340 AVES ISLAND. 



not choose, like its minister in Caraccas, to discuss with tliis species of 

 argument wliicli would necessarily defeat every attempt to go into a 

 question of principle. In this hehalf we will add that such observa- 

 tions were intended to make manifest that, even though Venezuela 

 should not have acquired a title to Aves previous to the year 1854, 

 the occupation of that island by her must have countervailed the 

 occupation by the Americans and produced effects which theirs could 

 not operate. But in order to show that the argument, which com- 

 mended itself to a threat in lieu of an answer, is not so very brainless, 

 a few quotations will be allowed from various expositors of the law 

 of nations, by way of sustaining authority: 



"An independent individual, whether he have been expelled from 

 his country or have lawfully abandoned it, may settle down in a coun- 

 try which he finds without a master and there occupy independent 

 dominion. Any one afterwards attempting to possess himself of the 

 whole of the country will not be at liberty to do so with justice unless 

 he shall respect the rights and the independence of this individual. 

 If the same individual find a sufiicient number of men who may choose 

 to live under his laws, he can found a new State in the country which 

 he has discovered and occupy its empire and dominion. But should 

 that individual merely pretend to arrogate to himself an exclusive 

 right over that country to constitute himself a monarch over it with- 

 out subjects, his foolish pretensions may well be laughed at, because a 

 rash and ridiculous occupation can produce no effect in law." 



"There are also other means through which an individual may 

 found a new State. Thus, in the eleventh century, a few Norman 

 knights founded a new empire in Sicily, after having rescued it from 

 the common enemy of Christendom, because the usages of their coun- 

 try allowed men to leave their native land in quest of fortune on other 

 shores. ' ' (Vattel, Law of Nations.) ' ' This right includes two things : 

 1st. Dominion, by virtue of which the nation can use the country for 

 its needs, dispose of it, and derive from it all the uses that are re- 

 quisite. 2dly. Government, or the right of sovereign command, 

 though it controls and disposes, at will, everything that transpires in 

 the country." "When a nation takes possession of a country that 

 does not already belong to some one it is considered to occupy in that 

 country empire or sovereignty at the same time that it exercises 

 dominion ; because, its freedom and independence being granted, its 

 intention in the act of establishing itself in a region, cannot be to 

 abandon to others the right of commanding within it^ nor to any of 

 those who continue under its sovereignty." The same author says: 

 "The general dominion of a nation over the lands which it occupies 

 is naturally united to empire, because, in the act of establishing itself 

 in a vacant country, the nation cannot intend to depend, in that coun- 

 try, on any other power. And hov/ can it be possible that an inde- 

 pendent nation should not command within itself? For this reason 

 we have remarked that when a nation occupies a country it is pre- 

 sumed at the same time to occupy the empire inherent to it, but now 

 we proceed further, and we show the connection which naturally 

 exists between those two in relation to an independent nation. How 

 could it govern a country which it inhabits, and after its own notion, 



