1 



14 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



many of the animals were wounded and lost, and it was ap- 

 prehended by the American sealers that the continuation of 

 the practice of pelagic sealing would soon result in the exter- 

 mination of the species. 



The Collector of the port at San Francisco, Mr. Phelps, 

 having been apprised of the dangers threatening the industry 

 so comfortably prospering in St. Paul and St. George, wrote 

 to the Secretary of the Treasury in 1872, asking permission to 

 despatch a revenue cutter to the scene of action for the pur- 

 pose of preventing pelagic sealing. Mr. Boutwell, the Secre- 

 tary of the Treasury, in reply said, " I do not see that the 

 United States would have the jurisdiction or power to drive 

 off parties going up there for that purpose unless they made 

 such attempts within a marine league of the shores." This 

 was the first official expression touching upon the doubtful 

 words, "or in the waters thereof." It clearly indicated 

 that the government in Washington at that date interpreted 

 those words of the Act of Congress of 1868 to mean the ordi- 

 nary three miles of marine jurisdiction. Destructive to Ameri- 

 can interests as pelagic sealing might prove to be, the United 

 States in 1872 did not see its way clear in preventing it by 

 force ; accordingly no revenue cutter was sent to Bering Sea. 



Each succeeding year witnessed an increase in pelagic 

 sealing. New vessels were being fitted out every season to 

 engage in the exceedingly profitable occupation of seal hunt- 

 ing in and about the passes of the Aleutian Islands, and fre- 

 quent incursions were made for the same purpose into Bering 

 Sea. Continued protests from the Alaska Company found 

 their way to Washington, and evidence of the gradual dimi- 

 nution of the herd through the wanton slaughter of seals by 

 the pelagic hunters was repeatedly furnished to the authori- 

 ties of the Treasury Department. It soon became distress- 

 ingly apparent that unless seal hunting in the open sea could 

 be prevented, the total extinction of the animals was a question 

 of only a few years. 



Now if the United States could establish a claim of mare 

 clausum over Bering Sea, the problem of ways and means 

 of preventing pelagic sealing in Bering Sea would be solved. 



