AVES ISLAND. 27 



that paper. Your presumption that this was the fact, (as we conceive 

 apparent from your letter,) is an entire misconception. 



When we wrote to you on the 15th and 29th January we had no 

 idea of any such paper, or of any other, referring to Shelton's Isle, and 

 the transactions there having been signed or given by any person 

 there. Aware that our agent had not the shadow of authority from 

 us, express or implied, to do any act whatever destroying, relinquisliing , 

 or in any degree impairing the rights he was deputed to maintain and 

 protect, and knowing i^hat such an act, whatever its form, would be 

 utterly void and null, as a preposterous violation of those universal 

 principles of justice and law, that are respected in every country, and 

 that operate upon governments as well as individuals, we were not 

 stimulated by an apprehension of our rights and interests having been 

 jeoparded, or by any distrust of the fidelity of our agent to any special 

 inquiries in this regard. An eagerness or even a willingness (in the 

 absence of express impeachment by some person) to suspect our agent, 

 either on the score of fidelity or intelligence, which only could have 

 prompted such inquiry, would have been gratuitous., unbecoming, and 

 unwarrantable on our part. 



We had learned when we wrote to you on the 15th of January that 

 Dias had intruded with an armed Venezuelan force upon the island 

 and taken possession of it, and had threatened the expulsion of our 

 employes and vessels from it. We stated that the Venezuelans, on 

 the 13th of December, after taking such forcible possession, had ^^ no- 

 tified" Captain Gribbs that '■'■he could only remain on sufferance until 

 such time as they saw fit to eject him;" and that on the 21st they had 

 landed more troops, and that " Captain Gihhs writes he may he ejected 

 hy force any day." We communicated to you all that we had then 

 learned. Messrs. Lang and Delano, of this city, on the same day (as 

 we are informed,) also addressed you, giving similar information to 

 that contained in our letter, but more circumstantial in details ; and 

 we learn it is also silent (for similar causes, it is presumed,) as to any 

 paper having been signed, or given by any person cojinected with the 

 transactions. 



When we wrote to you on the 29th of January, we had been in- 

 formed that (as we anticipated in our letter of the 15th,) our agents 

 had been '■'■ unjustifiably forced to relinquish" the collecting and ship- 

 ping the guano on the island ; and that all of our employes and ves- 

 sels had been driven aioay, and our implements and materials, houses, 

 wharf, &c., wrested from us by Dias and his Venezuelan soldiery. 

 This '■'■forcible ejection hy an armed force," as then characterized by 

 us, took place on the 28th of December, three days after the time, to 

 which you observe, "our statement of events is brought down," in 

 our previous letter. We freely concede that these statements do not 

 appear entirely consistent with that voluntary, unconstrained, peace- 

 ful and willing exodus from an abandonment of Shelton's Isle by our 

 employes and vessels ; and in pursuance of an unconstrained, ultro- 

 neous ^^ agreement," previously volunteered, with full knowledge by 

 our agent, expressly acknowledging the isle to '^ helong" to Venezuela; 

 and in atonement for our illegal intrusion upon it, placing our pieces 

 of artillery and armament at the orders and under the flag of Venez- 



