484 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
p. 121), has not strengthened his testimony on the main point by speaking positively 
to the following, which could only have been known to him by hearsay: 
(a) Russia destroyed marauding vessels. 
(b) A British vessel, in 1887, took 450 seals in Behring’s Sea, secreted them on a 
small island, left them. and returned to the Sea for more. 
(c) Marauders kill 100,000 each season. 
(d) It is not true that vessels are seized when pursuing legitimate business. 
He goes on to say that for the first fifteen years of the Company’s lease, viz., from 
1870 to 1885, the lessees were unmolested (p. 129), which statement has been shown 
to be incorrect. He observed that since 1882, and especially since 1884, other parties 
have been destroying the seals, ‘‘reducing the equilibrium of the sexes.” As will 
be submitted hereafter, he has been contradicted in regard to this by expert writers, 
historians, travellers, and Agents of the United States Government. 
Mr. H. W. Elliott, whose experience is limited to 1872, 1874, and 1876—when, as 
Mr. McIntyre says, no injury was done by marauders—is next referred to by Mr. 
Blaine (p. 16 of Appendix). He is referred to as a member of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tute; he was also a spevial Agent of the Treasury. 
The following are extracts taken from a ‘‘Report upon the Customs Dis- 
441 tricts, Public Service, and Resources of Alaska Territory, by W. L. Morris, 
Special Agent of the Treasury Department, 1879”: 
“Tn the November number of ‘ Harper’s Magazine,’ 1877, appears an article entitled 
‘Ten Years’ Acquaintance with Alaska, 1867-77.’ The authorship is correctly ascribed 
to Mr. Henry W. Elliott, now connected with the Smithsonian Institution in sub- 
official capacity. This gentleman was formerly a special Agent of the Treasury 
Department, under a special Act of Congress, approved 22nd April, 1874, appointed 
for the purpose of ascertaining at that time the condition of the seal fisheries in 
Alaska, the haunts and habits of the seal, the preservation and extension of the 
fisheries as a source of revenue to the United States, with like information respect- 
ing the fur-bearing animals of Alaska generally, the statistics of the fur trade and 
the condition of the people or natives, especially those upon whom the successful 
prosecution of the fisheries and fur trade is dependent. 
“This Report of Mr. Elliott will be further noticed hereafter, and, upon the 
threshold of criticizing anything he has written upon Alaska, occasion is here taken 
to give him full credit for his valuable contribution in regard to fur-seals. It is to 
be regarded as authority and well conceived. The views of Mr. Elliott, however, 
in reference to other matters of moment in the Territory, are so diametrically opposed 
and antagonistic to my own that I feel constrained to review some of his statements, 
glittering generalities, and the wholesale method with which he brushes out of exist- 
ence with his facile pen and ready artist’s brush anything of any essence of value, 
light, shade, or shadow in the broad expanse of Alaska that does not conform pre- 
cisely to the rule of investigation and recital laid down by himself, and which con- 
tradicts his repeated assurances that outside of the Seal Islands and the immediate 
dependencies of the Alaska Commercial Company there is nothing in Alaska. 
“This magazine article bears a sort of semi-official indorsement, its authority is 
not denied, and with this explanation for using the name of Mr. Elliott in connec- 
tion therewith, a few of its crudities and nudities will be noticed: 
‘<<¢ The Sense-keeper of Alaska. 
“<¢So little is known about Alaska that whenever anything comes up in Congress 
relating to it information is sought wherever it can readily be found. The ‘‘inform- 
ant” is ever on hand, with his work on fur-seals comfortably tucked underneath his 
left arm, to impart all the knowledge extant about the country, ‘‘ for he knows more 
about Alaska than any man living.” 
““¢ A decade has passed since we acquired this Territory, and for a decade it has 
afforded employment and subsistence for its presentsense-keeper; but the next decade 
is warming into national existence, and it is about time this bubble was pricked and 
the bladder not quite so much inflated. 
“¢T am fully aware of all the consequences to be dreaded, the responsibility as- 
sumed, when rash enough to dispute the heretofore self-established authority from 
the Arctic Ocean to the Portland Canal.’ 
‘This man seems to be the natural foe of Alaska, prosecuting and persecuting her 
with the brush of the pencil and the pen of an expert whenever and wherever he can 
get an audience, and I attribute the presensdorlorn condition of the Territory to-day 
more to his ignorance and misrepresentation than to all other causes combined. He 
is accused of being the paid creature and hired tool of the Alaska Commercial Com- 
pany, and belonging to them body and soul. I have made diligent inquiry and 
ascertain he is not in their employ, and, furthermore, they repudiate the ownership. 
They should not be held responsible for the indiscreet utterings of the sense-keeper, 
OE ae the charge of ownership might cause him to be more readily list- 
ened to. 
~~. Wie on ee ee 
