ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

to cruise in the waters in question, and arrest all persons and seize all vessels found to be or to have been engaged in any violation of the laws of the United States therein.' The bill as thus amended and passed was approved by the President March 2, 1889.1

On the 3d of August 1870 the acting SecLease of the Seal retary of the Treasury, in pursuance of the Islands in 1870. act of July 1, 1870, leased the privilege of taking fur seals on the islands of St. Paul and St. George to the Alaska Commercial Company, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of California, of which Mr. John F. Miller was president. In consideration of this privilege, which was granted for twenty years from the 1st of May 1870, the company agreed to pay into the Treasury of the United States an annual sum of $55,000 and a tax or duty of $2 on each fur-seal skin taken and shipped by it, and also the sum of 62 cents for each fur-seal skin taken and shipped, and 55 cents a gallon for each gallon of oil obtained from the seals for sale on the islands or elsewhere and sold by the company. It also agreed to furnish certain provisions and maintain a school for the inhabitants of the islands of St. Paul and St. George. It engaged not to kill on the former island more than 75,000 fur seals annually, nor on the latter more than 25,000; nor to kill any fur seal on the islands in any other months than June, July, September, and October of each year; nor to kill seals at any time by the use of firearms or other means tending to drive them from the islands; nor to kill any female seal, or any seal less than one year old; nor to kill any seal in the waters adjacent to the islands or on the beaches, cliffs, or rocks where the seals haul up from the sea to remain. Apart from the prohibition to kill any seals "in the waters adjacent" to the islands of St. Paul and St. George, there was no reference in the lease to marine jurisdiction.

Mr. Boutwell's Letter of 1872.

On the 25th of March 1872 Mr. T. G. Phelps, the collector of customs at San Francisco, sent to Mr. Boutwell, then Secretary of the Treas ury, a paragraph clipped from the San Francisco Daily Chronicle of the 21st of that month, in which it was stated that "parties in Australia" were "preparing to fit out an expedition for the capture of fur seals in Behring Sea;" that "a Victoria com

125 Stats. at L. 1009.

pany was organized for catching fur seals in the North Pacific;" and that an agent, representing some eastern capitalists, had been in San Francisco "making inquiries as to the feasibility of organizing an expedition for like purposes." Mr. Phelps said that, in addition to the several schemes mentioned in the Daily Chronicle, he had received information that an expedition was being fitted out in the Hawaiian Islands for the same purpose. He stated that it was well known that during the month of May and the early part of June, the fur seals in their migration from the southward to the islands of St. Paul and St. George uniformly moved through Unimak Pass in large numbers, and also through the narrow straits near that pass which separate several small islands from the Aleutian group. The object of the expeditions in question was to intercept the fur seals at these narrow passages, and there, by means of small boats manned by skillful Indians or Aleutian hunters, to slaughter the animals in the water after the manner of hunting sea otters. The evil to be apprehended from such a proceeding was not so much, said Mr. Phelps, the loss resulting from the destruction of the seals at those places, as their diversion from their accustomed course to the islands of St. Paul and St. George, which were their only haunts in the United States. He suggested whether the act of July 1, 1870, did not authorize interference by means of revenue cutters "to prevent foreigners and others from doing such an irreparable mischief to this valuable interest." On the 19th of April 1872 Mr. Boutwell replied that the Treasury Department had been advised that such an employment of the revenue cutters would not be "a paying one, inasmuch as the seals go singly or in pairs, and not in droves, and cover a large region of water in their homeward travel," and that it was not apprehended that they would be driven from their accustomed resorts, even were such attempts made. "In addition," said Mr. Boutwell, "I do not see that the United States would have the jurisdiction or power to drive off parties going up there for that purpose, unless they made such attempts within a marine league of the shore. As at present advised, I do not think it expedient to carry out your suggestions, but I will thank you to commuuicate to the Department any further facts or information you may be able to gather upon the subject."

1 Papers relating to Behring Sea Fisheries, 124-126.

This letter does not explicitly refer to the waters of Behring

Sea.1

Mr. French's Letter of 1881.

Those waters were, however, expressly referred to in a letter of Mr. H. F. French, Acting Secretary of the Treasury, of March 12, 1881, addressed to a Mr. D. A. Ancona, No. 717 O'Farrell street, San Francisco, who had made an inquiry as to the interpretation of the terms "waters thereof" and "waters adjacent thereto," in the laws prohibiting the killing of fur-bearing animals in Alaska. Mr. French said:

"Presuming your inquiry to relate more especially to the waters of western Alaska, you are informed that the treaty with Russia of March 30, 1867, by which the Territory of Alaska was ceded to the United States, defines the boundary of the territory so ceded. This treaty is found on pages 671 to 673 of the volume of treaties of the Revised Statutes. It will be seen therefrom that the limit of the cession extends from a line starting from the Arctic Ocean and running through Behring Strait to the north of St. Lawrence Islands. The line runs thence in a southwesterly direction, so as to pass midway between the island of Attou and Copper Island of the Kormandorski couplet or group in the North Pacific Ocean, to meridian of 193 degrees of west longitude. All the waters within that boundary to the western end of the Aleutian Archipelago and chain of islands are considered as comprised within the waters of Alaska Territory. All the penalties prescribed by law against the killing of fur-bearing nimals would therefore attach against any violation of law within the limits before described."3

Mr. Manning's Letter of 1886.

On the 16th of March 1886 a copy of this letter was communicated by Mr. Manning, then Secretary of the Treasury, to the collector of customs at San Francisco, with the request that, as

In a letter of January 18, 1888, to Mr. W. W. Eaton, then one of the representatives of the Alaska Commercial Company, Mr. Boutwell, referring to the letter which he had written as Secretary of the Treasury, said that, when compared with the letter to which it was a reply, it was apparent that it "had reference solely to the waters of the Pacific Ocean south of the Aleutian Islands." (House Report 3883, 50 Cong. 2 sess. XII.)

2 The letter of Mr. French to Mr. Ancona has often been printed and referred to as a communication addressed to the collector of customs at San Francisco. This is an error. In response to an inquiry whether Mr. Ancona held that position in 1881, the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, under date of September 1, 1896, writes that "he was not in the service as such officer at the date mentioned."

[blocks in formation]

certain persons at San Francisco were understood to contemplate the fitting out of expeditions to kill fur seals, he would give the letter publicity in order that such persons might be informed of the construction placed by the Treasury Department on the statutes of the United States.1

On the 27th of September 1886 Sir Lionel S. Seizures in 1886. Sackville West, then British minister at Wash ington, informed Mr. Bayard, Secretary of State, that Her Majesty's government had received a telegram from the commander in chief of Her Majesty's naval forces on the Pacific station respecting the alleged seizure of three British Columbian sealing schooners by the United States revenue cutter Corwin, and that he was in consequence instructed to ask to be furnished with any particulars which the Government of the United States might possess on the subject. On the 21st of October, no reply to this inquiry having been made, Sir Lionel West, by direction of the Earl of Iddesleigh, then principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, protested against the seizures, reserving all rights to compensation; and on the 12th of November he left at the Department of State another protest, dated the 30th of October and signed by the Earl of Iddesleigh, in which it was stated that further details in regard to the seizures having been received, Her Majesty's government considered it incumbent on them to bring to the notice of the United States the facts of the case as they had been derived from British sources. Lord Iddesleigh said that according to the depositions of the officers and men the vessels, whose names were the Carolena, Onward, and Thornton, were all in the open sea in Behring Sea, more than sixty miles from the nearest land; that on being seized they were towed by the Corwin to Unalaska, where, with the seal skins on board at the time of the capture, they were detained by the United States authori ties, and that the crews of the Carolena and Thornton, with the exception of the captain and one man on each vessel, who were also detained, were sent to San Francisco and turned adrift, while the crew of the Onward were kept at Unalaska. Lord Iddesleigh then quoted from a Sitka newspaper of the 4th of September 1886 a report to the effect that the master and mate of the Thornton were on the 30th of August brought before Judge Dawson, of the United States district court at that place, for trial; that the evidence given by the officers of the revenue

[ocr errors][merged small]

cutter showed that the vessel was seized about sixty or sev enty miles southeast of St. Georges Island for the offense of hunting and killing seals in that part of Behring Sea east of the water line in the treaty of 1867; that the judge in his charge to the jury, after quoting the first article of that treaty, declared that all the waters east of the line in question were "comprised within the waters of Alaska, and all the penalties prescribed by law against the killing of furbearing animals must therefore attach against any violation of law within the limits heretofore described;" and that, the jury having found a verdict of guilty, the master of the Thornton was sentenced to imprisonment for thirty days and to pay a fine of $500, and the mate to imprisonment for thirty days and to pay a fine of $300. Lord Iddesleigh further said that there was reason to believe that the masters and mates of the Onward and Carolena had since been tried and sentenced to undergo similar penalties. From these facts, observed his lordship, the authorities of the United States appeared to lay claim to the sole sovereignty of that part of Behring Sea lying east of the westerly boundary of Alaska, including a stretch of sea extending in its widest part some 600 or 700 miles westerly from the mainland. He said Her Majesty's government did not doubt that the United States would admit the illegality of the proceedings against the British vessels and British subjects in question, and cause reasonable reparation to be made for the wrongs and losses to which they had been subjected.'

formation Seizures.

In regard to the seizures the Department Lack of Official In- of State then possessed no information, and as to on this ground Mr. Bayard, immediately on the receipt of Lord Iddesleigh's protest, explained his failure to reply to the British minister's notes of the 27th of September and the 21st of October, saying that he had promptly applied to his colleague, the Attorney-General, to procure an authentic report of the judicial proceedings, and that the delay in furnishing them doubtless had arisen from the remoteness of the place of trial. And he promised, as soon as he should be able to do so, to communicate "the facts as ascertained in the trial and the rulings of law as applied by the court." On the 7th of December 1886 the British minister again called attention to the subject. He said that

1S. Ex. Doc. 106, 50 Cong. 2 sess. 7.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »