AVES ISLAND. 



29 



paper as that permit, ov license, or notice, when brought forth, coukl 

 not justly complicate the business. 



We think it ought rather to have been presumed that if we were 

 not devoid of common sense and common intelligence, and had any 

 knowledge of such paper, and anticipated the probability of our adver- 

 saries (the Venezuelan officials and the speculators combined with 

 them) seeking to urge it against us, we would have noticed it in the 

 outset, and sought to meet and overcome it. If it is fancied that we 

 may have hoped Dias kept no copy, or that if he did he may have lost 

 it, the case is not altered, insomuch as most men of moderate intel- 

 ligence are aware that the leges gentium contains no provisions relating 

 to such license, permit, or notice similar to those in the British and 

 American statutes of frauds and perjuries invalidating it, if not in 

 loxiting, and signed, dc, and that therefore its efficacy could not 

 depend on the fact whether it was written and signed, or merely ver- 

 bal; and likewise, that if written, and either lost or mislaid or sup- 

 pressed, its contents could be established by parole testimony. No 

 sensible motive can therefore be reasonably assigned for such suppres- 

 sion by us, if we had known of its ever having been in existence, and 

 if, in fact, we purposely sought to surpress it in January last, what 

 could have induced us to transmit it to the department in February, 

 so soon as it came to our hands; and what induced Messrs. Lang and 

 Delano to insert in the Boston Evening Gazette, of the 24tli of February, 

 a translation of the duplicate they had, and to send that publication 

 and a copy of the Spanish permit to you early in March? 



The facts are proved by the papers in your files. 



We shall hereafter, in another communication, suggest several dis- 

 tinct grounds, in addition to that already intimated, upon which we 

 insist that this '■'^permit," "license," or ''notice," placed by us on 

 the files of your department, and to which your attention was called 

 by our letter of the 26th February, cannot possibly militate against or 

 impair in any degree the claims for indemnity, or the right to the isle we 

 are contending for, nor in any degree absolve our government from the 

 duty of promptly enforcing those claims, and maintaining those rights 

 in our behalf. Nay, sir, we hope to satisfy you that this paper, and 

 also the other (unlike this in respect to the signatures affixed to it) with 

 which the Venezuelian officials have met Mr. Fames, and the produc- 

 tion of it by those officials as the sole foundation of their claim , and as 

 the sole justification for their outrages, and especicdly when the circum- 

 stances connected with those papers, and attendant upon all their pro- 

 ceedings at Shelton's Isle and since, are considered, so far from weak- 

 ening or impairing, do materially strengthen and fortify our claims 

 and rights ; and as to our government, superadd to the incentive of pro- 

 tecting its citizens against violence and outrage, that of exposing, correct- 

 ing, and rebuking attempted rascality and fraud to sustain a trumped up 

 and baseless claim, preferred for the benefit of knavish speculators in 

 Venezuela and in the United States who have combined to wrong ns. 

 At present, however, the foregoing suggestions have been made merely 

 to dispel your suspicions of unworthy conduct on our part, in reference 

 to which we confess we feel as every honest man, jealous of everything 



