British App. I, p. 188. British App. I, p. 234. British App. I, pp. 235, 245. Venezuelan Case, F. 100. Absence of Spanish Control in the Interior. Venezuelan Case, p 101. British App. I, pp. 188, 201. British CounterCase, App., p. 159. British App. III, documents referred to in support of this bold allegation relate only to the River Orinoco and the district round Santo Thomé known as Oronoque. The first of these documents alludes to the recapture of Santo Thomé from the 5 French, and shows clearly that the dominions of the Spaniards ceased above the Amakuru, to which and other rivers to the eastward the Caribs, displaced by the reoccupation of Oronoque, retreated. The second of these documents relates 10 to directions given in time of war to seize Dutch vessels found in the Orinoco engaged in the trade in balsam, which was, in any case, contraband, and as already shown involved going high up the Orinoco. Beyond the Moruka and 15 between that River and the Essequibo the Spaniards never made their presence felt except by one raiding expedition. The passage cited in the Venezuelan Case to show control by the Spaniards beyond Moruka refers to an attack 20 by French and Spaniards during the war in 1712 on the Postholder at Wakepo, which was successfully repulsed. During the period now under review this is the only instance of any attempt by any Spaniard to make any attack 25 upon any part of the Colony between the Essequibo and the Orinoco. The Spaniards alone never made any attack. The statement that "in the interior CuyuniMazaruni basin the Spaniards for a time per- 30 mitted both the French and the Dutch to trade,' is purely fanciful. So far as is known no Spaniard visited this region during this period, and certainly no control was exercised over it by Spain. The French, when they were at 35 war with Spain, and captured Santo Thomé in 1684, appear to have reached the Pariacot Savannah, and to have traded there in 1686. This savannah is not situated in the "interior Cuyuni-Mazaruni basin," and none of the refer- 10 ences given refer to this region. The prohibition of the trade in horses was against their being brought from the Upper Orinoco to the Cuyuni, and did not rest on any control of the latter river. The control on the Cuyuni was 45 exercised by the Dutch Governor. There was no Spanish growth and development whatever, to the east of the Orinoco, and the Spaniards never came near, and much less hemmed in the Dutch Post at Kijkoveral. Don 50 Joseph Diguja's Report affords a complete answer to any such suggestion. He mentions the state of Cumaná and Guayana in the year 1720, and the miserable condition of both provinces shows that the war had been far more 5 disastrous to the Spaniards than to the Dutch. Don With regard to the Missions with which the rest of the chapter deals, the Venezuelan Case erroneously assumes that the missionaries had, prior to the year 1724, attempted Settlements 10 or occupation to the east of the Orinoco. Joseph Diguja states in 1763, that "the banks of the Orinoco and 8 or 10 leagues inland at the place they call Muitaco, and the Missions of the Reverend Observant Fathers of Piritu, 15 are all that has been explored by the Spaniards." His map, of which an extract is reproduced with this Counter-Case, shows precisely the district to which these words refer. As regards the work of the Catalonian Capuchins he 20 mentions the Mission of Suay as the oldest Settlement, situated 21 leagues to the south of the Guayana fortress, and founded in the year 1724. Speaking of earlier Mission effort, he remarks that in 1687 the Catalonian Capuchins 25 were assigned to the Missions of the Province. of Guayana, and began their labours; "but so great were the hardships and mortality of the clergy, who were left without succour in their necessities, especially as regards the replacement 30 of the companions who succumbed, that long interruptions were caused in which the Apostolic ministration ceased, and in which any progress made in the spiritual welfare and pacification of the natives was entirely lost." 35 The Missions alleged to have been established in 1659 in the llanos were certainly not in the savannahs of the Upper Cuyuni. The llanos mentioned are to the west of the Orinoco. From the Royal Cedula of 1686, it appears 40 that the Capuchin missionaries, to whom work in Guayana was transferred by the Jesuits, were sent there at that date with a view to the advantages that would result from opening the access offered by the Orinoco River 45 to the Province of Cumaná, and to Carácas, Mérida de la Grita, and the New Kingdom of Granada. The reports on which the Cedula was founded request the dislodgment and ejection of the Caribs from the districts of the 50 Vegas and the mouths of the River Guarapiche. The quotation from the Rev. J. Strick Fallacy of the Venezuelan Proposition. Venezuelan Case, p. 105. Venezuelan Case, p. 105. land's papers is taken from a funeral oration upon certain missionaries massacred in 1817, and has no reference to the progress of the missionaries in the year 1720. Expansion to the east of the Orinoco was not contemplated or commenced 5 prior to the year 1724. With the exception of the statement as to the foundation of Suay, 21 leagues from Santo Thomé, in 1724, all the statements in this chapter referring to the increase of missionaries, conver- 10 sion of Indians, or foundation of towns, or raising of stock by the missionaries, are unfounded, so far as they are intended to refer to any territory east of the Orinoco. At this period the missionaries were not established and did not carry on 15 their work upon the savannahs of the Upper Cuyuni, and the trade in horses was not carried on with them. The British Government deny the statements made in the Venezulan Case that the Spaniards 20 had from 1648 to 1725 maintained exclusive political control over the delta of the Orinoco, so far as that phrase is intended to cover any territory to the east of the Amakuru, or over" the interior Cuyuni basin"; they equally deny that "over 25 by the Moruka and Pomeroon" the Spaniards "had made their presence effectively felt," and that "Spain had claimed both of these rivers as her own." The statement that "along the Orinoco" (so far 30 as that phrase is intended to cover any territory to the east of the Orinoco), "and over the sloping savannahs of the Orinoco, Spanish Missions had gradually spread, their stock-farms raising horses in such number that they not only supplied the 35 home needs but had a surplus for export," is without foundation. The statement that the Dutch Essequibo Post scarcely maintained itself at Kijkoveral, and on the adjacent banks, is wholly unfounded. It is submitted that the conclusions of this chapter of the Venezuelan Case derive no support from the authorities cited, and are contradicted by the evidence adduced in the British Case and in this chapter. 40 CHAPTER X. This Chapter deals with Chapter X of the Venezuelan Case, pp. 107-134, entitled HISTORY OF THE ESSEQUIBO COLONY, 1725 TO 1803." 5 The following extracts show the view presented of the history of Essequibo during this period:- "To sum up the results of three-quarters of a century: "The Colony, which in 1725 had clustered about 10 Kykoveral, had abandoned that site, and had moved. down to the very mouth of the river, spreading little by little along the eastern banks of that river, and finally stretching over into Demerara. The interior had been entirely abandoned, except for purposes of trade and 15 slave-raiding. Two efforts at actual occupation in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni basin had proved failures, and that region had been abandoned to the Spaniards. The only Dutch Post west of the Essequibo was at the mouth of the Moruca, but, except for that Post, the 20 Moruca, the Wacupo, and the Pomeroon were entirely deserted. 'But what has been said shows merely the limits of Dutch occupation. It gives no idea of the weakness of the Colony nor of the frequent danger it was in of total 25 extinction at the hands of the Spaniards, nor of the political control which Spain exercised throughout the region now in dispute up to the very banks of the Essequibo. It was a control which served to limit the growth of the Dutch Colony, which, in great measure, 30 shaped its policy, and which confined it always to the mouth of the Essequibo and to the region east of that stream." On pp. 107 and 108 of the Venezuelan Case evidence is collected to show that there was 35 during this period a tendency to remove the Dutch plantations to the lower part of the Essequibo estuary. This removal, which was due to agricultural considerations, is not denied. But as is proved by the evidence referred to in the British Case, and in the Appendix to this Counter-Case, grants of land in the upper rivers continued to be made during the whole of the century, and as early as 1708 the Com 40 Venezuelan Proposition. Venezuelan Case. p. 126. Venezuelan Case, p. 127. The Dutch in the Essequibo. Venezuelan Case, British Case, British Counter- With the object, however, of treating the Colony as confined to the Essequibo, the Venezuelan Case endeavours to support the argument by citing 10 many documents which do not properly lead to any such deduction. Allusion is made to plantations, with the conclusion that by the close of the century the original site of the Colony had become a wilderness. It is stated that in 1773 15 all demands for grants of land up the river at the former site of the Colony had ceased, and a quotation is given with reference to the closing of the Court, the implication being that the Colony was too reduced to make any expan- 20 sion. The actual facts are shown in a Petition to the West India Company of the same year in which the Fiscal in Essequibo states that there are no more grounds fit for coffee plantations to be had except in remote parts on the West Coast 25 in the direction of Orinocque, and therefore fully two days' sail from the Fort, and that though there was still some ground fit for sugar plantations up in the river, it was situated very far from the Fort, and densely covered with wood, 30 which with the necessity of laying out new plantations every year, entailed great cost and trouble. A statement and quotation in the Venezuelan Case, referring to the year 1777, alleges that, "There was with one exception not a sugar, 35 coffee, or cotton plantation above Flag Island; in fact no culture whatever except a few cassava grounds." It is evidently intended to imply that plantations had disappeared, and consequently no 40 allusion is made to the continuation of the letter, which shows that timber was a more profitable product of these districts, and that so long as lower lands were to be had for sugar and coffee, few would care for the upper lands; but that 45 unless the Pomeroon was thrown open there would, within a short time, be few, if any, more lower lands open. The upper lands were found to be unsuitable for coffee, as the Dutch planters themselves admitted. |