 150 miles beyond any actual Dutch occupation. When No part of it srtt'.ed
the rule is invoked that occupation of part of a tract may be, in law, an entry upon and ^^."jf11 or
possession of the whole; and if the law would permit the second comer to invoke this
rule for anything beyond what may be called the curtilage or appurtenances of his
actual occupation ; the crucial question arises — what constitutes a tract, or unit, such
that the occupation of a part is, in law, possession of the whole P Now the most controlling

English.

Cuyuni and Maze
runi basin. See
Map.

Srli imburgk '"
Blue Bock, 225

Blue Book, 227.

The Cuyuni basin.
Spain expelled the
Dutch and per
manently excluded
them.

Rodway and Watt,
i, 171.

Geological Survey
of British Guiana
17.
" Canoe and Camp,'
p. 1.

" Geographical
Journal," April
i_9_,voI.v, p. 342

4
element, where there is no defining deed or Treaty, is found in a natural 6flr™er\ *
this case— to consider first the main basin of the Cuyuni and Mazeruni— Mat °*~ ,
not a prolongation of the lowlands of the coast, gradually sloping up as it ne y re
from the sea, as many drainage areas are. It consists in a true interior basin, BDfV
like a great tray with a rim, and tipped so as to throws., its waters to the eaSL^
corner, where they escape through what is virtually a single breach in its rim ana pou
as one stream into the Essequibo estuary. The passage of all these waters at this one
point through this " small range of mountains, through which the river has broken itseir
a passage," takes place down a series of rapids and cataracts, with a drop ot about
200 feet in 40 miles. Of the cataracts with which the Cuyuni is filled, SchomburgK
says : —
" The difficulties which the Cuyuni presents to its navigation, and those tremendous
falls which impede the river in its first day's ascent, will, I fear, prove a great obstacle to
making the fertility of its banks available to the Colony."
The difficulty of penetrating this basin by land is such that, from the earliest times,
it has been recognized that a single blockhouse placed in this gorge is sufficient to
protect the settlements against incursions from the interior, and to prevent the escape ol
runaway slaves from the plantations. Thus this basin is an interior region or tract,
surrounded by a ridge or rim and natural barriers which, on the sides towards the Dutch
settlements are in fact recognized by the English explorers to be, and, in the history of
the Colony, have always constituted, such an absolute barrier to its spread that, during
the whole 250 years, Dutch and English settlement never passed over into it.*
(d.) On the other hand, the natural entrance to that basin is not up these rivers, •
which are blocked by cataracts, but from the ancient Spanish settlements on the Orinoco
over the easy and open slopes of that part of the water parting. Such always has been,
and such is to-day, the access to this interior. The savannahs which border the Orinoco
extend, with only a few fringes and patches of forest, over the neighbouring hills and into
the northern part of the Cuyuni Basin, which itself is a savannah country. In this way
settlement penetrated, so that while the whole northern part is, and from the early times
has been, occupied by Spanish settlements, there are no settlements anywhere in the
basin except the Spanish. Thus we have a tract defined in its outline by nature, and
bound together by nature as a unit. It is in large part occupied by Spaniards (now
Venezuelans). They first entered, and no one else has ever had material occupation of
any part. That Spanish occupation of a part is in law Spanish possession of the whole.
4. But the Spaniards also exercised dominion over the unsettled part by excluding
other nations from it, and here, besides the repulse of the early military invaders, we
come to another group of facts which of themselves are decisive.
The Spanish and Dutch populous settlements were separated by 100 to 150 miles of
impassable forests, while the rivers passing directly from one to the other were almost
equally impassable from frequent and dangerous cataracts. They traded somewhat
chiefly or entirely by schooners and launches, up the Orinoco, and for a century had
* Mr. C. Barrington Brown, the Government Geologist, wrote in 1875 : —
" The civilized and cultivated portion of the Colony lies only along a narrow strip of sea coast. . . The
portion between the rear of the sugar estates and the confines of the Colony is known as the ' Interior,' and with
the exception of a few settlements on the banks of the lower Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo Rivers it remains
to-day in the same state as in the time of Raleigh."
Parliamentary Papers of 1839, vol. xxxv, contains Hatfield's Map of 1S38, showing the settlements and
cultivation in accord with the foregoing quotation.
Mr. im Thurn, in his Boundary Article of 1879, says : —
'• The territory in dispute commences on the western bank of the Essequibo River, and extends to
undefined distance toward the Orinoco. Along and near the banks of the Essequibo is a fairly dense nonul t' ™
of English subjects, at least during the lower part of its course and along and near the banks of the Orinoe ' "
tolerably thick population of Venezuelans; but the intermediate space is inhabited only by same scattered T A'^ &
and is visited only at long intervals by a few travellers, traders, adventurers, or exolorers." nS*
The "Local Guide," a volume of 900 pages, containing the Colony laws, regulations, civil list &.
published at Demerara in 1843, after describing the sugar islands of the estuary, &c. says ("p. 2) •  ' '
"The banks of the Essequibo are inhabited only by a few scattered wood-cutters; and above th • 'A
which occur about fifty miles from its mouth, there are no inhabitants except Indians. The same is th & '^ • 1'
the two great tributaries of the Essequibo, the Cuyuni and the Mazeruni, which come from'the wesf6 ^^ W'k
west. These rivers unite about eight miles from the Essequibo, and their united stream joins that r^ S°^
forty miles from its mouth. A short distance above their junction these rivers become impeded bv V)61" a,~0U^
which they are frequented only by a few wandering Indians." ^ ' * a"Ove
Mr. Dixon, in 1895, visited the British Yuruan station, and wrote that it 
" Made me, as an Englishman, feel considerably mortified to think that it takes our Government f •
six weeks to reach their frontier station, whereas the Venezuelan outpost was then being- put _ A h I01?. ^ to
probably is, in direct communication with their capital by road and wire. Also, whereas it cost " " ^me

an immense annual sum to maintain their small number of police at Yuruan on salt and tinned° ° •' • ®rntnent
the way from Baritca Grove, on the Essequibo, in paddled boats), within 200 yards on the otherT'T"8. ir™* *^
is the VeneBuelan outpost, supplied with all kinds of fresh food from their cattle farms and plantati " uyul"

little friction except from some smuggling and occasional negro runaways. But in
1738 the vigorous Storm van s'Gravesande, an educated man of military training, was
sent out to the Colony, first as Secretary, and soon after as Governor. He ruled it from
1738 to 1772.
Gravesande's view was that the true wealth of the Colony lay in agriculture, and he Rodway i, 105.
very soon induced the Directors to throw it open to all settlers, with the promise of 1739.
grants of land. The result was a large influx, particularly from the British West India Ibid., i, 104-5.
Islands, while old settlers and new, and even the seat of Government and the fort, were
moved down to the rich swamps of the actual shore, to which all cultivation has since been
confined. But this led to a great demand for slaves, and as the Dutch Company, which had the
monopoly of importation of negroes, furnished a totally insufficient supply, the demand
for Indians — red slaves, or Poytos, as they were called — became very great. This led to
the most active, indeed the only active, occurrences which affect the boundary question,
and they settled it.
Erom the time of the early use of Indian slaves, before 1700, the Commandeurs, in Rodway and Watt,
order to avoid retaliatory attacks from the Indians, and to diminish the risk of runaways, '> ls7-
forbade their capture " in the Eiver Isequebe and its districts," but they were allowed to n,^., ii, 62.
be bought from the Caribs of the Lower Orinoco. The horrid work was carried on by the Ibid., 83.
Caribs, the fiercest savages of the country, directed by Dutchmen, who received the Orders of 1717-
slaves and paid for them. Their raids extended to the very Spanish Missions, because Koclwav i 76.
the domesticated Indians made the least resistance, and became the best slaves. Of
course, therefore, these raids in any particular territory went far to prove that it was
recognized as Spanish, and not Dutch ; and in fact they habitually reached regions which
neither Dutch nor English have ever claimed.
In 1757-58 the Spaniards discovered that these slave-raiders had actually formed an Spanish Docs, filed
establishment in the Cuyuni Basin, on an island in that river. Thereupon the Spanish by Venezuela, ii, l.
Commander sent a strong force, which swept down the principal affluent, and then the
main river itself, found only one post, attacked and captured that, destroyed it, and
carried off its occupants as prisoners. The Dutch Governor peremptorily demanded
their release. The Spaniard replied that he found them, without right, on the territory
of his King. That was his justification, and he should keep them. The States- General
complained to the King, asserting a right, but they got no redress, and the Dutch never
again attempted to enter the basin. These facts are proved by the original documents
from both Spanish and Dutch archives.
There could be no stronger acts of sovereign dominion by the Spaniards, of Twiss : *' The
acquiescence by the Dutch, and termination of the ephemeral occupation ofthe latter, if Oregon Question."
it could be called occupation. But it is well settled that neither trading, nor even the
maintenance of a trade house, is an " occupation " which can give rise to a claim
of sovereignty. Moreover, while private occupation may in time give a private title to
the soil, no occupation can create sovereign dominion in favour of the settler's native
country, and capable of passing by Treaty from the latter, unless it be directly authorized
or- adopted by his Government at the outset, and for the purpose of acquiring sovereignty.
This was settled in the Oregon boundary case, and is recognized law.
5. The Oregon boundary case answers another contention. It has been asserted Dutch settlement
that the Dutch settlement on the estuary of the Essequibo and Cuyuni gave Holland a at the river month
title to the entire watershed of those rivers. There is no such principle of law. r"i? 110t -' .e t,,ie
r r to tne interior river
basin.
The United States first discovered the mouth of the Columbia Eiver, first ascended Twiss : " The
it, and first occupied it by a fur-trading factory at its mouth. Twiss gives the utmost Oregon Question;'
statement that any one has ever supposed to be tenable : — P- 282-
" As the discovery has taken place from the sea, the approach to the territory is
presumed to be from the sea, so that the occupant of the sea-coast will necessarily bar the
way to any second comer, and as he is supposed in all these grants to have settled
in vacant territory, he will naturally be entitled to extend his settlement over the vacant
district, as there will be no other civilized power in his way."
Elsewhere Twiss expresses what is both the pith of the rule and the limitation ibid., 247
of it:— " Because their settlements bar the approach to the interior country, and other
nations can have no right of way across the settlements of independent nations."
Phillimore thus states it : — Phii.imore, § 238.
" The right of dominion would extend from the portion of the coast actually and
duly occupied inland so far as the country was uninhabited, and so far as it might be
considered to have the occupied seaboard for its natural outlet to other nations."

Twiss : " Law of
Nations," §§ 122,'
12..

i'.a. ima and the
mouth of the
Orinoco.

Spain owned the
entire basin of the
Orinoco, and that
was possession of
its mouth.

The Anna, 5 C.
Rob. 373, 3856.

Barima and the
mouin of the
Orinoco.

See p. , infra.

When the United States, upon two occasions, went a hair s b«»dth ? gted>
rules thus expressed, by omitting any of the qualifying conditions, brreat en v ^
and Dr. Twiss declares the claim extravagant. The claim cut no ngure iu
adj" N^every one ofthe conditions made essential by these quotations is ; against « Great
Britain and in favour of Spain. Spain discovered the Essequibo, and the JJutcn ™*
built on the foundations of the older Spanish one. The real road to the interior W™
Mazeruni Basin is by way of the Spanish Settlements on the Orinoco ; and it was
Settlements which barred the way to Ealeigh and all other comers.
When the Dutch came to the Essequibo, the Spaniards were already m power
interior, from their Orinoco Settlements. . , «
But the rule invoked by Great Britain, even if it could apply, is a rule oi con
structive possession. It yields always to the facts of actual dominion ; and tnese nere
are (a) that the only settlements ever made in the interior basin under consideration were
by the Spaniards ; and (b) that the Spaniards, by and from their Settlements, excluded
Ealeigh and others who tried to enter by force, and expelled the Dutch slave-traders wno
had entered like a thief in the night. ,.,
The Barima region was, between 1760 and 1770, the scene of incidents not unliKe
those in the Cuyuni Basin. There were no Dutch Settlements beyond the Moruca, where
a small armed outpost was maintained. But Dutch slave-traders stayed with the Caribs
on the delta waters of the Orinoco, and Dutchmen engaged there in some contraband
trade. As soon as the Spaniards discovered this they stopped it ; the States- General
again complained; got no redress, and desisted even from complaint. The British
Eeports of ten years ago show that there was then not a trace of any civilized occupation
beyond the Moruca.
But for Barima there exists another set of considerations, decisive in them
selves. The Spaniards, and no one else, first occupied and have ever since occupied the great
basin of the Orinoco. The natural route and the used route to and from it was that
river. No one else had a settlement within its basin or laid claim to its banks, and the
Spanish Settlements reached as far down towards its delta mouth as desirable land could
be found. The Spaniards, moreover, not only used the lower reaches of the river for
ingress and egress to their Empire within — nearly as large as France and Spain together
— but they exercised sovereign rights over the mouth of the river itself, by an armed pilot
station on the lowest convenient island, by coast-guard launches, &c.
Now it is settled law that those who own and possess the watershed and the firm
banks, thereby own and possess the delta islands and shores below, though these are
unfit for habitation, and have never been inhabited ; these are not vacant land which
another nation can appropriate and thus establish a hostile military control at the mouth.
This was settled for ever by the highest English authority, Lord Stowell, with reference
to the delta of the Mississippi.
He said : —
" If they do not belong to the United States of America, any other Power might-
occupy them ; they might be embanked and fortified. What a thorn would this be in
the side of America ! It is physically possible at least that they might be so occupied
by European nations, and then the command of the, river would be no longer in America
but in such Settlements. The possibility of such a consequence is enough to expose the
fallacy of any arguments that are addressed to show that these islands are not to be con-
sidered as part of the territory of America."
The English allegation is that the Dutch had, not a settlement or the pretence of
one, but a "post," whatever that may be, for trade or to watch the Spaniards at
" Barima Sand," on the Delta Pass, known as the Brazo Barima ; a temporary not a
permanent lodgment. One is alleged, but without credible proof, to have been established
about 1666, and soon after abandoned, either voluntarily or from fear of the Spaniards
Between 1760 and 1770 afewDutch slave-traders lived with the Caribs on one ofthe tributary
creeks. About that time the Dutch were somewhat apprehensive that the Spaniards
meant to come from the Orinoco through the Delta bayous to attack the Settlements
and it is said that the Dutch Governor put a watchman or two on the Barima. But all
these places were destroyed by the Spaniards before 1768. Neither Dutch nor English
ever attempted to reoccupy until the armed invasion of a dozen years ago.
The claim to hold the mouth of this great Spanish river is based upon a story which
being tested by the contemporaneous archives, turns out to be as we have stated it'
Every historian, Dutch or English, who pretends to serious consideration of the matter"
has considered the claim utterly untenable ; and in doing so they have only re echoed

(though without knowing it) the judgment of Lord Stowell. The Ditch and English
officials have again and again declared the Moruca, where they did maintain their
furthest outposts, to be the limits of the colony.
7. The Dutch occupation, whatever its extent, is sandwiched in between two solemn
documents; one of which, at its origin, fixed what the colony might do, and the other,
just at its termination, determined what it had done.
(a.) The original Dutch West India Company of 1621, under which the colony had
begun, became insolvent ; was reorganized and again became insolvent and disappeared.
Thereupon a new Company was chartered on the 20th September, 1674.
This Company carried on the colony until Holland took the direct control in 1791.
Now the only grant of South American territory in that charter is of "the places of
Essequibo and Pomeroon " — " Plaatsen van Isekepe en Bawromenora." * It is impossible
to contend that this specific enumeration of two rivers, about 20 miles apart, and
one, a small one, could include the great Orinoco, 100 miles away. By every rule of
sensible and of legal construction, this excludes the Orinoco.
It is clear, therefore (1), that there were, in fact, no Dutch settlements except on
the two rivers so- named, for, if there had been, such other settlements would have
been granted ; and (2), that the Company had no authority from its sovereign to occupy
or acquire the Orinoco. Now the consequence of this latter limitation alone is that,
under the well-known rule just referred to, the Company had not the capacity, by any
act whatever, to create in Holland a sovereign right on the Orinoco.
(b.) In 1791, Spain and Holland made the Treaty of Aranjuez for the mutual
restitution of runaways. Its principal clause specifies, in couples, the Colonies between
which the restitution should take place — ¦" between Porto Rico and St. Eustache, between
Coro and Curacao, and between all the Spanish establishments on the Orinoco [on the
one hand] and [on the other] Essequibo, and Demerara, Berbice, and Surinam."! This
is plainly a statement by the parties that the Essequibo is, and that the Orinoco is not,
Dutch ; and inasmuch as it is a statement in the Treaty, this makes them so. It is
legally impossible for either Holland or its successor, in the face of that Treaty, to claim
that the controlling shore of Orinoco mouth was then Dutch. There is no pretence of any
acquisition by England except by cession from Holland.
After the vigorous lesson taught the Dutch by their expulsion from the Cuyuni
Basin and Barima Point, the two nations lived as good neighbours, and the delivery up
of runaways, which had rested on good-will, was fixed on a stable basis by the Treaty of
Aranjuez in 1791. In 1794 the Dutch Secretary of State recognized that Spanish
territory began at the Moruca. In 1796 Pinckard, a British officer, wrote: "Our
outpost at Moroko, the remotest point of the Colony of Essequibo." In 1839 the
British Governor wrote that British territory ended there. Schomburgk's ill-advised
agitation of 1839 first disturbed the peace.
Schomburgk had won credit as a scientific explorer of the distant region where
British Guiana, Brazil, and Venezuela meet by taking up and continuing Humboldt's
Venezuelan surveys. He had never been inside the Cuyuni Basin nor beyond the
Pomeroon on the coast. He was profoundly ignorant of the true facts about the
"posts," the expulsion of the Dutch, and the Treaty of Aranjuez, and afterwards showed
himself incapable of appreciating their significance and value.
Bouchenroeder was a surveyor employed to plat the settlements. He added a
small general sketch-map of the whole region. But it showed that he was utterly
ignorant ofthe country beyond the Pomeroon, and this map has been discredited by all
recent historians, both Dutch and English. Schomburgk was told by this map, and by
Hartsinck's history of 1770, that the Dutch were said to have claimed at oue time that
their rights extended to Barima Point, and, at some time, had, for a while, a "post"
there. He proposed to take this claim, which, in Bouchenroeder's map, was shown by
an arbitrary straight line running back into the country from the mouth of the Barima
or the Amacura, but terminating nowhere, and which Hartsinck utterly rejected in his
map, and locates it according to natural lines, i.e„ by following those mountain ranges
or streams which substantially agreed with it. He submitted his plan to the Govern
ment, with a memoir and a map which described and showed the boundary, tickled the
ambition of the Ministry by pointing out that the Venezuelan boundary " merits the

Page , infra.

Rodway and Watb
ii, 19.
Rodway, i, 20.
Ibid., ii, 55.
The Charter (ed.
1701, the Hague),
did not extend to
Orinoco.

Treaty of Aranjuez,
1791.
Blue Book, 137.

Barima Point and
the Orinoco mouth.

Ven. Span. Ar
chives, v. 3, p. 53-
Parl. P., 1839,
vol. 35, p. 425.

Schomburgk.

Blue Book, 184,
235.

Schomburgk's
Memoir, July 15,
1839. Blue Book, 181-4.

* The Blue Book says of this Charter that "the colonies of Essequibo and Pomeroon were enumerated, the Blue Book, 8.
limit of the Company's jurisdiction being still fixed at the River Orinoco."
There is nothing in the Charter to justify the last clause of this assertion.
+ If read without the words in brackets, which are not in the Treaty, this might mean that the establishments
on the Essequibo were Spanish. The British have therefore insisted that it must be read as we have indicated,
and we shall so assume.
[766] C

8

* Schomburgk
Jine." March 18, 1840.
Blue Book, 185.

Blue Book, 234.

Dardanelles of the
Orinoco.Blue Book, 251,
298, 299, 354, 356.

Expansion of
British claim.
January 10, 1880.
Blue Book, 295.

Schomburgk line
expanded after it
was forty years old.

For the whole
matter of the
Schomburgk line,
see p. ., infra.

greatest attention on account of the political importance of the mouth of the Orinoco,'*
and enlisted the philanthropic party (this was the period of West Indian emancipation).
by a long letter to Sir Fowell Buxton, in which he dwelt upon the extension of British
territory as a Christian duty for the good of the Indians. One of that party in
Parliament called for the papers, and they were printed, map and all, in Parliamentary
Paper, 1840, vol. 34, p. 315.
Schomburgk honestly pointed out that a line run ex parte gave no security, and that
it must be marked by a Joint Commission. But before even this step could be taken,
the two termini, he considered, must be agreed upon; this would involve negotiations, and
therefore, he wrote, the first step would be " to prevent delay arising from negotiations,
to propose the termini of our boundary, as mentioned -before in this Eeport."* In
other words, his proposed boundary counted for nothing unless its termini should be
agreed to.
He was appointed to survey the line and set some posts on it, but Lord Palmerston
determined to give Venezuela not even an opportunity to join, directing the work to be
done " as a statement, of the British claim." Afterwards, he wrote, Venezuela might
"make any objection . . . ., and state the reasons upon which such objections might be
founded, and Her Majesty's Government would then give such answers thereto as might
appear proper and just."
Some posts having been set, Venezuela heard of that fact, and remonstrated with
such vigour that, on the 31st January, 1S42, Lord Aberdeen ordered them to be removed,
declaring, in a half apology, that they. were not "indications of dominion and empire on
the part of Great Britain," "but merely a preliminary measure open to future discussion
between the two Governments."
Discussions ensued. Every British Ministry, except that of Lord Salisbury, has
recognized that it was monstrous, and diplomatically inadmissible, upon such flimsy
pretences, to claim what the English notes called " The Dardanelles of the Orinoco,"
and offered to agree to lines which would, or which they declared would, " secure to
Venezuela the undisturbed possession of the mouths of the Orinoco.'' (Lord Aberdeen
in 1884, Lord Granville in 1881, and Lord Eosebery in 1886.) It is impossible to overlook
the value of this recognition. It is true that it was made in negotiations for a com
promise ; but it is plain, especially from the value which the English notes justly
attributed to it, that the offer to give up Barinia Point was because Great Britain felt
that neither in law nor in good conscience could a claim to it be insisted upon.
Lord Salisbury is the only Minister who has insisted upon a different view ; and his
claims grew every time he recurred to the subject.
The line marked by Schomburgk on the maps published by himself and by the
Government had been declared at the outset, as we have seen, to be the definition of the
British claim, and merely a basis for discussion. But now, no discussion is to be permitted,
says Great Britain, as to territory within that line ; and all that it will submit to arbitra
tion is territory now newly claimed far outside of it.
But even the " Schomburgk line " has been altered and expanded. In every map
and every description of it down to 1886, which was twenty years after his deathf; it
was shown and described as an approximately north and south line, cutting across the
Cuyuni, and across its southern basin. This includes three maps — 1840, 1841, 1847 —
published in the reports of his explorations ; five separate maps published directly by
the Government or by Government authority — 1840, 1867, 1875, 1876, 1885, and ten
in the official "Colonial List," 1877-1886— one of which maps, namely, tha't of 1875,
in the Government publication of the Geological Survey, was stated in the text to be
from a tracing of Schomburgk's final map in the possession of the Government ; one'
published in 1875 by the same Government surveyor, with a popular account of his
work; one by the Eoyal Geographical Society in 1880 (Proceedings of 1880), with the
same note as the Stanford map; and another in 1 883, also with the same note, which
that Society contributed to Mr. im Thurn's book on Guiana. The great map of the
colony, about 5 feet by 4 in size, prepared by the Government surveyors in 1875, and
based on a tracing of Schomburgk's map, bearing Schomburgk's name, and still officially
known as "Schomburgk's map," and published by Stanford in 1S76 (dated 1875) by
procurement of the Colonial Government, showed the north and south line ; and a note
on its face said : " The boundaries indicated in this map are those laid down by the Idte
Sir Robert Schomburgk." But in 1886, twenty years after Schomburgk's death, the

See p. , infra.
Blue Book, p. 184.

* This passage and the one before quoted about Orinoco mouth, are found in the Parliamentary Paper cited,
but are mnitttd from Schomburgk' s Memoir as printed in the Blue Hook, though in each case they form part of
a sentence the rest of which is given.

9
Colonial Office " discovered " that all these maps were wrong: that Schomburgk's line Expansion of
1.7 1ar/).und ^ the great bend of the Cuyuni. It thereupon compelled Stanford to Schomburgk's line
cancel his existing maps, and change his plate by striking out the note referred to ; by S^^6"" after
erasing the boundary which went across the head waters of the Barima and across the
L/uyuni ; and by inserting another, by engraving and colour, which went around by the .
great bend of the Cuyuni; and the map so changed in 1886 still bore the date 1875 and
no other date. The new line first invented or asserted in 1886 thus appeared as if it
were the original line of 1875, supported by the authority of the surveyors whose names
still appeared on the map as before.
t. -j 1S Per^ousty near *he alteration of ancient landmarks, and spoliation of records. Blue Book 413
It evidently deceived Lord Salisbury, who, on February 13, 1890, asserted it to be " the .
line surveyed by Sir E. Schomburgh in 1841." He did not survey this line in 1841 or in .
any other year.
Let us not mistake the value or want of value of the Schomburgk line. It was
originally nothing but a speculative attempt or proposal, to form the subject of dis
cussion and negotiation. It has not, in itself, the slightest probative or presumptive
value. It was stated merely as a definition of the British claim ; and the attempt, after
it had stood forty years, to alter both its location and its character, gives rise to
reflections which it is not necessary to dwell upon. Nor would the recent attempt stand
any better if some unpublished papers in the Colonial Office should lend a colour of
justification to it. The value of the line as a limitation of the British claim does not lie
in the opinion of Schomburgk, but in the fact of its authoritative publication.
It must also be pointed out that in 1850 the two nations agreed that there should Blue Book, 262-5.
be no occupation of the disputed territory by either, and that in 1884, and subsequently, Note on Stanford
Great Britain invaded it with an armed force and took possession up to the expanded MaP-
" Schomburgk line." On February 20, 1887, Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with Venezuela 216.
Great Britain.
The details of this Schomburgk matter, with photographic reproductions of a
number of the [maps, will be given in a subsequent portion of this argument. A
brief note of them will be convenient here.
All the maps here mentioned down to 1886 show what we have called the north-
and-south boundary line. They are as follows :
In June, 1839, Schomburgk completed some scientific explorations in Guiana on
which he had been occupied for several years for the Eoyal Geographical Society.
He then, at Demerara, prepared the memoir referred to on page 17, supra, with a map,
and Governor Light sent both to the Home Government as containing all the infor- July 15, 1839.
mation attainable on the boundary question, saying that Schomburgk has "furiiished Blue Book, 181.
me with the annexed memoir and map"; "the views of Mr. Schomburgk can be traced ibid., 183.
with accompanying map."
In the fall of 1839 Schomburgk went to London, and remained there until ibid., 209.
December, 1840. While there he published, in May, 1840, his "Description of British
Guiana " with » map. His preface states ofthe map that "the greater portion has
been laid down from my own personal observations .... and will show howr important
it is to the Colony that its boundaries should be more clearly defined than at present,
and freed from the encroaching claims of the adjacent states, which, if admitted, would
deprive British Guiana of the greater part of her most valuable territory."
On May 10, 1840, the Colonial Office sent to Parliament, and the latter ordered to par]. p„ 1840,
be printed, Schomburgk's memoir and map, and this map, found in Parliamentary Papers vol. 34.
cited is printed from the same stone as that of Schomburgk's book. But five little
additions of topographical details, &c, show that Schomburgk went over the map with
scrupulous care between the time when the copies were struck off for his book, and the
time when those for Parliament were printed. The boundary-line in this map contains
some topographical peculiarities of detail which are not found in any previous map by
r vone but which Arrowsmith adopted in his' next later map ; these are obviously
Schomburgk's earmarks.
On the 23rd April, 1840, Lord John Eussell wrote to Governor Light that Schom- Blue Book> 189.
T. o-k was to be employed to make a line, and that meantime the Governor was to
event Venezuela and Brazil from making " any aggression upon the Indians within the
Hne which is assumed in Mr. Schomburgk's map as bounding the Colony under your
govern • ^ ^.. account 0f Schomburgk's previous explorations was published in
n U v and edited by Otto Schomburgk, with a preface by Humboldt, and a map. Of
Germany carrje(j Schomburgk's authority, and, as he was in England until within a few
months of its publication, he doubtless personally supervised it. ,
[766] D

IU

Schomburgk's boundary surveys occupied 1841-44. He was accompanied through
out, except on one or two very short trips, by his brother Eichard, and the latter published
the account of the whole in three volumes in German, in 1847, with a map. Ot course,
Richard knew and expressed Sir Eobert's views about the boundary. Indeed, a note on
the map says that it is founded " on the map by Sir Eobert H. Schomburgk which is at
the Colonial Office in London, scale 1 = 440,000." The scale identifies the latter as
the very large map which .Schomburgk made after the conclusion ot his final boundary1
surveys, and which the Colonial Office thus, in effect, furnished for publication.
Schomburgk died in 1865. , .
The Colony published," in French, a guide to its exhibit at the Paris Exposition ot
1867. This contains a map entitled " Sketch Map of British Guiana, by air Eobert
H. Schomburgk; — . — . Boundary as claimed by Great Britain; .  .do,
by Venezuela ; .... do, by Brazil."
The Report on the Geology of British Guiana, made in 1 872 by Brown and Sawkins^
Government Geologists, was published in 1873 "by order ofthe Lords Commissioners of
the Treasury." It contains a large map, of which the preface says : —
" The attached map, containing the geological work of the survey, is from tracings
of Sir E. Schomburgk's large map (reduced one-half) furnished by the Colonial Office/'
On p. 31 the surveyors say, " we were engaged .... in copying Sir E. Schomburgk's
large map, to serve as a basis for our geological work as directed by the Colonial
Office." Their map thus copied from Schomburgk's official map gave the north-and-south
boundary-line, and that line was a matter of importance to them. For they pushed their
geological work up to that line and not a step beyond, saying that they stopped at
(p. 45) " the boundary-line of Venezuela according to the map furnished us ;" (p. 44)
" as far as Otomong Eiver which forms "the boundary-line between this Colony and
Venezuela;" (p. 36) "near the boundary -line of the Colony, as drawn on Schomburgk's
map. In 1875 Mr. Barrington Brown, the principal one of these two surveyors, published
a map with the same boundary-line in his " Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana."
The Stanford Map of 1876 (dated 1875) is described on p._ 19, supra. Mr. im Thurn,
in an article on the boundary question published at Demerara in 1879, says : —
" Schomburgk marked the boundary as conceived by him in a map which, after
lying unpublished for some thirty years, formed the basis of the geological map
published in 1873 by Charles Barrington Brown, and which was itself published in 1877
(though dated 1875) under the auspices of the Government of British Guiana. Either
this last published map or Brown's geological map may be consulted with a view to
ascertaining the boundaries which seemed most suitable to Schomburgk."
In 1883 Mr. im Thurn, then a Magistrate of the Colony, published " Among the
Indians of Guiana,'' with a map which the Eoyal Geographical Society furnished and
paid for. This map is a reduction of the Stanford Map, and contains the same note
stating that the boundary shown is Sir Eobert Schomburgk's.
Proceedings, Eoyal Geographical Society. 1880, contain another reduction of the
same Stanford Map, with the same note.
The maps in the official Colonial List down to 1886, and also the map in "Her
Majesty's Colonies," appended to the article on British Guiana by G, H. Hawtayne, then
and now Administrator-General, and published "under the authority of the Eoyal
Commission," contains the same north-and-south line.
Plainly, therefore, the north-and-south line is the line drawn by Schomburgk,
published by himself and by the Government as the Schomburgk line and the true
boundary for more than forty-five years, and without a suggestion that it was not
the Schomburgk line until Schomburgk had, been dead twenty years, and the discoveries of
gold had given a new speculative value to the region outside as well as inside of it.
The line of all these maps strikes the Cuyuni, not at the Acarabisi River, but at the
Otomong River, which is 18 or 20 miles east of or below the Acarabisi. Schomburgk
planted stakes on the Acarabisi and at several other places ; but the streams by which he
placed them turned out to be, as he states in his Report, much further to the west than
he had supposed. They were, therefore, far to the west of the line which in his Memoir
he had attempted to justify. It is for that reason, undoubtedly, that he made the line
on the final map to run from Arakita on the Amacura to the Otomong, very nearly north
Page 23, supra. and south, straight across the country. His large map of 1844 (from which Brown
made tracings) expressed his final conclusion, and after he had approved these publica
tions during the twenty years of his life, and the Government had approved them
for over forty, it is not permissible to alter it after his death upon a supposed

11
remarks6 fr°m remark& made in any of his unpublished Eeports— if there be any such
ewn t ifaVe Pointed out that Venezuela, for the sake of settlement, was ready to
be rH *. + /e . disfcricts from arbitration. The region which it did then require to
event? <™d m which the recent gold diggings are found, contains no settlements
to-day. They are worked exclusively by negroes who are hired on the coast, and
5-0 up tor three months at a time. There are no houses there
i the Indian fashion, or mere shanties

Settled districts.
This matter ex
amined in full on
p. , infra.

for they live in huts built
and no families, and no permanent residents, s a

unless that term be applied to a few negroes who have kitchen-gardens, and perhap
tew loremen or officials whose duties keep them there

_ -Nor have the English spent any money for permanent improvements in those
regions. With scarcely an exception, the gold is got by simple washing, by hand
labour. The highest estimate of the total capital put in is 2,000,000 dollars, and that is
chiefly to pay wages and current expenses until the product can be marketed. The
output of gold, by official Returns, has been 10,500,000 dollars. The Government gets
a royalty of 90 cents an ounce, (say) rising 500,000 dollars ; its royalty last year was
119,000 dollars. From the best information to be got, from its Blue Books and Reports,
its total expenses for clearing-streams, reads, and everything else, would be less than
that. So, if every British subject or resident were required to-day to quit those regions
with only what he would naturally carry with him, the'Colony would be 8,000,000 dollars
the richer for its invasion of the territory we claim; and no one would leave his
"home."*

The present argument, of which this first part is only the summary, will consist of
three parts. The second part will contain a statement of the whole Case, with quotations
from the proofs and authorities. The third part will be devoted to a more detailed
examination of certain specific topics, and copies in full of the more important
.documents. A note of the principal historical anthorities will be found on p.

* The official "Notes on British Guinea and its Gold Industry," dated January 8, 1895, prepared and
distributed by the Land Department, says, as to the gold industry : —
"There was no extensive mining done until 1884, which is the first year for which any record of C-lonial
gold has been obtained.
" The high rate of wages offered (64 cents per day, with food and sleeping accommodation), induced the
labouring population, chiefly black, to leave their homes in the villages on the coast to engage themselves to work
in the bush for three or four months at a time.
" The reallv good men are very few and the majority are habitual malingerers."
It describes' the gold-diggers' habitations as follows': —
" The architecture of a bush-house is neither elaborate nor expensive ; the corner posts and cross-beams are
lsuallv of round wood barked, and the rafters of round poles, also barked ; on these is placed the roof, made of
eculiar touirh paper imported from the United States and called ' Neponsett,' or else palm leaves, which make a
eh cooler covering, are used ; but, as leaves are not always to be ohtained, paper is substituted."
m " British Guiana and its Resources," London, 1895, says (p. 48) : —
" There are it is estimated, upwards of 200 placers now in actual work, the returns from which vary from a
f ounces to 1 000 ounces gold per month, or an average of about 50 ounces each ; the aggregate capital invested
• th e workings does not, it is stated, amount to more than the value of a year's production."
111 Pao-e 35 ^ The aggregate capital so subscribed cannot be much less than 2.000,000 dollars."
The " Official Handbook of British Guiana," for the Chicago Exhibition, written by Mr. Rodway, says
(P' Jj tj_e Upper Demerara" [which is not within the disputed territory], "quartz mining is being commenced,
h„f elsewhere only placer-washing is at present carried on.
u n "np- the vear 1891 about 20,000 labourers were registered for the several districts, these serving on an
f about three months each, so that there were always 4,00 . or 5,000 diggers in the bush."
average illustrations here reproduced from that book show better than words could that the gold mining is
carried on TthoutW permanent improvements.

"Notes on theGeM
Industry, 1895,"
p. 7.

Ibid., p. 1 1.

Ibid

_,p

59.

VE;NJ_l_MEIJ§f , Hoft4 (289$;.

Further Documents relating to the Question of
Boundary between British Guiana and Vene
zuela.

Despatch from Her Majesty's Ambassador at
Washington, inclosing the First Part of the Brief
for Venezuela.

Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Com
mand of Her Majesty. August 1896.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS.

6198