cts for his particular scorn,
displeasure, exploitation, or amusement, as the case might be. He was
greatly angered by the way in which foreigners in dispute with
local officials avoided a resort to Venezuelan courts and--still
worse--rejected their decisions and appealed instead to their diplomatic
representatives for protection. He declared such a procedure to be an
affront to the national dignity. Yet foreigners were usually correct in
arming that judges appointed by an arbitrary President were little more
than figureheads, incapable of dispensing justice, even were they so
inclined.

Jealous not only of his personal prestige but of what he imagined, or
pretended to imagine, were the rights of a small nation, Castro tried
throughout to portray the situation in such a light as to induce the
other Hispanic republics also to view foreign interference as a
dire peril to their own independence and sovereignty; and he further
endeavored to involve the United States in a struggle with European
powers as a means possibly of testing the efficacy of the Monroe
Doctrine or of laying bare before the world the evil nature of American
imperialistic designs.

By the year 1901, in which Venezuela adopted another constitution, the
revolutionary disturbances had materially diminished the revenues from
the customs. Furthermore Castro's regulations exacting military service
of all males between fourteen and sixty years of age had filled the
prisons to overflowing. Many foreigners who had suffered in consequence
resorted to measures of self-defense--among them representatives of
certain American and British asphalt companies which were working
concessions granted by Castro's predecessors. Though familiar with what
commonly happens to those who handle pitch, they had not scrupled to
aid some of Castro's enemies. Castro forthwith imposed on them enormous
fines which amounted practically to a confiscation of their rights.

While the United States and Great Britain were expostulating over this
behavior of the despot, France broke off diplomatic relations with
Venezuela because of Castro's refusal either to pay or to submit to
arbitration certain claims which had originated in previous revolutions.
Germany, aggrieved in similar fashion, contemplated a seizure of the
customs until its demands for redress were satisfied. And then came
Italy with like causes of complaint. As if these complications were not
sufficient, Venezuela came to blows