AVES ISLAND. 213 



the government of Venezuela in the month of Marohj 1855, of the 

 claim of these claimants for full indemnification for their unlawful 

 expulsion, in consequence of that contract, from the island of Aves. 



All mention of this fact is omitted in the note of the Hon. Mr. 

 Gutierrez. 



In the negotiation which took place in September, 1855, to protect 

 the just rights of the assignees of the Wallace contract after its annul- 

 ment by Venezuela, not only was all manner of sanction or counte- 

 nance of that contract, in so far as it related to the Aves, withheld 

 and refused by the government of the United States and by the under- 

 signed, but, on the contrary, the undersigned, under express instruc- 

 tions then referred to, made known officially and in the most formal 

 and effectual manner to the government of Venezuela, that the Aves, 

 and all the rights and claims of the present claimants therein, were, 

 in their whole extent, reserved and saved from being in any manner 

 or in the slightest degree affected or impaired by that negotiation or 

 by any aid which the undersigned might render it. 



This most conclusive fact, announced by the undersigned to the 

 government of Venezuela at the commencement of that negotiation, 

 insisted on during its continuance, and five days before it closed, 

 placed on record officially before the government of Venezuela, and 

 afterwards, in subsequent record, insisted on, is, in the note of the 

 Hon. Mr. Gutierrez, in the face of all that record, totally and incom- 

 prehensibly suppressed. 



It is thus made the duty of the undersigned now to reproduce that 

 record. 



The negotiation in question closed in a contract concluded and 

 signed between the government of Venezuela and . the agent of the 

 assignees of the Wallace contract on the 29th of September, 1855. On 

 the 24th of that month, the undersigned delivered to the government 

 of Venezuela an official note of that date, being a memorandum of an 

 audience granted to the undersigned three days before by his excellency 

 the President of the republic, in the presence of his excellency's min- 

 ister, the Hon. Mr. Aranda (then minister of foreign relations) and 

 the Hon. Mr. Gutierrez, (then minister of finance.) 



From that note of the undersigned of the 24th of September, 1855, 

 the following are extracts defining the position then taken upon this 

 subject by the undersigned, in pursuance of express orders from his 

 government : 



''After this preliminary reference, and having previously presented 

 to his excellency the agent of the company, the undersigned proceeded 

 officially to make known to his excellency what he had previously 

 declared to the ministers of his excellency's government, that in ren- 

 dering his good offices in aid of the purposes of the agent of the com- 

 pany to save their rights as the assignees of the Wallace contract, the 

 undersigned was emphatically instructed to forbear from saying or 

 doing anything which could in the slightest degree affect or impair 

 the claim against the Venezuelan government for full reparation on 

 the part of those American citizens whom Venezuela had found in 

 possession of the Aves Island in December last. The undersigned 

 explained, therefore, fully and clearly to his excellency, that all which 



