248 COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



NO SUCH PROTECTION TILL 1877. 



In order, therefore, that this plain violation of law and its disas- 

 trous consequences should he effectually punished, and evaded, I puh- 

 lislicd, and personally urged in 1874-77 the urgent need and great 

 propriety of enabling the responsible Agents of the Government on 

 the Pribyloff Islands, to enforce the law as well physically as it could 

 be done theoretically; and pointed clearly then totlio advantage and 

 effect which a revenue marine cutter would have, employed for this 

 purpose. By repeated and untiring appearance before the Committee 

 on Appropriations in the House and Senate, I finally secured the legal 

 authority and the money for the object in view. And the late Captain 

 Bailey, in the "Richard Rush," made the first cruize in the season of 

 1877, that had been properly ordered and sustained by the Government 

 toward the direct protection of the seal islands, and its valuable prop- 

 erty thereon since 1869. 



AGENT W. B. TAYLOR ON POWERLESSNESS TO PROTECT 



IN 1881. 



Mr. W. B. Taylor, Assistant Government Agent on the 

 Pribyloff Islands in 1881, says: 



H. K., 5 0th These vessels will take occasiou to hang around the islands, and 

 Cong., 2n'dSess., when there is a heavy fog to go on the rookeries very often. . . . 

 Keport No. 3883, 'fhe Government Agents there are utterly powerless to prevent the 

 pp. 54-58. killing of seal, or to protect them in any way. 



And, farther, in speaking of the single revenue-cutter, 

 says: 



They never happen to be there when needed, and as far as their 

 rendering any service whatever is concerned, they were practically 

 useless so far as the Seal Islands were concerned. That has been the 

 experience, I believe, of all who have been there. 



The same gentleman further says: 



Ibid., p. 64. A man that was desperate enough to take chances, and knew the 



situation, I do not think it would be at all a difficult job to load a 

 schooner. If I wanted to make an outlaw of myself I could take all 

 the skins I wanted, and not have any trouble at all. 



Mr. Louis Kimmel, Assistant Treasury Agent on St. 

 George Island from May 1882 to August 1883, after describ- 

 ing a raid, says : 



Ibid., p. 271. It [seal life] ought to be more protected by having revonue-cut- 

 ters. At that time there was oulj- one revenue-cutter, only there once 

 a-year. 



291 AGENT H. A. GLIDDEN COMPLAINS OF RAIDS IN 



1882-85. 



H. R., 50th Mr. H. A. Glidden, Government Agent in charge of the 

 Eepfrt^No.^1^'3; Pi'ibylofl' Islands from 1882 to 1885, in giving evidence 

 PP.2&-28. ' before the Congressional Committee on the Fur-seal Fish- 

 eries of Alaska, states that to watch marauders, i. e., trad- 

 ing vessels buying or stealing skins on the mainland or 

 coast along the Aleutian Islands, was more trouble than 

 anything else. Glidden further says that no revenue-cutter 

 was kept at the islands in these years, though in every 

 Iteport he made he recommended that this should be done. 



