line 30): "The Spaniards entered, explored, settled, and effectively defended the Orinoco." The occupation has been continuous down to the present day, and as early as 1802 it was so complete that, at intervals down the river below the capital to within a few miles of its mouth five posts existed, four of which were military posts, with batteries, in command of an officer, and the fifth was a post of pilots a few miles from the mouth of the river. If occupation of a river is required to establish a title to it, what more occupation can be needed than this, an occupation lasting for over three hundred years? And in the face of such a title, accompanied continuous occupation, what title can possibly be set up by Great Britain to one of the banks of the Orinoco, either up to the Barima or the Amacura? How has this Spanish title been divested, and how has a British title been acquired?

The Spaniards uniformly asserted their rights in Barima. They never made the slightest admission, and they evidently never had the slightest idea that all the territory west of Moruka was otherwise than Spanish territory. They uniformly conducted themselves as if it was Spanish territory. It was visited constantly by Spanish officers, in the performance of their public duties, and the public duty with which they were charged at the time was the duty of prohibiting intrusion from foreigners, of preventing the slave trade, and of enforcing regulations in respect to commerce and fishery. Every one of these was an act of territorial jurisdiction. Look at the orders to Flores, and Cierto, and Inciarte: All of them were expressly based on the Spanish title to the whole region. Look at Beltran's declaration to the Postholder at Moruca, and the statement of the Spanish Governor, twice reported to the Director-General of Essequibo and by him reported to the Company, that the Spanish boundary was at the bank of Oene. The Spanish authorities never hesitated for a moment to enforce territorial jurisdiction them against foreigners as well as Spaniards; in fact, the cases which we have in the records, which are innumerable, are almost

entirely cases of enforcing dominion against the Dutch of Essequibo, their persons and their property.

Notwithstanding all that the Spanish did, no remonstrance was ever really made against the exercise of dominion in Barima as such. There were protests made about the fishery, which the Dutch claimed by use, which claim the Spaniards disputed. There were protests about depredations at Moruca, which the Dutch claimed was the site of their post and was an injury on their territorial frontier. But so far from resenting the acts of which they had the clearest knowledge, and of which the evidence to-day is largely to be found in their own records, they not only did not resent them, but the Colonial authorities were expressly instructed by the Dutch Company to avoid retaliation, and to give the Spaniards no cause of offence.

From the records that have been quoted above, Barima appears, during the latter part of Storm's administration and of that of his successors, to have been as much Spanish territory as any part of the country west of the Orinoco-not settled, it is true, but none the less Spanish, for settlement was not then necessary to establish title any more than it is to day. A settlement was, however, decided on, and its establishment was commanded in a Royal order, and doubtless would have come about in time, had not the Revolution interrupted the plans of the Spanish Crown.

CHAPTER XIV.

ADVERSE HOLDING TRADE RELATIONS.

An important part in the attempt to establish a political

control by the Dutch over the the British Case to Dutch trade.

at page 80:

territory in dispute is given in The proposition is thus stated,

"The earliest political control exercised over the territory in dispute was connected with trade.

"By the Treaty of Munster the Dutch and the Spaniards, while retaining the commerce and country' which they then respectively held and possessed, were debarred from trading in the territories held by each other. Even before the Treaty of Munster it had been a maxim of Spanish policy to exclude foreign trade from Spanish possessions, the truce of 1609 having contained a similar provision. In 1612, for example, this rule was enforced upon the Governor and people of Santo Thomé.

"It is, of course, the fact that the Dutch carried on an extensive contraband trade with the Spanish possessions by the connivance of the authorities, but the existence in any region of trade carried on by the Dutch systematically and not on sufferance excludes the idea of Spanish political control, while it naturally, and in fact, led to political control by the Dutch. It is from this point of view that it is important to see over what region the Dutch traded systematically and as of right.”

And on page 155 of the British Case the following important statement is made, in addition:

"Where, as was usually the case with the early European Colonies, the colonizing Government enforced a claim to dispose of an exclusive right of trading within any specific area surrounding its settlements, that area was undoubtedly effectively controlled, and its resources in their then state of development were effectively appropriated by that Government."

The subject is dealt with in the Counter-Case of Venezuela at page 73.

It would seem that, after putting forward the claim that is made in the extracts above cited from the British Case, it should

have given some information as to the foundation upon which the supposed claim of the Dutch to an exclusive trade in the disputed territory was based. Take, for example, the period immediately after the signing of the Treaty of Munster. Did the Dutch then have an exclusive right to trade within the disputed territory? It does not seem to be claimed that they had; but, if so, the claim can only be based upon the proposition that the bounds. prescribed by the Treaty of Munster included this region, and that it was a Dutch possession. Such a claim is inconsistent with the explicit declaration of the British Case (p. 13) that

"After the conclusion of the Treaty of Munster, great extensions of their possessions in Guiana were made by the Dutch;"

and the context shows that the extensions referred to included not only Pomeroon, but also the whole disputed territory which has been referred to as the Region of the Interior and the Region of the Coast.

As to these "extended possessions," it cannot be claimed that the Dutch had any exclusive right of trade there until their title was extended; so that it would seem to be implied that any exclusive Dutch right to trade within the disputed territory must have had an origin later than the Treaty of Munster. Such a right can only be based upon one of two grounds: either that there was territory intervening between the Dutch limits and the Spanish limits which was terra nullius and subject to be taken up and occupied by any nation, or that it was Spanish territory to which the Dutch might acquire a title under Art. 5 of that Treaty, or if not in that way by prescription after the Treaty. If the territory was terra nullius, it was open to Spain as well as to the Dutch for trade, and so the alleged exclusive right must have accrued from a competent subsequent acquisition of the territory by the Dutch. The latter could not have an exclusive right to trade within it until the Dutch dominion therein became exclusive. We think we are entitled to a little more definite statement from our adversaries.