Venezuelan Internationa/ Law, 



By Hon, N. Darnell Davis, CM.G. 



ffHlN American Humourist, yclept JOSH BiLLlNGS, 

 ^^^3t has " gone one better," upon the admonition, 

 »S that " thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel 

 just," by declaring, " and four times he who gets his 

 blow in fust." A6lingin accordance with this Proverbial 

 Philosophy, our neighbours of Venezuela got a long way 

 ahead of us, in taking the World into their confidence, as 

 to the question of Boundary between the Republic and 

 Great Britain. Among their publications, was one issued 

 in 1888, under the title Venezuelan International Law : 

 British Boundaries of Guiana. In this Blue Book of 

 588 pages, the " claims" of Venezuela are set forth. It 

 is only in this year of Grace, 1896, that the belated 

 Briton has come forward with his Boundary Blue Book, 

 wherein he has shown what are his rights to territory in 

 Guiana. The Venezuelans had sworn, by the Treaty of 

 Munster, that, in 1648, they possessed the territory in 

 Guiana from the right bank of the Orinoco to the left 

 bank of the Essequibo. Spanish Records, quoted in the 

 British Blue Book, demonstrate that, all that the Spaniards 

 held and possessed in Guiana, in 1648, was the still-born 

 settlement of San Thome, on the right bank of the 

 Orinoco. Leaving the main question, however, to be 

 dealt with by that Blue Book, let us examine some of 

 the miscellaneous statements made in Venezuelan Inter^ 

 national Law. 



On page 185 of the Venezuelan statement, Senor 

 FORTI^UE is described as having alleged, to Lord 



