Venezuelan International Law. 75 



'• empty themselves in the Oronoque, fully three miles to 

 " the east of the creek, Mocco Moco ; two miles further 

 " again the River Waine, three-fourths of a mile broad, 

 " but shallow." \Beschryving van Guiana of de Wilde 

 Kust in Zuid America^ Essequebo, Demerara^ Ber- 

 bice, Suriname, 1770-] Hartsinck then makes men- 

 tion of Moruca and Pomaroon : but there is no reason 

 to give full particulars as regards those places. It 

 is, however, well to note one fa6t mentioned by him, as to 

 the fortification at Moruca. He says that the fortified 

 post was "at present fallen into decay." As his book 

 was published in 1770, the fortified post must have 

 existed years before to have " fallen into decay " at the 

 date mentioned. There are, in fa6l, records in British 

 Guiana, showing that Moruca had been fortified years 

 before 1770. The place was re-fortified after 1770 ; and, 

 on the igth of January, 1797, the Dutch severely defeated, 

 at Moruca, a Spanish expedition that had come over 

 from the Left Bank of the Orinoco, to attack the place. 

 There may be some excuse for the Spaniards not know- 

 ing the boundaries of the Colony ot Essequibo.* To them 

 the region on the Eastern side of the Lower Orinoco was 

 " an unknown Country." There can, however, be no 

 excuse for Venezuelans of to-day pretending a right to 

 the Western bank of the Essequibo. Alcedo, prejudiced 

 as he was against the Dutch, describes Essequibo as 

 " a large District and River." He says the Dutch Colony 



* Even so far into the Nineteenth Century as the year 1840, Vene- 

 zuelans were profoundly ignorant of the nature of the Settlements in 

 British Guiana. In that year their infallible topographer, Codazzi, 

 aflually placed the Capital of the British Colony, on the left Bank of 

 the Demerara ! [British Blue Book, p. 238.] 



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