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.