400 ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



Mr. CouDERT. — I will now f^ive the learned Court exiremely valuable 

 evidence emanating Iroui the best possible source, namely, the British 

 furriers, who are men of very high chara(iter, and it is not possible to 

 disparage their testimony either as to its moral quality or legal effect. 

 If that does not establish the point that we have undertaken to prove, 

 then it is not provable, but we have cumulated it and ])iled Pelion upon 

 Ossa so to say. We have the British testimony; there is an enormous 

 mass of it, and we have the admissions of our friends on the other side 

 which practically admit all we claim, but we are not satisfied with that; 

 we are unreasonable enough to ask for nn)re, and we ask for the patience 

 of the Court while we give some important British declarations on the 

 subject. 



I want to read you a letter from Sir George Baden-Powell published 

 in the London Times, November 30th, 1880. Sir George Baden-Powell 

 was, as the Court remembers, one of the British Commissioners. He 

 says: 



As .1 matter of fact the Canadian Sealers take very few, if any, seals close to the 

 islands. Their main catch is made far out at sea, and is almost entirely composed 

 of females. 



This is the gentleman who signed the report recommending that there 

 be a closed zone twenty miles round our islands. Then the extract from 

 Volume 3 to Case of Great Britain (page 1) Eear-Admiral Sir Culme- 

 Seymour of the British Navy to Adnjiralty. 



(Telegraphic) Victoria, August. 24, 1886. Three British Columbian seal schooners 

 seized by United States Revenue cruizer Corwin Behring Straits, seaward 70 miles 

 from off the laud killing females and using tire arms to do it, which they have done 

 for three years without interference although in Company with Corwin. 



Now you will see that this blunt sailor who is sending his despatch 

 by telegraph and had no word to Avaste says just what would be approxi- 

 mately said to be the fact. 



They are killing females with a "shot gun" — it maybe they were 

 only *J0 or 80 per cent, but when it comes so near a totality they would 

 say "they are kdling females" and that is the fact, and what they were 

 doing. And that was at sea too. 



Then we have an extract which is important also of a despatch of 

 Eear-Admiral Hotham of the British Navy to Admiralty. 



[Extract.— Warspite, at Esquimalt, Sept. 10, 1890.1 



I have to request you will bring to the notice of the I^ords Commissioners of the 

 Admiralty this letter with reference to my telegram of the 8th iuHtant. 



I personally saw the masters of the sealing-schooners named below, and obtained 

 from them the information herein reported: 



Captain C. Cox, schooner "Sapphire". 



Captain Petit, schooner "Mary Taylor". 



Captain Hackett, schooner "Annie Seymour". 



Captain W. Cox, schooner "Triumph". 



They also mentioned that two-thirds of their catch consisted of female seals, but that 

 after the 1st July, very few indeed were captured "in pup", and that when sealing 

 outside the I5ehring Sea, round the coast, on the way up, (where this year the 

 heaviest catches were made), they acknowledged that seals " in pup" were frequently 

 captured. 



Then there is the deposition or an extract from the deposition of 

 Edward Shields a sealer on board the Carolina seized in 1880. This 

 testimony would seem to be worth consideration, for it is taken by 

 the British Government and olfered as testimony that ought to be 

 considered : 



