294 AVES ISLAND. 



recollected sucli a note is a self-convincing proof of the fact. The 

 mention, therefore, which he then made of the matter was an indirect 

 or incidental one ; one which would not have occurred had it not been 

 preceded and caused by the question with Holland. So that, had not 

 the latter supervened, the note had never been penned. Add to this 

 that Mr. Eames grounded the delay of discussion on the want of docu- 

 ments, and as those must have been the declarations which he subse- 

 quently transmitted, and as the last bears date April 12, 1856, it is 

 but right to infer that they could not be in Caraccas before May or 

 June following, and that hence it was not in his power to submit the 

 claim through his note of the 8th of March. Finally, on the 20th of 

 December, 1856, he formally presented the claim in writing, accom- 

 panying it, as vouchers, with simple of copies of various declarations 

 taken by justices of the peace and notaries in the United States, with- 

 out any intervention of the party against which they v/ere intended 

 to work, and urgently requiring at once — "^ First. An indemnification 

 for all the actual losses resulting to American citizens from their ex- 

 pulsion from Los Aves. Secondly. Indemnification for the loss of the 

 probable gain which they would have derived from the guano taken 

 thence, with the authority of Venezuela, from the day of their occu- 

 pation to that of the settlement of the claim. Thirdly. The settlement 

 of the question of legitimate interest which they have in the guano 

 that may still remain in Los Aves at this time, either by abandoning 

 it to them or by any other mode that may be satisfactory to both gov- 

 ernments." 



The government of Venezuela allowed no delay in framing and 

 expressing its opinion adverse to the aiDplication, and this in keej)ing 

 with repeated declarations made to Mr. Fames every time that he 

 touched this question in the various conferences. The answer was 

 directed to show, first, the absence of all urgency in a matter which 

 had been allowed to slumber for two years, or merely mentioned by 

 accident during that time, and that solely to announce its existence ; 

 secondly, the force of the document, in which the right of the republic 

 was admitted ; thirdly, the title of the republic to the ownership of 

 the island; fourthly, the incapacity of individuals to acquire interna- 

 tional dominion in competition with a State ; fifthly, the consequences 

 of the present expensive possession of this country ; sixthly, the impos- 

 sibility under which the United States had laid themselves of main- 

 taining that the island did not belong to Venezuela, when the reverse 

 was shown by the protection which had surrounded Wallace's success- 

 ors with so lively an interest ; seventhly, the nullities of the delara- 

 tions brought forward in support of the demand. 



To these Mr. Eames answered in extenso, concluding that, for his 

 part, the discussion was closed. The executive power, by the sugges- 

 tion of the council, to which the records had been transferred for con- 

 sultation, then deemed it his duty to take some measures to embody 

 the real state of things, and, among others, to procure from Colonel 

 Dias, and the other ofiicers who accompanied him in his mission, a 

 declaration of all that had occurred in its course. By courtesy, and 

 for fear that their testimony should suffer from the laches adverted to 

 in the proof brought forward by the claimants, the secretary of foreign 



