answer, he sent, on September 2, 1754, his sixth appeal to the Company for information as to the boundary (B. C. II, 93):

'I have the honour to assure your Honours that I shall not slumber in this matter, but shall do everything in my power, and meanwhile await your Honours' orders, respecting the so long sought definition of frontier, so that I may go to work with certainty. (Has not this been regulated by the Treaty of Münster ?)"

It was in the same letter that he referred to the establishment of two new missions, notwithstanding his former letter to the Governor, and to the fact that he did not agree with the Company in their policy of non-interference.

The answer of the Company was finally given January 6, 1755 (B. C. II, 101). It was not an answer at all. After nine years of investigation and discussion, the Company acknowledge their inability to state any specific boundary, and fall back upon the terms of the charter. They say (B. C. II, 102):

"We would we were able to give you an exact and precise definition of the real limits of the river of Essequibo, such as you have several times asked of us; but we greatly doubt whether any precise and accurate definition can anywhere be found, save and except the general limits of the Company's territories stated in the preambles of the respective Charters granted to the West India Company at various times by the States-General, and except the description thereof which is found in the respective memorials drawn up, printed and published when the well-known differences arose concerning the exclusive navigation of the inhabitants of Zeeland to those parts, wherein it is defined as follows: That region lying between those two well-known great rivers, namely, on the one side, that far-stretching and wide-spreading river, the Amazon, and on the other side, the great and mightily-flowing river, the Orinoco, occupying an intermediate space of ten degrees of north latitude from the Equator, together with the islands adjacent thereto.' For neither in the Treaty of Munster, concerning which you gave us your own opinions, nor in any other is there to our knowledge anything to be found about this. The only thing we have discovered up to this time by our search is a definite boundary-line made in the West Indies between New Netherland and New England in the year 1650, but nothing more or further.

"For which aforesaid reasons, it is therefore our opinion that one ought to proceed with all circumspection in defining the Company's territory, and in disputing about its jurisdiction, in case this may have led to the aforesaid preparations of the Spaniards, and that it would be best in all befitting and amicable ways to guard against all estrangements and hostile acts arising therefrom."

The above letter is conclusive evidence that in 1755 the West India Company did not claim any part of the territory now in dispute above the falls or west of Pomeroon. It begins by saying: "We would we were able to give you an exact and precise definition of the real limits," which plainly shows that they were unable to do so; and it adds that they "greatly doubt whether any precise and accurate definition can anywhere be found," excepting in the charters.

In this statement the Company were correct; and if they had only read the charter of 1674, they would at once have found what they were seeking, namely, the limits of the Dutch claim. This charter gave the Company two places on the continent of America, namely, Essequibo and Pomeroon. Whether the Dutch Government had a title that enabled it to make this grant may be a question, but that this was all that it granted is beyond question.

The Memorial from which the Zeeland Chamber, writing this letter, quotes a vague and grandiose phrase referring to a "region" lying between the Amazon and the Orinoco, and which it cites as the only indication of a boundary, was a memorial prepared by itself three years before, in 1751, in a dispute between the different Chambers of the Company. Such a statment made by one or the other of the contending parties in the Company, in a brief in support of rival pretensions could indicate nothing as to the limits of chartered rights; still less could it be used in an international controversy as a definition of specific frontiers, especially when the individuals who made it were the same as those who were now referring to it as the only suggestion they could find as to colonial limits. Such phrases could certainly never

be the foundation of title and the Company evidently did not rely upon them as such.

The Company sagely observe in conclusion that the only thing which their search has discovered so far is a boundary line made between New Netherland and New England, "but nothing more or further." It would seem that there could not well be anything further from the question then under consideration.

Finally, in answer to Storm's intimation that he did not agree with them in abstaining from territorial claims, they made the significant statement:

"For which aforesaid reasons, it is therefore our opinion that one ought to proceed circumspectly in defining the Company's territory and in disputing about its jurisdiction,"

and that it would be best to guard against all entanglements. Not only were the Company ignorant of any claim to extended territories, but they distinctly refused to make such a claim, and most solemnly enjoined upon their agent in the colony that he should do nothing to raise the question, an injunction that was all the more emphatic in view of the letter to which it was a reply.

The destruction by the Spaniards of the Dutch post at QuiveKuru in 1758 led the Director to write a long and emphatic protest to the Spanish Governor (B. C. II, 154).

In examining this letter, it must be remembered that Storm was precluded from setting up any territorial claim, first, by the want of any foundation for such a claim, as was repeatedly admitted in his letters, and, secondly, by the express prohibition of the Company. All such claims are, therefore, carefully avoided in the letter. The Director-General expresses his surprise at the attack, at the imprisonment of the occupants of the post, and the destruction of the house. He refers to it as an offense directly opposed to the law of nations, and to the Treaties of Peace and Alliance." He asks how such violence could be committed “without previously making a complaint." He dwells upon it as

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an unfriendly act and even an outrage. But he says no word to indicate that it was performed on Dutch territory, or that it was in breach of the territorial rights of Essequibo. The letter is in every word such a letter as might have been written had the acts complained of been committed on the other side of the Orinoco in the heart of Venezuelan territory; in fact, the absence of any reference to a violation of territorial rights as the gravamen of the offence is so studied and marked as virtually to amount to a disclaimer.

Storm's letter having been delivered by the Commandant of Guayana to Don Nicolas de Castro, Governor of Cumaná, under whose administrative supervision the province of Guayana at that time was placed, the latter replied to it in terms about which there was no ambiguity. The letter was as follows (B. C. II, 169-70):

"The Commandant of Guayana has forwarded to me, among other documents, a letter which you sent him claiming the two Dutch prisoners, a negro slave, and a half-breed woman with her children, whom the guard dispatched from that fort seized in an island of the River Cuyuni, established there in a house, and carrying on the unjust traffic of slavery among the Indians, in the dominions of the King my Sovereign. As this same River Cuyuni and all its territory is included in those dominions, it is incredible that their High Mightinesses the States-General should have authorized you to penetrate into those dominions, and still less to carry on a traffic in the persons of the Indians belonging to the settlements and territories of the Spaniards. I therefore consider myself justified in approving the conduct of this expedition."

Storm chose to consider himself affronted by De Castro's letter, because it was addressed "To the Dutch Commandant residing in Essequibo," and he conceived the idea of having the letter answered by the officer who commanded his little garrison. The answer begins (B. C. II, 173):

"I duly received the letter which was written to me by Mr. Don Nicolas de Castro, whose person or quality I do not have the honour to know, in answer to the letter which our Governor had written to you."

This arrangement served two purposes: it enabled Storm to resent the supposed affront to himself, and also to evade the prohibition of the Company as to a territorial claim, by making it in the name of an irresponsible subordinate.

In this letter the act of the Spaniards is characterized as a "violation and insult done to the territory of his Sovereigns." It adds that

"Since it seems to him, according to the letter in question, that in Guayana and at Cumaná there is ignorance of the boundaries of the territory of His Catholic Majesty and those of the States-General according to the Treaties at present subsisting, he has ordered me to send you the inclosed map, on which you will be able to see them very distinctly."

The only comment to be made on this statement is that the ignorance of the Spaniards in reference to the boundary, however great it might be, could not exceed that of the Dutch themselves, as plainly admitted by the letters both of the DirectorGeneral and of the Company.

This letter was sent back unopened by the Spanish Commandant, the latter stating that he was "forbidden to enter into any correspondence concerning the matter of Cuyuni " (B. C. II, 175).

Storm reported the facts in two letters, one of September 9, 1758 (V. C. II, 125), the other undated, but written in the following year, 1759 (Id., 129).

In the first of these letters he merely said that the claim that the post was on Spanish ground was "utterly and indisputably untrue," and referred to D'Anville's map as authority for the boundaries.

In his second letter he was more specific. He said:

"There not being the slightest difficulty or doubt concerning the ownership of this branch* of Essequibo, most undoubtedly belonging, as it does, to the West India Company, this unexpected and unheard of act is a violation of all existing Treaties."

The position taken in the above letters must be looked at in the light of Storm's previous correspondence, which abundantly * Erroneously translated portion in B. C., II, 172.