AVES ISLAND. 199 



my conjecture is that by some untoward accident ttiese lost dispatclies 

 have failed to reach the counting-house of those gentlemen. I mention 

 these details in view of the probability that the department may deem 

 it desirable to make investigation as to the cause of the loss of nearly 

 half its dispatches forwarded to this legation in a somewhat critical 

 period of its business, during the last eight months, no such loss in 

 any case here having occurred before. 



With these preliminary observations, deemed proper under the 

 circumstances, and referring to my No. 30 under date of Yth January 

 last, which transmitted to the department my note of 20th December 

 last to the Minister of Foreign Eelations of this Government^, continuing 

 to urge the Aves claim, and indicating a basis of settlement, I have 

 the honor now to transmit, in copy and translation, (1 and 2,) his reply, 

 dated 28th February and received on the 3d of March, to my note of 

 20th December. I transmit, also, my answer to that reply, (3,) under, 

 date of 31st ultimo, which in view of the instruction, (No. 42,) from 

 the department, I have prepared and intended as closing on the part 

 of the government of the United States the discussion of the general 

 question of the obligation of the government of Venezuela to make due 

 reparation to those claimants. 



By reference to the note of Mr, Gutierrez the department will per- 

 ceive that, as anticipated in my note of 20th December, this government 

 does not undertake to dispute the main facts of the case ; but that it 

 adheres substantially to the positions announced in my dispatch (No. 

 10) to the department under date of 26th Aprils 1855, as constituting 

 the reply of this government to the reclamation as first presented by 

 me in execution of the instruction (No. 12) from the department, then 

 recently received. 



The first of these, as stated in the note of Mr. Gutierrez, is that the 

 .right of Venezuela to the Aves was recognized and admitted by the 

 agents of the claimants in their so-called ''agreement" with Dias, of 

 the 13th of December, 1854, which was referred by me to the depart- 

 ment, '"'as new matter in the case," in my No. 10 of 26th April, 1855. 

 In that, (No. 10,) I stated to the department that, in my judgment, 

 that paper was regarded by this government as its main defense in the 

 case. The observations on that subject in my answer to Mr. Gutierrez, 

 I regard, however, as disposing effectually of that defense. 



•The extraordinary and inadmissible pretension indicated, though 

 not fully alleged by this government in the note of Mr. Gutierrez of a 

 right to molest citizens of the United States in actual occupancy in 

 their private capacity of a derelict island, has been repelled by me in 

 my reply in terms intended to be decorous, but, I trust, sufficiently 

 decided to meet the approval of the department. 



The allegation of Mr. Gutierrez in bar of this claim of the negotia- 

 tion to protect the rights of the assignees of the Wallace contract in 

 the other guano islands, except the Aves, accompanied as that allega- 

 tion necessarily was by a total suppression of the fact of the complete 

 and effectual official reservation and exception by me in that negotia- 

 tion of the Aves, including all the rights and claims of the present 

 claimants therein, has received in my note refutation and exposure. 



