306 AVES ISLAND. 



eighty individuals, who had in their possession two pieces of cannon, 

 ■with their supply of balls, forty or fifty rifles, fifty pairs of pistols, 

 guns, revolvers, muskets, pikes, axes, two six or eight pounders, and 

 two hundred weight of powder. They were holding the island, on 

 which they had built some frame cabins. The Venezuelan schooner, 

 from her small size, the small number of her soldiers, not exceeding 

 twenty-seven men, from its armament, composed of so many muskets 

 and a four-pounder, would have in vain attempted to force the Ameri- 

 cans in any way. As it has already been seen, in spite of the difference 

 existing between the two parties, no opposition was made to the ap- 

 proach of Colonel Dias, nor to his landing, and that of the troops, 

 which afterwards took place ; but on the contrary, they assisted in 

 such landing by sending their launches out. 



The Colonel reaches the shores, and asks them, the cause of their 

 presence on the island. Perhaps they may have answered that they 

 had no account to give to any one of their rights ? Without alleging 

 that the United States had any right to the island, nor they as to a 

 property in common, they answered that they had been upon other 

 islands of Venezuela, in many of which they had found and taken guano ; 

 for instance, in the Hermanos, where they had loaded a schooner ; 

 that they had selected Aves Island because it was not so easy for them 

 to be discovered by Venezuela. They made no difficulty in acknowl- 

 edging to that officer that Aves Island belonged neither to the Union 

 nor to themselves. He, therefore, bearing in mind that he had orders 

 from the government to prevent the continued stealthy exportation of 

 guano from the national islands, notified them to put a stop to their 

 work. But they represented to him the losses which they had sus- 

 tained from one vessel's going upon the bar, and another one's being 

 stove, the outlays for the cabins and wharf, begging him, in consider- 

 ation of this, and for humanity's sake, to allow them to continue load- 

 ing those vessels which had not yet a sufficient quantity of guano. 

 Then took place all the circumstances already adduced as to the per- 

 mission of Colonel Dias, their expressions of gratitude, &c. 



In the instrument of grant, or permit alluded to, they, with all 

 desirable clearness, averred that the Aves Island belonged to Venezu- 

 ela ; and if, in their act of invoking the protection of their government, 

 any thing can be deduced frona their silence in relation to said permit, 

 it must be that they considered their application destructive of their 

 pretensions. Indeed, Mr. Eames, in his note of the 20tli of December, 

 1856, states the following : 



' ' In this attitude stood the question of this claim when first pre- 

 sented, and though its reception then by the government of Venezuela 

 was, in the judgment of the undersigned, as he then stated, by no 

 means in conformity with the rights of the claimants, and the just 

 expectations of the government of the United States in their behalf, 

 still the case might probably at that time presented no insuperable 

 obstacle to a prompt adjustment, but for the appearance among the 

 documents pertaining to it, and in possession of the Venezuelan gov- 

 ernment, of a paper purporting to be the original of an 'agreement' 

 entered into and signed at the 'Aves' Island, on the 13th of December, 

 1854, by Commander Dias, of the Venezuelan navy, of the first part, 



