104 . AVES ISLAND. 



you of tliese facts in order that the information thereof may be, and 

 remain on the records of the department for future reference and use. 

 It is, as you will at once discover, well nigh impossible for the claim- 

 ants to adduce legal proof fully as to these circumstances, and espec- 

 ially so as to the cargoes of guano taken away ; and therefore I pro- 

 pose to procure testimony, in addition to that already filed, of the 

 quantity and value of the guano on the isle at the time we were dis- 

 possessed ; deeming it the best proof, ex necessitate rei, that we 

 can procure ; but I await the advice and suggestion of the department 

 on these points, and as to what it deems requisite and sufficient. The 

 claimants have heretofore, in several different communications, solicited 

 information from the department in this regard, but as yet have not 

 received in reply any signification of what kind of testimony would be 

 expected from them, nor as to what points it would be necessary to file 

 additional proofs, and hence, in some degree, the non-procurement of 

 further proofs. Our witnesses, as heretofore suggested, are all sea- 

 faring men, and we can only find them at the times of their return 

 voyages to the United States ; and it is therefore hoped that the de- 

 partment will inform us at an early period of what it is wished we should 

 do in this behalf 



I was informed in Philadelphia that the "royalty" paid by the 

 "Philadelphia Guano Company" to Venezuela for the guano, was five 

 dollars per ton, Venezuelan currency ; and that the last contract ex- 

 pressly included Shelton's Isle, and contains the extraordinary stipu- 

 lation that if it should be decided that Venezuela had no right to the 

 island, the company should make no reclamation on account thereof I 



I was also informed that some of the Venezuelan officials, and those 

 who uphold them in their course with respect to Shelton's Isle^ contend 

 that the United States impliedly recognized the title of Venezuela to 

 Shelton's Isle by having omitted to object to the first contract made 

 by Venezuela with citizens of the United States ; and that a still 

 higher recognition of it was given by a less dubious assent (through its 

 functionaries at Caraccas,) to the last contract, made months after the 

 eviction of Mr. Shelton, and his claims for indemnity, &c., having 

 been preferred, with a chartered cooperation of one of the States, and 

 against Avhich the British representative at Caraccas did formally 

 object. 



I do not for a moment imagine that the facts assumed in such 

 defense would be conceded by the State Department, or that the argu- 

 ment based upon such assumption would be listened to by you as 

 entitled to respectful consideration ; and I am satisfied that the Presi- 

 dent and yourself will both maintain the doctrines so handsomely put 

 forth by Mr. Webster in his dispatch to Mr. Osma, of the 31st August, 

 1852, respecting the Lobos Islands, in which he says: 



''•' The government of the United States has not, nor never has had, 

 any intention to facilitate the particular purposes of any persons, such 

 as Mr. Osma calls speculators, further than those purposes are con- 

 formable to public law, as well as to the laws of the United States. 

 This government knows of no companies, no associations, and no indi- 

 viduals, in whose behalf it undertakes any special protection. The 

 question is a general one, in which all the citizens of the United States 



