Article 5 provides:

"Arthur Clark acknowledges from this date the liabilities which comprehend those which exist with those shareholders and holders of bonds."

Here we have the Government dealing with the liabilities "which exist" respecting the 55 outstanding bonds and transferring that liability to, or at least imposing it upon, Clark. Why does it thus deal with them? Here we have its promise that whatever advantage may accrue to it in obtaining these bonds shall inure to his benefit. That is, he is only to be charged with whatever the bonds cost the Government. Why trouble itself to obtain them? Here we have also his assumption of the "shareholders'" liabilities, among whom Venezuela herself was one to the extent of 50,000 pesos. Why did she provide for that beyond her own liability? I do not regard article 5 as an evidence of cancellation by the Government of the stock subscriptions, as counsel for the claimant seems to. It tends to show, rather, I think, that the Government had undertaken in the contract with Rojas and Marcano to assume the subscriptions itself, or to save harmless the subscribers. These stipulations show to my mind that the Government at that time had resting upon it an obligation of some kind, and to some extent at least in respect of these bonds. Otherwise, why concern itself about them further than sell subject to the mortgage. It is possible to reconcile its course perhaps with a desire and purpose on its part to rid itself from its stock subscription which was liable in equity to be collected and applied in payment of the bonds. But in that case there is the recognition of obligation to that extent. It is impossible now to ascertain the exact facts bearing upon these questions. Under the circumstances, on the eve of the dissolution of the Commission, I would go to the extent the disclosures, unsatisfactory as they are, appear to justify and apply Venezuela's subscription on the bonded debt. It is said she had paid $80,000 on the road. That is not clear, and if it were, it would not obviate her subscrip

tion. She cannot discharge her obligations by applying the amount owed to the improvement of her property. It was after such payment she undertook to deal with these liabilities, thus disclosing a conscious obligation respecting them. I am disposed to believe from article 6 in the Clark contract that the $80,000 included what she had paid and expected to pay on account of these bonds. It seems to me it would not be inequitable or unjust to apply the subscription due with interest on the bonds, leaving the holders to look to the mortgage for the balance, or to Venezuela, if they choose, should it be made to appear hereafter that she actually assumed their payment in the contract with Rojas and Marcano, or otherwise became obligated therefor. She has all the valuable property imported for the road and the benefit of the labor and money expended thereon by the contractors, nothing ever having been paid for them save the bonds. Were there time I would enter the allowance, with leave to either party to move for a new hearing. I must, therefore, dissent from the conclusion of my colleagues to dismiss this case. As it, with No. 20, is to be dismissed, however, I quite agree this should be done without prejudice. The failure of Venezuela to produce the proofs called for, and which it was reasonably expected by the claimants she would be able to supply, leaves the cases in a condition of submission not, in my opinion, contemplated by the treaty.

The Government of Venezuela granted in May, 1849, to E. A. Turpin and Frederick Anthony Beelen, citizens of the United States of America, and to their associates and successors, an exclusive privilege to navigate the rivers Orinoco and Apure, for eighteen years, running from the date of the aforesaid concession.

To work the said privilege, a corporation was legally organized in New York, in October of the same year, 1849, under the name of "The Orinoco Steam Navigation Company of New York."

It appears that this company went so far as to put four steamers in actual service, three of which, the Meta, the Apure, and the Barinas, were still running in 1856 and 1857, and only two of them, the Apure and the Guayana, from 1858 to 1861; only one, the Apure, existed about 1865.

The Apure left Ciudad Bolivar on the 9th of October, 1865, on one of her ordinary trips, carrying on board a very light cargo, and a small number of passengers, for Nutrias, the extreme point of her journey, and the intermediate ports. On her way through, she touched at San Fernando, capital of the State of Apure, where, on the morning of the 17th, the passage fares agreed on having been paid, she took on board the President of the State, General Juan Bautista Garcia, and a small military force (about 9 officers and 50 men), to land them at a point on the upper Apure within his jurisdiction, which General Garcia would opportunely designate.

On the night of the 18th, the steamer being moored at the port of Apurito, one of her usual landing-places, for which she carried some freight, she was suddenly attacked by a force of rebels against the Government of General Garcia, who had been advised in advance of the presence of said General on board the steamer with an armed force.

The origin and cause of the above-mentioned four claims are to be found in this regrettable event, since during the seven hours' fight of that night, the captain of the steamer, John W. Hammer, and the chief engineer, Julius de Brissot, whose wives' claims are for $50,000 and $30,000, respectively, were killed; Joseph Stackpole, another engineer, claiming $15,000 indemnity, was wounded; and in consequence thereof, The Orinoco Steam Navigation Company suffered damages, which its secretary, Ralph Rawdon, estimates at $100,000.

No question has been raised as to the citizenship of Ralph Rawdon and Joseph Stackpole, but not so in regard to that of Narcisa de Hammer and Amelia de Brissot and their respective children. As to the latter, there is no proof whatsoever regarding her marriage or the children issued from it, while such proof exists with respect to the former and her four children. However, I have no objection to treat both marriages as if legally proved, and before going further, will try to solve the doubt respecting their citizenship, in order to dispose at once of the question of jurisdiction therein involved.

Every independent State has the right to determine who is to be considered as citizen or foreigner within its territory, and to establish the manner, conditions, and circumstances, to which the acquisition, or loss of citizenship, are to be subject. But for the same reason that this is a right appertaining to every sovereignty and independence, no one can pretend to give an extra-territorial authority to its own laws regarding citizenship, without violence to the principles of international law, according to which, the legislative compe

tence of each State does not extend beyond the limits of its own territory. Otherwise, any one could be at the same time a citizen of two States, which is as inadmissible as not to be a citizen of any State at all.

"Each individual is by the rule a citizen of one State only, and has political rights only in one State" (Bluntschli).

By virtue of that right, Venezuela declared in her constitutions of 1830, 1857, 1858, and 1864, a Venezuelan citizen by birth, every free person born in the Territory of Venezuela, such, for instance, as Narcisa de Hammer and Amelia de Brissot. The former was undoubtedly born in that republic, and there are strong reasons to think just the same about the latter.

Through the force of the same right, the United States declared to be a citizen, by the law of 1855, "every woman capable of naturalization, married, or who might marry thenceforward a citizen of the United States," like Narcisa de Hammer and Amelia de Brissot.

Therefore, if this question of citizenship were brought before a court of Venezuela, it could not be decided otherwise than according to the Venezuelan constitution, because only this law would have authority in that case, to decide whether the above-mentioned women ought to be regarded or not as citizens of Venezuela. And for the same reason, if it were raised before a court of the United States, it should have to be decided in accordance with the law of 1855, because only that law could determine whether, by their respective marriages with John William Hammer and Julius de Brissot, they were to be considered or not as United States citizens. But they could neither invoke in Venezuela the law of the United States to repeal that of the place of their birth in respect to their citizenship, nor the law of Venezuela in the United States, to assert, against that of their country by naturalization, that they are Venezuelans; because, as already stated, it is impossible to admit in principle that