130 REPLY OF UNITED STATES 



Prohibition of orders and warnings, the United States are not 



sealing in Bering 



Sea admitted. informed save by the statements accompanying 

 said claims, and they do not admit that such 

 orders or warnings were obeyed. 

 Eeasons why The United States charge that each and all of 



seizures made. 



the vessels when so seized were engaged in the 

 hunting of fur-seals in the waters of Bering Sea 

 in violation of the statutes of the United States, 

 and that such seizures were made in accordance 

 with the laws of the United States 1 enacted for 

 the protection of their property interest in the 

 fur-seals which frequent Bering Sea and breed 

 only upon the Pribilof Islands, which Islands 

 are part of the territory of the United States; 

 and that the acts of the crews and owners of 

 these vessels in hunting and catching seals were 

 such as, if permitted, would exterminate the 

 Alaskan seal herd and thereby destroy an article 

 of commerce valuable to all civilized nations. 

 Vessels seized, It is further insisted, on the part of the United 



owned by United „ , _ - 



states citizens, states, that the steam schooners 1 hornton, Grace, 

 Anna Beck, and Dolphin and the schooners Say- 

 ward, Carolena, Pathfinder, Alfred Adams, Black 

 Diamond, and Lily, for the seizure of which 

 claims for damage are made, were at the time of 

 their seizure owned in whole or in part by citi- 



1 Sec. 1956, Revised Statutes of the United States ; see Appendix 

 to Case of the United States, Vol. I, p. 96. 



