236 AVES ISLAND. 



ceded to these claimants, every disposition existed to agree to reason- 

 able terms with, respect to the amount of indemnity and mode of 

 payment. 



Notwithstanding the decisive terms of the instructions sent by the 

 late administration to our minister at Caracas, and of which the 

 Venezuelan government were apprized, notwithstanding the urgent 

 applications of the claimants for just redress, and though the minister 

 of the United States presented in December, 1856, the case, under the 

 instructions of the department, in a manner that rendered further pro- 

 crastination on the part of the Venezuelan govefrnment inexcusable, 

 up to the time of the departure of the undersigned from Caraccas, on 

 the 10th of June, that government withheld not only payment or 

 assurance of payment of any indemnity, but disputed their right to 

 claim remuneration upon a most frivolous and unfounded pretext. It 

 did not deign to yield to our minister even a respectful response to his 

 communication. 



In the last communication received from Senor Gutierrez in reply to 

 the intimation by Mr. Eames that, should the 6th of June pass with- 

 out a definitive answer from the government of Venezuela, he would, 

 '^ under his instructions, deem it his duty to proceed at once to the 

 United States, and report in person to his government the unreasonable 

 delay of the government of Venezuela, and the total failure of his best 

 efforts to obtain such answer, as constituting, in his judgment, sub- 

 stantially a defeat of justice in the case;" the department will notice 

 the insulting sneer, ''that even should he (Mr. Eames) leave, means 

 of communication between the two cabinets will not be wanting, since 

 Venezuela has a legation at Washington." 



Two months have elapsed since the date of that communication of 

 Senor Gutierrez. Mr. Eames was detained at Caracas till the 13th 

 June last, and has since arrived in the United States. Up to this day, 

 though several vessels have arrived in the United States from Vene- 

 zuela since his departure, no communication has been received by the 

 government from Venezuela or its minister here in relation to this 

 case. 



These claimants respectfully insist that, as appears by the dispatches 

 of the Department of State under the late administration, (see dispatch 

 of 14th August, 1856, and 2d January, 1857,) and which the same 

 department under the present administration have reiterated, but one 

 question remains open, and th-at is, the amount of damages to be paid 

 them ; and upon this point they contend that their demands should be 

 considered distinctly and separately from Lang & Delano, and others 

 who have presented their claims to the department. 



From the outset P. S. Shelton and Sampson & Tappan have declined 

 to have their just claim connected or intermingled with the others 

 alluded to. They have protested against allowing the other claimants 

 to invoke the testimony they procured at enormous expense, in which 

 Lang & Delano have not participated, and because also objections 

 existed against such claim, which can be made manifest by an exami- 

 nation of the evidence in the case, and others which these claimants 

 may feel themselves constrained to produce. 



