AVES ISLAND. 457 



munication to the department from Mr. H. S. Sanford, attorney of tlie 

 Aves Island claimants against the government of Venezuela for losses 

 and damages resulting from the eviction of their agents and employes 

 from said island by the forces of Venezuela in the year 1854. 



In compliance with the instructions contained therein, I left Carac- 

 cas the ensuing day for Valencia, and on the 14th of the same month 

 succeeded in effecting an agreement with the government of Venezuela, 

 a copy of which I herewith transmit, the conditions being almost 

 indentical with the expressed wishes of the claimants, the only de- 

 partures therefrom being in the inability to obtain from this govern- 

 ment the alternative condition of recurrence to the custom-houses of 

 the republic in case of the failure of punctual payments. This condi- 

 tion was suggested, not insisted on by the claimants, and the new ad- 

 ministration, regarding it as derogatory to the dignity of the nation; 

 had determined not to admit it hereafter. The other departure has 

 been in a small extension in time, of the payments to be made the first 

 year, but as the amount is on interest, and the whole sum being still 

 made payable within the period prescribed by the claimants, viz : six 

 years, it was not deemed by me to be a matter of sufficient importance 

 as to compensate for the risk of delaying the conclusion of the agree- 

 ment to a later day in the session of the national convention, then 

 preparing for its very early dissolution, since effected, on the 3d of 

 this present month. On the other hand, I have obtained for the 

 claimants interest on the whole amount of the indemnity, to com- 

 mence on the first day of January instead of from the date of signing 

 the convention, as instructed — say, on the 14th ultimo — in dispensing 

 with the necessity of proof in the case of Lang & Delano, and also in 

 the complete and final settlement of the question of property and re- 

 linquishment of the island, without the necessity of a formal reference 

 to the government of the United States, which might have involved 

 the necessity of a ratification by the Senate of the United States, thus 

 delaying the first payments for a year or eighteen months. 



In its approval the convention exacted as a condition indispensable 

 that the interest accruing should be computed at simple, not compound 

 rate, and it was further agreed that the last clause in the third article 

 (included in the brackets in the copy) should be "not approved." 



In reference to the sum to be accepted in lieu of the relinquishment 

 of the island by Venezuela, the attorney for the claimants, in a confi- 

 dential letter to me, had referred me to a gentleman of this city who 

 was authorized by him to admit of a certain sum ; that gentleman^ 

 Seiior Jose M. Kojas, has communicated the same to me in writing, 

 and his letter is filed in the archives of this legation. At the particu- 

 lar request of the secretary of foreign relations, this sum of |lO,000 

 was incorporated in the agreement generally_, in the gross sum of the 

 indemnification, and not mentioned as the specific equivalent for the 

 relinquishment of the island. 



This question of the Island of Aves has attracted more than usual 

 attention in Venezuela^ and President Monagas, in his message to 

 Congress in 1856, communicated a report of the secretary of foreign 

 relations, in which the question was treated in a very decidedly Vene- 

 zuelan point of view, being, indeed, very nearly identical with the 



