76 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
No. 38. 
Sir L. West to the Marquis of Salisbury.—(Received May 17.) 
WASHINGTON, May 6, 1887. 
My Lorp: With reference to my despatch of the 2nd April last, 1 
have the EOnoaE to inform your Lordship that the case of the owners 
of the American ships seized for sealing in Behring Sea against the 
Captain of the United States cruizer “Corwin” has been postponed 
until the Government is prepared for the defences. 
I have, &e. 
(Signed) L. 8S. SACKVILLE WEST. 
No. 39. 
Sir L. West to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received June 10.) 
WASHINGTON, May 30, 1887. 
My Lorp: I have the honour to inclose to your Lordship herewith a 
statement which has appeared in the New York ‘‘Times,” showing that 
the United States Government persistently combated the pretension 
of Russia to absolute dominion over the Kamschatkan and Behring 
Seas previous to the cession of Alaska. 
I have, &c. 
(Signed) L. S. SACKVILLE WEST. 
[Inclosure in No. 39.] 
Extract from the New York “ Times” of May 29, 1887. 
Not a LANDLOCKED SEA.—RELEASE OF THE BRITISH SEALERS JUSTIFIED.—The 
so-called controversy with respect to the Alaskan seal fisheries and American rights 
to exclusive jurisdiction over the waters of Behring Sea has recently been made the 
subject of more misrepresentation to the square inch than almost any other 
59 pending topic of public discussion. It has been represented that an elaborate 
Conference on this question is now in progress between the State Department 
and the British Minister in Washington. Mr. Frederick W. Seward appears to have 
imbibed this impression, and has suggested several profonnd conundrums to be pro- 
posed by Secretary Bayard to the British Minister in the progress of the controversy. 
There is no Conference in progress on this matter. When the President, for reasons 
satisfactory to himself, ordered the release of the British sealing vessels captured by 
an American Revenue cutter more than 3 miles from shore in Behring Sea that action 
had the effect of a pardon, and closed all discussion as to the legality of the cap- 
tures. But there are some historical facts in connection with the question which 
will probably suggest an exceedingly strong inference. 
Mr. Henry W. Elliott, of the Smithsonian Institution, who is stated to have passed 
several seasons in the islands of the Behring Sea, and to be one of the best-informed 
men in the United States on the subject of jurisdiction over the waters of that ‘‘land- 
locked sea,” as he calls it, has recently contributed to the prevailing wrong impres- 
sions two important statements, which are in direct conflict with official records 
easily accessible. This whole question has so important a bearing upon our present 
controversy with Great Britain on the subject of the Canadian fisheries and the right 
claimed by our Canadian neighbours to hamper the deep-sea fisheries of the United 
States that it is worthy of close examination. Mr. Elliott takes substantially this 
position: 
1. That when the Emperor of Russia, by the Ukase of 1821, declared the absolute 
dominion of the Russian Crown over all’ Russian American ‘territory and seas and 
