ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 611 



entire veracity. He speaks of what be had seen, and testifies to wliat 

 lie knew by personal observation; and it is not too much to say, and I 

 speak to those wlio can verify my assertion by their own reading, that 

 a more pitiable, painful story of utter useless, barbarous cruelty inflicted 

 upon dumb animals cannot be ima|»ined. I do not think that these 

 words are in any way or sense exaggerated. I am speaking now of the 

 method of driving the seals which Mr. Palmer observed on the Islands 

 and its effect, and the words which I have used I attribute to that 

 system. I am not reproaching the United States in any way. As Mr. 

 Palmer says, they have to manage dumb animals through the medium 

 of half-civilized men, and until they get a different class of supervisors, 

 it will be utterly impossible to do very much to moderate that — I believe 

 it will be found wholly impossible; — but Mr. Palmer describes what I 

 have said, and to put it shortly, it is this. "Countless thousands", to 

 use his own words, of those dumb animals have been done to death — 

 to a death of long, lingering agony — simply by mismanagement; and 

 their bodies have been wasted. Anybody may test what I say, and 

 form for himself his own judgment by more than reading, because he 

 may do it by personal observation. Let any one go to either of the 

 Oardens here, where the seals are to be found, and watch one of those 

 animals proceeding at its leisure, without being urged, along the smooth 

 gravel path; and then let him try to imagine what the sufferings of these 

 poor brutes must be when driven from one mile to three over sharp 

 stones by boys or savages or half-civilized men. Now that is what is 

 done there. I say nothing about the United States. I make it no sub- 

 ject of reproach ; I merely say they are not in a position to reproach us. 

 I venture to say this — If this case depended on the question, by whom 

 Las the greatest amount of gratuitous and unnecessary suffering been 

 inflicted upon the seal race, and by whom has the larger number of that 

 race been utterly wasted — by the system i)ursued upon the Islands or 

 by pelagic sealers; if this case depended on that question, and if the 

 seals could speak of what they knew and had felt, I should be perfectly 

 content to leave the case to their decision. There is no question, if Mr. 

 Palmer tells the truth, as to what the result has been. The system has 

 to be altered there, and it may be altered as far as it is in their power 

 to do it; but it is very difficult in an out-of-the-way part of the world, 

 and with the class of men they have to deal with, to secure the right 

 class of men. 



Now Mr. Carter at page 204 of their argument, answers a remark of 

 the British Commissioners, in which they say that, in anything said in 

 favour of pelagic sealing, it must be remembered that it is an industry 

 followed by the United States citizens and open to the United States 

 citizens as well as to us, and they are not speaking in the interests of 

 one nation only when they speak of it as being rightful, or discuss by 

 what means or by what regulations it can be reasonably or properly 

 pursued. The answer which is made is that the United States — 



Deems itself bound by the spirit and principles of the law of nature, holds itself 

 under an obligation to use the natural advantages which have fallen to its lot, by 

 cultivating this useful race of animals to the end that it may furnish its entire 

 increase to those for Avhom nature intended it, wherever they dwell, and without 

 danger to the stock. It holds, as the law of nature holds, that the destruction of the 

 species by barbarous and indiscriminate slaughter is a crime, and punishes it with 

 severe penalties. Its enactments, adopted when it was supposed that the only dan- 

 ger of illegitimate slaughter was conlined to Beliring Sea, were supposed to be ade- 

 quate to prevent all such slaughter. Are the United States to be deprived of the 

 benelit of the seals unless they choose to abandon and repudiate the plain obliga- 

 tions of morality and natural law? 



