dent's direction for the discontinuance of all pending proceedings, the discharge of the vessels referred to, and the release of all persons under arrest in connection therewith."

Request for Assurances Against Seizures in Future.

On the 4th of April 1887 the British minister, adverting to the circumstance that the fishing season in Behring Sea was approaching, inquired whether the owners of such vessels as were fitting out for operations in those waters might "rely on being unmolested by the cruisers of the United States when not near land." On the 12th of April Mr. Bayard replied that the "remoteness of the scene of the fur-seal fisheries and the special peculiarities of that industry" had "unavoidably delayed the Treasury officials in framing appropriate regulations and issuing orders to United States vessels to police the Alaskan waters for the protection of the fur seals from indiscriminate slaughter and consequent speedy extermination;" that the laws of the United States on the subject, as found in sections 1956-1971 of the Revised Statutes, had been in force for upwards of seventeen years, and that prior to the seizures of 1886 "but a single infraction is known to have occurred, and that was promptly punished;" that the "question of instructions to Government vessels in regard to preventing the indiscriminate killing of fur seals" was under consideration, and that information would be given at the earliest day possible as to "what has been decided, so that British and other vessels visiting the waters in question can govern themselves accordingly."2

Reception of Judi

cial Proceedings at Washington.

A copy of the judicial proceedings in the cases of the Carolena, Onward, and Thornton was received at the Department of State on April 9, 1887. A copy of it was communicated to the British minister on the 11th of July.3 It embraced the proceedings against the vessels, but not those against their officers. It disclosed the fact, however, that the three vessels were condemned on October 4, 1886, for having been "found engaged in killing fur seal within the limits of Alaska Territory and in the waters thereof in violation of section 1956 of the Revised Statutes of the United States," and that, after some further proceedings, they were, on February 9, 1887,

S. Ex. Doc. 106, 50 Cong. 2 sess. 12.

2 Id. 13.

3 Id. 17.

ordered to be sold. It thus appeared that the condemation of the vessels rested on the same ground as the conviction and imprisonment of their officers.'

On the 11th of August 1887 the British Seizures in 1887. minister informed Mr. Bayard that the commander in chief of Her Majesty's naval forces in the Pacific had reported that three more British Columbian sealing schooners had been seized by United States cruisers in Behring Sea a long distance from Sitka, and that several other vessels were in sight being towed in. In conveying this information the British minister stated that he was requested by the Marquis of Salisbury, then principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, to say that, in view of "the assurances" given in Mr. Bayard's note of the 3d of February, Her Majesty's government had assumed that, pending the conclusion of discussions between the two governments on the general questions involved, no further seizures would be made by order of the United States. On the 13th of August Mr. Bayard, replying to this communication, disclaimed having given any "assur ances" of the purport asserted, his note of the 3d of February having merely stated that, without conclusion at that time of any questions which might be found to be involved, the President had directed the discharge of the vessels then under seizure, and the discontinuance of all proceedings in connection therewith. He further declared that he had had "no reason to anticipate any other seizures," and that he had "no knowledge whatever of the circumstances under which such seizures have been made." It subsequently transpired that the new

The text of Judge Dawson's charge to the jury in the case of the officers of the Thornton on August 30, 1886, may be found at page 143, Appendix 1, Case of the United States, Fur-Seal Arbitration, II. After quoting the language of the first article of the treaty of cession of March 30, 1867, he declared that "Russia had claimed and exercised jurisdiction over all that portion of Behring Sea embraced within the boundary lines set forth in the treaty;" that "that claim had been tacitly recognized and acquiesced in by the other maritime powers of the world for a long series of years prior to the treaty;” and that the dominion of Russia having passed to the United States, "all the waters within the boundary set forth in this treaty to the western end of the Aleutian Archipelago and chain of islands are to be considered as comprised within the waters of Alaska, and all the penalties prescribed by law against the killing of fur-bearing animals must therefore attach against any violation of law within the limits before described." The report of the charge in the Sitka newspaper of September 4, 1886, which was quoted by Lord Iddesleigh, appears to have been correct. 2S. Ex. Doc. 106, 50 Cong. 2 sess. 49.

seizures were made by the United States revenue cutter Richard Rush, and that the names of the vessels were the Grace, Dolphin, and W. P. Sayward. Other seizures also were made.

Vessels.

On the 11th of October 1887 Judge Dawson Condemnation of filed an elaborate opinion in the cases of the Grace, Dolphin, and certain other vessels, all of which he declared to be forfeited. In this opinion he said that the issue presented involved "an examination of a most pertinent and critical question of international law," and that it would be "necessary to ascertain, first, the right of the Imperial Government of Russia to the Behring Sea anterior to the treaty of March 30, 1867." "For information upon this subject," he remarked, "I am largely indebted to Mr. N. L. Jeffries for a collection and citation of authorities, and historical events, and for the want of books at my command upon this question, I am compelled to rely for historical facts upon his carefully prepared brief." The brief in question was devoted to the maintenance of the claim of mare clausum, and Judge Dawson, after reviewing and adopting the various arguments advanced in it, reached the same conclusion as that at which he had arrived in the cases previously decided by him.2

Non-Execution of
Orders of Release.

On the 29th of September 1887 the British minister, referring to Mr. Bayard's note of the 3d of the preceding February, inquired the reason for the delay in the release of the Carolena, Onward, and Thornton, the first vessels that were seized, saying that Her Majesty's government had been officially informed that they had not been discharged. In response to an inquiry on the subject, Mr. Bayard was informed by Mr. Garland, then Attorney-General of the United States, on the 12th of October, that he had just received a letter from the marshal of the United States at Sitka, in which the latter said that the telegraphic order of the 26th of the preceding January, directing the vessels to be released, "had been thought to be not genuine, and had not been acted upon." Mr. Garland stated that he had again telegraphed to the marshal, directing the execution of the order of release."

The title of the brief is "The Dominion of Behring Sea." It is dated at Washington, January 12, 1887, and is signed "N. L. Jeffries, Atty. for the Alaska Com. Co." It seems that there was also a brief prepared in the Attorney-General's office. (N. Am. Rev. CLXI. (1895), 694.)

2 Case of the United States, Appendix I. 115-121, Fur-Seal Arbitration, II. 3 S. Ex. Doc. 106, 50 Cong. 2 sess. 56.

tion of Fur Seals by Joint Action.

On the 19th of August 1887 Mr. Bayard ad

Proposal for Protec- dressed to the ministers of the United States to France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Russia, and Sweden and Norway an instruction directing them to request the governments to which they were respectively accredited to cooperate with the United States "for the better protection of the fur-seal fisheries in Behring Sea." Mr. Bayard said:

"Without raising any question as to the exceptional measures which the peculiar character of the property in question might justify this government in taking, and without reference to any exceptional marine jurisdiction that might properly be claimed for that end, it is deemed advisable-and I am instructed by the President so to inform you to attain the desired ends by international cooperation. It is well known that the unregulated and indiscriminate killing of seals in many parts of the world has driven them from place to place, and, by breaking up their habitual resorts, has greatly reduced their number. Under these circumstances, and in view of the common interest of all nations in preventing the indiscriminate destruction and consequent extermination of an animal which contributes so importantly to the commercial wealth and general use of mankind, you are hereby instructed to draw the attention of the government to which you are accredited to the subject, and to invite it to enter into such an arrangement with the Government of the United States as will prevent the citizens of either country from killing seals in Behring Sea at such times and places, and by such methods as at present are pursued, and which threaten the speedy exterminatian of those animals and consequent serious loss to mankind."1

Governments.

The French Government, while adverting to Responses of Foreign the fact that there were not many French ships engaged in the seal fisheries, expressed a willingness to consider a draft of a convention for the pur. pose indicated by Mr. Bayard. The Government of Japan expressed anxiety to enter into an arrangement which should provide for the protection not only of the fur seals in Behring Sea, but also of the sea otter and fur seals on the coasts of Japan. The Government of Russia expressed its concurrence in Mr. Bayard's views, saying that it had for a long time been considering what means could be taken to remedy a state of things which was prejudicial not only to commerce and rev

S. Ex. Doc. 106, 50 Cong. 2 sess. 84.

2 Id. 85.

3 Id. 107.

enue, but also to the well-being and even to the existence of its people in the extreme northeast.3 Pursuant to the sugges tion of Mr. Bayard, the Russian ambassador at London was instructed to put himself in communication with the minister of the United States at that capital, with a view to promote the common object of the two governments.

Great Britain's
Response.

On the part of Great Britain, Lord Salisbury promptly acquiesced in the proposal of Mr. Bayard for cooperative action, and sug gested to Mr. Phelps, then minister of the United States in London, that he should obtain from his government and submit to him a sketch of a system of regulations which would be adequate for the purpose sought to be attained.

Mr. Bayard's Proposals for an Arrangement.

Such a sketch Mr. Bayard sent to Mr. Phelps on the 7th of February 1888. In it he proposed, as the only way to obviate the destruction of the fur seals in Behring Sea, that the United States, Great Britain, and other interested powers should "take concerted action to prevent their citizens or subjects from killing fur seals with firearms, or other destructive weapons, north of 50° of north latitude, and between 160° of longitude west and 170° of longitude east from Greenwich, during the period intervening between April 15 and November 1." The grounds of this proposal Mr. Bayard set forth as follows:

"All those who have made a study of the seals in Behring Sea are agreed that, on an average, from five to six monthsthat is to say, from the middle or toward the end of spring till the middle or end of October-are spent by them in those waters in breeding and in rearing their young. During this time they have their rookeries on the islands of St. Paul and St. George, which constitute the Pribilof group and belong to the United States, and on the Commander Islands, which belong to Russia. But the number of animals resorting to the latter group is small in comparison with that resorting to the former. The rest of the year they are supposed to spend in the open sea south of the Aleutian Islands.

"Their migration northward, which has been stated as taking place during the spring and till the middle of June, is made through the numerous passes in the long chain of the Aleutian Islands, above which the courses of their travel converge chiefly to the Pribilof group. During this migration the female seals are so advanced in pregnancy that they generally

3S. Ex. Doc. 106, 50 Cong. 2 sess. 116.