AVES ISLAND. 205 



between the two governments, first, to impress upon tlie government 

 of Venezuela his clear conviction that little then remained to he done 

 in the case but to fix justly the terms of that indemnification, and, 

 secondly, to indicate and explain a basis of arrangement upon which, 

 in his judgment, the satisfaction so imperatively demanded by all the 

 character and circumstances of the case, and by the attitude of the two 

 governments in respect to it^ might be properly and promptly made. 



Mature consideration of the note of the honorable Minister of Foreign 

 Relations, with careful reference both to what it alleges and to what 

 it omits to allege, has fully confirmed the undersigned in the views 

 which he then had the honor to urge, and he does not doubt that such 

 will also be its effect upon his government. From the whole tenor of 

 that note it sufficiently appears that the government of Venezuela does 

 not dispute that these claimants, by their agents, were the first dis- 

 coverers of the guano on the Island of Aves, nor that, at large ex- 

 pense, they soon after, in the summer of 1854, took and maintained 

 for several months peaceable and undisturbed possession of such 

 guano ; nor that they fully intended and were fully prepared to retain, 

 such peaceable possession till the whole valuable supply of that article 

 there should be by them exhausted; nor that they were forcibly ex- 

 pelled and ousted from such possession in December of that year by 

 the Venezuelan government, acting through its public armed force; 

 nor that Venezuela has since continued to occupy and hold the island 

 and the guano on it for its own profit, against these claimants, by 

 such armed force ; nor that great losses and damages, both immediate 

 and consequential, haVe resulted to them from that expulsion and 

 adverse possession. Of all these facts (and they are the main facts 

 upon which the government of the United States has heretofore de- 

 manded and now demands full indemnification to these claimants) the 

 very elaborate note of the Hon. Mr. Gutierrez, as it alleges no denial, 

 must evidently be taken as confession. 



It is, moreover, observable that the Hon, Mr. Grutierrez nowhere in 

 his note alleges, in clear and express terms, that the expulsion of these 

 claimants, as it took place, was a lawful and justifiable act, nor does 

 he anywhere expressly and absolutely deny the obligation of the 

 Venezuelan government to make reparation to them for that act. 



The undersigned, in his note of 20th of December, distinctly 

 alleged that "if these claimants were, as against Venezuela, lawfully 

 in possession of the island where Venezuela found them, then surely 

 they may rightfully claim full reparation for being driven away by her 

 public force." 



This proposition, unless it be confuted, carries along with it, inev- 

 itably and manifestly, the justice and validity of this claim for indemni- 

 fication ; yet the Hon. Mr, Gutierrez has nowhere expressly denied 

 either the fact or the inference v/hich it contains. He has nowhere 

 asserted that these claimants were in fact, as against Venezuela, 

 unlawfully upon the island when Venezuela found them. He has 

 neither cited nor alluded to any law, ordinance, decree, or regulation 

 of the Venezuelan government, which they infringed by going there 

 and working there and remaining in possession there. He has wholly 



