Of the following six papers the first four have been prepared by His Excellency Señor Rafael Seijas, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United States of Venezuela, and the remaining two by the Agent for that Government before the Arbitral Tribunal. PAGE 1. The Bull of Pope Alexander, 1493; by Rafael Seijas... iii Seijas.. xi .... 3. Comments and Criticisms on the Counter-Cases of Venezuela and Great Britain; by Rafael Seijas xxxi 4. Notes on Marmion's Report of July 10, 1788, and on maps submitted by Great Britain; by Rafael Seijas I 5. The Lines of Schomburgk and of Codazzi; by J. M. de Rojas.. lxxiii 6. British Diplomacy in Caracas from 1830 to 1850; by J. M. de Rojas lxxvi THE BULL OF POPE ALEXANDER, 1493. [Translation.] I have read the book sent me by the Ministry for examination, it being the one just received, and entitled "The Diplomatic History of America. Its first chapter, 1452-1493-1494, by Henry Harrisse, London, 4 Trafalgar Square; B. F. Stevens, Publisher, 1897." It seems to be a new edition of the work of Harrisse which is cited in the following extract. I copy the following from a paper prepared by me in 1886: "The London Times of the 7th March ultimo publishes an opinion on the Venezuelan boundary question, written by Mr. Emil Reich, LL. D, who, on reaching the subject here discussed says: "It now remains to inquire into the legal points involved in the present question. Spain, and now Venezuela, base their claim on South American territories on the famous Bull "inter coetera" of Pope Alexander VI (May 4, 1493), and on the Treaty of Tordesillas (June 3, 1494). It does not occur to us to question the power of Pope Alexander to issue such a Bull.' “There can be no reasonable doubt that then, in the latter half of the 15th century, the Popes were pretty generally consid ered as the depositaries and exponents of international law.” "That they ceased to be held as universal arbiters in the 16th and still more in the 17th century; that their legal attitude to the acquisition of 'ultramarine' countries was already, in the sixteenth century, most forcibly assailed and impugned by even Spanish teachers of international law, such as Francis de Victoria, Melchior Cano, Dominic Soto, Antonio Raminez, &c.; all that does not legally affect the recognition of the Pope as international arbiter in the latter half of the 15th century. "As was done by the present Pope in the arbitration case between Spain and Germany in re the Caroline Islands (1885), so every fair critic must proceed now in the case between England and Venezuela-we must apply to historic questions of the 15th century the principles of law of that very century, and of no other. In thus accepting Alexander's Bull as a legal title, we can yet not accept it as a clear title. The line of demarcation drawn by the Pope has never been clearly fixed, and Harrisse has proved that, if anywhere, that line struck the Continent of South America so far west as to exclude the territory between the Orinoco and the Amazon rivers-that is, the Guayanas. To cap this it can be shown that in the long transactions between Spain and Portugal in re their boundary disputes in South America in 1750 and 1777, the Bull of the Pope, although directly bearing on the question at issue, was never mentioned at all, et pour cause. The book consists of twenty chapters, as follows: I. The Papal Grants to Portugal. 1452-1484. Spain asks the Pope for a Grant of the Newly-Discovered II. V. The Bull of Demarcation not "ridiculous." VI. Spain sends an Embassy of Obedience. VII. The Fourth Bull of 1493. VIII. Signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas. IX. Alleged Partition of the Globe. X. Columbus and the Treaty of Tordesillas. XI. Spanish Interpretation of the Treaty of Tordesillas. XII. XIII. The First Tracing of the Demarcation Line. XIV. The Theory of Enciso. XV. What is the River Marañon? XVI. Enciso's Geographical Description. |