AVES ISLAND. 229 



ceive that the government of Venezuela, up to this time, has not only- 

 failed to conclude or to recognize its obligation to conclude any such 

 adjustment of that claim ; but that, on the contrary, in the face of the 

 formal and decisive demand of the United States, it still persists in 

 withholding its determination even as to the preliminary question of 

 its liability in the case. 



By my note to Mr. Gutierrez of the 29th ultimo, the department 

 will perceive that the decisive requirement by the government of the 

 United States of that determination without delay, was formally 

 announced by me to the Venezuelan government as early as the 23d 

 of February last in the strong terms of the instruction No. 42 from 

 the department ; that it was reiterated and pressed in the same sense, 

 and in connection with the demand for reparation, in my note to Mr. 

 Gutierrez of the 31st of March last, intended in pursuance of that 

 instruction to close, on the part of the United States, the general dis- 

 cussion ; and that I have continued to insist upon the same require- 

 ment in the most urgent manner ever since its announcement. 



The course of the Venezuelan government in failing to indicate a 

 purpose to afford redress in the case, and in withholding for such a 

 length of tirne its determination, when thus demanded, appears to me 

 not only wholly unjust to the claimants, but also to be not in con- 

 formity with a due respect to the position assumed upon the subject 

 by the government of the United States. 



I, therefore, under my instructions, deemed it most conducive to 

 the attainment of justice in the case, and most compatible with the 

 dignity of my government, not to sanction, nor seem to sanction, this 

 unexpected and unjustifiable procrastination by continuing to await, 

 for a time indefinitely longer, the required answer of Venezuela as to 

 her liability in the case. With this view, in my note of the 29th of 

 May, I announced to the Venezuelan government my determination 

 not to wait for such answer beyond a fixed period, and failing then to 

 receive it to proceed to Washington, and submit in person the whole 

 state of the case to my government for its consideration. 



My conviction of the expediency of this announcement has been 

 confirmed by the reply of Mr, Gutierrez. That reply, under date of 

 the 2d instant, is, in my judgment, nothing more than a series of 

 ]Dretexts for further and indefinite delay ; and it is observable that only 

 a single one of these — the further inquiry as to the alleged Dias 

 ''agreement" — has even in appearance the slightest pertinency to the 

 merits of the reclamation or the duty of Venezuela in respect to it. 

 Nor can even such inquiry in respect to that paper be regarded as 

 really material, unless Venezuela intends to maintain that she did not 

 forcibly expel the claimants from the Aves, which, in view of all the 

 proofs, I suppose to be impossible. The other points of the reply are 

 obviously an attempt to substitute new and irrelevant issues in the 

 case in place of that presented in my notes of the 31st of March and 

 29th of May. Such an attempt to complicate and prolong the contro- 

 versy should not be in any way countenanced by me, and therefore I 

 distinctly declined to discuss these extraneous allegations. 



Though all ofiicial announcement of the determination of the Vene- 

 zuelan government in the case has been withheld, I deem it proper to 



