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Updated: June 24, 2025
His face softened visibly, he became more and more genial and loquacious, and asked me how I came to be in that solitary place. I told him that I was staying with the Indian Runi, his neighbour. "But, senor," he said, "if it is not an impertinence, how is it that a young man of so distinguished an appearance as yourself, a Venezuelan, should be residing with these children of the devil?"
Excursions to these institutions opened a new epoch in my life; but of this I shall speak elsewhere. During this period of something over fifteen years, I have been frequently summoned from these duties, which were especially agreeable to me first, in 1892, as minister to Russia; next, in 1896, as a member of the Venezuelan Commission at Washington; and, in 1897, as ambassador to Germany.
For a brief moment neither Great Britain nor America quite realized the meaning of the President's warlike utterance. In America it had generally been felt previously that his foreign policy was conciliatory rather than aggressive and, besides, the Venezuelan dispute had but little occupied popular attention.
For years I was the terror of the Venezuelan Gulf, the Spanish Main, an' the Pacific seas, but there was precious little money into it. The best pay I got was from a Sunday noospaper which paid me well to sign an article on 'Modern Piracy' which I didn't write.
Confidence reposed in me by President Cleveland. My resignation. The Venezuelan Commission; curious circumstances of my nomination to it by President Cleveland. Nature of the question to be decided; its previous evolution. Mr. Cleveland's message. Attacks upon him; his firmness. Sessions of the Commission; initial difficulties; solution of them. The old question between the Netherlands and Spain.
On the contrary, much to my astonishment, he had bequeathed to me quite half his fortune all his share, indeed, in the Gondifera mine while all his realised property, which was invested in good English and American securities, out of the reach of the grasping hand of the hungerful Venezuelan patriots all this he left to his daughter Elsie.
In any case, it should be remembered that the test of a diplomatic move is its success, and judged from this standpoint Mr. Cleveland's Venezuelan policy was vindicated by the results.
Immediately on receiving the communication, Lieutenant De Courcy came off the port of Carthagena, and despatched a boat with an officer bearing a letter to the commodore of the squadron, then at anchor inside, demanding the release of Colonel Gregg and the other British subjects. The Venezuelan squadron consisted of a corvette, a brig, and three schooners of war.
Before the nineteenth century ended, the Samoan, Hawaiian, and Venezuelan episodes had done much to quicken a national consciousness in the people of the United States and at the same time to break down their sense of isolation from the rest of the world. Commerce and trade were also important factors in overcoming this traditional isolation.
Often a whole night through I lie open-eyed in the dark, with bursting brain, thinking of that hollow Gulf of Mexico, how identical in shape and size with the protuberance of Africa just opposite, and how the protuberance of the Venezuelan and Brazilian coast fits in with the in-curve of Africa: so that it is obvious to me it is quite obvious that they once were one; and one night rushed so far apart; and the wild Atlantic knew that thing, and ran gladly, hasting in between: and how if eye of flesh had been there to see, and ear to hear that cruel thundering, my God, my God what horror!
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