AVES ISLAND. 289 



that the laborers had failed to comply with his orders ; in the mean- 

 time, three brigs and two ships had anchored and were receiving car- 

 goes. This led to a new notification to the Americans that they should 

 leave the island. They did so, without requiring the use of force to 

 compel them to it ; nor did they protest in the act itself, or afterwards, 

 against their ejection. 



Upon Colonel Dias's arrival, there were two American vessels, with 

 two" six-pounders^ eighty laborers, something over two hundred weight 

 of powder, besides arms, such as rifles, muskets, guns, pistols, revolv- 

 ers, pikes, carbines, cutlasses, in addition to the laboring implements, 

 which might be used as arms. Yet, though all these means of defense 

 gave them a decided superiority over the few Venezuelans mentioned, 

 they did not resist them ; a conduct which Avill admit no other possible 

 explanation than that of a conviction, on their part, of all absence of 

 right to make use of an article which they knew to belong to Vene- 

 zuela. 



About the end of December of the same year of 1854, an agreement 

 was made in Caraccas with Mr. J. D. Wallace, an American citizen, 

 which permitted him and those whom he might associate with himself 

 under certain conditions, to take guano from Aves Island and the 

 other islands of the republic in which the article might be found. 

 The contractors, among other obligations, bound themselves to pay a 

 certain sum, for the amount of which Wallace drew on the United 

 States, in favor of this government; and as the stipulations were not 

 complied with, and as this failure caused the protest of the drafts and 

 the consequential damages resulting from it, the executive power was 

 reduced to the necessity of declaring an annulment of the contract. 

 This resulted in an application made to the government of Venezuela 

 by the other Americans, to whom Wallace had ceded his rights, asking 

 a redintegration, of the annulled contract, or the arrangement of a new 

 one with them, and, with slight differences, like to the former agree- 

 ment. 



Trusting that its decision would be respected, which was one in 

 consonance with justice, and provoked by the conduct of the contract- 

 ors, the government had proposed to manage the guano islands in a 

 suitable manner, and so as to derive the highest advantage from them. 

 It made an announcement to that effect, and promised to frame the 

 necessary regulations, communicating its intentions to the diplomatic 

 agents of the nations represented in Caraccas, and therefore to the 

 minister resident of the United States. 



On some occasions Mr. Eames had spoken of the affair of the Amer- 

 icans who had been on the island. He had given to understand that 

 they might prefer some claim. But the licentiate Francisco Armada, 

 the Secretary of Foreign Eelations, ever denied their right to do so ; 

 and when, as a conclusive argument, he used that which was supplied 

 by the paper which they had signed and which was delivered to Colonel 

 Dias, it was fairly perceived that it struck the minister resident with 

 force; and this is borne out by his note of the 20th of December, 1856, 

 which gives the assurance that the case had been submitted to his gov- 

 ernment as a preliminary step to their procuring and considering the 

 Ex. Doc. 10 19 



