This is diplomacy--of a certain sort. It is a deep and mysterious science; and we probably cannot do better than to confess our inability to understand its intricacies and sinuosities; but at this point we can hardly keep out of mind the methods of the shrewd, sharp trader who demands exorbitant terms, and at the same time invites negotiation, looking for a result abundantly profitable in the large range for dicker which he has created. An answer was made to Lord Salisbury’s note on the twelfth day of April, 1880, in which the Venezuelan envoy stated in direct terms that he had received specific instructions from his government for the arrangement of the difficulty, by abandoning the ground of strict right and “concurring in the adoption for both countries of a frontier mutually convenient, and reconciling in the best possible manner their respective interests--each party having to make concessions to the other for the purpose of attaining such an important result.” It will be remembered that in 1844, when this boundary question was under discussion, Lord Aberdeen proposed a line beginning in the mouth of the Moroco River, being a point on the coast south and east of the mouth of the Orinoco, thus giving to Venezuela the control of that river, but running inland in such a manner as to include, in the whole, little if any less area than that included in the Schomburgk line; and it will also be recalled that this line was not then acceptable to Venezuela. It appears, however, that the delays and incidents of thirty-six years had impressed upon the government of the republic the serious disadvantages of her situation in contention with Great Britain; for we find in this reply of the Venezuelan envoy the inquiry “whether Her Britannic Majesty’s Government is disposed now, as it was in 1844, to accept the mouth of the river Moroco as the frontier at the coast.” To this Lord Salisbury promptly responded that the attorney-general for the colony of British Guiana was shortly expected in England, and that her Majesty’s Government would prefer to postpone the boundary discussion until his arrival.