The Express.
London, England, 1851-07-24 00:00:00

for a Sinking fund. The predecessors of your excellency
admitted the first, though with the difference that they
smelt° begin with the interest of 3 per cent., augmenting
one quarter per cent. annually, until it reached the 5 eer
cent; a proposition which I set aside with solid reasons ,1n
the correspondence which I had with your ministry, and
which the committee of the bondholders rejected as ex-
tremely inadequate and entirely inadmissible, as I men-
tioned to the minister in my letter of the 31st I
of August last. In this case I shall not have
say difficulty in proceeding to an agreement
subject, as I have already said, to the approbation of the
Bride creditors, for the arranging of which your excel-
lency may have any previous conference that you may
please with my agent in your capital, Senor Jose M. 44,1
Rojas, who has got all my instructions to that effect, It
being impossible to me, on account of want of health, to go '
up to Caracas; but the agreement itself would ho rigew
as me agent of the Venezuelan bondholders in
Under all circumstances the nomination of a Venezuelan
minister fur London is fully necessary for the complete
realisation of such an agreement, because it is there that
the coupons of interest must be cut off, and new bonds be
given for them, which would require the signature of the
representative of the republic authorised thereto.
As for the 12,500 f. in London, which your excellency
places at my disposal to liquidate the interest of April, May,l
and June of this year, with the object of beginning a new
account with the next financial year, permit me to say that
this proposal by itself is equivalent to a breach of the con-
tract of 1840, which the creditors ore not disposed to alter
in any way whatever, and that, consequently, the
said gam must strictly be applied to the payment
of a sir months' interest which shall be made in London to

diswath-toma the repoili;;; ;I;e7disatimseaCred7iiiinaf-
terable, and which by its nature does not admit of any mo-
dification, let the reason be ever so plausible. On the other
hand, that sum is deposited in the Bank of England, at the
disposal of the previsional commissioners, for the payment
of the dividends, and the least difference in this destination
and application would render impossible the withdrawing
it from the bank, notwithstanding that it were for a partial
payment to the same creditors. Attending, then, to the
letter of the contract of 1840, which fixes the payment of
interest every six months, and in which form the bonds and
their coupons are issued, the division of any of them into
three monthly payments is impracticable. idy agent in
Caracas will show to your excellency one of these original
bonds of 1001., with its coupons of interest, that your excel-
lency may be convinced of the correctness of these observa-
tions. What is exceedingly important, in order to save
the honour of the republic, so deeply compromised,
as well for its engagements as also for the acknowledg-
ment of the sacredness of the same, and for the repeated
promises to fulfil them, what will operate in a superior
manner in favour of the material prosperity of Venezuela,
not less than in the perfection of its political march and
stability, it is that henceforward and without loss of time
the government must use its greatest endeavours to con-
tinue the remittances to London, in order to complete the
sum necessary for the exact payment of the dividend due
Ist October next, amounting to near 30,0001.
We have arrived to a point, your excellency, when the
only thing that remains are the facts, in order that promises
may prove true: if those facts do not take place imme-
diately, government itself will destroy the confidence which
it ought to endeavour to inspire, anti will deprive itself of
the best titles to the respect and consideration of the world—
namely, good faith, probity, and justice.
(Signed) 11. J. Lona.