AVES ISLAND. 



4S1 



where tliey were liolding conspiracies against the government to which 

 they owed allegiance, hut should yield them up on the demand of said 

 government, or suhject them to criminal prosecution and punishment 

 for such conspiracies ; and very recently, the British government so 

 far acquiesced (whatever may have been the influences) as to institute 

 prosecutions against Bernard, Allsop, and others, concerned in the 

 Orsini conspiracy and homicides. 



But this reference is made merely in illustration of general doctrines, 

 and it is not supposed that the precise rules allowed to govern in the 

 case mentioned, or those principles so strongly maintained by the pop- 

 ular press of G-reat Britain against these doctrines, and which led to 

 the overthrow of Lord Palmerston's ministry, either control or have 

 any close analogy to a'^case of attempted embassadorial immunity of 

 criminals, whether political or not, within the jurisdiction of the State 

 where the crime was committed, and the laws of which had been vio- 

 lated. The cases are radically different, and whilst a liberal govern- 

 ment may well refuse to grant the extradition of political offenders, or 

 others, accused of offenses merely malum i^rohiUtum, and not crimes 

 malum in re, of which persons are accused who have taken refuge in 

 their country, by the foreign State, (and such is the policy, and has 

 been the uniform course of the tTnited States,) yet it is carrying such 

 doctrine a great deal too far, and further than is warranted by the laws 

 of nations, to say that whilst they are in the country whose laws they 

 have infringed, another government shall make itself the arbiter be- 

 tween the accused and his accusers, disregarding the laws of the coun- 

 try, and this justified solely upon the excuse of a sympathy for the 

 unfortunate or overthrown, which may be often false, and is ever vol- 

 untary and gratuitous. 



Now what do we see in the recent occurrences at Caraccas ? What 

 justification, even upon the ground of sympathy, is there for the 

 course of the foreign legations there? For ten years Monagas and his 

 family have been in the possession of usurped power, maintained by 

 force, connected with the most atrocious murders, himself and those 

 combined with him, mostly his family and connections, by corruptions 

 and by a series of barefaced pillagings of the public treasury and op- 

 pressions of the people, have grasped millions of the public money for 

 their private gain, large sums of which have been sent abroad ; and, 

 in the meantime, though totally disregarding the rights of other na- 

 tions, their citizens and subjects committing flagrant spoliations upon 

 them, (in one of which cases, as the department is aware, I am the 

 agent to obtain redress,) utterly neglecting and withholding all just 

 reparation. As to the Aves Island outrage, it is notorious that it 

 originated in a private speculation, in which the person then occupy- 

 ing the position of Venezuelan minister of foreign affairs under Mona- 

 gas, Simon Planas, and other public functionaries in that country, 

 were parties. 



Can such criminals justly claim the sympathy or even the slightest 

 commiseration, if, at last, their oppressed countrymen, driven to des- 

 peration by their tyrannous and criminal courses, should arouse them- 

 selves, shake off the yoke they have borne, and drive their oppressors 

 from the official power they have prostituted and abused ? 



