There was in truth a store of gold in the land; the explorers carried stories of their new wealth back to Spain, and before the end of the sixteenth century Sir Walter Raleigh, with a body of English adventurers and certain Dutchmen, visited Guayana in quest of treasure. The Dutch West India Company planted a settlement near the mouth of the Essequibo about the year 1624, and was strong enough to hold it against the Spaniards, who up to that time had been in undisputed possession. The title of the Dutch to the territory upon which they had established themselves was confirmed by the treaty of Münster in 1648, in which Spain recognized the Netherlands as free and independent states. Early in the last century England captured from the Dutch their settlements of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo, and in the treaty of 1814 these were formally ceded to her. Thus British Guiana came into being. On the one hand, therefore, Venezuela, when she revolted from Spain in 1811, became vested with the title to all the territory which Spain had held by virtue of discovery and exploration save the districts she had ceded to the Dutch; while, on the other hand, England held British Guiana by cession from the Dutch, who had acquired it from Spain by the treaty of Münster. In that treaty Spain and Holland had not been at pains to draw the boundary line between Guayana, now British Guiana, and the Captaincy General of Caracas, now Venezuela, and from that act of omission arose all the trouble. For many years after England entered into lawful possession of British Guiana by the treaty of 1814 no dispute over the undefined boundary arose. With the running of what is called the Schomburgk Line in 1849 begins the unbroken chain of events that led to the boundary controversy, brought it to a critical stage, called forth the message of December, 1895, and culminated in the finding and award of the Paris tribunal.