49 



would ipso facto disappear. Mr. Bluine expressed his readiness to pro- 

 ceed to such an inquiry, adding- that he would be prepared to establish 

 from Cauadiau evidence alone the absolute necessity for a ' close sea- 

 son,' but he strongly insisted that the inquiry should take place here 

 and be entirely of a diplomatic character. * * * As regards com- 

 pensation, if an agreement should be arrived at, he felt sure that his 

 Government would not wish that private individnals who had acted 

 bona fide in the belief that tliey were exercising their lawful rights 

 should be the victims of a grave dispute between two great countries, 

 which had happily been adjusted. He was not without hope, therefore, 

 that the wishes I had expressed might be met, and that all might be 

 arranged in a manner which should involve no humiliation on either 

 side. His tone was friendly throughout, and he manifested a strong 

 desire to let all questions of legal right and interimtional law disap- 

 pear in an agreement for a 'close season,' which he believes to be 

 urgently called for in the common interest. It oidy now remains for me 

 to solicit your lordship's instructions in regard to the suggestion of 

 resuming in Washington the tripartite negotiation, with a view to 

 arriving, if possible, at such a solution as is proposed by Mr. Blaine." 

 Britisli Case, Vol, 3, App. 350-351. 



After this interview the British Government made complaints of other 

 seizures of British vessels in the open waters of Bering Sea. Those 

 complaints were met by Mr. Blaine in his letter of January 22, 1890, 

 addressed to Sir Julian Pauncefote. As that letter contains a fuller 

 statement of the position of the United States than had been made up 

 to that time, nearly the whole of it is given, as follows: 



"In the opinion of the President, the Canadian vessels arrested and 

 detained in the Bering Sea were engaged in a pursuit that was in 

 itself co/^^ra honos mores, a pursuit whichof necessity involves a serious 

 and permanent injury to the rights of the Government and people of 

 the United States. To establish this ground it is not necessary to 

 argue the question of the extent and nature of the sovereignty of this 

 Government over the waters of Bering Sea ; it is not necessary to 

 explain, certainly not to define, the powers and privileges ceded by 

 His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Eussia, in the treaty by which 

 the Alaskan Territory was transferred to the United States, The 

 weighty considerations growing out of the acquisinou of that territory, 

 with all the rights on land and sea inseparably connected therewith, 

 may be safely left out of view, while the grounds are set forth upon 

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