206 AVES ISLAND. 



failed even to aver distinctly that they committed by those proceedings 

 any violation of the established territorial sovereignty of Venezuela. 



The absence of these averments, in a note purporting to reply to the 

 precise and stringent proposition of the undersigned above cited, is of 

 course confession. It is confession that these claimants, from June to 

 December, were not as against Venezuela law-breakers nor trespassers, 

 but were lawfully engaged in lawful occupation. Indeed, such con- 

 fession by the government of Venezuela could with no show of reason 

 have been withheld, because the fact is of universal notoriety that these 

 claimants in landing upon the "Aves" in June, 1854, and proceeding 

 to make the best use they could of that desert island, did no more than 

 all men had been free to do and had done, whenever they saw fit, from 

 a period long antecedent to the existence of the republic of Venezuela, 

 and through the whole period of that existence, without any sort of 

 hinderance, molestation, prohibition, or remonstrance by any govern- 

 ment, and least of all^ by the government of Venezuela. 



But the Hon. Mr. Gutierrez, apparently convinced of the impossi- • 

 bility of denying the liability of his government to make full reparation 

 to these claimants upon the assumption that they were lawfully upon 

 the " Aves, " when Venezuela found them and expelled them, proceeds 

 in this connection to state that these claimants "can never complain 

 of their expulsion unless they demonstrate that it was lawful for them 

 to land upon the island and take away the guano found on it." This 

 observation of the Hon. Mr. G-utierrez has been read by the under- 

 signed, and will be read by his government with regret and astonish- 

 ment. In the prosecution, as they consider, 'and as their government 

 maintains, of a legitimate commercial industry these claimants took 

 peaceable possession of an article of value which they had first discov- 

 ered on a desert and derelict island, near, indeed^ to the possessions of 

 several great powers, but understood to be not then claimed by any of 

 them, and separated by several hundred miles of open sea from the 

 uttermost known limits of Venezuelan jurisdiction, as then existing or 

 pretended in that direction, and upon which, up to that time, no citi- 

 zen of Venezuela in any capacity, public or private, is proved or even 

 asserted to have ever set his foot. 



Remaining in this peaceable occupation for several months, these 

 claimants were visited by ships-of-war of at least four of the great 

 powers having possessions in the immediate vicinity, no one of which 

 manifested the least right or disposition to disturb them, and some of 

 which expressly confirmed their right to remain undisturbed. In this 

 state of facts the government of Venezuela, without any previous public 

 allegation of title to this island, without the slighest complaint or 

 remonstrance against its occupation by these claimants, and without 

 any notice to them or to their government of its hostile purpose, organ- 

 ized and sent forth an armed expedition to pass far beyond the uttermost 

 limits of Venezuelan jurisdiction, to traverse four degrees of latitude 

 on the open sea, to seek and find them at their peaceful work, to men- 

 ance them, and finally to eject them from the island at the point of the 

 bayonet; and then, with depredation upon their property, to drive 

 away there ships from before the mouths of her cannon. All this was 

 perpetrated; and now, when the government of the United States 



