348 AVES ISLAND. 



and the act of taking possession in the name of the sovereign of him 

 who made the discovery, was the controlling law of those days — a law 

 which was recognized and sanctioned by the bull of Alexander VI, 

 issued on the 4th of May, 1493, and which was received and observed as 

 a lawful exponent of the public law of those days. Hence it was that 

 the emperor Charles V, and his son Philip II, declared in the law 1st 

 Tit., 1st Book, 3d Digest of the laws of the Indies, that by act of do- 

 nation of the Holy See, and by other just and lawful titles, they were 

 lords of the Western Indies, islands, and mainland of the Ocean sea, 

 discovered and to be discovered. If other European powers came to 

 occupy some lands on the continent or in the islands within the limits 

 assigned to Spain, it was only by direct concession or by act of war. 

 Hence the fact, that the island possessions of powers other than Spain, 

 rest on the 1?reaties of peace by which she has ceded such dominions, 

 and has recognized them in other conventions. But the lands that 

 are possessed by sale, cession, or treaty of peace, are necessarily lim-' 

 ited by the contract ; and there is no act by which Spain cedes the 

 island spoken of to any other power. It must, therefore, be consid- 

 ered as the original property of Spain, excluding the presumption of 

 an abandonment of it on her part, in view of Law, Title, and Book of 

 the Digest of the Indies, already quoted, as also 2d book, title 15, of 

 the Laws of the Indies, published in Madrid, in 1786, quoted by Mr. 

 Eames himself to prove that the Windward Islands, and among them 

 Aves Island, formed part of the jurisdiction of the government of Santo 

 Domingo, adding that this group of islands never was separated by 

 Spain from that jurisdiction, nor assigned to the jurisdiction of any 

 other of the continental governments, and much less to that of Vene- 

 zuela, which, in the beginning, was a dependency of the vice-royalty 

 of New Granada, and thus continued to be until 1*751. 



Mr. Eames, doubtless, is ignorant of the fact that his Catholic Maj- 

 esty, by royal order of the 13th of June, 1786, decreed that Maracaibo 

 should continue united, as it was, to the captaincy general and the 

 intendency of Caraccas ; and to avoid the grievances suffered by the 

 inhabitants of said captaincy, in being compelled to go on appeals in 

 their suits to the pretorial court of Santo Domingo, he established an- 

 other one in Caraccas, composed of a controlling (iean, three auditors, 

 and a crown attorney, allowing the same number of officers to the 

 court of Santo Domingo, and restricting its district to the Spanish 

 portion of that island, to Cuba, and to Puerto Kico. The jurisdiction 

 of the court of Santo Domingo was therefore limited by the territory 

 of the islands mentioned; whilst to the jurisdiction of Caraccas, then 

 recently created, was subjected the rest of the territory, which pre- 

 viously was placed under the jurisdiction of the former court. If, as 

 Mr. Eames says, all the territory of those continental governments 

 originally formed a part of the jurisdiction of the government of Santo 

 Domingo, and were successively cut off from it ; if, according to the 

 laws of the Indies, the Windward Islands were part of the territory 

 subject to the jurisdiction of Santo Domingo ; and if, by virtue of the 

 royal letters already quoted, said islands were not comprehended in 

 the territory to which the jurisdiction of the court of Santo Domingo 

 was confined, Mr. Eames will be compelled to acknowledge that said 



