22 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



" Monograph of the Seal Islands " by Professor Elliott, which fully describes the seal 

 life upon the islands. When we have received the book we shall have the pleasure 

 of handing it to your Lordship. 



Senator Morgan. — What is the date of that? 



Mr. Phelps. — IS'ovember 12th 188(5, before any communication had 

 passed between the United States and the Britisli Government on tliat 

 subject excepting a letter of inquiry from the Foreign Office to the 

 United States State Department, after it had heard of the arrest of 

 these vessels, desiring to be informed of the particulars. I cite it for 

 the purpose of showing that when this agreement during the long 

 period between September 1887 and September 1888 was in process of 

 being made and of having its details settled and the legislation neces- 

 sary provided for it, the British Foreign Office not only had this paper 

 of Mr. Bayard's, which I referred to this morning stating all these facts, 

 and this communication from Canada in July 1888 which I referred to, 

 but they had for two years the remonstrance of this important house of 

 their own subjects, in view of their own interests and what they con- 

 ceived to be British interests quite irrespe(;tive of the United States, 

 so that the subject was in no respect a new one. And so Lord Salisbury 

 instead of dealing with a subject he was not conscious he understood, 

 had complete information from various sources in respect to all the 

 facts, connected with it. 



But if there was a misunderstanding at the time of it, if when he 

 gets this information from Canada, he felt he had been misled, that he 

 had acted too hastily, that he had been misinformed by Mr. Bayard, and 

 that the facts stated in Mr. Bayard's communication did not stand the 

 test of examination, or were exaggerated, or were inaccurate, he would 

 have said so. He states himself when writing to the Colonial Office 

 and to his Eepresentative at Washington, at the same time that the 

 American Minister was stating it to his own Government, that he was 

 putting the matter off — exj^ressing his regret — sanguine for more than 

 thirty days after he had received these communications from Canada that 

 the agreement would be carried out, and saying that only time was 

 necessary to effect it; — and during all that time he never suggested 

 either to the American Government or to its Eepresentative, to the 

 Colonial Government of Canada, to the Colonial Office, or to any of 

 the ministers of the British Government anywhere, "we must recall 

 this agreement, we have been hasty, we have acted without sufficient 

 information". And whatever Lord Salisbury may remember as late as 

 1890 about the indefiniteness of the Agreement, which he does not 

 deny that he made, is completely contradicted by his own letters in 

 which he stated with the utmost particularity the very details which 

 in 1890 he thinks were left for future adjustment. 



Lord Salisbury was mistaken in that recollection; he had not before 

 him, when he made that statement, these letters signed by himself. 

 He was pressed, — a high-toned and honourable man, as incapable of 

 receding from any Agreement that he had made as any man in the 

 world, jealous of the honour of his Country, he was pressed with the 

 position that the British Government found itself in. You see it trans- 

 parent through all this correspondence. If, as I have said, he had been 

 drawn hastily into this Agreement, or had entered into it under some 

 misunderstanding, or if Canada had presented a remonstrance which 

 justified him in receding, he would have done so. Instead of that, all 

 through the summer he was saying, "Time only is necessary; we shall 

 yet bring it about ". 



