issues orders to the chiefs living on the Amakuru; patrols the Barima for sixty miles from its mouth; visits the Waini for the purpose of apprehending vessels engaged in the fishery, contrary to the prohibitions of the Spanish Government, and finding nothing which calls for immediate attention, he returns.

This was Beltran's occupation during the whole ten years, from 1775 to 1785, at the beginning of which period, in 1775, he is first referred to as "Captain Mattheo" by the Director-General of Essequibo, although the Director-General seems to attach more importance to the rumored presence with the Spanish force of some stray deserter from his own garrison than he does to that the Spanish Captain.

The journal of Beltran also shows what was the nature of the Spanish patrol prior to 1775, when Flores and Cierto were in command of the coast-guard vessels (lanchas corsarias), whose movements were precisely similar to those described in the Diary, and included the control of the rivers and the seizure of vessels and of persons not only in the interior of Barima, but in the mouth of the Orinoco and Waini. It explains the meaning of all those reports of Storm, which month after month describe the presence of the Spanish launches in Barima and Waini, and even in the Moruca itself.

In 1779 Don José Felipe de Inciarte was ordered to make an exploration of all the land to the east of the lower Orinoco, included under the general name of Barima (V. C. II, 434), and was engaged in carrying it out during the greater part of the summer and autumn of that year. He traversed and surveyed in detail the Barima, the Aruka, the Mora Passage, the Waini, the Barama, the Baramani with the various creeks at its head, the Biara and the Assacatta, including the itabo running through the savanna, and finally the Moruca, and advised the establishing of a fort in the immediate neighborhood of the Moruca post (V. C. II, 434-8).

Inciarte's report was made direct to the King, and in conse

quence of it a royal order was issued to him, charging him with the "mission of occupying and populating the lands described in his report," and of erecting two forts on the Moruca.

The order, however, owing to various delays, had not yet been carried out when the Revolution broke out in Venezuela.

In the meantime Beltran continued to be employed on the duties which had been assigned to him in patrolling the Barima, and from time to time the reports of the Director-General show his activity.

On September 23, 1779, the Director-General reported to the Company (V. C. II, 236):

"Having thus replied to your greatly esteemed resolutions on my behalf, I take the liberty to inform you that three weeks ago a party of about 80 Spaniards and half-breeds were for some days in the river Pomeroon, without, however, doing any damage; but the Indians report them as having said that they were coming back in three months and would then establish a fort there."

In the journal of J. C. Severyn, Military Commandant in Essequibo, under date of March 1, 1781 (V. C. II, 236), he said:

"Several reports which came in yesterday and to-day state that the Spanish privateer has already seized some negroes of English planters in this colony who were on the river in boats, and holds them prisoners in his vessel; while he has hailed many others and made them heave to, but, on learning that they belonged to Dutch planters, he allowed them to depart unmolested, he having gone so far as to threaten with musket in hand that he would fire upon them if they were unwilling to come to. This Spaniard's name is Mateo, and it is a matter of speculation whether

he has a commission."

April 3 the Journal stated (V. C. II, 237):

"The assistant Luyken, who had set out with a flag of truce and letters for the Governor of Orinoco, returns and says that in the river he had met a boat with Indians, who had told him that Mateo was lying with his craft in the river of Barima, and was carrying off everything without distinction."

May 22 the Journal stated (App. Ven. II, 237):

"The planter Cramer reports to Captain Ingram that in the river Pomeroon Spaniards with boats have again been seen."

In 1785 Don Matheo Beltran's cruises again were made the subject of comment by the Dutch authorities. On October 14 of that year, the Government Journal contained an entry that one of the colonists had heard from Indians that "Matheo, who is a Spaniard on the coast, mentions and threatens that he will overtake and burn our Post at Marrocco" (B. C. V, 40). On October 2 it was reported "that a Spanish barque managed by one Matheo continually cruised by or about the Post, which skipper had expressed himself more than once in a seditious way, threatening to set fire to the Post." In consequence of which, the Commandeur, after deliberating for three weeks, on October 29, gave the Postholder the bold and resolute order "that, if the said Spanish Captain named Mattheo again expressed himself in such seditious terms, he was to make directly a report thereof" (B. C. V, 42).

The Commissioners in their report to the Prince of Orange on the condition of the Colony of Essequibo and Demerara, July 27, 1790, stated (V. C. II, 243):

Many more lands here could be brought under cultivation if the vicinity of the River Orinoco did not prevent it, for the Syaniards there sometimes come with armed boats, called lances [lanchas], as far as Moruca, and by force carry the Indians who dwell there, enslaving them, while on the other hand our negro slaves, when they run away, betake themselves to Orinoco, where they are proclaimed free."

In 1802 Major McCreagh, of the British Army, made an official reconnaissance of the posts on the Orinoco. He stated (V. C. III, 57):

"In entering the River Orinoco by the southeast, generally called the great channel, Cape Barima forms the southeast point."

And he described "an immense assemblage of flat islands, intersected by innumerable channels," which forms what may be called the north wide side of the great channel. These are the islands of Cancrejo, Loran, and others opposite Barima Point, forming with it the two banks of the Boca de Navios.

He went on thus:

Having entered the river, you pass close to leeward of this island, and a few miles farther up you come to a second, of nearly the same appearance, on the lower point of which are three temporary huts. It is called the first military post, but is in reality a station for pilots-of whom there are always five, who are regularly relieved. They are native Indians, and are occasionally called either pilots or soldiers. The former, I believe, however, is the only of the two capacities in which they are used to act. This island is called Pagayos."

In 1802, therefore, the first post of the Spanish on the Orinoco was the pilot station at the Island of Pagayos. This island, though put down on Sheet 1 of the British Atlas, is not named on that map. It is at the mouth of the Arature River, the first branch of the Orinoco above the Amakuru. Many other maps in the British Atlas show the island by name; for example, Map 46 (Schomburgk), where it is marked, “I. Pagagos or Pilot I.”

Major McCreagh went on to state:

"The second post, as it is termed, is named Sacopana, and is situated on this side of the river about 120 miles above Pagayos.”

It consisted of eight houses, and was under the command of a sergeant.

The third post was at Fort Barancas, seventy miles further. It contained a battery of eleven guns, commanded by a lieutenant, with a garrison of three Spaniards and forty-six Indians.

The fourth post was three miles higher up the river, called Upper Barancas. Here were stationed three gunboats, close to the beach, each mounting one heavy gun and some swivels. At this post it was the rule to stop all vessels.

The fifth post was thirty-eight miles further, at the town of Old Guayana. It comprised a battery of six 6-pounders and six smaller guns. The garrison consisted of six officers and twentyfive rank-and-file.

Above these five posts, eighty-two miles further up, was the town of Angostura, the capital. According to McCreagh, it was a well-built town:

"The houses all of stone, the roofs tiled, the streets laid out at right angles, and the whole situated on the sloping side of a hill."

There were about fifty soldiers at the town. McCreagh's comment on its situation, which he was of course regarding chiefly from a military standpoint, in consequence of which the feature which most impressed him was the weakness of the defences, was

Except the conversion of the aboriginal natives (which is certainly not the primary motive), the Spanish Government has obviously no other object in occupying the Oronoque than the very important one of excluding other powers from a river which runs along the rear of the Provinces of Popayan, Venezuela, Carraccas, Cumana and Paria; which, therefore, in the hands of a commercial nation would carry away from them the productions, and monopolize the traffic of those rich territories, and which, if possessed by a warlike power, might immediately paralyze the authority and gradually destroy the tenure by which Spain holds her vast Empire in South America."

Major McCreagh's statement is full of interest.

Undoubtedly

the defences of Spain in the lower Orinoco were not highly efficient from the standpoint of a great military Power, and such a Power desiring to take the hint conveyed by Major McCreagh's official report and to carry on a war of conquest would have found little difficulty in overcoming them. The evidence of McCreagh may have been valuable at the moment to indicate the military inferiority of the Spanish defences; it is invaluable now as indicating the completeness of the Spanish occupation of the lower Orinoco. At the time it was written it contemplated the divesting of Spanish title by war; now it appears as an inconvenient admission on the part of a British officer to prevent the divesting of that title without war.

If, as the British Case seems to believe, occupation is necessary to establish Spanish or Venezuelan title, nothing could have been more complete for the purpose than the occupation as McCreagh describes it in the lower Orinoco. That occupation began in the 16th Century. As admitted in the British Counter-Case (page 28,