162 AVES ISLAND. 



Mr. Fames to Mr. Marcy. 



No. 30.] Legation op the United States, 



Caraccas, January 7, 1857. 

 Sir: With reference to my No. 22 to the department under date of 

 9th October last, and to your Nos. 22, 27, and 30, which are the last 

 dispatches received by me from the department, relative to the "Aves' " 

 claim, I have the honor to transmit, inclosed, a note addressed by me. 

 under date of 20th ultimo, to the Minister of Foreign Eolations of this 

 government, in which I have continued to urge strongly upon his 

 attention the importance of a prompt and satisfactory adjustment of 

 that claim. 



There are expressions in some of the papers presenting the case to 

 the department which would seem to indicate that the claimants, or 

 some of them, have not been entirely free from doubt as to the extent 

 in which that part of their claim which demands indemnification for 

 the loss of their profits from the guano remaining on the "Aves" at 

 the time of their eviction, could, as an estimate of future and contin- 

 gent profits, be properly sustained. But in view of all your instruc- 

 tions, and especially of your Nos. 22 and 27, I have felt myself fully 

 authorized to insist strongly upon this branch of the claim without 

 discussing the question whether it stands in its nature precisely upon 

 the same footing, in all respects, with the demand for indemnification 

 of the immediate and positive losses and expenses brought upon the 

 claimants by their summary expulsion and the sudden breaking up of 

 their business. I have pressed this demand of indemnification for 

 the loss of probable profits with the more confidence and vigor, because, 

 as stated in my No. 10, under date of 25th April, 1855, I have from 

 the first maintained before this government, that the pretense of title 

 in Venezuela to the "Aves," prior to her occupation of it, has not 

 sufficient foundation to justify discussion ; and because, moreover, by a 

 whole series of consistent administrative acts, commencing at the time 

 of the Venezuelan occupation of the "Aves," and continued by its 

 qualified insertion in the Pickerell contract, in the face of the denial 

 by the United States of her pretended prior title, and in the face of 

 the express exception and reservation of the ^'Aves," and all the 

 rights and claims of the present claimants pertaining thereto, and of 

 the further announcement that all those rights and claims could be 

 fully sustained by the United States, Venezuela, on her own sole 

 responsibility, and in full view of it, has persisted in her settled 

 policy of holding the island by force and administering it for her own 

 advantage. The cogency of this view and of the facts of record which 

 sustain it, as heretofore presented by me, and now urged in the inclosed 

 note to Mr. Gutierrez, I do not perceive how this government can 

 confute or escape. 



What is now greatly needed by this legation in the prosecution of 

 this claim for indemnification against Venezuela, is, as intimated in 

 my No. 22, exact specification and detail duly vouched and attested — 

 first, of all the actual and immediate losses and damages inflicted 

 upon the claimants by their sudden and forcible eviction from the 



