The Geographical Society of London sent him a communication abounding in flattering expressions for the author. The Institute for the Promotion of Science in Washington elected him a corresponding member. His Majesty Louis Phillipe, King of the French, decorated him with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. And, finally, his adopted country received him with great enthusiasm, and the Government of Venezuela declared that by such important surveys Colonel Codazzi had made himself worthy of national recognition.

When the two men-the geographer and the surveyor-are compared one with the other, Codazzi appears a giant and Schomburgk a pigmy. So that the moral worth of the work of Codazzi is undoubtedly superior to the work of Schomburgk.

Notwithstanding this, the Government of Venezuela, in the copious array of documents which this discussion has brought forth, never boasted of the work of Codazzi; but on the other hand, since 1841, the British Government has never ceased to invoke the work of Schomburgk, as if it were an irrefutable authority, an incontrovertible proof of its right, a definitive proprietary title drawn up in its favor by that surveyor. Why, the name of Schomburgk has been used to such an extent in the British publications that if one were to take the trouble to abstract this name every time it has been used in the British documents since 1841, and place the names so collected in a row, there would be formed a line many kilometers in length, which would be the true Schomburgk line, and which would have a greater moral value than the original line drawn by him in 1841.

BRITISH DIPLOMACY IN CARACAS FROM

1830 TO 1850.

[Translation.]

It cannot be denied that Great Britain gave very valuable assistance to old Colombia during her war for independence. Venezuela, upon separating from Colombia in 1830, exerted herself to recognize those services by a very cordial friendship, to which end one of her first diplomatic acts was the sending of a Minister to London, for the purpose of resigning the treaty of commerce and navigation made by Great Britain in 1825 with the old Republic of Colombia. The Venezuelan Envoy signed the said treaty without completing it, as was provided in one of the articles of the treaty which was signed in Bogota in the greatest hurry, and in consequence it remained without the time of its duration being fixed. But in the period of sixty-nine years which have elapsed since then, each time that the Government of Venezuela has proposed to revoke the said treaty the Government of Her Britanic Majesty has claimed that the treaty was perpetual, and could not be revoked without the terms of its proposed substitute being previ ously made known, basing such an extraordinary position, perhaps, upon the wording of the first article of said treaty, which reads as follows:

I. “There shall be perpetual, firm and sincere Amity between the Dominions and Subjects of His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, His Heirs and Successors, and the State and Peoples of Colombia."

Such a doctrine is to-day repudiated by the principal professors of international law, who hold that when a treaty of commerce has not fixed the limit of its duration, it is understood that each party has the right to revoke it upon giving one year's notice to the other.

The first diplomatic agent of Great Britain in Caracas was that distinguished gentleman, Sir Robert Ker Porter. He was born in Durham in 1780, so that when, in 1836, he requested the Government of Venezuela to establish a lighthouse on Barima Point, he was already fifty-six years of age. Sir Robert Ker Porter arrived in Venezuela with the prestige of his antecedents as a soldier, a diplomat, litterateur and artist, he being a noted painter, and had, in 1804, been called to Russia and appointed historical painter to the Emperor. In 1811 he married Princess Marie, daughter of Prince Theodore de Sherbatoff, of Russia. He served his native country as a diplomat and soldier in various places on the Continent of Europe -in Russia, Persia and Spain-and also in South America. In 1841, with permission of his Government, he left Caracas for Europe, and died suddenly in St. Petersburg on May 3, 1842, a few hours after having taken leave of the Emperor. It is inexplicable that a man of such great personal prestige should invite the Government of Venezuela to establish a lighthouse on Point Barima without the authorization of his Government, and at least without informing it of his action, while it appears from the books presented that the British Government only had notice of it in 1842.

So cordial at this time were the diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Great Britain that in 1837 King William IV., as a token of admiration for the conduct of General Paez, father of the Independence of the Republic, and its first President, presented him with a sword bearing the following inscription:

"The gift of King William the Fourth to General Paez, as

a mark of esteem for his character, and for the disinterested patriotism, which has distinguished his gallant and victorious "career, 1837."

This explains why the mission of the surveyor, Robert Schomburgk, to the Orinoco, in 1841, caused an immense surprise in Venezuela; but the Government being desirous of cultivating the most friendly relations with Great Britain, permitted itself to

submit to a foreigner's thus, without previous permission on its part, invading its territory armed with authority and instructions to ascertain what belonged to the British Colony.

At the time of the death of Sir Robert Ker Porter, there was already in Caracas a representative of Great Britain, Mr. Daniel O'Leary, General of the Colombian army, who had fought under the orders of Bolivar in the war for independence, and might well have been considered a Venezuelan, not only for his services to his adopted country, but also by reason of his social connections, he having married one of Venezuela's most prominent women. The presence of General O'Leary contributed greatly to calming the public excitement, and General Paez, President of the Republic, for the second time during that period, limited himself to the statement, in his Message to the Congress of the Republic, of what follows:

"A disagreeable event, promising to affect our relations with Great Britain, has occupied the attention of the Government, and caused inquietude in the minds of our citizens. The Govern ment of Her Britannic Majesty, desiring to ascertain the boundaries of her possessions in British Guiana, despatched a Commissioner to explore the territory, and designate the line which, in his judgment, should divide it from its neighboring countries. But the Commissioner not only fixed the said line within the territory of Venezuela, but did so in such a solemn manner, and employed such formal signs, that it had more the appearance of taking possession and exercising acts of sovereignty, than of his being engaged in a mere preliminary examination or purely provisional work, guided only by his own knowledge and private opinion which latter has turned out to be the case according to the explanation given by the Governor of British Guiana, and also in the answers received from the British Government by our plenipotentiary in London. They leave no doubt that, whatever excesses may have been committed by the Commissioner, it has been far from the intention of Her Majesty to occupy

any part of the territory of Venezuela, and that the fixing of the boundary is subject to discussion between the two Powers. Such a result, which has had the effect of quieting our countrymen, makes us hope, also, that the justice with which the Republic sustains its rights will be seen and recognized in the Treaty which is necessary to terminate this matter."

This language, so moderate, so sensible, and so friendly toward Great Britain, notably contrasts with the following words of the British Government to the Envoy of Venezuela on February 10, 1890:

"As regards the frontier between Venezuela and the Colony of British Guiana, Her Majesty's Government could not accept as satisfactory any arrangement which did not admit the British title to the territory comprised within the line laid down by Sir R. Schomburgk in 1841."

Mr. O'Leary having been sent to Bogota in the diplomatic capacity which he exercised, he was substituted in 1843 by Mr. Belfort Hinton Wilson, as the diplomatic representative of Great Britain in Caracas. Mr. Wilson had the rank of Colonel in the Colombian army since 1822, when he arrived in Venezuela, and was, up to the last moment, one of the aides-de-camp of the Liberator Bolivar; and so much thought of by him that the Liberator wrote, in the twelfth clause of his will, the following:

"I direct my executors to give thanks to Mr. Robert Wilson for the good conduct of his son, Colonel Belfort Wilson, who has accompanied me so faithfully up to the last moments of my life." Mr. Wilson retired from Venezuela in 1851.

The presence of two British diplomatic agents, who represented their native country in Caracas during ten years, and who, by reason of their military antecedents in Colombia, must have been personæ gratissima to the Government and people of Venezuela, came finally to be prejudicial to the Republic; for the intimate confidence that each inspired left the public sentiment quite unsuspecting regarding any ulterior views that the British Govern