28 AVES ISLAND. 



uela, and engaging to '' lend their aid " to the Venezuelan "garrison" 

 at the isle ; which, it seems from your letter, the Venezuelan officials 

 now represent the departure of our vessels and employes from the isle 

 to have been ! But we aver our statements in those letters to be 

 strictly correct, and we can maintain them by full and incontestible 

 proof, and in addition to what is already on file in your department, 

 so soon as circumstances will enable us^ we will transmit other testi- 

 mony, more in detail, and utterly refuting the ridiculous and fraudu- 

 lent defense thus set up by Venezuela. 



But this has little bearing on the imputation against us as to an at- 

 tempted suppressio veri in our letters above referred to. We have 

 stated that we had not theoi any information as to the Dias ^'permit or 

 notice." In verification of this, we are entirely willing to submit to 

 your personal inspection all our correspondence with our agents and 

 others respecting the occurrences at Shelton's Isle, though it contains 

 matters not pertinent to this case, or proper to be placed on the depart- 

 mental file. 



It should be borne in mind that when we wrote these letters our 

 agents and employes, &c., had not yet returned to this city, and our 

 information was of course chiefly derived from our correspondence; 

 and an inspection of it will satisfy you that all we had then received 

 in any respect material, was set forth fully in those letters, though 

 they do not profess to state minute occurrences, circumstantially and 

 in detail. 



You will notice also in that of the 15th of January, we positively 

 deny, in no less than four separate clauses,, that Venezuela has a shadow 

 of title to Shelton's Isle, and give reasons for our denunciations of her 

 claim as unfounded ; and in both letters we remonstrate against her 

 tortious, forcible, and unjustifiable outrage in taking possession of the 

 isle, effected by an armed force, after we had been several months in 

 its peaceful occupation ; and in that, our first letter, we appeal to our 

 government to compel Venezuela to relinquish a possession to which 

 she had not a " semblance of title." We had not then heard of our 

 employes and vessels being driven off the isle on the 24th of December. 



In that of the 29th of January, we represent that Dias and his 

 armed soldiery and naval force, followed up their wrongful intrusion 

 by threats and acts of hostility, by their forcible expulsion of our 

 agent and employes and vessels, and the taking of our houses and im- 

 plements, structures, &c., and by the use of our stores, &c., for all of 

 which we claim indemnity. 



To presume that we were cognizant of the Dias license, permit, or 

 notice, and purposely avoided reference or allusion to it, and sought 

 to suppress it under an apprehension that peradventure it might pos- 

 sibly have a destructive effect, or might militate against or impair the 

 validity of our claims for indemnification, and our rights respecting 

 Shelton's Isle, would be to write us down not only as being arrant 

 knaves, but also egregious asses ; the former for adopting the dishonest 

 mean of the suppressio veri for any purpose, and the latter for resorting 

 to a shallow and useless artifice in a case in which speedy detection 

 and exposure was certain, and likewise for not perceiving that such 



