AVES ISLAND. 201 



of tliat document ; but the government cannot share in an opinion 

 founded simply on the assertion of persons interested in causing their 

 assertion to be believed. Neither by the elements in their power, nor 

 "by their number compared, with that of the Venezuelans, nor by the 

 acts performed after their departure, nor by any of the other circum- 

 stances of the occurrence can any one assert that the Americans were 

 compelled to sign a document which they did not understand. Had 

 they opposed any resistance, had they protested on the spot or after- 

 wards against the violence which they allege was done them, or made 

 reclamation immediately against its effects, then their assertion would 

 deserve some credit ; but it seems extraordinary and not justified by 

 any precedent that an attempt should be made to invalidate an act by 

 the very party that granted it, upon his mere allegation that it was 

 the result of violence and not voluntary. If such pretension were ad- 

 missible, it would authorize every one who should repent of a solemn 

 engagement contracted to free himself from it without other difficulty 

 than by simply affirming that he acted under duress and not of free 

 will. That the legation is certainly aware that the laws of every 

 country consider valid a contract which, on its face, appears to have 

 been concluded voluntarily, and the very grave proofs required to an- 

 nul it for want of consent, both in respect to the facts of violence and 

 the sort of fear that they may impress upon the mind. Nevertheless 

 the tardy depositions which the legation has transmitted to this depart- 

 ment, in mere copies, are all the proof with which it seeks to destroy 

 the validity of a document which must be presumed legitimate and 

 obligatory, as long as violence is not proved in the most incontroverti- 

 ble manner. The circumstance is remarkable that, of the two persons 

 who are said to have signed it, and to whom the other witnesses attri- 

 bute ignorance of the Spanish language, one has not deposed, and the 

 other who has deposed does not allege that objection, nor does he allege 

 that the convention contained nothing in which the title of Venezuela 

 is recognized ; neither does he assert that he was impelled to act by 

 any other cause than the desire of avoiding outrage. The government 

 submits to the consideration of Mr. Eames the appreciation of this 

 fact, which presents the doer of an act less informed of its motives 

 than others who took no part in it. 



But supposing that the Americans had been compelled to acknowl- 

 edge the right of Venezuela, which is persistently denied, still they 

 could never complain of their expulsion except after demonstrating 

 that it was lawful for them to land upon the island and take away 

 therefrom the guano it contained. The island belonged before 1854 

 to the republic, as the successor of Spain, its discoverer, and to whom 

 various authorities attribute it, the circumstance of its not having been 

 inhabited being of no consequence, since Mr. Eames himself asserts 

 that it cannot be so ; and moreover, nearly all the other islands per- 

 taining to the republic are in the same state. The Americans went to 

 the Aves, as they had gone to the Monks and other national islands, 

 from which they have clandestinely shipped cargoes of guano, for the 

 value of which the government of the United States ought to indem- 

 nify Venezuela, without being authorized by the Cabinet of Washing- 

 ton to proceed in that manner, and without taking care to investigate 



