294 WHALING 



harm, and even from the point of view of many Enghshmen, 

 who beheved that the Government should in any case have par- 

 doned the six Irishmen, the outcome was not, perhaps, wholly 

 unsatisfactory. 



Probably to Irish and to Irish sympathizers everywhere 

 Breslin's farewell was in every sense the last word in the affair: 



Rockingham, Aprill7, 1876. 



To His Excellency the British Governor of Western Australia: 



This is to certify that I have this day released from the clemency of Her 

 Most Gracious Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, etc., etc., six Irishmen, 

 condemned to imprisonment for life by the enlightened and magnanimous 

 government of Great Britain for having been guilty of the atrocious and un- 

 pardonable crimes known to the enlightened portion of mankind as "love of 

 country" and "hatred of tyranny" ; for this act of " Irish assurance, " my birth 

 and blood being my full and sufficient warrant. Allow me to add that — 



In taking my leave now, I've only to say 

 A few cells I've emptied (a sell in its way) ; 

 I've the honour and pleasure to bid you good-day. 

 From all future acquaintance, excuse me, I pray. 



In the service of my country, 

 John J. Breslin. 



Less fortunate was the innocent barque Cape Horn Pigeon 

 that some fifteen years afterward got into trouble in Russian 

 waters and caused between the United States and Russia a 

 diplomatic skirmish that lasted for a decade and had finally to 

 be decided by arbitration. 



On September 1, 1875, while the Catalpa was whaling in the 

 Atlantic, a Russian man-of-war boarded the British whaling 

 barque Faraway, Captain Spencer, in Shantan Bay, and served 

 the captain with a formal notice that foreign whaling vessels 

 must not enter any gulf or bay belonging to Russia in the Bering 

 or the Okhotsk Sea or approach within three miles of any Rus- 

 sian coast or island, because the Russian Government had re- 

 served exclusively for Russians the right to whale in the waters 

 thus defined; that foreigners must not land on any Russian 

 coast or island for supplies or wood, or for trying out blubber. 



