the Spanish Government took particular pains
to assure the States-General that they were
endeavouring faithfully to observe the Treaty.
It is inconceivable that if they had been able
to point to an open breach of the Treaty 5
by the Dutch they would not have alleged
it in their reply. Yet at that time sailing Regu-
lations, which clearly treated the coast of Guiana
as Dutch territory, had been publicly proclaimed,
and printed commissions to Dutch ship captains 10
were in ordinary use, which left no doubt as
to the Dutch interpretation of the Treaty.

About the same time the Dutch were founding
a Colony at Pomeroon. Yet the Spaniards, when
in 1662, they complained that the Dutch did not 15
keep or observe the Treaties of Peace on certain
other points, never mentioned the establishment
of Pomeroon or other Settlements east of the
Orinoco.

In the year 1664 the interpretation of the 20 Charter, as understood within sixteen years after the Treaty of Münster, was published in a formal document by the States-General. The States-General recited that the Company, by virtue of the Charter, in conformity with the 25 sincere intention of the States-General, had from the commencement continued their populating and bepeopling in the country named New Netherland; and this, notwithstanding that some persons evilly disposed towards the State and to 30 the Company tried to misstate the meaning of the Charter, alleging that they had chartered the Company only to carry on business within the limits of the Charter, and not to make population and settlements of people and to take the lands 35 in possession. They accordingly declared their meaning to have been expressly, and still to be, that the Company was empowered, and still is empowered, to establish Colonies and Settlements of people on lands which are not occupied by 40 others, to extend themselves so far as the limits related in the Charter. No sign of opposition to this interpretation was made by the Spanish Crown between 1648, when the Treaty of Münster was signed, and 1714, when the Treaty 15 of Münster was confirmed, although the Dutch throughout the whole of that period were actively engaged in strengthening their power over the whole district between the Essequibo and Orinoco.

The grant of the States-General to the Count of Hanau in 1669 assumed the power of the States

50

General to grant any part of the coast between the Essequibo and the Orinoco with its adjoining Hinterland to a depth of at least 300 English miles. This grant was a matter of public 5 notoriety.

The Charter of the West India Company, publicly renewed in 1674, expressly included Pomeroon as well as Essequibo.

In 1676 the intention of the Dutch to found a 10 new settlement somewhere in Guiana was specially brought to the notice of the King of Spain; but in the documents respecting the report there is not a suggestion that such a course would be contrary to Treaty.

15

Spain not only took no exception to any of the above dealings by the Dutch with the territory of Guiana, but she herself never after the Treaty of Münster made any open attempt to colonize in Guiana beyond the immediate neighbourhood 20 of Santo Thomé.

The occasions upon which Spain might have referred to the Treaty of Münster, on the view now contended for as preventing the Dutch from extending their possessions, are so numerous that 25 it may fairly be said that, had Spain understood the Treaty in the way in which it is now suggested, it is impossible that she should have abstained from remonstrating with the Dutch upon the ground that their acts were contrary to 30 the undertaking into which they had entered by the Treaty. But, as far as is known, on no single occasion did Spain ever allege that the Treaty of Münster prevented the Dutch from establishing settlements in Guiana in parts not occupied by 35 Spain, although she did rely upon the clauses of that Treaty in connection with a settlement attempted to be made by the Dutch in Darien.

In the year 1688 the Spanish Government British App. I, p. 205, complained of a proposed undertaking by some 40 Dutchmen in Darien, on the ground that their design was to establish themselves in the neighbourhood of the great river of Darien which notoriously belonged to the King of Spain, and of which he was in possession, and that it would 45 be in direct contravention of the Treaty of Peace made between the King of Spain and the StatesGeneral in the year 1648, which was "religiously observed by both parties." This was at the very moment when the Dutch were re-estab50 lishing a Colony at Pomeroon. The StatesGeneral stopped the enterprise at Darien, and

British App. 1. p. 209.

"The commerce of the Indies made a very great difficulty because they demanded full liberty to carry it on in places which the Spanish possessed, but the 15 others urged that that was contrary to the Constitution and to the laws of Spain, by which exclusion from this public and free commerce had been enforced, not only against strangers in the Treaties made with the King of England, but even against a part of the subjects of His 20 Catholic Majesty, as also against the Italians and the Flemish. The Dutch conceded that the law should be reciprocal, that the Spanish should not carry on their commerce in the towns of the East and West Indies possessed by the Dutch, and that the Dutch should be 25 subject to the same restrictions. Meanwhile, the latter should preserve all that they had taken as against Portugal, or that which they should take in future. This Article was advantageous to the Republic because Spain bound her hands, and undertook not to make any 30 new conquests in the east, while the Dutch retained the power to extend their limits far and wide in America, and particularly in Brazil."

In 1714 the provisions of the Treaty of Münster were expressly confirmed by the Treaty 35 of Utrecht, which stated that that Treaty should serve as a basis for the Treaty of Utrecht, the Articles V and VI* being specifically referred to.

This restatement of the Spanish and Dutch rights at so late a date is a further conclusive 40 answer to the suggestion in the Venezuelan Case that the extension of the Dutch possessions in Guiana was was a violation of the Treaty of Münster and of the obligations of the Dutch thereunder.

In 1714 Spain had possession of no territory beyond a part of the right bank of the Orinoco. No Spanish Settlement existed in any

45

other part of Guiana, and the Capuchin Missions in Guiana had not been founded.

On the other hand the possessions of the Dutch upon the coast extended to the Amakuru 5 and Orinoco, and included in the interior the basins of the Essequibo, Massaruni, Cuyuni, Pomeroon, and Barima.

In fact the Spaniards had neither the power nor the will to dispute the possession by the 10 Dutch of the territories which the latter then held in Gulana.

British Case, p. 32.

The conclusions of this Chapter of the Venezuelan Case are as follows:

"The Dutch, in an attempt to improve their precarious position on the Essequibo, had planned a settlement on the Pomeroon; had attempted it; had been too weak 10 to maintain it, or even to complete the erection of its projected buildings; had abandoned it; had withdrawn to their little island on the Essequibo; and, except for a few plantations on the banks of that river, in the immediate vicinity of the fort, found themselves, after 15 the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, no further ahead than they had been when the Treaty of Münster was signed in 1648."