90 AVES ISLAND. 



your experienced judgment, apd I concede also in this case, perhaps, 

 more impartial, for I confess that mine may be influenced by a deep 

 sense of the grievous wrong and injury done to my relative and friend. 

 If, fortunately, the occurrences connected with the Philadelphia G-uano 

 Company, and upon which this official notice was predicated, do not 

 militate against Mr. Shelton's rights and interests I'shall be gratified, 

 but I have not been able to extinguish entirely my apprehensions on 

 this score for reasons I have suggested. 



It only remains for me to explain my statement respecting my "sur- 

 prise" at reading the notice contained in my letter inclosing it to you. 

 That surprise was excited in part by the effrontery of such publication 

 by the functionaries of a foreign government in a newspaper of this 

 country, and whilst the right to one of the islands to which it was 

 intended to relate, and does relate, was a subject of diplomatic discus- 

 sion and contest between the United States and that foreign govern- 

 ment. I had, before I wrote, distinctly and certainly ascertained that 

 the notice was intended to include, and it did in terms include, the isle 

 in dispute. And the circumstances before adverted to connected with 

 this notice, and information as to the course of the intelligent minister 

 of the United States at Caraccas in reference to the contract between 

 the Venezuelan government and the Philadelphia Guano Company — 

 claimed by them to embrace Shelton's Isle — and the fact that the con- 

 tract did include that isle, so far forth, was in derogation of Mr. Shelton's 

 rights and interests, and was calculated to embarrass the measures of 

 his government to obtain reparation and indemnification for him, and 

 did therefore cause surprise that the notice should be thus given in the 

 face of the United States government. Surely the evidence thus boldly 

 put forth that the arrangement was framed so as to include Shelton's 

 Isle, which if made without permission of the government of the United 

 States, and solely by the parties thereto, inasmuch as the title to Shel- 

 ton's Isle and the guano thereon was at the time a subject of contro- 

 versy and diplomatic negotiation between the two governments, of 

 which the citizens of the United States concerned in the guano com- 

 pany had notice^, was a palpable violation of the act of Congress of 

 June 20, 1799, (1 Stat, at Large, p. 699,) b/' those citizens, and the 

 bold impudence of the avowal contained in this ' ' notice ' ' was there- 

 fore calculated to excite some astonishment to a law-abiding and law- 

 respecting man. And besides, as the consummation of such arrange- 

 ment so eminently prejudicial to Mr. Shelton's rights and so directly 

 tending to jeopardize his interests, if effected by the good offices and with 

 the concurrence of the United States minister at Caraccas, was, it seemed 

 to me, a disregard of the instructions or ''^advice" which I had been 

 gratified to understand had been given to him not to countenance any- 

 thing militating against Mr. Shelton's claims. The evidence this notice 

 gave of a different course having been pursued more particularly created 

 surprise. The contract of the Venezuelan government and Philadel- 

 phia Gruano Company is, in reference to Mr. Shelton'srightsandinterests, 

 certainly in disregard of the plainest principles of justice. This must 

 have been manifest to the intelligent minister of the United States at 

 Caraccas, for he could not have been ignorant of Mr. Shelton's case at 

 the time the contract was consummated, and information of his course 

 being influenced by prejudices against Mr. Shelton's claim, and of his 



