AVES ISLAND. o93 



version was opposite to that of the United States, and that that ver- 

 sion being established as true and unquestionable by the same right 

 which assisted her opponent, consequences also indestructible flowed 

 therefrom ; that it was to be observed that the proceeding of the United 

 States, relative to the incident of closing the discussion before time, 

 j)roduced two effects of much importance — one, that of exempting their 

 Secretary of State from the duty of setting forth the reasons for not 

 attaching any value to the note of October 31 and its documents ; and 

 the other, that of impeding the entrance of the satisfactions which the 

 undersigned had to bring forward in view of official documents which 

 the government of Venezuela had hitherto been ignorant of; that the 

 United States lost nothing by opening the discussion on the principal 

 point, for the reasons adduced in the note of the undersigned, dated 

 the 27th ultimo ; but that Venezuela did, not only because the pro- 

 ceeding of the United States in the principal question would authorize 

 a similar proceeding in the arrangement of damages, if she should 

 admit her responsibility while cut off from her defense, but because 

 it was a grave question of honor for her government to be precluded 

 from a hearing, even supposing that in a final analysis it should be 

 without justification for denying, as it did deny^ that responsibility ; 

 that when forms involved questions of honor, they are then much 

 more important than questions of cash ; and that the weaker nations 

 were, the more jealous they ought to be in jDreserving intact their own 

 dignity. Finally, the undersigned rejected the harsh position in 

 which the government of the United States attempted to place him — 

 a position in which he would only have to consider the formula oilioiu 

 much; and he concluded by asseverating that he harbored no secret 

 intention in asking that the principal question should continue to be 

 discussed at this capital ; but that, far from this, he had well-founded 

 hopes of arriving by this means to a settlement satisfactory to both 

 parties much sooner than it could be done by any other course of pro- 

 cedure. 



It is important not to omit, that in the course of the interview of 

 which he speaks, the undersigned observed to his excellency. General 

 Cass, that his government at the same time it seemed to make conces- 

 sion, hypothetically assumed — doubtless without wishing to do so — an 

 inadmissible superiority, very incompatible, certainly, with the rights 

 of equality belonging to Venezuela. If Venezuela alleges that she 

 has not been able to defend herself because the discussion was closed 

 to her before time, the reply is, that after the note of the 31st of 

 October it cannot be doubted that she has alleged all that she had to 

 allege; so that his excellency's government does not admit the de- 

 fense, but only under-values it prima facie, without considering it, 

 and without believing itself obliged to say why the royal order is 

 worth nothing which incorporated the island of Aves in the captain- 

 generalship of Venezuela. So that, if it permits the undersigned to 

 speak, and even consents to hear him on the incidental point of delay, 

 which might, as previously, lead to a fair discussion of the responsi- 

 bility, it makes known beforehand that it is only through pure form, 

 and virtually places the minister of Venezuela in the inadmissible 

 condition of talking, only for talk's sake. 



