284 AVES ISLAND. 



Bearing with me from Wasliington your iustruction No. 53, under 

 date of 31st August last, I received at Philadelphia just before em- 

 harking your Nos. 54 and 55, both under dates of 9th September last, 

 and on arriving at Laguayra I found in the hands of Mr. Consul 

 Golding your No. 52 of 25th May last, with its large packet of specified 

 duplicate and original inclosures. I have thus received at last, either 

 in duplicate or original, the long missing numbers from the depart- 

 ment 3*7, 38, 44, 45, and 46, the detention of which is explained in your 

 No. 52, and I can now congratulate myself upon having the complete 

 series of numbers from the department up to your No. 55 of 9th Sep- 

 tember last, inclusive, which is the latest communication received from 

 you. 



I beg leave to express by this first opportunity after the receipt of 

 your No. 52 my high and grateful appreciation of the commendatory 

 terms in which it refers to the manner in which, in my note of the 31st 

 of March last to Mr. Gutierrez, I urged and sustained before this gov- 

 ernment the "Aves" reclamation. 



Mindful of the instruction contained in your No. 53 "to lose no time" 

 after my return to Caraccas in bringing that question to "the renewed 

 atttention" of this government, and fully conscious of the new power 

 with which the reasoning and the conclusions of that important paper 

 clothed the reclamation, I on the second day after my arrival here, 

 addressed to Mr. Gutierrez my note of the 26th instant — a copy of 

 which I transmit inclosed — asking at his earliest convenience an official 

 conference with him on that subject. His reply under date of the next 

 day, 2 iTth instant, a copy and translation of which I also inclose, ap- 

 jDointed the conference of the 29th instant, and informed me that this 

 government had, during my absence, through its diplomatic agent at 

 Washington, "commenced an understanding" on the subject with the 

 government of the United States. The conference took place at the 

 hour appointed. 



I opened the subject by refering to the terms of my note, and ex- 

 pressing the hope that he was now prepared to make to me on behalf 

 of his government an acknowledgment of the claim. He rejilied by 

 reference to the terms of his note, and added that a definitive or at least 

 full reply in the case was now nearly completed, and at the moment 

 under consideration by the council of government ; that it w^ould be 

 sent to Washington very soon, he trusted by the first opportunity. I 

 informed him that he could send direct to the United States on Tuesday 

 next, (3d proximo,) and he said that he believed it would then be ready, 

 and would use every efi'ort to do so. 



I then said that I trusted he was prepared now to assure me that the 

 reply would admit the preliminary point of the liability of Venezuela 

 in the case. 



He replied that it was out of his power to give me now any assurance 

 as to that or any other point of the reply, which was still under consid- 

 eration. 



I told him that it was then my duty, under my instructions, to assure 

 him— f.rst, that in the judgment of the United States the liability of 

 Venezuela in the case was too clear for further discussion, and that my 

 government had for some time past considered discussion on that point 



