190 AVES ISLAND. 



the eviction. Her registered tonnage was about 333 tons, 

 but she bad landed in Boston, from tbe isle, 440 tons, and 

 could have brought 500 tons. In consequence of the in- 

 formation of the eviction, these claimants were constrained 

 to effect a cancelation of her charter, which, if they had not 

 been expelled from the isle,, was highly advantageous to 



them. The loss thereby was at least $500 ^500 



(See deposition before referred to, and other proofs, with 

 our attorney in Venezuela.) * 



XI. In reference to the ship Junius, the ship James N. 

 Cooper, the bark Carlo Mauran, and the bark Amazon^ 

 these claimants expended considerable sums on each, in 

 lining their holds throughout, and otherwise rendering 

 them suitable to carry guano, as is necessary with respect 

 to large vessels in this trade, to prevent injury to the ship 

 from the cargo ; and the expenses thereof, for each vessel, 

 averaged more than $250, or, in all, the sum of one $1000, 

 all of which expenses were lost to claimants as the result of 

 said eviction, and of their being compelled to abandon the 

 employment of said vessels in said trade, and relinquish 



their charters, say $1,000 1,000 



(See depositions before referred to, and other proofs, with 

 our attorney in Venezuela.) '' 



XII. And these claimants state, in reference to the pre- 

 ceding charges for false freights, that whilst it is true that 

 they were evicted at a season of the year^ (December, 1854,) 

 when freights are generally lower from the northern Atlantic 

 ports of the United States to the Caribbean sea than at other 

 seasons, and when, also, labor for that southern climate can 

 be more readily procured, yet such facts afford no ground 

 for Venezuela being exonerated from the payment of fair 

 and usual freights, though beyond the amount claimants 

 actually paid for such false freights. If claimants were 

 fortunate in obtaining freights or charters for themselves 

 Venezuela has not acquired, by her wrongful and tortious 

 act^ any just claim to them. Besides, whilst freights are 

 low, the markets of the United States for guano, both as to 

 demand and prices, are always better in the late winter and 

 in the spring months than in the summer and fall ; and, as 

 in this case^ the cargoes belonged to claimants, the less the 

 freights they had to pay the greater their profits on the 

 cargoes ; and their charters, in nearly every instance, ex- 

 tended, at same prices, into the season when freights be- 

 came higher. Some of them were for $6 per ton only; 

 others by the month or by the trip. All conversant with 

 such affairs know that there are numerous charges outside 

 the mere freight or charter of various kinds — port charges, 

 custom-house dues, quarantine fees, pilotage, advertising, 

 brokerage, small casualties, and the like — and that there is 

 no little labor and trouble necessarily encountered by those 

 who employ vessels, and which swell to a considerable 

 amount in short voyages. These claimants have charged 



