And she protests before the Government of Her Britannic
Majesty, before all civilized nations, before the whole world,
against the acts of spoliation which the Government of Great
Britain has committed to her detriment, and which she will
never on any consideration recognize as capable of altering in
the slightest degree the rights which she has acquired from
Spain, and respecting which she will be always ready to submit
to a third power, as the only way to a solution compatible with
her constitutional principles.
Notwithstanding all this, three years afterward, and on the tenth day
of January, 1890, an agent of Venezuela, appointed for that purpose,
addressed a note to Lord Salisbury, still in charge of Great Britain’s
foreign relations, expressing the desire of Venezuela to renew
diplomatic relations with Great Britain, and requesting an interview to
that end.
A short time thereafter the Government of Great Britain expressed its
satisfaction that a renewal of diplomatic relations was in prospect,
and presented to the representative of Venezuela “a statement of the
conditions which Her Majesty’s Government considered necessary for
a satisfactory settlement of the questions pending between the two
countries.”
As the first of these conditions it was declared that “Her Majesty’s
Government could not accept as satisfactory any arrangement which did
not admit the British title to the territory comprised within the line
laid down by Sir R. Schomburgk in 1841; but they would be willing to
refer to arbitration the claims of Great Britain to certain territory
to the west of that line.”
Naturally enough, this statement was received by Venezuela with great
disappointment and surprise. Her representative promptly replied that
his government could not accept any single point of the arbitrary and
capricious line laid down by Sir R. Schomburgk in 1841, which had been
declared null and void even by the Government of her Majesty; and that
it was not possible for Venezuela to accept arbitration in respect to
territory west of that line. He further expressed his regret that the
conditions then demanded by Lord Salisbury were more unfavorable to
Venezuela than the proposals made to the former agent of the republic
prior to the suspension of diplomatic relations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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