AVES ISLAND. 421 



They cannot conceive it can prejudice them, especially in view of the 

 fact, to which they call your attention, that as early as 1855 and 1856, 

 I, as the representative of these claimants^ in formal and separate 

 communications, addressed as well to the then President and Secretary 

 of State of the United States, forewarned them that such course would 

 be taken by the Venezuelan government. 



If the accusations of* the Venezuelan government be true to the 

 extent set forth in Dr. Briceno's pamphlet, in the last report of the 

 minister of foreign relations of the Monagas government to the Vene- 

 zuelan Congress, and in the letter of that minister to you, the case 

 would seem to have but one parallel in the annals of diplomatic his- 

 tory — that of Lord Clives's "■ red-paper treaty" with Messrs. Jaffier 

 and Omichund, in the East Indies, and which was so universally exe- 

 crated by the civilized world. I cannot conceive it possible that the 

 United States will allow its minister to be placed in such disgraceful 

 position by the Monagas government, without requiring the most ex- 

 plicit and unexceptionable proofs of their accusations, or a retraction 

 and prompt apology. Nor can I conceive it will pass unnoticed the 

 means adopted to give these accusations publicity. I have felt ashamed 

 and humiliated as an American citizen that such a publication as that 

 issued by Dr. Briceno, the special envoy extraordinary and minister 

 plenipotentiary of a foreign government, should have been made under 

 the very eaves of the State Department, impugning and soiling the 

 honor of my country — a pamphlet transmitted to the different govern- 

 ments of the world, as I have reason to know — sent to every member 

 of Congress, and sought to be published in leading American newspa- 

 pers, and that it should pass a single day unrebuked by his peremp- 

 tory dismissal, as Washington served Genet^ and General Taylor 

 served Poussin, for their impudence. 



But with all this the claimants have no interest beyond that of all 

 other American citizens. If every word said on behalf of the Vene- 

 zuelan government against Mr. Eames were true, the claimants insist, 

 as they have from 1855 up to this date, that their rights and interests 

 should not be compromised by any dereliction of duty on his part. On 

 the contrary, if, for illustration, we can imagine the facts are as the 

 Monagas government and Dr. Briceno state, the complicit}^ — for it is 

 notorious that they had personal and pecuniary interest in the guano 

 contracts with the Philadelphia company, of members of the Monagas 

 administration, in the tortious course they impute to Mr. Eames, and 

 that they now urge the circumstances to screen themselves from the 

 demands of justice — is as clear as the sun at noon day, and the con- 

 siderations that the claimants have thus been prejudiced and delayed 

 for three years by the remissness and improper conduct of the agent 

 of their government, without any fault of their own, it seems to me 

 should be an incentive to the more vigorous prosecution of their rights 

 hereafter by the United States government. The claimants have a 

 full confidence such would be the case. Years ago the claimants were 

 reproved by the department for suggesting that such defenses were 

 anticipated on the part of Venezuela, and the depositions of Captain 

 Gibbs and the other witnesses at Aves, in 1854, prove that Dias boasted 



