240 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
216 No. 148. 
Colonial Office to Foreign Office.—( Received August 20.) 
DOWNING STREET, August 18, 1888. 
Srr: With reference to the letter form this Department of the 10th 
instant, I am directed by Lord Knutsford to transmit to you, to be 
laid before the Marquis of Salisbury, copies of two despatches from the 
Governor-General of Canada respecting the proposed sale at Port 
Townshend of four of the British sealing-vessels captured last year in 
Behring’s Sea. 
Lord Knutsford hopes that the Minute of the Canadian Government, 
inclosed in Lord Stanley of Preston’s despatch of the 26th July, will 
receive Lord Salisbury’s attentive consideration. 
I am at the same time to request that Her Majesty’s Minister .at 
Washington may be desired to report when the appeal to the Supreme 
Court of the United States in the case of the ‘““W. P. Sayward” is 
likely to come on, and to report generally on the progress of the case. 
Iam, Xe. 
(Signed) JOHN BRAMSTON, 
{Inclosure 1 in No. 148.] 
Lord Stanley of Preston to Lord Knutsford. 
CITADEL, QUEBEC, July 26, 1888. 
My Lorn. With reference to previous correspondence relative to the pending pro- 
ceedings in the case of the Canadian sealing-vessels seized in Behring’s Sea, I have 
the honour to forward to your Lordship an extract of an approved Minute of the 
Privy Council, based upon Sir Ls West’s despatch of the 19th March,* a copy of 
which, together with other correspondence, noted in the margin, is inclosed here- 
with. 
I have, &c. 
(Signed) STANLEY OF PRESTON, 
[Inclosure 2 in No. 148.] 
Extract from a Report of a Committee of the Honourable the Privy Council, approved by 
His Hucellency the Governor-General in Council, on July 7, 1888. 
The Committee of the Privy Council have had under consideration a despatch 
dated the 19th March, 1888, from Her Majesty’s Minister at Washington, relative to 
pending proceedings in the cases of Canadian sealers seized in Behring’s Sea. 
The Sub-Committee of Council to whom the question was referred report as follows: 
In the despatch of the 19th March, 1888, Sir Lionel Sackville West states that the 
Attorney-General of the United States had intimated that Rule 10 of the practice in 
Admiralty and Rules of the Supreme Court (1887) make it plain that the confiscated 
sealing-ships seized in Behring’s Sea can be bonded pending appeal; and Sir Lionel 
Sackville West further states that, as to the question whether such vessels can be 
bonded without obligation to appeal, he is advised that, since it was agreed in the 
Conference that the question of damages should be reserved, any such request would 
open up the whole question of damages on each side. 
The Sub-Committee observe that the obligation sought to be imposed upon the 
owners of the Canadian vessels seized in Behring’s Sea of appealing from the decision 
of the Magistrate of Sitka to the Supreme Court of the United States, is obviously 
one which cannot with justice or propriety be enforced. Some doubt exists as to the 
right of appeal, and if it be held that no appeal will lie, the bonds will be forfeited. 
* See No. 110, 
