200 AVES ISLAND. 



wMcla, I hope, tlie department will consider both conclusive and 

 exemplary. 



The department will perceive that Mr. Gutierrez in his note has 

 ventured to allege title to the Aves prior to 1854, in Venezuela, as the 

 successor of Spain. The pretension is utterly futile ; and, as I have 

 from the first expressed myself emphatically in that sense, both to the 

 department and to this government, I have deemed it proper in my 

 reply to go thoroughly into that question, and put it at once beyond 

 the necessity of any further discussion. The department will perceive 

 that the maps and geographical work of Codazzi^ the Venezuelan 

 commissioner, as presented by me, are wholly conclusive against this 

 government on the point ; and it is in this view that I have demon- 

 strated so much in detail their entirely official and authoritative 

 character. I shall, if possible by the next opportunity, send to the 

 department a copy of these maps, with the explanatory volume, espe- 

 cially as they are nearly out of print and hereafter may not be easily 

 procured. 



With the highest respect and consideration, I have the honor to be 

 your obedient servant, 



CHAELES EAMES. 



Hon. Lewis Cass, 



Secretary of State. 



Republic of Vei^tezubla, 

 Caracco.s, Fehruary 27, 1857. 



The undersigned. Secretary of State in the Department of Foreign 

 Eelations, has had the honor to submit to the executive power the note 

 directed to him by the honorable minister resident of the United States, . 

 under date of 20th December last, and in conformit}- with the orders 

 of his excellency the President, he proceeds to express the opinion 

 which the government has formed on the subject of that dispatch, in 

 which three forms of indemnification are demanded in favor of the 

 Americans who are said to have occupied the guano Island of Aves, 

 and to have been expelled from it by the Venezuelan forces. 



On the occasions in which Mr. Eames has conferred upon this sub- 

 ject with the predecessor of the undersigned, and with himself, they 

 have both expressed to him the views of the government in regard to 

 that reclamation, to which no answer has been given before now in 

 writing, both because up to the present time it has only been presented, 

 and because when reference to it has been made by the legation in its 

 dispatches, it has been only in an incidental manner in connection with 

 the petition of Mr. Pickrill and the question of Venezuela with Hol- 

 land. Mr. Eames repeats in his note aforesaid, in which he for the 

 first time formalizes the demand that he deemed it necessary to consult 

 his government as to the convention entered into with Commander 

 Dias, the force of which induced him to delay the presentment of the 

 subject. 



Mr. Eames supposes that the question becomes free of this difficulty 

 by reason of the explanations given by the claimants as to the validity 



