Venezuelan International Law. 49 



And who is the first witness brought into Court on 

 behalf of Venezuela? — None other than that great 

 Elizabethan Englishman ; the Founder of England's 

 Colonial Empire : that " good hater" of the Spaniard, 

 Sir Walter Raleigh, the valiant knight, who was 

 Captain of the Guard to Queen Elizabeth, and one of 

 the heroes at the capture of Cadiz. This mighty man 

 of valour, who was unjustly put to death by King James, 

 in 1618, to gratify Spain ; after the destruction by Cap- 

 tain Keymis and Raleigh's men, of San Thome of 

 Guiana; is aftually quoted, or misquoted, to support the 

 " claims" of Spain ! 



Here is the statement in Venezuelan International 

 Law : — 



" Sir Walter Raleigh affirms that in his time the 

 " Spaniards possessed the Orinoco and all its surround- 

 " ings ; that they already occupied the rivers Barima, 

 " Moroca and Pumaroon ; that their dominions ex- 

 " tended as far as the Essequibo ; and that according 

 *' to the document which he found in the possession of 

 " the Governor Antonio Berrio, possession had been 

 " once more solemnly taken of those lands in the name 

 " of the King of Spain on the 23rd of April 1593." 



As Mr. WiLBERFORCE Eames pointed out, in the 

 New York Nation, last year, the Lennox Library of 

 New York contains a copy of each of the three 

 editions of Sir WALTER Raleigh'S Discovery of the 

 Empire of Guiana^ which issued from the press in 

 1596. It is, therefore, pra6licable for our American 

 cousins to read that charming volume, in all its Shake- 

 spearean English. As they will search it in vain for proof 

 of any, excepting the last, of the assertions in the extraft 



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