APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 225 
; No. 132. 
Board of Trade to Foreign Office.—(Received May 5.) 
BOARD OF TRADE, London, May 4, 1888. 
Sir: I am directed by the Board of Trade to acknowledge the receipt 
of your letter of the 20th ultimo, in which you transmit copy of a 
despatch addressed by the Marquis of Salisbury to Her Majesty’s 
Ambassador at St. Petersburgh and Her Majesty’s Minister at Wash- 
ington, recording a conversation which his Lordship has had with the 
Russian Ambassador and the United States Chargé d’Affaires at this 
Court on the subject of adopting measures with a view to check the 
indiscriminate slaughter of seals in Behring’s Sea. 
With reference to the concluding paragraph of your letter, I am to 
request that you will state to Lord Salisbury that the Board of Trade 
have no information to enable them to speak with confidence on the 
subject, but that, so far as they are in a position to judge, they would 
be disposed to regard favourably the proposals indicated by you as a 
basis for negotiation, and which contemplate restrictions partly in 
analogy with those already constituting a close time for the seal fishery 
of the Greenland Sea, where, however, the valuable fur-seals for which 
the Behring’s Sea is noted are not found. 
At the same time, it may be supposed that the Western British 
203 Colonies in North America would be interested in the matter, 
and they might be prepared to criticize the proposals in question 
for reasons with which this Department is not acquainted. 
I have, &e. 
(Signed) HENRY G. CALCRAFT. 
No. 133. 
Sir L. West to the Marquis of Salisbury.—(Received May 14.) 
WASHINGTON, April 22, 1888. 
My Lorp: With reference to my despatch of the 19th instant, I have 
the honour to inclose to your Lordship herewith a copy of a note verbale 
which I have received in reply to the one which I addressed to Mr. 
Bayard, copy of which was inclosed in that despatch, stating that, in 
the cases of British vessels seized in Behring’s Sea, it is preferable to 
await the judgment of the Appellate Court in the premises. 
I have, &ce. 
(Sigued) L. S. SACKVILLE WEST. 
[Inclosure in No. 133.] 
Note Verbale. 
Responding to the note verbale of Sir L. West, dated the 18th instant, it is sug- 
gested, on behalf of the United States, that, asthe cases of seizure of British sealing- 
vessels in Behring’s Sea therein referred to are now in Court pending an appeal from 
a judicial decision, it is preferable to await the judgment ef the Appellate Court in 
the premises. 
WASHINGTON, April 21, 1888, 
BS, PT V 15 
