AVES ISLAND. 349 



royal letters cut off the Windward Islands from the jurisdiction of Santo 

 Domingo, and, among them, Aves Island, and brought them under 

 the jurisdiction of Caraccas, if they had not been placed within it long 

 before and from the very creation of the captaincy of Caraccas. 



Spanish America becoming independent, and different governments 

 having been organized in the different sections, each one of them re- 

 sumed, within the territory of each section, the rights of the original 

 government, because each one of them, in that respect, stood in the 

 stead of Spain, the original conqueror. 



The dominion of a nation in a certain territory is attended by its 

 jurisdiction over it ; in other terms, by a mixed empire ; and vice versa, 

 jurisdiction over a territory involves dominion in that territory, unless 

 there be proof to the contrary. Colombia having asserted her inde- 

 pendence, resumed her dominion in all the territory which had previ- 

 ously been subject to the jurisdiction of the sections of which ft was 

 composed, and the latter being cut off from the former, they fully 

 passed into the mixed empire over that part of the territory which 

 Spain had originally intrusted to their jurisdiction. This explain- 

 the expression "successor of Spain," which was used in regard of Ven- 

 ezuela in a previous note, without intending to ascribe a general char- 

 acter to that succession, as Mr. Eames seems to have understood. 



Admitting, as Mr. Eames has done, the first of his propositions, the 

 government of Venezuela will only have to advert to the deductions 

 from that admission, and to the analysis of the following propositions. 

 In the controversy which arose between the United States and Great 

 Britain, they maintaining their right to the territory situated between 

 the Kocky Mountains and the Pacific ocean, and between 42° and 

 54° 40' of north latitude, rested their claim on the following grounds : 



First. A prior discovery of the mouth of the Columbia river, made by 

 Captain G-ray, of Boston, in the year 1792. Secondly, in the first 

 discovery of the headwaters of that river, and a survey of its course 

 down to the ^ea, made by Captains Lewis and Clark in 1805 and 1806, 

 and on the establishment of the first posts and settlements made by 

 citizens of the United States in the disputed territory. Thirdly, on 

 the acquisition, by the United States, of all the titles of Spain which 

 were derived from the discovery by Spanish subjects to the coasts of 

 the region in question, before they had been seen by people of any 

 other civilized nation. Fourthly, on the ground of contiguity, which 

 ought to give the United States a right to those territories stronger 

 than any that could be adduced by any other power. ''If," says Mr. 

 G-allatin, " Great Britain have considered that a few factories on the 

 shores of Hudson's Bay give her an exclusive right of occupation as 

 far as the Rocky Mountains ; if the new establishments on the more 

 southern coasts of the Atlantic justify a claim to the southern seas, 

 which in fact was asserted as far as the Mississippi — the right of mil- 

 lions of American citizens, who are already within reach of those seas, 

 cannot be repelled without inconsistency. It will not be denied that 

 the extent of a contiguous country to which an actual settlement gives 

 a prior right, must, in a considerable degree, depend on the magni- 

 tude and the population of the establishment and on the facility with 



