AYES ISLAND. 463 



to it, and interested, in feeling or otlierwise, jn favor of the Philadel- 

 phia speculators. It was not strange, therefore, that no copy of the 

 "Pickrell ' contract," containing the provision in regard to Aves 

 Island^ was communicated to the department by him until February 

 22, 1856, and then only until Mr. Marcy, in his dispatch of December 

 24, 1855, somewhat significantly remarked to that official, in acknowl- 

 edging the receipt of the dispatch advising of the consummation of 

 the contract, ''a copy of the contract itself, however, would have been 

 acceptable to the department, especially as we are orally informed 

 that, despite the reservation [Mr. Marcy evidently supposing it con- 

 tained such reservation] of the rights and claims of those citizens of 

 the United States who were ousted from Aves Island by a Venezuelan 

 vessel-of-war, guano from that island has been recently brought to this 

 country by vessels in the service of the company who are a party to 

 the contract." 



So unjust and annoying was the course of the American minister in 

 reference to the claim, that, December 24, 1855, the claimants felt 

 constrained to address a communication to the President, a duplicate 

 of which was transmitted to the State Department, referring to that 

 course as affording just ground for serious complaipt, which letter, on 

 the files of the department, it is important should be preserved, as it 

 may be material hereafter, to vindicate the truth of history. The 

 letter of Mr. Marcy to Mr. Eames of February 20, 1856, in relation to 

 this complaint, it is not considered necessary to coinment upon. Mr. 

 Marcy, doubtless, at that time, entertained the opinion there expressed. 

 And here it is proper to advert to the fact, that a most remarkable 

 contradiction appears in the official accounts spread upon the records 

 of this government and that of Venezuela, in relation to the mode and 

 manner in which the "^^ good offices" of the American minister in favor 

 of the ''Pickrell contract" were rendered, and in relation to the inclu- 

 sion of Aves Island in that contract. In Mr. Fames' s dispatch of 

 February 12, 1856, forwarding the " Pickrell contract" by which the 

 department was first apprised of such inclusion, Mr. Eames mak^s 

 these singular statements : "^Although I could, of course, claim nA 

 authority to prescribe the form of the contract, yet I do not doubt that 

 the avoidance by this government of any reference to the Aves Island 

 in the article granting the privilege, and the subsequent exception and 

 limitation introduced with reference to that island were, in part, if not 

 mainly, caused by my explicit and emphatic reservation of all the 

 rights and claims of its prior American occupants, and by my declara- 

 tion that those claims would, without doubt, in my judgment, be 

 energetically sustained by the government of the United States." 

 And in a previous dispatch of October 15, 1855, he states " 1 not only, 

 in compliance with j^our instructions, reserved in the most clear and 

 emphatic manner all rights and claims of the American citizens who 

 were found in possession of the Aves Island by the Venezuelan author- 

 ities on the loth of December, but I took care also to put on record my 

 reiterated declaration that no act or word of mine in rendering my 

 good offices in aid of the rights and interests represented by Mr. Pick- 

 rell should be considered as in any way affecting or impairing the 

 anterior claim of those citizens to full reparation, in regard to which 



