The motion to change the style of this case and conform it to the names of the real claimants here, is overruled. Such changes might cause confusion and would result in no good. We have preserved the old styles, save as to numbers, as the most convenient means of designation. By doing so, however, nothing whatever is to be inferred as to who are actual claimants.

This claim is for a denial of justice, the amount demanded in that behalf being, as of 1868, $7,029.27.

The complaint sets forth that the original claimant, Seth Driggs, some time, date not given, instituted an action before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Cumana," against Dionisio Centeno, priest of Rio Caribe, to recover $1,000 loaned the defendant in 1833, with 12 per cent. interest. The case appears to have been dismissed in 1851, because Driggs failed to comply with the order of court to give security for costs. He differed with the court as to the legality of such an order. It is enough to say he should have sought his remedy, if wronged, in the superior tribunals, and having failed to do so, he has none here. (No. 39, p. 128.) The claim is disallowed.

This claim is set forth in the report of Señor Villafañe, the Venezuelan member of the former Commission, to his Government, as follows:

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This case arises out of the seizure and confiscation by the custom-house of Maracaibo in 1839 of fifty barrels of flour belonging to the claimant. The reason why such a thing was done was because no mention was made of said flour in the coastwise permit (guia de cabotage), which was given at La Guayra to the vessel Fenix, which had imported it there, and which brought it to Maracaibo. Proof was given thereafter that the said flour had been carried to the port last named, with proper permission of the custom-house authorities of La Guayra, and that the omission in the permit was only due to oversight or forgetfulness (un olvido) on the part of the collector of customs of the port of La Guayra. The Executive Power could not but recognize the truths of the facts as stated, and acknowledged that it was bound to make a proper indemnification, whereupon it applied to the Legislative Power and asked for its consent to that payment.

"The matter remained in suspension for many years, until at last, through repeated recommendations of the Executive made at the urgent solicitation of the U. S. Legation here, both Houses of Congress approved, in 1865, a report which had been submitted to them, appropriating $1,302.63 to pay for the flour, and the transportation thereof from La Guayra, the commission fees, and interest at 6 per cent. per annum from 1839 to 1848. The report sets forth that no interest was to be paid for the sixteen years subsequent.

"We. the Commissioners, were of the opinion that if interest was allowed during a portion of the time it was also to be allowed during the balance of the said time, and that this allowance was much the more just and necessary, as it appeared that the money, after all, was never paid. It will be paid now, and not cash, but in ten instalments, as provided by the treaty.

"In the discussion of this case the question was raised whether the indemnity should be paid in our money or in the money of North America. I maintained with warmth the former view, and Mr. Talmage, although very reluctantly, assented to it. The main argument on which he rested to hold an opinion different from mine was substantially the same which Mr. Culver had

made in his note to our Government, to wit, that the treaty had used the word dollars.'

"Therefore the award made was to the amount of $2,317.70, covering the capital, interests, &c., and interest in 29 years at six per centum per annum. Upon due conversion of that sum into American money it became reduced to $1,742.63."

The evidence, in our judgment, substantially supports the conclusions arrived at. The claim is therefore allowed.

The entry may be for 1,132 pesos, with 6 per cent. interest from August 1, 1839, the date of the wrong complained of, to September 2, 1890, inclusive, expressed in gold coin of the United States, counting 75 cents to the peso, deducting whatever sums have already been paid on account of the said claim by Venezuela in satisfaction of the former award.

After Seth Driggs' discharge from prison, in 1854, he went at once extensively and systematically into the claim business on his own account, as disclosed by his cases already disposed of. Referring to the false imprisonment claim (No. 10) in one of his letters (1855) to the Venezuelan authorities among the papers in the case, he says:

"This [is one] with divers other international claims which have been for years accumulating until the cup of grievous wrongs is full to overflow, and the day of retribution is at hand."

His mind had not been idle during confinement. His plans seem to have been then matured. Among the "divers" claims was, in part at least, this one. It is for an alleged balance due on certain notes (number and amounts not given) and orders put forth by or on the custom-houses of Cumaná and La Guayra, obtained by him in due course of business, as he claimed. A part originated in 1848 and a part in 1857-58.

With that fatality incident to all his "claims" pretty much, the notes and orders themselves had passed by fraud or other means from his possession, and he was compelled to rely upon oral testimony (in this case upon his own) to account for them. Of the Cumaná notes, which he says were endorsed to him by the custom-house there for money which he advanced the Government to pay its troops in the revolution of 1848, "when the treasury was empty" (the amount

advanced not being given), he says in his letter to the Treasury Department at Caracas, January 1, 1855:

"The notes were not paid at maturity, and the Executive Government directed the collector of Cumaná should receive said obligations and pay me. I handed them with one hand to the Adriana [custom-house] with a view to procure my money with the other, but was grievously disappointed; for asking for my money I was informed that the amount was put to my credit.

This was an act of violence, fraud, and injustice on the part of the officials of this government."

He says the balance on account of these notes (they having been largely paid) was, October 4, 1859, including interest, $505.25," since which time not one cent has been paid." This balance is said to have been represented by a couple of Treasury orders, aggregating $372.75, issued him on liquidation, in 1857.

As to the part of the claim originating in 1857, it is asserted in one of his unverified and uncorroborated "statements" among the papers, that one Furlong in that year performed some work on the Government house at Caracas and received therefor, in 1859, three orders on the Treasury for $2,000 each, payable in February, March, and April, respectively, 1860.

'Against this credit," says the statement, "Furlong gave an order in favor of Driggs for $1,000 in payment of the cash advanced to furnish the Government House, which order the Secretary of the Treasury admitted, and gave an order on the Treasury in favor of Driggs for $1,000, against the credit of Furlong, whose last payment fell due the 30th of April, 1860."

Driggs, in the letter to the Government, of January 1, 1855, referred to, says:

"I, a citizen of the United States, have been deprived of my just rights, and have been persecuted and neglected like a beggar in the streets to suffer and beg for my daily subsistence, or die like a dog."

And in one to the American Minister, in February following, urging intercession in his behalf in this case, he concludes with this language :