out allowing ourselves to be prejudiced by the adverse action of the former Commission, we will sign an order rejecting the claim and dismissing the petition.

Resolution of the 3d of May, of 1843, organizing the Corps of Pilots for the Bar of Maracaybo. Department of War and Marine.

Art. 14. Pilots, before entering in possession of their charge, shall be instructed of all their duties, and likewise of what is prescribed in Art. 123, f. 5th, tit. vii, of the ordinances.

Art. 27. When the pilots on board a vessel commit a fault, the captain of the vessel shall give notice thereof to the captain of the port, who, in view of any information he may find fit to acquire, shall correct the fault committed.

Art. 28. In order to inflict the penalties that may be prescribed, a verbal process shall precede, stating the fact by which they are caused, and before executing the same notice shall be given to the indicted.

General Ordinances of the Naval Army.

Art. 123. In order that it may never be alleged ignorance of the penalties established for culpable losses and shipwrecks

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the captain of the * * * shall ac

port, before giving the pilots possession of their places quaint them that in case of loss caused by malice, the penalty may be extended even to death, according to circumstances.

Art. 134. It shall be prohibited to any vessel, either national or foreign, to send her boat for the purpose of sounding within the internal channels of any arsenal-ports or others connected with the defences of the place. The ship incurring such a fault shall be laid on embargo, keeping on board the men necessary for her custody, and the captain and rest of the crew shall be arrested and sent on shore to be prosecuted by the captain of the port, if nationals, or by the governor if foreigners, transferring the cause to my person for the decision it may please me, according to the malice of the fact. But the examination shall be permitted of the external or entry shoals and of the public mercantile anchoring ground, the practical knowing of which affects the common good of navigators and commerce: Provided, permission therefor be asked of the captain of the port, that he may prescribe the limits of the examination consistently with the ends of general utility.

It appears from the papers transmitted us that in 1841 John H. Williams, a merchant of New York, sold and delivered in that city to an agent of the Venezuelan government certain mirrors with mountings for the Government House at Caracas for $2,489.11, which were duly forwarded and received.

On the 24th day of April, 1868, Mr. Williams presented the account against that government before the former Commission for these articles as of the date of November 9, 1841, and verified it under oath, claiming an award, including interest at 7 per cent., of $7,019.11. The account had before been sent to the United States Legation at Caracas for collection, but how long before does not appear. It had not, previous to 1868, been brought to the attention of the Venezuelan authorities from any source, so far as shown, and no reason or explanation is given for delay in presentation.

Venezuela claims the goods were paid for at the time of purchase. On the issue of fact thus made she was, 1868, and is placed at a disadvantage by the long lapse of time as to the matter of personal testimony, some, if not all, her witnesses to the transaction having before then died.

The question with some collateral ones is thus presented whether time, figuratively stated, testifies in these adjudications. This case could perhaps be disposed of upon other grounds and in comparatively few words; but as the same question with like resulting ones is involved in other cases argued and submitted, we have concluded to treat it with

some fulness and dispose of the case from this standpoint, in view of the fact that the general question appears to be a somewhat mooted one with each government.

PRESCRIPTION.

It thus appears then the claim was not brought to the attention of the Venezuelan government until twenty-six years after its inception. Its ownership, nature, and amount were such as would have made a delay in presentation to the debtor for a single three-months, a matter of surprise. By lapse of time the means of defence have been impaired, and there is total want of excuse for the long delay by claimant. Under such circumstances what does the law require at our hands? It is a well-settled principle in common law jurisdictions, and a recognized one in civil law countries, that obligations are to be enforced according to the ler loci fori which here is the treaty and the public law. Beyond the requirement that its decisions must be according to justice, the treaty furnishes no guide to the Commission respecting the operation of the lapse of time in extinguishing obligations. It is left to the direction of international law on the subject. Does that recognize the doctrine of such extinguishment as between states, in controversies like these? The question has been argued with exceptional force and ability by counsel for the respective governments.

It will, perhaps, not be amiss to group extracts from the deliverances (italics ours) of some of the leading authorities upon the general doctrine of prescription and pertinent principles. We present them as they have been consulted, and without reference to any special order. It may be well preliminarily to note that, while individual interests are involved, these controversies, as elsewhere seen, are between States in some sense, and stand much as if so originating; and, further, that while the texts will be seen largely to relate to territorial acquisitions, the principles announced compre

hend the acquisition and loss of personal property and pertain to other rights as well.

Says Wheaton :

"The writers on natural law have questioned how far that peculiar species of presumption, arising from the lapse of time which is called prescription, is justly applicable as between nation and nation; but the constant and approved practice of nations shows that by whatever name it is called, the uninterrupted possession of territory or other property for a certain length of time by one state, excludes the claim of every other; in the same manner as by the law of nature, and the municipal code of every civilized nation, a simibir possession of one individual excludes the claim of every other person to the article of property in question. This rule is founded upon the supposition, confirmed by constant experience, that every person will naturally seek to enjoy that which belongs to him; and the inference fairly to be drawn from his silence and neglect of the original defect of his title, or his intention to relinquish it." (Elements Int. L., 6th ed., 218.)

Vattel:

"It is asked whether usucaption and prescription take place between independent nations and states. Now to decide the question we have proposed we must first see whether usucaption and prescription are derived from the law of nature. Many illustrious authors have asserted and proven them to be so. * * ** It is impossible to determine by the law of nature the number of years required to found a prescription; this depends on he nature of the property disputed and the circumstances of the case.

After having shown that usucaption and prescription are founded in the law of nature, it is easy to prove that they are equally a part of the law of nations and ought to take place between different states. For the law of nations is but the law of nature applied to nations in a manner suitable to the parties concerned. And so far is the nature of the parties from affording them an exemption in the case, that usucaption and prescription are much more necessary between sovereign states than between individuals." (Law of Nations, Book 2, ch. 11.)

"Prescription," this author defines in the same connection, "is the exclusion of all pretensions to right--an exclusion founded on the length of time during which that right has been neglected."

Phillimore:

"This [prescription of public law] is in principle very much the same as the prescription of the private law; which indeed may be said to be modeled upon the usage of the public law, and which usage grew out of the reason of the thing. Does there arise between nations, as between individuals, and as between the state and individuals, a presumption from long possession of a territory, or of a right, which must be

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considered as a legitimate source of international acquisition? The effect of the lapse of time upon the property and right of one nation relative to another is the real subject for our consideration. And if this be borne steadily in mind it will be found on the one hand, in the highest degree, irrational to deny that prescription is a legitimate means of international acquisition; and it will, on the other hand, be found both inexpedient and impracticable to attempt to define the exact period within which it can be said to have become established, or in other words, to settle the precise limitation of time which gives validity to the title of national possessions." (Int. Law, 1, pp. 272–5.)

Hall:

"The principle upon which it [International Prescription] rests is essentially the same as that of the doctrine of prescription which finds a place in every municipal law, although in its application to beings for whose disputes no tribunals are open, some modifications are necessarily introduced." (Int. Law, 100.)

Polson:

"How far prescription may be considered as operating upon nations jurists do not appear to have agreed; but the uniform practice of nations shows that they recognize the long and uninterrupted, possession of a territory as excluding the claims of all other nations, and that this principle, whose exposition fills so large a head in municipal jurisprudence, is equally recognized, as reason dictates it should be, in international law" (Law of Nations, 28.)

Calvo:

"May usucaption and prescription be considered in regard to peoples and states as regular and normal means of acquiring property? If it is admitted that these two ways of acquiring are legitimate and based on natural law, one is logically bound to admit that they are equally conformable to the principles of the law of nations, and are to be applied to nations.

Unsucaption and prescription are even more necessary between states than between individuals. In fact the differences between nations have a much greater importance than individual contentions; these may be settled by tribunals, whilst international conflicts frequently end in war." (Droit International, vol. 1, § 171.)

Vico:

"The inert, the incautious, the negligent, the luxurious, are punished in the injury they do to themselves by the loss of their interests and their rights through usucapio and prescriptio." (De Uno Universi Juris, &c., p. 331.)

Grotius, while seeming to indorse Vasquius in denying usucaption a place both in public and private international