158 AVES ISLAND. 



It is certainly no defense for the spoliation of onr personal property 

 by Venezuela that the island belonged to the Dutch, or Danes, or any 

 other nation. It is no defense for the tortious eviction. It would not 

 be in the case of an individual trespass, either by the common law or 

 civil law, to say the proj^erty taken from us belonged to a third party. 

 It could not be given in evidence even to decrease damages against a 

 tortfeasor that the property despoiled from an actual possession be- 

 longed to a third person — a stranger — who had not given authority 

 to wrest it from the possessors. 



In the action of ejectment — a legal fiction — the existence of a legal 

 outstanding title in a third person may be set up as a defense, but 

 this only is a part of the formula of the action, part of the fiction cre- 

 ated for convenience, and is not founded on any principle of law 

 between nations ; the admission of the doctrine that any one could 

 become an Anacharsis Cloutz, would lead to infinite disputes and 

 error. 



r have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 



H. S. SANFORD. 



Hon. William L. Marct, 



Secretary of State, dtc. 



Mr. Marcy to Mr. Sanford. • 



Department of State, 

 Washington, December 23, 1856. 



Sir: On the 28th April last this department, at your solicitation, 

 addressed an intimation to Mr. Eames at Caraccas, requesting him to 

 obtain, if practicable, copies of certain official papers which, it was 

 believed, would be useful in the further prosecution of the Aves Island 

 claim against Venezuela. Herewith you will find a copy of Mr. 

 Eames' s dispatch of the 9th October (received on the 28th November) 

 in relation to that subject, and also a translation of the Wallace con- 

 tractj accompanying that dispatch. 



At the date of his last communication to this department, (1st No- 

 vember,) which has been received, Mr. Eames makes no acknowledg- 

 ment of a dispatch which was addressed to him on the 14th August, 

 in which he was instructed to ''express the earnest wish of the gov- 

 ernment of the United States that the claim may be promptly adjusted," 

 and with which were transmitted copies of your communications of 

 the 9th and 10th May, 15th and 21st July, and of their respective ac- 

 companiments. 



How far those accompaniments will supply the want which Mr. 

 Eames feels ''of more proof of the value of the guano deposit from 

 which the claimants were ousted" it is for them rather than for this 

 department to determine. Captain Wheeler's deposition, transmitted 

 with your letter of the 9th May, estimates the quantity of first class 

 guano on the island when it was taken possession of in 1854 at more 

 than 100,000 tons. Mr. Eames, on the other hand, states that it is 



