AVES ISLAND. 429 



Ibecause, also, I felt personally the injustice and utter want of principle 

 of Monagas, Griuseppi, Guiterrez & Co. 



Kecent occurrences, if they he true, as detailed in late puhlications 

 in newspapers of New York and elsewhere, seem to me to be of a 

 character deserving the attention of the federal government of the 

 United States. I inclose some of these puhlications, and I feel that I 

 have a right as an American citizen, having charge, as agent, of im- 

 portant interests of American citizens in Venezuela, and depending, in 

 in some degree, upon the action of those in power in that country, to 

 invoke the attention of the department to the transactions detailed in 

 these puhlications. 



It cannot he questioned that the law of nations casts around the 

 representative of a foreign country and his family, and those who are, 

 honafide, his suite or domestics, an immunity from arrest, and a like 

 immunity for his residence from domiciliary or police invasions. Yet 

 it is a monstrous and unnecessary abuse of such privilege, and a pros- 

 titution of the wise and beneficent principles of the law of nations, to 

 allow such residence to be made the sanctuary for political or other 

 criminals of the country to which such representative is accredited. 

 These are instances of unquestioned authority to be found in the books 

 of international law, showing that the most enlightened nations have 

 maintained and enforced the principle that those attached to a legation, 

 and even the foreign representative himself, in certain cases of heinous, 

 flagrant, and atrocious crimes, are themselves not exempt from arrest, 

 trial, and punishment by the laws of the country in which they are 

 committed. And it is right ; for it is not to be presumed that any 

 just government, influenced by proper principles of self respect, and 

 its own dignity and honor, would interpose the tegis of embassadorial 

 privilege to shield such criminal, whatever his rank, if the proof of 

 his guilt was manifest and notorious. 



As to abuse of right of asylums, there are three instances related as 

 occurring in the years 1745, 1765, and 1770, (see Moser Versuch, iv., 

 299, fi". 26-36 ; Beytrage, iv., 212 ; Bynkershoeck, F. L., xxi.,) of the 

 seizure by the Venetian government of fugitives from justice who had 

 sought asylums at the residence of foreign ministers. One was from 

 the hotel of the French embassador, who, refusing to give up the 

 refugees, the Senate sent troops and cannon to storm the house. The 

 States of Holland have demanded the surrender of a fugitive who had 

 taken refuge in the house of the English resident. (Bynk., F. L., 

 xxi.) The Duke of Eipperden was seized in the house of the English 

 ambassador at Madrid in 1726. (See Vattel, iv., §119; Marten's 

 Causes Celebres 1, 5 Cause, p. 174.) In 1747, a Swedish merchant 

 named Springer took refuge in the hotel of the Swedish embassador 

 at Stockholm, and the embassador, yielding to force, finally gave him 

 up. (Marten's Causes Celebres, 1, 10 Cause, p. 326.) Pinheiro Fer- 

 rera says, (vol. 2, p. 196,) that if the embassador refuse to give up a 

 fugitive from justice seeking asylum, and force be required to seize 

 him, the embassador should be sent out of the country, care being 

 first taken to secure the fugitive. 



A case in point, with respect to members of an embassador's house- 

 hold, is that of Pantaleon de La, a brother of the Portuguese embas- 



