the Dutch boats they found fishing in the Orinoco * and the Waini; they crowded the Dutch in all directions upon the land; they established further missions in the Cuyuni; they drove the Caribs from that region; and the Dutch post-holder at Moruca in terror sought safety in the bush.T Renewed complaints by Gravesande were returned unopened, and his envoys driven away unheard. ** The remonstrance of the States General to the Court of Spain was treated with the same contempt. ++ By 1769 things had reached such a serious state that the Court of Policy and Director General of the Dutch Colony united in a memorial # to the West India Company praying its most serious consideration of the great danger to the colony from Cuyuni above and the seacoast below. They called the attention of the Company to the continual pillage of its plantations, and to the absolute ruin of its fisheries. Thereupon it resulted that the States General in that year made another remonstrance to the Court of Spain. §§ That court did nothing but refer the matter to the Council of the Indies: || meanwhile the acts complained of continued.¶¶ By 1775, though all the representations to the Spanish Court had remained fruitless, the States General nevertheless presented still another remonstrance to that government. * *** Appendix to Case, ii, 142, 143, 145. † Appendix to Case, ii, 150. Appendix to Case, ii, 190. Appendix to Case, ii, 157, 161. Appendix to Case, ii, 151. ** Appendix to Case, ii, 149, 163. + U. S. Commission, Report, i, 255. Appendix to Case, ii, 190. SS Appendix to Case, ii, 193, 198, 201. || Appendix to Case, ii, 212. Appendix to Case, ii, 214, 215, 222. *** Appendix to Case, ii, 225–227. Sovereignty exercised by Spain. Remonstrance treated with contempt. Remonstrance of 1769. Remonstrance of 1775. Remonstrance of 1775. Remonstrance ignored. Spanish proceed ings on remon 1769. What this remonstrance left unsaid is quite as important as what it said. It referred mainly to the harboring of fugitive slaves; and it contained not a word regarding territory beyond the actual Dutch settlements. Its al lusions to boundary were incidental merely; except that, referring to former complaints, it stated, in effect, that Spain had paid no attention to them, and that Holland now expected none. The only reply was an acknowledgment of its receipt with the remark that "these acts of violence have caused the King much surprise, and that His Majesty has ordered the Ministry of the Indies to make the most minute inquiries into the fact, and to proceed to the condign punishment of the aggressors. That is the last we ever hear of that remonstrance. At the time of its presentation, the remonstrance of 1759, except by further aggressions, had remained unanswered sixteen years, and that of 1769 six; this of 1775 was destined to share the fate of the others. While special reference has thus been made to four different remonstrances, it must not be inferred that these were the only ones. Remonstrances by the Dutch were numerous and constant. All were ineffectual; and these four have been selected because they seem to have been the most formal. It is learned from Spanish sources that the Court of strances of 1759 and Spain having sent to Guayana the remonstrance of 1769 for a report, the papers were duly forwarded together with those of the former remonstrance of 1759. When they reached the Fiscal of the Council at Madrid,he found they were too voluminous to "consume uselessly" the time he needed for important affairs; and so, after he had kept them five years, he was inspired on one hot * Blue Book 3, p. 189. summer's day to refer them to a relator for examina tion and report.* They remained thus pigeon-holded for eleven years, and on May 27, 1785, the relator added his contribution. Whereupon the Fiscal, noting these facts, wrote: "Under this understanding it is observed by the exponent that to-day no resolution is required or any further step taken after the long lapse of over fifteen years, without any further mention of the subject by the Minister of Holland, leading to the belief that, after having been better informed, the Republic realizes the want of justice for the claim made, and has already desisted."t The Council voted that the papers "show the want of foundation for the complaint of the vassals of Holland," and that it would take no further action in the matter.+ Twenty-six years had elapsed. The Council declined even to read the papers, for the Dutch claim of title was reported and seemed to them frivolous; Holland did not press it. If diplomacy could emphasize the expulsion by adding contempt, it had done so. *Appendix to Case, ii, 429. Appendix to Case, ii, 441. Appendix to Case, ii, 441. Spanish proceedings on remonstrances of 1759 and 1769. Results of this remonstrance. Venezuela might properly rest at this point, without entering further upon the history of the present century. This boundary controversy had its rise in a survey suggested and undertaken in 1840 by one Schomburgk, a young German naturalist, who offered to the British Government to locate the boundary which he alleged to have been that claimed by the Dutch during their pos fect of Schomburgk survey. Purpose and ef- session of the colony. It was this alleged boundary of the Dutch, thus to be identified by him, which by order of the British Government was to be mapped and transmitted to the interested governments as a statement of the British claim. Thus did the British Government expressly disavow any other than a Dutch title to its Guiana possessions. There is no pretence that any new title has been acquired by Great Britain since 1840; and the definition of the present boundary must, therefore, depend upon the extent of Dutch and Spanish rights in 1803. This fact has very properly been recognized in the present treaty. It is thus affirmed in Article III, which reads as follows: "The tribunal shall investigate and ascertain the extent of the territories belonging to or that might lawfully be claimed by the United Netherlands or by the Kingdom of Spain, respectively, at the time of the acquisition by Great Britain of the Colony of British Guiana-and shall determine the boundary line between the Colony of British Guiana and the United States of Venezuela." This being so, the story of the present century would seem to be unnecessary. However, a perusal of that story, particularly as regards the British colony, will serve to emphasize the fact that the Essequibo settlement was always, until very recent years, confined to the mouth of that river; and that Great Britain's present pretensions to territory west of that stream have not, in fact, as they could not have in law, anything in the history of the present century to support them. XIII. HISTORY OF BRITISH OCCUPATION. 1803-1850. The British military occupation in Essequibo con Cession of "Demerara, Essequibo tinued from 1803 to 1814. In the latter year, on Au- and Berbice gust 13, the Dutch, by the Treaty of London, formally ceded to Great Britain "the establishments of Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice."* On July 21, 1831, these three rivers were united into a single colony under the name of British Guiana.† In the meantime, Venezuela on July 5, 1811, declared its independence from Spain. In 1819 it became merged with New Granada, under the name of "Republic of Colombia." In 1830 it assumed a separate existence under the name of " Republic of Venezuela;" and finally, on March 30, 1845, its independence was formally recognized by Spain.+ * His Britannic Majesty engages to restore to the Prince Sovereign of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, within the time which shall be specified herebelow, the colonies, factories and establishments of which Holland was in possession at the beginning of the late war, that is to say, on the 1st of January 1803, in the seas and continents of America, Africa and Asia, with the exception of the Cape of Good Hope and of the establishments of Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice, which the High Contracting Parties reserve the right to dispose of by a supplementary convention which shall be adjusted at once in conformity with the mutual interests of both parties. [Appendix to Case, iii, 44.] Appendix to Case, iii, 315; also Rodway (J.) History of British Guiana. 8°, Georgetown, 1893. ii, 284. "ARTICLE I. H. C. Majesty, making use of the power vested in her by decree of the Cortes Generales of the Kingdom, of 4th of December, 1836, renounces for herself, her heirs and successors the sovereignty, rights and action which she has upon the American territory known under the old name of Captaincy General of Venezuela, now Republic of Venezuela. "ARTICLE II. In consequence of this renunciation and cession H. M. recognizes the Republic of Venezuela as a free, sovereign and independent nation, composed of the provinces and territories mentioned in her Con Great Britain. to Union of the three. Venezuelan independence. |