AVES ISLAND. 151 



soon as the steamer of war came down that he expected, that he would 

 send us away by force. After he got the paper signed he went away, 

 and about ten or twelve days afterwards another Venezuelan man-of- 

 war schooner came there, landed more men, and finally forced us oiF, 

 unless we fought them. Captain Gibhs and his party were disposed to 

 resist, but Lang's folks held back. We could have licked the whole 

 Venezuelan gang and took their vessel very easily, but Captain Gibbs 

 thought we might get into a scrape with our own government, which 

 the Venezuelans said had given up the isle, and he therefore resolved 

 on peace. They put sentries on our wharf, at the pits, and at our houses 

 and stores, armed with muskets and bayonets. They tried to keep 

 Captain Gibbs from hoisting the United States colors next morning, 

 but he run them up in spite of their sentinel at the flagstaff. We kept 

 them flying all the time we were on the isle from the first day we 

 landed. When the Venezuelan schooner first came to the isle on the 

 last visit the soldiers on the isle tried to salute her, and one of them 

 got his arm blown off by his bungling, and she took him to St. Thomas 

 to be doctored, and he died, as I understood. They took possession 

 when the schooner returned from St. Thomas, having landed more 

 men, armed, about 10 o'clock at night. We were visited by several 

 men-of-war of other nations while at the isle^ and no one disputed our 

 right, and I have heard the men belonging to them admit it several 

 times, and say we'd got a good prize. I don't think, from the appear- 

 ance of the island when we first landed, that it had ever been occupied 

 by anything but birds. There was no sign of man ever having lived 

 there. We thought it very strange that no United States men-of-war 

 during th§ five months and more we were there, and in which time 

 there were so many American vessels there, did not visit us, and were 

 not seen or heard of in those parts. This was one circumstance that 

 made Captain Gibbs and all of us give some credit to what the Vene- 

 zuelans said about our government having given up the isle. They 

 said that a good many of the principal men of both countries were 

 interested in a guano company that had been raised as a speculation, 

 and that this was the reason the United States would' nt claim the 

 island, and they said the American minister or consul at Caraccas was 

 concerned, and a good many others, and they expected Mr. Shelton 

 was also in the company. I think, after reading the other depositions 

 above mentioned, that none of them estimated the losses and damages 

 of Mr. Shelton and those concerned with him too high, nor do I think 

 they value the guano on the isle too high. I was employed by Mr. Shel- 

 ton ; but I am not interested in any wise in this case or claim, except to 

 see justice done, and to do what I can to aid. I consider the turning ofi: 

 of Captain Gibbs and his party from the island as an infamous transac- 

 tion, and that if satisfaction is not obtained from Venezuela for the insult, 

 and she made to pay all damages and give up the isle, and pay for the 

 guano she has stolen since she ejected us, every American citizen should 

 hide his head in shame for the imbecility of his government. Such, I 

 know, is the feelimg of all that were there, and I shall never feel content 

 till I hear that right has been done. I think Mr. Shelton and those con- 

 cerned with him must have lost more than forty thousand dollars by the 

 dispossession of them from the isle by the Venezuelans, and by the latter 



