AVES ISLAND, 323 



had not been brought forward with those requirements, could have 

 no other object than that of breaking the concluding force, which is 

 attributed to them. 



Mr. Eames denies the objection, namely, that the deponents have an 

 interest in the claim, and that they are, ipso facto, incompetent; whilst 

 he avers that, as salaried agents of the claimants, the courts of all 

 countries hold them to be proper witnesses. 



The objection still stands, even were the quotation above perfectly 

 certain. Let it be borne in mind that the declarations were brought 

 forward to invalidate the document signed for Colonel Dias, because, 

 as it is said, it was procured by fraud and violence. If fraud and vio- 

 lence there were, they could have been exercised upon those persons 

 only found on the island, namely, Lang, Gribbs, and the laborers. In 

 fact, Lang and Gibbs were the individuals who signed the permit; and 

 yet the attempt is made, through their verbal statements and those of 

 other individuals, to defeat what they declared in writing. In the 

 hypothesis that the violence and fraud were committed in respect to 

 Lang, Gibbs, and their companions, and not to their principals, it is 

 clear that the latter, who were in the United States, had nothing to 

 do with it, and that the former are solely and exclusively the parties 

 interested, even if it be only through their responsibility to their -con- 

 stituents. If a fact were spoken of, in which the claimants might 

 have intervened, in the presence of their salaried agents, their testi- 

 mony might be admitted in behalf of the constituents, although even 

 then not without some difficulty ; because the relations which grow 

 out of subordination and dependence are too closely binding entirely 

 to exclude the presumption of partiality from such a declaration. But 

 this is not the case. Lang and Gibbs have deposed to acts in which 

 they themselves were the actors, and to pretend to turn off the force of 

 those depositions, because the selfsame persons afterwards contradicted 

 them, is to put them in the attitude of parties and witnesses in the 

 case. 



The other witnesses are entirely blemished by this fact, namely, 

 that being ignorant of the Spanish, a language in which Colonel Dias 

 was compelled to speak and write, as he was equally ignorant of the 

 English language, it was not in their power to understand a single 

 word, except through the medium of an interpreter ; a task which 

 Lang performed, and consequently their declarations as to force, threats, 

 •&c., come into the category of recollections of Lang's conversations, 

 or, what amounts to the same thing, they are nothing but the multi- 

 plied testimonies of Lang himself. 



Before dismissing this point, it may not be out of place to mention 

 a very significant circumstance. Mr. Eames, for reasons not known, 

 suppressed Gibbs' s deposition, as he did not transmit it with the other 

 declarations in December last. The attention of the secretary of rela- 

 tions having been drawn to this, he observed, that of the two who 

 signed the document, one had not deposed, and that the other assigned, 

 as a motive for his conduct, things different from those stated by the 

 other witnesses. At the time of his reply, Mr. Eames transmitted 

 the declaration which had been left out without explaining the reason 

 why it had been previously withheld ; and then it was sent, not in 



