IMUC Ul
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LIB

BEFORE THE VENEZUELA BOUNDARY COMMISSION.

BRIEF FOR VENEZUELA.

FIRST PART: INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY.
James J.. Storrow,
William L. Scruggs, of Counsel.
Legal adviser of the Venezuelan Government and Special
Counsel before the Boundary Commission.

Cwv/ ¦'At

§mf Strbmtttetr % $tw$uth to
THE COMMISSION APPOINTED "TO INVESTIGATE
AND REPORT UPON THE TRUE DIVISIONAL LINE
BETWEEN THE REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA AND
BRITISH GUIANA."
FIRST PART: INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY.
On January 10, 1880, Lord Salisbury wrote that the Blue b.,
Essequibo River was the 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 inhab-
" ited 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 that 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 justification 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 popula-
lation, 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 Blue b„
the embarrassment to which Lord Salisbury refers. In ven. Cow ,
239
1890, asking for arbitration, it proposed to recognize 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

Z THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :
offered to so recognize ; and to arbitrate the rest, which con
sisted 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 occupation, 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 occupation to forty thousand 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 lf>00, discovered Guayana, and soon
established themselves so strongly that no other power has
ever been able to penetrate inland beyond the reach of its
ships' guns ; the most noted failures being those of Raleigh
in 15!)5-l(il(i.
2. 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
lirst attempt at settlement.
o . 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 at
tempted to have any settlement in the basin of the Cuyuni
and Mazeruni above their lower cataracts, nor on the Esse
quibo 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

GENERAL SUMMARY. 3
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 contemporane
ous 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 of the southern part of the 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.

4 THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :
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, «¦ When, either by nature or by the habits of the
226™?4r?and settlers, a tract has been defined, the rule is that the first
pUth0"n/ra°n occupation of a part is. in law, an entry upon and possession
of the whole. But the entry of a second claimant cannot
displace the legal possession of the first beyond the actual
occupation of that second.
6. Where, 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 by 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 settlements 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 either Dutch or English ever again at
tempted to rest in until the invasion by an armed English
force, after the discovery of gold, about a dozen years ago.
The British claim, therefore, is limited to their settled dis
tricts, and cannot reach the ultra-settlement region.
Spain the first The facts, more fully stated, are as follows :
the first to 'ex- 1. Spain, about 1500, discovered the northeastern part
plore, and the _, , . . _ . . .
firsttooccupy. of South America. Within a few years its explorers had
coasted the whole of Guiana and sailed up the Orinoco.
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

GENERAL SUMMARY. 5
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
fourteen ships, on the success of which he risked his life, against ail
captured, sacked and burned " Old Guayana," a Spanish town p. , infra.
on the Orinoco. But it could not maintain itself, and 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 and 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 occupied 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

b THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :
and made it vast region pervaded with Spanish language, Spanish names,
land. Spanish religion and Spanish habits ; and where no Euro
pean civilization has been received from any nation except
from Spain.
English title 2. The English claim is that the Dutch obtained a. title
pation" What by occupation, and that, by conquest and treaty, between
occupy? UC11796 and 1814, the British succeeded to the Dutch title.
Assuming, for the purposes of this argument, that a title can
be so acquired for this case, the real inquiry is, What did
the Dutch occupy1?
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 the
south, which are not here material) they settled. Until the
middle of the last century they were barely strong enough
to live. Two companies that fostered them became insol
vent. In 1735, one hundred and fifty years after their alleged
first landing, Essequibo had but one hundred and fifty
whites and three thousand negroes. All their cultivation,
See map. all their houses, and all their use of the soil west of the
Essequibo, were within two or three miles of the Atlantic
coast, not reaching to the Pomeroon River ; along the
Essequibo estuary itself ; and five or ten 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 one hundred and fifty miles of
unbroken forest without settlements ; and that constitutes, in
substance, the disputed territory.
Theiawahout 3. There are several well-known rules which bear upon
occupation. ,
such a case :
a. The Spaniards were the first to occupy the country ;

GENERAL SUMMARY. 7
and in such case the material occupation of a substantial
part, in name of the whole, is, in law, possession of the Authorities
1 ubi sup., and
whole. But here the Spaniards also, in fact, excluded all p- ,Wra.
other persons from the interior of Guiana, and this, of itself,
is held by all jurists to be a most decisive act of dominion.
b. 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 con
tinued 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 fail
ure of the Raleigh expeditions had proved the fact and
the strength of Spanish possession.
c. The English assert a right one hundred and fifty miles No part of it
beyond any actual Dutch occupation. When the rule is in- Dutch or Eng-
voked that occupation of part of a tract may be, in law, an
entry upon and possession of the whole ; and if the law
would perm it the second comer to invoke this rule for any
thing beyond what may be called the curtilage or appurte
nances of his actual occupation ; the crucial question arises
— what constitutes a tract, or unit, such that the occupa
tion of a partis, in law, possession of the whole? Now
the most controlling element, where there is no defining
deed or treaty, is found in a natural barrier. In this case,
— to consider first the main basin of the Cuyuni and Maze-
runi, — that basin is not a prolongation of the low lands of Cuyuni and
the coast, gradually sloping up as they recede from the sea, S^s'ee
as many drainage areas are. It consists in a true interior map-
basin, shaped like a great tray with a rim, and tipped so as
to throw all its waters to the eastern corner, where they
escape through what is virtually a single breach in its rim,
and pour 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

8

THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :

Schomburgk
in Blue b., 225,

Blue b., 227.

Geolog. Sur
vey of Br.
Guiana 17.
Canoe &
Camp, p. 1.

"broken itself a passage," takes place down a series of
rapids and cataracts, with a drop of about two hundred feet
in forty miles. Of the cataracts with which the Cuyuni is
filled, Schomburgk snys :
" The difficulties which the Cuyuni presents to its navigation,
and those tremendous falls which impede the river in its first days
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 pre
vent the escape of 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 two hundred and fifty years,
Dutch and English settlement never passed over into it.*
* Mr. C. Burrington Brown , the Government Geologist, wrote in 1875:
L' 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 " Inte
rior," and, wilh 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. 35, contains Hatfield's map of
1838, showing the settlements and cultivation in accord with the fore
going 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 an undefined distance toward the
Orinoco. Along and near the banks of the Essequibo is a fairly dense
population of English subjects, at least during the lower part of its
course and along and near the banks of the Orinoco is a tolerably
thick population of Venezuelans; but the intermediate space is
inhabited only by some scattered Indians, and is visited only at lon«
intervals by a few travellers, traders, adventurers, or explorers."

GENERAL SUMMARY. 9
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
ahvays has been and such is to-day the access to this interior.
The savannas which border the Orinoco extend, with only
a few fringes and patches of forest, over the neighboring
hills and into the northern part of the Cuyuni basin, which
itself is asavanna country. In this way settlement pene
trated, 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
The " Local Guide," a volume of nine hundred pages containing
the Colony laws, regulations, civil list, etc., published at Demerara in
1843, after describing the sugar islands of the estuary, etc., says
(p. ii):
" The banks of the Essequibo are inhabited only by a few scattered
wood cutters; and above the rapids, which occur about fifty miles
from its mouth, there are no inhabitants except Indians. The same
is the case with the two great tributaries of the Essequibo, the
Cuyuni and the Mazeruni, which come from the west and southwest.
These rivers unite about eight miles from the Essequibo, and their
united stream joins that river, about forty miles from its mouth. A
short distance above their junction, these rivers become impeded by
rapids, above which they are frequented only by a few wandering
Indians." Mr. Dixon, in 1895, visited the British Yuruan station, and wrote
that it
" made me, as an Englishman, feel considerably mortified to think Geo. Jour.
that it takes our Government from five to six weeks to reach their VohS, p. 342.
frontier station , whereas the Venezuelan outpost was then being put,
and by this time probably is, in direct communication with their capi
tal by road and wire. Also, whereas it costs our Government an
immense annual sum to maintain their small number of police at Yur
uan on salt and tinned provisions (sent all the way from Baritca
Grove, on the Essequibo, in paddled boats), within 200 yards on the
other bank of Kuyuni is the Venezuelan outpost, supplied with all
kinds of fresh food from their cattle farms and plantations."

10

THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :

The Cuyuni
basin. Spain ex
pelled the
Dutch and
permanentlyexcluded them.

Rodway &
Watt, i, 174.

Rodway, i,
105.

1739.
Ib.,i, 104-5.

large part actually occupied by Spaniards (now Venezue
lans). 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 aho 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 sepa
rated by one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles of
impassable forests, while the rivers passing directly from
one to the other were almost equally impassable from fre
quent and dangerous cataracts. They traded somewhat,
chiefly or entirely by schooners and launches up the Ori
noco, and for a century had 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 secre
tary, 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 very soon induced the directors
to throw it open to all settlers, with the promise of grants
of land. The result was a large influx, particularly from
the British West India 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

GENERAL SUMMARY. 11
only active occurrences which affect the boundary question ;
and they settled it.
From the time of the early use of Indian slaves, before
1700, the Commandeurs, in order to avoid retaliatory at- w.?Ii87&
tacks from the Indians and to diminish the risk of run
aways, forbade their capture " in the river Isequebe and its ^ ' u si
districts," but they were allowed to be bought from the ?7r3^rsof 1717_
Caribs of the lower Orinoco. The horrid work was carried ^odway- *>
on by the Caribs, the fiercest savages of the country,
directed by Dutchmen who received the slaves and paid for
them. Their raids extended to the very Spanish missions,
because 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 Spanish Docs.
1 filed by Ven-
had actually formed an establishment in the Cuyuni basin, on ezueia, ii, 1.
an island in that river. Thereupon the Spanish 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 acquiescence by the Dutch ; and termina
tion of the ephemeral occupation of the latter, — if it could

12 THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :
Twiss; The be called occupation. But it is well settled that neither
tion. 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 favor of the settler's native country and capa
ble 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.
Dutch settle- 5. The Oregon boundary case answers another conten-
river mouth tion. It has been asserted that the Dutch settlement on the
title to° theVe estuary of the Essequibo and Cuyuni gave Holland a title to
basin. the entire water-shed of those rivers. There is no such
principle of law.
Twiss the The United States first discovered the mouth of the
tionfpn 282eS" Columbia River, first ascended it, and first occupied it by a
fur-trading factory at its mouth. Twiss gives the utmost
statement that anyone has ever supposed to be tenable :
" 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 tbere will be no other civilized power in his
way." Elsewhere Twiss expresses what is both the pith of the
rule and the limitation of it :

lb. 247.

" because their settlements bar the approach to the interior
countoy, and other nations can have no right of way across the set
tlements of independent nations."
Phiiiimoie, Phillimore thus states it :
k 238 "The right of dominion would extend from the portion of the
coast actually and duly occupied, inland so far as the country was

GENERAL SUMMARY. 13
uninhabited, and so far as it might be considered to have the occu
pied seaboard for its natural outlet to other nations."
When the United States, upon two occasions, went a Twiss Lawo£
hair's breadth beyond the rules thus expressed, by omitting ^ITm
any of the qualifying conditions, Great Britain protested,
and Dr. Twiss declares the claim extravagant. The claim
cut no figure in the final adjustment.
Now, every one of the conditions made essential by these
quotations is against Great Britain and in favor of Spain.
Spain discovered the Essequibo, and the Dutch fort was
built on Jhe foundations of the older Spanish one. The real
road to the interior Cuyuni-Mazeruni basin is by way of the
Spanish settlements on the Orinoco ; and it was those settle
ments which barred the way to Raleigh and all other comers.
When the Dutch came to the Essequibo, the Spaniards
were already in power in the interior, from their Orinoco
settlements. But the rule invoked by Great Britain, even if it could
apply, is a rule of constructive possession. It yields al
ways to the facts of actual dominion ; and these here are
(a) that the only settlements ever .made in the interior basin
under consideration were by the Spaniards ; and (6) that
the Spaniards, by and from their settlements, excluded Ral
eigh and others who tried to enter by force, and expelled
the Dutch slave-traders who had entered like a thief in the
night.

*&'

The Barima region was, between 1760 and 1770, the scene „ .
° Barima and
of incidents not unlike those in the Cuyuni basin. There {|]| Orinoco
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

14

THR CASE FOR VENEZUELA

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

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

desisted even from complaint. The British reports of ten
years ago show that there was then not a trace of any civi
lized occupation beyond the Moruca.
But for Barima there exists another set of considerations,
decisive in themselves.
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 con
venient island, by coast-guard launches, etc.
Now it is settled law that those who own and possess the
water-shed 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 arid thus
establish a hostile military control at the mouth. This was
settled forever by the highest English authority, Lord Stow-
ell, 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 addres&ed to shew that these islands are not to be consid
ered as part of the territory of America."

GENERAL SUMMARY. 15
The English allegation is that the Dutch had, not a settle- Barima and
ment or the pretence of one, but a "post," whatever that the Orinoco/
may be, for trade or to watch the Spaniards, at " Barima
Sand," on the delta pass known as the Brazo Barima ; a tem
porary not a permanent lodgment. One is alleged, but with
out credible proof, to have been established about 1666, and
soon after abandoned, either voluntarily or from fear of the
Spaniards. Between 1760 and 1770 a few Dutch slave trad
ers lived with the Caribs on one of the 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 re-
occupy 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 contempo
raneous archives, turns out to be as we have stated it.
Every historian, Dutch or English, who pretends to serious Seep. ,
VtXlTOL ¦
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
Dutch and English officials have again and again declared p. , infra
the Monica, where they did maintain their furthest outpost,
to be the limits of the colony.
7. The Dutch occupation, whatever its extent, is sand
wiched 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.

16 THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :
Rodway & Thereupon a new company was chartered on September 20,
Rodway,' 1674.
i 20.
Rodway, This company carried on the colony until Holland took
"• 55' the direct control in 1791. Now the only grant of South
The Charter American territory in that charter is of " the places of Esse-
The Hague) quibo and Pomeroon" — "Plaatsen van Isekepe en Bawro-
tooni°nocCoend menora."* It is impossible to contend that this specific
enumeration of two rivers, about twenty miles apart, and one
a small one, could include the great Orinoco, one hundred
miles away. By every rule of sensible and of legal con
struction, 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 Avould 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.
Treat of ^' In 1791, Spain and Holland made the treaty of Ar-
Aranjuez, anjuez for the mutual restitution of runaways. Its princi-
Biueb.,137. pal 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
Blue b 8 *The Blue Book says of this charter that " the colonies of Esse
quibo and Pomeroon were enumerated, the 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. flf read without the words in brackets, which are not in the
treaty, this might mean that the establishments on the Essequibo

GENERAL SUMMARY. 17
the Essequibo is, and that the Orinoco is not, Dutch ; and Barima Point
1 ¦ i • j j , ¦ , i . , , an(l tne Ori-
masmucn as it is a statement m a treaty, this makes them noco mouth.
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 ex
pulsion from the Cuyuni basin and Barima Point, the two
nations lived as good neighbors, 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, Ven. Span.
Archives, v. 3.
the Dutch Secretary of State recognized that Spanish p. 53-8.
territory began at the Moruca. In 1796, Pinckard, a British 1839.'
° . Vol. 35, p. 425.
ofhcer, wrote : our outpost at Moroko, the remotest point
"of the Colony of Essequibo." In 1839, the British gover
nor 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 Schomburgk.
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 settle- Blue bij 184
ments. He added a small general sketch map of the whole 235,
region. But it showed that he was utterly ignorant of the
country beyond the Pomeroon, and this map has been dis
credited by all recent historians, both Dutch and English.
were Spanish. The British have therefore insisted that it must be
read as we have indicated, and we shall so assume.

18 THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :
Schomburgk was told by this map, and by Hartsinck's his
tory of 1770, that the Dutch were said to have claimed at
one time that their rights extended to Barima Point, and, at
Schom- some tilue> hacl' for a while, a "post" there. He proposed
Me^mir, to take tllis claim, which in Bouchenroeder's map was shown
B?uetM8i34. °y an arbitrary straight line running back into the country
from the mouth of the Barima or the Amacura, but terminat
ing nowhere, and which Hartsinck utterly rejected in his
map, and locate it according to natural lines, i. e., by follow
ing those mountain ranges or streams which substantially
agreed with it. He submitted his plan to the government
with a memoir and a map which described and showed the
boundary, tickled the ambition of the ministry, by point
ing out that the Venezuelan boundary "merits the 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 Pari.
Pap. 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 com
mission. But before even this step could be taken, the two
termini, he considered, must be agreed upon; this would in
volve 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 report." * In other words, his proposed boundary
counted for nothing unless its termini should be agreed to.
Seep. , *This passage and the one before quoted about Orinoco mouth,
b., p. 184. are found in the Pari. P. cited, but are omitted from Schomburglc1 s
memoir as printed in the Blue Book, though in each case they form
part of a sentence the rest of which is given.

GENERAL SUMMARY. 19
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 "Schom-
" as a statement of the British claim." Afterwards, he wrote, March isf'
Venezuela might "make any objection . . . and state theb.^ik
" 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 vigor that on Jan. 31, 1842, Lord Blue b., 234.
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 aprelim-
" inary measure open to future discussion between the two
" governments . " Dardanelles
0 01 the
Discussions ensued. Every British ministry except that °rmoco-
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 or
the Orinoco," and offered to agree to lines which would or
which they declared would " secure to Venezuela the undis
" turbed possession of the mouths of the Orinoco." (Lord 29s" 299,' 354'
356
Aberdeen in 1884, Lord Granville in 1881, and Lord Rose-
bery in 1886.) It is impossible to overlook the value of this
recognition. It is true that it was made in negotiations for
a compromise ; but it is plain, especially from the value
which the English notes justly attributed to it, that the offer
to give up Barima 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

20

THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA

Expansion of
British claim.

Jan. 10, 1880.
Blue h., 295.
Schomburgk Line ex
panded after
it was forty
years old.

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

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 dis
cussion is to be permitted, says Great Britain, as to terri
tory 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 death, 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 pub
lished directly by the government or by government author
ity, — 1840, 1867, 1875, 1876, 1885, and ten in the official
" Colonial List," 1877-1886 : — one of which maps, namely,
that 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 govern
ment ; one published in 1875 by the same government
surveyor, with a popular account of his work ; one by the
Royal Geographical Society in 1880 (Proceedings of 1880),
with the same note as the Stanford map, and another in
1883 also with the same note which that society contributed
to Mr. im Thurn's book on Guiana. The great map of
the colony, about five feet by four 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 pub
lished by Stanford in 1876 (dated 1875) by procure
ment 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 late Sir Rob
ert Schomburgk." But in 1886, twenty years after Schom-

GENERAL SUMMARY. 21
burgk's death, the Colonial Office " discovered " that all these Expansion of
maps were wrong ; that Schomburgk's line went around by the Schom-
*" hurgk's Line
great bend of the Cuyuni. It thereupon compelled Stanford 20 years after
J L L his death.
to cancel his existing maps, and change his plate by striking
out the note referred to ; by erasing the boundary which went
across the head waters of the Barima and across the Cuyuni :
and by inserting another, by engraving and color, 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.
This is perilously near the alteration of ancient landmarks,
and spoliation of records. It evidently deceived Lord Salis
bury, who, on Feb. 13, 1890, asserted it to be "the line sur-
J . . Blue b., 413.
veyed by Sir R. 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 specula
tive attempt or proposal, to form the subject of discussion
and negotiation. It has not, in itself, the slightest proba
tive or presumptive value. It was stated merely as a defi
nition 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 color of justification to it. The value of the line as a lim
itation 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 Blueb 262_g
agreed that there should be no occupation of the disputed £°f ™pstan-
territory by either, and that in 18<sf, and subsequently,

22 THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :
Great Britain invaded it with an armed force and took pos-
Venezueia session up to the expanded "Schomburgk line." On Feb-
2l6- ruary 20, 1887, Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with
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 ex
plorations in Guiana on which he had been occupied for
several years for the Royal 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
July 15, 1839. Home Government as containing all the information attain-
Biueb., l . aj5|e on^ne boundary question, saying that Schomburgk has
lb., 183. " furnished me with the annexed memoir and map " ; " the
views of Mr. Schomburgk can be traced with accompanying-
map." In the fall of 1839 Schomburgk went to London, and re-
ib., 209. mained there until December, 1840. While there he pub
lished, in May, 1840, his " Description of British Guiana,"
with a map. His preface states of the map that " the greater
portion has been laid down from my own personal observa
tions .... and will show how 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."
Pari, p., 1840. On May 10, 1840, the Colonial Office sent to Parliament,
Vol. 34. aQd the latter ordered to be printed, Schomburgk's memoir

GENERAL SUMMARY. 23
and map , and this map, found in Parliamentary Papers
cited, is printed from the same stone as that of Schomburgk's
book. But five little additions of topographical details, etc.,
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 topographi
cal peculiarities of detail which are not found in any pre
vious map by anyone, but which Arrowsmith adopted in his
next later map ; these are obviously Schomburgk's earmarks.
On April 23, 1840, Lord John Russell wrote to Governor Blueb., 189
Light that Schomburgk was to be employed to mark a line,
and that meantime the Governor was to prevent Venezuela
and Brazil from making "any aggression upon the Indians
within the line which is assumed in Mr. Schomburgk's map
as bounding the colony under your government."
In 1841 a full account of Schomburgk's previous explora
tions was published in Germany and edited by Otto Schom
burgk, with a preface by Humboldt, and a map. Of course
this carried Schomburgk's authority, and, as he was in Eng
land until within a few months of its publication, he doubt
less personally supervised it.
Schomburgk's boundary surveys occupied 1841-44. He
was accompanied throughout, except on one or two very
short trips, by his brother Richard, and the latter published
the account of the whole in three volumes in German, in
1847, with a map. Of course Richard knew and expressed
Sir Robert's views about the boundary. Indeed, a note on
the map says that it is founded " on the map by Sir Robert
H. Schomburgk which is at the Colonial Office in London,
scale 1=440,000. " The scale identifies the latter as the very
laro-e map which Schomburgk made after the conclusion of
his final boundary surveys, and which the Colonial Office thus,
in effect, furnished for publication.

24 THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :
Schomburgk died in 1865.
The Colony published, in French, a guide to its exhibit at
the Paris Exposition of 1867. This contains a map entitled
"Sketch Map of British Guiana, by Sir Robert H. Schom
burgk ; — . — . Boundary as claimed by Great Britain ;
.  . do, by Venezuela ; . . . do, by Brazil."
The Report on the Geology of British Guiana, made in
1872 by Brown and Sawkins, government geologists, was
published in 1873 " by order of the Lords Commissioners of
the Treasury." It contains a large map, of which the pref
ace says :
" The attached map, containing the geological work of the sur
vey, is from tracings of Sir R. Schomburgk's large map (reduced
one half) furnished by the Colonial Office." On p. 31 the sur
veyors say, " we were engaged ... in copying Sir R. Schom
burgk'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, say
ing that they stopped at (p. 45) "the boundary line of
Venezuela according to the map furnished us ; (p. 44)
" as far as Otomong River 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 boun
dary 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, savs :

GENERAL SUMMARY. ZO
" 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 Briti-h
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 Royal 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
Robert Schomburgk's.
Proceedings Royal Geological 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 Royal 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 eight
een or twenty miles east of or below the Acarabisi. Schom-

26

THE CASE FOR VENEZUELA :

P. 23, supra.

burgk 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 t\\.Q final map to run from Arakita on the Ama-
cura to the Otomong, very nearly north 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 publications 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 inference from rem irks made in any of his
unpublished reports — if there be any such remarks.

Settled Dis
tricts.

This matter
examined in
full on p.
infra.

We have pointed out that Venezuela, for the sake of set
tlement, was ready to exempt the settled districts from
arbitration. The region which it did then require to be
arbitrated, and in which the recent gold diggings are
found, contains no settlements even to-day. They are worked
exclusively b}- negroes who are hired on the coast, and go
up for three months at a time. There are no houses there,
— for they live in huts built in the Indian fashion, or mere
shanties, — and no families, and no permanent residents, unless
that term be applied to a few negroes who have kitchen-
gardens, and perhaps a few foremen 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 labor. The
highest estimate of the total capital put in is $2,000,000,
and that is chiefly to pay wages and current expenses until
the product can be marketed. The output of gold, by offi-

GENERAL SUMMARY. 27
cial returns, has been $10,500,000. The government gets a
royalty of ninety cents an ounce, say rising $500,000 ; its
royalty last year was $119,000. From the best information
to be got from its Blue Books and reports, its total ex
penses for clearing streams, roads 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 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 quota
tions from the proofs and authorities. The Third Part
will be devoted to a more detailed examination of certain
*The official " Notes on British Guiana and its Gold Industry,"
¦ dated January 8, 1895, prepared and distributed by the Land Depart- q0i& Tnaus_
meut, says, as to the gold industry : try. 1895> P- 7'
" There was no extensive mining done until 1884, which is the first
year for which any record of Colonial 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 really "ood men are very few and the majority are habitual
,. ,, ° lb., p. 11.
malingerers." It describes the gold diggers' habitations as follows : —
" The architecture of a bush-house is neither elaborate nor expen
sive; the corner posts and cross beams are usually of round wood
barked, and the rafters of round poles, also barked ; on these is
placed the roof, made of peculiar tough paper imported from the
United States and called " Neponsett," or else palm leaves, which
make a much cooler covering, are used; but, as leaves are not always
to be obtained, paper is substituted."
British Guiana and Us 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 few oz. to 1000 oz. gold per
month, or an average of about 50 oz. each; the aggregate capital

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