Venezuelan International Law. 57 



established of deserters and runaways between their re- 

 spective Colonies^ 



Article i is of the following tenor : 

 " The reciprocal restitution is established of white or 

 black runaways between all the Spanish possessions and 

 the Dutch Colonies in America, more especially between 

 those where the complaints have been more frequent, 

 to wit : between Porto Rico and Saint Eustace, Coro 

 and Curasao, the Spanish Establishments in the Ori- 

 noco and Essequiboy Demerara, Berbice and Surinam^"* 

 So blinded by patriotic zeal is the learned Do6tor, 

 that he proceeds to argue that the term Essequibo re- 

 stri6led the Dutch to the river Essequibo, and that, the 

 term " Colony" had no extended meaning. The terms 

 used are "Spanish possessions," and " Dutch Colonies." 

 If Essequibo, is to mean the Essequibo river only, then, 

 by all parity of reasoning, the word Orinoco, used in the 

 Treaty, must mean the Orinoco River only. The Vene- 

 zuelan Nation cannot be allowed a monopoly of the 

 science of Logic. If Dr. Seijas' mode of interpretation 

 of the Treaty is to tell against the Dutch, it must tell 

 against the Spaniards also. The result then would be, 

 that there should be a No-man^ s-land, or a Buffer State, 

 between Venezuela and Great Britain's Colony. 



If Venezuelan International Law had been written to 

 prove how shadowy were the " claims" of Spain, to the 

 territory now forming part of the colony of British 

 Guiana, one could have understood the reason for the 

 publication therein, of the correspondence showing an 

 intention, to attempt to occupy the lands of the lower 

 Orinoco and its neighbourhood, in 1779 to 1783 ; and, 

 proving that the Spaniards did not then hold or possess 



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