for, writing to Señor Michelena on July 3rd, 1893, he says, speaking of the Agreement of 1850:

"In contrast to this action, the attitude of the British Government was marked by great forbearance and a strong desire to execute the arrangement in good faith. In proof of this disposition, it may be instanced that when applied to in 1881 to grant a Concession in the disputed territory to certain applicants they distinctly declined to entertain the proposal, on the ground that negotiations were proceeding with Venezuela, and it was not until the encroachments of the Manoa Company began to interfere seriously with the peace and good order of the Colony that her Majesty's Government decided that an effective occupation of the territory could no longer be deferred, and steps were taken for publicly asserting what they believe to be the incontestable rights of Great Britain." (V. C., vol. iii, pp. 288–289).

If this mean anything, it means that prior to 1884, the now alleged British occupation of the Barima-Waini region and of the Cuyuni region had not been “an effective occupation"--an occupation, that is to say, which under the rules of international law could be made the basis of a title by occupation. Of course this admission by a British premier is conclusive, for it is an admission against interest.

With the failure of Señor Michelena's mission, the diplomatic correspondence between Great Britain and Venezuela came to an

end.

Before closing this Chapter attention should be called to one or two passages in subsequent instructions, to Sir Julian Pauncefote, which show that, as late as the close of 1895, the British Government still continued to rely exclusively upon a Dutch title.

On February 23, 1895, the Earl of Kimberley thus wrote to the British Ambassador in Washington:

"On the other hand, Great Britain has throughout been prepared to make large abatements from her extreme claim, although Her Majesty's Government have been continually accumulating stronger documentary proofs of the correctness of that extreme claim as being their inheritance from their Dutch predecessors." (V. C., vol. iii, p. 260.)

On November 26, 1895, Lord Salisbury thus stated the origin of the British claim:

"The title of Great Britain to the territory in question is derived, in the first place, from conquest and military occupation of the Dutch settlements in 1796. Both on this occasion, and at the time of a previous occupation of those settlements in 1781, the British authorities marked the western boundary of their possessions as beginning some distance up the Orinoco beyond Point Barima, in accordance with the limits claimed and actually held by the Dutch, and this has always since remained the frontier claimed by Great Britain." (V. C.-C., vol. iii, p. 275.)

To the very last, therefore, the British rested even their extreme claim upon the "inheritance from their Dutch predecessors," and asserted a frontier "in accordance with limits claimed and actually held by the Dutch." These repeated statements by British authorities with regard to the exclusively Dutch origin of the British title have been dwelt upon at length because of the complete change of front, in this regard, presented by the British Counter-Case in the following passages:

"It is admitted that Great Britain acquired Guiana from the Dutch, but, for the reasons given in other parts of this Counter-Case, Her Majesty's Government protest against the attempt made in the Venezuelan Case to confine the extent of British dominion to the limits of territory actually settled by the Dutch." (B. C.-C., p. 33.)

"The history of the British occupation of Essequibo is entered upon in the Venezuelan Case with a reservation that the definition of the present boundary must depend upon the extent of Dutch and Spanish rights in 1803, and that the British claims cannot in law have anything in the history of the present century to support them

*

(ib., p. 107.)

"The contention that the British claims cannot in law have anything in the history of the present century to support them, is not correct. In the first place it is clear that by virtue of Article IV, Rule (a) of the Treaty of Arbitration, Great Britain is entitled to retain whatever territory has been held by her, or has been subject to her exclusive political control for a period of fifty years, although the result might be to give to Great Britain territory which had never been Dutch, and might even conceivably have at one time been Spanish. Moreover, there has been nothing to prevent the extension of British settlement and control, if the regions into which

such extensions were made were at the time lying vacant. Territory added to the British Colony by such extension cannot be awarded to Venezuela, however recent the British possession may have been." (B. C.-C., pp. 107108.)

If the earlier claim of the Earl of Kimberley and of Lord Salisbury, and of every other British premier and Foreign Secretary who has written on the subject during the past sixty years, are sound, then every inch of territory within Great Britain's extreme claim, is now British because it was formerly Dutch. In this last British utterance, however, new sources of title are, for the first time, alleged. Prescription is invoked under Article IV, Rule (a), of the Treaty of Arbitration; and that, too, with regard to territory, which, it is suggested, "had never been Dutch, and might even conceivably have at one time been Spanish." So, too, contrary to every historical fact, and in conflict with every claim ever made by Dutch or British, it is suggested that there was a no-man's land between Dutch-British settlements, on the one hand, and Spanish-Venezuelan settlements, on the other, and that this "vacant" territory could lawfully be appropriated by Great Britain, and must now be awarded to her "however recent the British possession may have been.”

What is the significance of a claim which prior British assertions render impossible and untenable? Has faith in "Dutch inheritance" begun to weaken? Is the fact at last realized by our adversaries that "British possession" is, in fact, a matter of very recent date?

CHAPTER IV.

THE SCHOMBURGK LINE.

Our study of the Diplomatic Correspondence would not be complete did we omit to consider more fully than we have yet done Schomburgk's work and the various lines which bear his name.

The Schomburgk Line has played an important part in this boundary controversy. Schomburgk's survey of the Barima and Amacura in 1841, the erection of boundary posts at the mouths of those rivers, and his formal assumption of possession of that region on behalf of Great Britain, revived a dispute which had lain dormant for seventy-two years. The claims to which that and subsequent Schomburgk surveys gave rise, the treatment of those claims and surveys in after years by the British Government, and the contradictory character of maps and lines which have at various times been attributed to him, or which have been alleged to be based on his authority, have given rise to a host of questions whose scope would seem to cover the whole boundary dispute, and whose seeming contradictions have at times seemed to baffle solution.

The investigations of the United States Commission, the contributions which have since been made to the subject, and the important maps and papers recently submitted with the Case of Great Britain, tend to simplify these questions, and for the first time render possible a satisfactory answer to them. It is the purpose of this Chapter to formulate and to consider some of these questions.

Before doing this, it may be well to state very briefly the facts which constitute the history of the Schomburgk lines; the proof of what we have to say will follow.

In 1839 Schomburgk proposed to the British Government to survey a line which, beginning at the mouth of the Amacura

River, runs substantially south, and cuts the Cuyuni some fifty or sixty miles west of the Essequibo; this is what has been called Schomburgk's Original Line That particular line was approved by the British Government in 1840, and Schomburgk was authorized to survey it. Between 1840 and 1842 Schomburgk surveyed parts of another line, and suggested that other line to the British Government as a desirable boundary; this new line is what has been called Schomburgk's Expanded Line. The British Government, having had that expanded line mapped by Mr. Hebert, filed it away in its secret archives, together with Schomburgk's maps and reports, and for the next forty-four years--that is to say, until 1886-continued to treat the Original Schomburgk Line of 1839 as the boundary line of the Colony, publishing it as such on several official maps. In 1886 the Expanded Line, which had been proposed by Schomburgk in 1842 and which had lain rejected by the British Government for forty-four years, was first published, and from that date to this, that once rejected line has been treated by Great Britain as the actual boundary of the Colony.

Let us now formulate and consider the various questions to which these facts give rise. And, first, what was the purpose of the Schomburgk survey?

In his Memoir of July 1, 1839, addressed to Governor Light, Schomburgk said:

"By an Additional Article to a Convention signed at London, the 13th August, 1814, Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice were finally ceded to Great Britain. The British Empire acquired, therefore, Guiana, with the same claims to the termini of its boundaries as held by the Dutch before it was ceded by Treaty to Great Britain." (B. C., VII, p. 3.)

"When the settlements were in the possession of the Netherlands the present countries of Demerara and Essequibo were divided into the Colonies of Pomeroon, Essequibo and Demerara. * * As the first was the most western possession, and formed the boundary between Spanish Guiana, its limits were considered to extend from Punta Barima, at the mouth of the Orinoco, in latitude 8° 4′ north, longitude 60° 6' west, south-west by west to the mouth of the River Amacura, following the Caño Cuyuni from its