64 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
The following letter, addressed to me by the District Attorney, fully explains the 
necessity of the case, and how it may be provided for without detriment, but rather 
to the advantage of the Revenue Marine Service: 
*“‘DisTRicT OF ALASKA, District ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, 
“Sitka, September 20, 1886. 
“Sir: As the official charged with the institution of the initiatory judicial pro- 
ceedings against parties becoming liable to answer for breach of the laws in this 
district, I desire to call your attention to a most serious want in the facilities neces- 
sary to enable the officers of the Court to perform their duty effectively. 
‘“We are, as matters now stand, entirely dependent on the line of nonthly mail- 
steamers from Port ownsend, Washington, to Sitka, for any certain or regular 
means of getting to or from other places in the district, being thus not only limited 
in communication to three or four other Settlements, but also forced to an absence 
from Sitka of not less than one and possibly two months in any event in which it 
becomes necessary to visit them. Besides this, there are many Settlements where 
important business enterprises are located needing protection, which we are not able 
to visit at all. 
“At one of these, Newchuk, some 300 or 400 miles up the coast to the west, a trader 
was brutally murdered by Indians last December. Valuable mineral discoveries 
have just been made in that section which it is proposed very soon to develop, and 
there are large fishing establishments near and trading posts from which appeals 
have been sent to such officials as could be reached, to have the case inquired 
47 into and the offenders punished. ‘The facts in this case are undoubted, and 
action by the authorities most essential to the interests and protection of all 
residents. There is also a report of a murder at the Island of Unga, bunt not yet 
fully confirmed. There is certainly need of inquiry into certain larcenies and other 
lawless acts at Kadiak. 
“T am utterly powerless to institute the necessary examinations into these cases, 
in order to bring the parties to justice,and my inability and that of the Court to 
punish them must continue until we have the means of reaching those localities 
furnished us. 
“Another case is in point: There are now lying at Ounalaska three English 
schooners, seized for violation of our laws against killing fur-bearing animals within 
the Territory. The cargoes of these and one other schooner, consisting of over 2,000 
seal-skins, forfeited under these laws, are stored at the same place. Under the neces- 
sary proceedings in our Court these vessels and their cargoes have been decreed for- 
feited, and the Marshal will be required to sell them. He is absolutely without the 
means of getting to Ounalaska at all unless he goes by way of San Francisco, and 
ean only carry out the orders of the Court at the most serious inconvenience. In 
fact, in the absence of the needed facilities for direct intercommunication between 
the several sections and Settlements of this district, it is plain that the interests of 
the Government must greatly suffer, as they have already done, together with those 
of the people. 
“Tt would be an easy and simple thing to supply this need, at no material increase 
of expense, in the protection of the Government’s interest in Alaska, but rather to 
their positive advantage. A Revenne vessel stationed at Sitka, subject to the rea- 
sonable necessities of the Civil Government, could attend to all the wants occurring, 
without detriment to the service, necessary for the protection of the seal fisheries 
and the rights of the lessees of the Pribyloff Islands. Indeed, being here much 
nearer the waters in which such service is required than she would be at any station 
lower down the coast, she could perform that duty more conveniently, and at the 
same time would be able to put a stop to much of the smuggling and illegal impor- 
tation of liquors into South-eastern Alaska which is now going on. 
“There is no doubt that the service necessary in order to make the present civil 
and judicial government of this Territory something more than a mockery to a large 
portion of its avea and people could be effectually rendered in this way, and the 
other interests which it is thought necessary to protect by the same means promoted. 
I trust you will, therefore, represent this necessity to our Government in your forth- 
coming Report. There are many ways in which it is seriously felt, but which it 
would be unprofitable to specify. 
“Very truly yours, 
(Signed) 6OM. Di BAgaLr. 
“ United States District Attorney. 
“ Hon. A. P. SWINEFORD, 
“‘ Governor of Alaska.” 
The plan suggested by the District Attorney would not involve any extra expense 
to the Government over the present cost of the Revenue Marine Service in Alaskan 
waters; it only implies that Sitka be made head-quarters for the cutter which is sent 
every year from San Francisco for the protection of the seal fisheries and sea-otter 
. 
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