St. Paul daily globe., 1895-12-22
and the English claim to the territory
/ was set up.
VENEZUELAN PROTEST..

The case was not permitted to go by
! default. The Venezuelan citizens and
officials made earnest protest against
| the aggrs ssion. All the ancient history
and old treaties bearing on the subject
were examined and the Venezuelan
argument supported by the documents
| was presented to the English foreign
! office by Senior Fortique. The Vene-
zuelans plainly established the limits
of the former Dutch and present Eng
| lish possessions as lying between the
Pomeroon river on the north and the
Essequibo on the west.
1.-The mine made by Schomburg," said
Fortique, sis in no sense natural, as is
shown by the following quotations
from his books:
eff we follow the lines which nature
preScribes by its rivers and mountains,
! and include all the regions which are
drained by the streams which fall into
| the ESSequibo and adopting the
| Corentyne as its eastern boundary,
| British Guiana consists of 10000 square
miles. The Pacaraima mountains, eN-
| west, are of the greatest Importance,
| forming, as they do, natural bound
! ary to the territory drained by the
| Essequibo and its tributaries.
ABERDEEN'S DISCLAIMER.
Such an impression was made on LORD
Aberdeen, the prime minister at that
time, that. on behalf of the govern
ment, he disclaimed any English inten-
ton of occupying the disputed terri
tory, and to quiet public feeling in Ven
ezuela ordered the monuments and
land marks erected by Schomburg to be
destroyed. He assured the Venezuelan
| representative that the "so-called
Schomburg line was never designed to
be other than tentative" and the survey
was made merely for convenience in
| future negotiations.
| The contention of the South Amer1-
can republic since the beginning of the
dispute has been that it must, as
matter of self-protection, control the
mouth of the Orinoco, and to this pro-
position Aberdeen consented. He pro-
posed a conventional boundary, rum
ming southwark and westward from
the Morocco river, leaving Venezuela
the Orinoco water. In the way of set
tlement the South American state
would have accepted Aberdeens pro-
position and moved the boundary west
of the Essequibo, had not the Vene-
zuelan ambassador death in London
at that juncture snapped the thread or
the negotiations.
ANOTHER BOUNDARY OFFERED.
In 1851 Lord Granville offered to
Venezuela the establishment of boun-
dairy beginning twenty-three miles
southeast of Punta Barina, and leav-
ing Venezuela in control of the Orino-
co. AS the starting point was 100
miles north of Aberdeen's, the repub-
lie did not hasten to cede its territory,
and the matter died. AS late as 1886,
two wears after new mineral discover
les had again revived the yearnlngs OF
Great Britain for the territory, Lord
Rosebery proposed a frontier starting
from the seacoast a snort distance west
of the Waini river. This offer was so
hampered with tariff and navigation
provisions that Venezuela refused to
consider it, although it left the repub-
lie the control of the Orinoco. AT that.
time the utmost claim of the British
government was the Schomburg line,
and from that Lord Rosebery consid-
erably receded. In the nine years that
have elapsed since Rosebery's offer
the English settlers have continued to
press to the westward, and the from
tier now claimed near the Caroni river
is twice as far west of Schomburg's
line as the latter is distant from the
Esseuuibo. An English military post
is 100 miles to the westward of the
Schomburg survey. 1t is this fact that
gave rise to the diplomatic incident
which was the cause of ultimate war
talk A drunken English miner and a
native had a fight in the town of Uru-
an, on the south side Of the Cayuni
river. Arrests were made by the