354 AVES ISLAND. 



riglit, sliould depart from it as soon as its lawful owner presented him- 

 self there. If the expedition of Venezuela came with cannons, bayo- 

 nets, and powder, the Americans had more cannons, more arms of 

 every kind^ more powder, and more men for the defense of what they 

 call their property. According to Mr. Eames's note of the 20th of De- 

 cember, 1856, the agents of the company did not understand Spanish. 

 One of them, according to Mr. Eames's note of the 31st of March, 1857, 

 did understand it, although very imperfectly. The observation as to 

 the paper .having been couched and signed in the Spanish language 

 only, and not, as would have been natural, both in English and in 

 Spanish, is so much the more strange in view of what Wheaton says : 

 " The original equality of nations authorizes each of them to make use 

 of its own language in its intercourse with the others ; and, to a cer- 

 tain degree, this right is still maintained in the practice of some 

 States." Greater and more evident does that right become when we 

 speak, not of diplomatic correspondence between nations, but of merely 

 domestic acts. We know no State that has so abdicated its independ- 

 ence as to issue its orders, or to reduce its acts to writing in the lan- 

 guage of all those who are required to respect them. The argument 

 involves the idea that the Americans constituted a power capable of 

 entering into relations with Venezuela. 



Mr. Eames says that it is a declared act of fraud that the paper 

 should now be presented as an agreement, when it had been given to 

 the agents in the character of a permit. But he forgets that it was he 

 himself who thus characterized that document. In his note of the 

 20th of December, 1856, and no less than six times, he used the word 

 agreement to designate it ; and because^, in imitation of his language, 

 the government in its answer has so called it, it is therefore brought 

 under an imputation of fraud. There is no language to qualify such 

 a mode of proceeding. In the event offeree being necessary to secure 

 the end of the expedition, the amount required would have been dis- 

 patched. Fraud was neither required nor was it necessary that it 

 should coexist with force. That which is required having been ob- 

 . tained by means of one of these two things, the use of the other is 

 superseded, because either is sufficient for the object in view. The 

 witnesses, it is true, have declared under oath that there were violence 

 and fraud ; but it is equally true that the officers of Venezuela have 

 deposed also under oath to quite the reverse, and, in this matter of 

 evidence, declaration stands opposed to declaration. 



We cannot get at the motive which led the claimants to conceal the 

 existence of the document from their government ; nor why they did 

 not at once furnish those explanations which, to Mr. Eames, appear 

 so satisfactory to invalidate it and strip it of all effect. 



Sum up all that has been alleged in relation to the document, and 

 it will be seen that there was no possibility for the employment of 

 either fraud or force. Not of the former, first, because there were 

 among the Americans some who understood the Spanish, and espe- 

 cially C. H. Lang, one of the agents, who was well versed in the 

 language. Secondly, because not only Commodore Cotarro, but Lang, 

 interpreted the permit, word for word. Thirdly, because in case that 

 they were not satisfied as to what they were doing, they ought not to 



