AVES ISLAND. 23 



and that information had been received from a Danish man-of-war 

 that came from St. Thomas, that the Danish authorities had been 

 approached by certain parties to procure them to claim the isle and 

 drive us off, which suggestion was not favorably received by the Danish 

 authorities, and the man-of-war in question was sent to Venezuela 

 with information that they (the said authorities) would not interpose 

 any objection to the government of Venezuela claiming the isle, thus 

 showing that the Venezuelan authorities knew they had no right, and 

 that their interference was instigated by parties wishing to speculate 

 upon the government, or luith it, in respect of the guano. Some of 

 these parties are indicated in the last letter, amongst them the Vene- 

 zuelan consul at St. Thomas. Another and an important fact indicated 

 in the last letter, of February 26, is that between Dias's first visit 

 and the last ample time had elapsed for the Venezuelan government to 

 "have revoked a hasty or mistaken order, and that, therefore, the order 

 for expulsion, as to Venezuela, was deliberate and well weighed. It 

 cannot be excused or palliated on the ground of mistake, or inadvert- 

 ance, or haste. Right or wrong, her course was adopted knowingly, 

 and if procured to be done by subsidiary means, it only heightens the 

 enormity of the outrage. 



We have also made personal applications, since the last mentioned 

 letter, to your department, through friends, for some action. 



We regret to be informed no vessel of war of the United States has, 

 as we hoped and expected, been sent to Venezuela with instructions to 

 our able and patriotic minister there to insist upon justice being done 

 to us, by promptly paying us our just damages. We hope this will 

 yet be done, and as speedily as practicable. It seems to us that it 

 would not involve any great expense or trouble to send one of the ves- 

 sels composing the squadron of Commodore McCauley, off Cuba, to 

 Venezuela for the purpose indicated. We presume that by this time 

 the vessel might be spared from the squadron sent to Cuba, to resist 

 the pretended right set up by the Spaniards to discover whether a ves- 

 sel rightfully bears our flag or not, by firing towards her to bring her 

 to and by visiting her, and that it is quite as important that the actual 

 outrage on the American flag, knoion to be rightfully borne, in the 

 case of our vessels, perpetrated five months since, should be atoned for. 



It has been contended that we admitted the right of the Venezuelan 

 government to Shelton's Isle, and the right of Captain Dias to drive us 

 off; in other words, that we were trespassers ; and this, too, in the paper 

 given by Dias to Captain Gribbs. How perfectly idle and worse than 

 idle is such pretense. We might have resisted Dias and his soldiers 

 with some loss of human life on both sides ; we ought, perhaps, to have 

 done so. We believe we could easily have chastised and captured his 

 whole force, vessel and soldiers included, if we had resorted to arms 

 and bloodshed; but we preferred relying on the protection of our 

 country. We submitted to Dias's commands, because he was an officer 

 of a sister American republic with whom our country was at peace, and 

 was acting by its authority with its public force. We submit, sir, to 

 you and the "President that our forbearance was commendable. The 

 orders and conduct of Captain Dias were unnecessarily harsh. Our 

 tools and implements, materials and provisions, were seized in part by 



