AS VENEZUELA COMMISSIONER 1895-1896 121 



Netherlands to take vengeance for the vexations of both. 

 We also had the exceedingly valuable services, as to maps 

 and early colonization history, of Mr. Justin Winsor, 

 librarian of Harvard University, eminent both as histo 

 rian and geographer, and of Professor Jameson of Brown 

 University, who had also distinguished himself in these 

 fields. Besides these, Mr. Marcus Baker of the United 

 States Coast Survey aided us, from day to day, in map 

 ping out any territories that we wished especially to study. 



All this work was indispensable. At the very beginning 

 of our sessions there had been laid before us the first of a 

 series of British Blue Books on the whole subject; and, 

 with all my admiration for the better things in British 

 history, politics, and life, candor compels me to say that it 

 was anything but creditable to the men immediately re 

 sponsible for it. It made several statements that were ab- 

 solutely baseless, and sought to rest them upon authorities 

 which, when examined, were found not to bear in the slight 

 est degree the interpretation put upon them. I must con 

 fess that nothing, save, perhaps, the conduct of British 

 &quot; experts &quot; regarding the Behring Sea question, has ever 

 come so near shaking my faith in i i British fair play. Nor 

 were the American commissioners alone in judging this 

 document severely. Critics broke forth, even in the Lon 

 don &quot; Times, &quot; denouncing it, until it was supplanted by 

 another, which was fair and just. 



I, of course, impute nothing to the leading British states 

 men who had charge of the whole Venezuelan question. 

 The culprits were, undoubtedly, sundry underlings whose 

 zeal outran their honesty. They apparently thought that 

 in the United States, which they probably considered as 

 new, raw, and too much engaged in dollar-hunting to pro 

 duce scholars, their citations from authorities more or less 

 difficult of access would fail to be critically examined. 

 But their conduct was soon exposed, and even their prin 

 cipals joined in repudiating some of their fundamental 

 statements. Professor Burr was sent abroad, and at The 

 Hague was able to draw treasures from the library 



