"36 AVBS ISLAND. 



aggravate her insults to our national flag. Full proof of the circum- 

 stances referred to shall be furnished the department so soon as we can 

 obtain it. Captain Gribbs is now on a voyage to Marseilles in France, 

 and most of the other witnesses are scattered, but the utmost diligence 

 shall be used. Captain Gibbs is entirely ignorant of Spanish, neces- 

 sarily he must have had to rely on others as to the purport of papers 

 written in that language. We can readily imagine that fraudulent 

 misrepresentations or mistakes occurred in this respect. The tenor 

 and character of the papers exhibited justify such conclusions. No 

 translation of them in writing was dared to be made by Dias and 

 given to Captain Gribbs. The object and purpose of Dias's ''descent 

 on Shelton's Isle in a vessel of war and with troops," was avowedly to 

 take possession of it, vi et a7'mis, in behalf of Venezuela, and as " be- 

 longing " to her, and to expel Captain Gribbs and others therefrom. 

 If Venezuela really had any valid claim to the isle susceptable of 

 proof, wherefore the necessity or propriety of the manufacturing these 

 papers ? Truly he must have had strong doubts of the rightfulness 

 of her claim to feel " constrained" thus to endeavor to bolster it up by 

 such bungling contrivance, so discreditable to his government and to 

 himself, and which, if not as devoid of intelligence as of honesty, he 

 must have known would be utterly futile. It is absurd to imagine 

 that admissions of Gibbs and Lang, not of particular facts or incidents 

 peculiarly within their knowledge, but of a general character, as to 

 the isle '' pertaining" to Venezuela, can create a title for her or ben- 

 efit her in any degree. Her title depended upon the facts as to the 

 discovery and actual occupation of the isle by antecessors or by her- 

 self, and upon her continued possession of it and upon the law of na- 

 tions, and not upon any admission of individuals who may be on the 

 isle when they are made, though they may be reduced to writing and 

 signed. Her abandonment of the isle long antecedent to our discovery 

 and occupation of it, extinguished any former right she may have had, 

 and Messrs. Gibbs and Lang could not by any admission or concession 

 destroy this fact. They were not competent to decide as to these differ- 

 ent questions either in respect of any peculiar means of information 

 possessed by them, or in virtue of any authority delegated to them 

 either by the United States or by us, to determine them, and whilst at 

 the isle, on the 13th December, from whence, or from whom, except 

 Dias could they, there and then, received the new special proofs that so 

 enlightened them as to the validity of the title of Venezuela? Why 

 is it that these proofs, if any exist, are now withheld by her? Why, 

 instead of honestly producing and relying upon them, does she resort 

 to such paltry muniments as the second hand opinion of an agent (not 

 empowered to decide the right) even if attested by his signature tp a 

 paper written by her agent in a language the signer could not read and 

 did not understand. And further, a presumption of the fairness of the 

 paper produced is inconsistent with its stipulations. After the warn- 

 ing that they must evacuate the isle^ and that Dias came there to ex- 

 pel them, there could not be any reasonable motive for making the 

 concessions it purports to make. A permission dependent on contin- 

 gencies and subject to revocation by him, or by his government, at will, 

 '"to continue loading with guano the three vessels then taking cargo^" 



