350 AVES ISLAND. 



whicli adjacent and vacant lands may, in a short time, be occupied, 

 settled, and cultivated by such population, connected with the proba- 

 bility that their occupancy and settlement may come from other parts. 

 This doctrine was admitted, in all its latitude, by G-reat Britain, as 

 appeared from all the privileges which, extending from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific, she granted to colonies then established on the rivers 

 only of the Atlantic. Much more natural and much stronger is the 

 claim when it is made by a nation whose population extends to the 

 central parts of the continent, and whose dominion is acknowledged 

 by all who reach the Kocky Mountains." (Wheaton's Elements.) 



Here we see that the United States themselves have alleged discov- 

 eries, and especially Spanish discoveries, as a source of right to the 

 Oregon territory. It is evident, therefore, that they cannot "object to 

 those principles which they themselves have invoked and maintained 

 in questions of proprietorship of territory, when Venezuela, in her 

 turn, applies those principles to her use, as the successor of Spain. 



It follows, in like manner, from the fourth of those grounds, that 

 Venezuela, being a portion of the continent nearest to Aves Island, 

 and of a greater extent, and having a greater population than any of 

 the islands neighboring on the 'Aves, no one can call in doubt the 

 superiority of the title which Venezuela holds to claim Aves Island as 

 adjacent land. 



Mr. Eames's second proposition is, " that Spain grounded her title 

 to Aves Island on the right of discovery, or on any other ground. No 

 one has hitherto denied to Spain the right of first occupancy and dis- 

 covery of the new world. All nations have either tacitly or exjjressly 

 recognized that right. She did not discover Aves Island only to 

 which she gave the name. She discovered continents and islands. 

 She peopled the former and the majority of the latter. Many of these 

 were adjacent to Aves, which remained, as it were, clasped within her 

 immense American dominions. She therefore required no actual and 

 continuous occupation of Aves Island, whether '^'because all that is 

 found within the precinct of the territory of which a nation has pos- 

 sessed itself, and which has not been divided among the individual 

 members thereof, or the particular communities of which it is com- 

 posed, continues to be common to the whole nation, and constitutes 

 what is called public property," (Merlin's Repertory,) or because the 

 island was naturally to be considered as an appendage or dependency, 

 physically and politically of the continent, which belonged also to said 

 Spain. 



On the other hand, an island which the claimants call a barren and 

 uninhabited rock, offering no inducements, was not susceptible of a 

 permanent occupation, equal to that held by the Spaniards in other 

 localities, calculated to sustain life, to warrant cultivation, hunting, 

 and fisheries, &c., but of an occupation in habitu, such as Venezuela 

 has held and she still holds of that island, and of almost all the other 

 islands of her right. But why longer discuss this point, if Mr. Eames 

 Jiere recognizes, against his will, perhaps, the just title of Spain to 

 ''Aves" Island, and the fact that she exercised jurisdiction over it, 

 when he quotes book second, title fifteenth, of the Digest of the Indies, 

 to prove that the government of Santo Domingo comprehended the 



