CHAPTER XII. DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN ITS BEARING ON THE QUESTION OF ADVERSE HOLDING. Having stated the general principles lying at the foundation of the doctrine of adverse holding, it remains to consider how far, under the Treaty, and under the general principles of law apart from the Treaty, an adverse holding for fifty years by the Netherlands of any of the territory in dispute has been established. There is but one condiiton, specifically mentioned in the Treaty, which is generally sufficient to constitute an adverse holding, namely "actual settlement of a district." A word may be said here as to the time-limit mentioned in Rule (a). The period covered by the history of the Dutch colony is from 1648 to 1814, a period of one hundred and sixty-six years. Under these circumstances, and considering the importance which the parties attached to the time-limit, as shown by its insertion in Rule (a) of the Treaty, it would seem that the British Case should be found somewhere to state at what date the claim is made that the fifty-years' period begins to run. But one looks in vain through the whole Case and Counter-Case for any suggestion that at any particular date any fifty-years' period begins to run for any particular locality. 1. Actual settlement of a district. The question what is sufficient to constitute an adverse holding in respect to actual settlement has been already discussed in the chapter devoted to the interpretation of the Treaty (pp. ). As there shown the acts relied upon to establish adverse holding must in all cases be national acts, made under the authority of the adverse holder who claims as sovereign, and must be evidenced by a continued exercise of sovereignty, in other words, by political control. A settlement, in order to fulfill the conditions of adverse. holding as to any particular locality, must be composed of inhabitants in greater or less numbers, who have adopted that locality as a fixed place of abode, and who have established there their homes and occupations with a certain degree of permanence; it must be under a recognized and actual political control exercised over the territory as territory, and over all persons therein; and finally, no such claim can be established beyond the area of actual settlement, nor in a geographical district, by anything less than a settlement of the district. Starting with the Dutch possession of Kykoveral at the date of the Treaty of Munster, we find that between 1648 and 1814 the Dutch succeeded in making settlements to a certain extent and for a greater or less period (1) On the Essequibo River, and at the mouth of the Cuyuni and Massaruni, below the falls of those rivers. (2) At Pomeroon and its immediate neighborhood. The question of settlement is also to be considered, although only for the purpose of showing its non-existence, in (1) The Interior Territory, west of the Lower Cuyuni Falls and south of the Imataka Mountains, including the Cuyuni-Massaruni region. (2) The Coast Territory, west of Moruka, including the BarimaWaini region. The evidence as to these four localities will be considered in the above order. (1) ESSEQUIBO. The history of the Dutch colony of Essequibo is divided into two periods. During the first hundred years or thereabouts, the settlements or plantations were chiefly upon the points of land formed by the junction of the three streams,--Bartica Point, between the Massaruni and the Essequibo; Cartabo Point, between the Massaruni and the Cuyuni; the point where the penal settlement was |