AVES ISLAND. 405 



Costa Firme, were assigned to the district of the Audiencia de Santo 

 Domingo. (L. 2 tit. 15 lib. 11, Comp. Ind., already mentioned.) 



In 1751 the captain-generalship of Caraccas, or Venezuela, was 

 established, and here is the authentic document showing how the 

 Windward Islands (Aves included) were assigned to the Audiencia of 

 Caraccas. Mr. Eames has overlooked or been ignorant of such an 

 official act. 



The royal decree, dated June 13, 1786, creating the Audiencia of 

 Caraccas, runs as follows : 



'' * * * In order to avoid the prejudices which are originated 

 to the inhabitants of the province of Maracaibo, also to that of Cu- 

 mana, Gruayana, Margarita, and Trinidad, (a Windward Island,) 

 comprised in the captain-generalship of Caraccas, from having to recur 

 for appeal in their affairs to the Pretorial Audiencia of St. Domingo, 

 the king hath resolved to create another one in Caraccas, composed, 

 for the present, of one senior judge, three auditors, and one fiscal, 

 leaving an equal number of judges in that of St. Domingo, and limit- 

 ing their district to that of the Spanish portion of that island, Cuba, 

 and Puerto Kico, to which end his majesty doth from henceforth ap- 

 point such judges as will serve in both islands." 



If, therefore, it is unquestionable that in 1786 the Windward 

 Islands — Aves included — were attached to the Audiencia of St. Do- 

 mingo, it should also be clear of all doubt, that since the 13th of June 

 of the same year, they were excluded from said Audiencia, to be 

 assigned to that of Caraccas. 



Tlie royal decree of 1786 — the right of Venezuela to Isla de Aves — 

 stands of irresistible conviction, from the peculiar circumstance that 

 this islet is found among a group of important islands, named alto- 

 gether the Windward Islands. Without this circumstance, it had 

 been impossible to fix the series of their jurisdictional allottings. 



If an analogous question should in future arise in relation to the 

 desert islands in the littoral of Venezuela, the inquiry would prove 

 more difficult, because not being embraced within a common import- 

 ant denomination, their trifling value has been the cause that no men- 

 tion of them has been made in any law of territorial decision, either in 

 Colombia or Venezuela ; so that, officially, it is not known to which 

 province of the republic they belong. However, no one doubts by 

 what nation they are possessed. 



But it will be said that those islands are contiguous to the littoral 

 of Venezuela, and that the one in question is so far off that Colonel 

 Codazzi omitted assigning it to the republic in those maps which he 

 got up by order pf the government. 



When the property of anything is proved by legal instruments, it 

 matters not how far it is situated. If it is true, as is doubtless the 

 fact, that Isla de Aves was incorporated into the captain-generalship 

 of Caraccas, the question is then at an end. 



The legitimacy of Venezuela's right is corroborated by the fact that 

 the only nation which, by reason of proximity, could have claimed 

 Isla de Aves, is France, by alleging that on the invasion of Guada- 

 loupe in 1635^ she also meant to take possession of it — and yet France 

 has not undertaken such a pretension — which, let it be said in pass- 



