APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 287 
to enforce their provisions. The ‘“‘Rush” is now at San Francisco ready for sea, 
and will sail immediately upon receipt of the orders, which were mailed at Wash- 
ington yesterday afternoon. The Revenue-steamer ‘‘ Bear,” which is now fitting out 
at Sau Francisco for an expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska, has also been designated 
to assist in the protection of the Alaskan fisheries, and will follow the “‘ Rush” in a 
short time. Her orders are now being prepared at the Treasury Department. 
258 No. 200. 
Consul-General Booker to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received July 8.) 
NEw YORK, June 28, 1889. 
My Lorp: I have the honour to inclose extracts, for your Lordship’s 
perusal, from the New York “ Hvening Post” of yesterday, containing 
an interesting letter on the Behring’s Sea question. 
I have, Se. 
(Signed) Wm. LANE Booker. 
[Inclosure in No. 200.] 
Extract from the New York ‘ Evening Post” of June 27, 1889. 
THE BEHRING’S SEA QUESTION. 
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS, June 21, 1889. 
To the Editor of the ‘‘ Evening Post.” 
Sir: Since the rejection of the Treaty of February 1888 with Great Britain, the 
public has heard very little of fishery troubles on the old debatable ground of the 
north-west Atlantic, but there is every prospect that the absence—obviously a merely 
temporary absence—from public discussion of the well-gnawed bone of contention 
will, in a measure, be made good by taking up as a topic the analogous question 
pending between the United States and Great Britain concerning the seal fisheries in 
the north Pacific, or, as our statesmen and writers prefer, for a very shrewd reason, 
to say, in ‘“‘ Behring’s Sea.” 
Several British vessels were seized in 1886 and 1887 by United States Revenue- 
cruizers for sealing in Behring’s Sea (a part of the Pacific Ocean, as I shall show 
presently), far outside of the 3-mile shore belt, and these vessels were condemned by 
the United States District Court at Sitka. So far as I am aware, there is no official 
publication showing the position taken by our Government in this matter, so that we 
must fall back on statements in the press. 
The ‘‘New York Herald” of the 13th October, 1887, published what purported to 
be a verbatim copy of the ‘‘ brief understood to have been prepared at Washington 
and recently filed in the Court at Sitka by Mr. A. K. Delaney as counsel for the United 
States Government.” The defendant’s name is not given there, but obviously it is 
the brief against one of the British vessels seized in 1887, and probably substantially 
the same brief was used against all of them. In a leader in the same issue the 
‘‘Herald” refers to this brief as that against certain British vessels charged with 
violating our rights. There is no reason to doubt the genuineness of this paper, and 
in the-absence of other evidence, we may take it as a trustworthy guide to the 
position taken by our Government. It is there stated that the case is based on sec- 
tion 1956 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, providing that ‘“‘no person 
shall kill any otter, &c., or other fur-bearing animal, within the limits of Alaska 
Territory or in the waters thereof;” that the offence is charged to have been com- 
mitted ‘£130 miles north of the Island of Ounalaska, and, therefore, in the main 
waters of that part of the Behring’s Sea ceded by Russia to the United States.” 
It is further stated that the defendants demur on the ground that the Court has no 
jurisdiction, as the alleged offence was committed beyond the limit of a marine league 
trom the shores of Alaska, and that the Act under which the defendants were arrested 
is unconstitutional in so far as it restricts the free navigation of the Behring’s Sea 
for fishing and sealing purposes beyond the limits of a marine league from shore ; 
that the demurrer. presents squarely the questions: 
1. The jurisdiction of the United States over Behring’s Sea, 
