540 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
No. 365. 
Admiralty to Foreign Office.—( Received June 20.) 
ADMIRALTY, June 19, 1890. 
Str: Iam commanded by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty 
to transmit, for the perusal of the Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, copies of two letters from Captain Hulton, of her Majesty’s 
ship ‘* Amphion,” respecting the Behring’s Sea fishery. 
Iam, &c. 
(Signed) EvAN MACGREGOR. 
{Inclosure 1 in No. 365.—Extract.] 
Captain Hulton to Admiralty. 
‘““ AMPHION,” AT ESQUIMALT, May 28, 1890. 
With reference to your recent telegrams to hasten the repairs of Her Majesty’s 
ship ‘‘ Aimphion,” if possible, she being very much required, and your inquiries as 
to the movemeuts of the sealing fleet to Behring’s Sea, I have the honour to supple- 
ment my telegraphic replies as follows: : 
Tinclose herewith a list of the sailing-schooners cleared from Victoria for this 
season’s fishing, and about to clear, furnished me by the Lieutenant-Governor, his 
Honour Hugh Nelson, in reply to my letter of which a copy is attached. 
The sealing fleet have just about finished their coast catching, moving slowly up 
from the Californian coast, and are now midway between Clayaquot Sound and the 
southernmost of the Shumagan Islands. 
The vessels mostly cleared in February and March, and few of them return till 
the autumn unless in distress of some sort, owing to difficulties with their crews, 
with drunkenness and desertion. One or two vessels communicate with them from 
time to time, bringing back the catches of skins, &c. 
As they work north they replenish at a sealing store in Clayaquot Sound, and by 
the end of June they have all assembled in the Shumagan Islands, and are mostly 
to be found in North-East Harbour, on the southernmost but one of the islands of 
that group. 
A second point at which the vessels are then to be found is at Sand Point, about 
50’ to the northward of North-East Harbour, where the vessels beach to clean and 
repair, revictual and water. 
489 A third harbour which they use, a little north of Sand Point, is Falmouth 
Harbour,but it is smaller, and not so much frequented. 
About the 20th June a small vessel (probably a small steam-tug) will go up to the 
above rendezvous with letters, &c., and to receive skins; she would arrive there 
about the 27th or 28th June, and the schooners would again weigh and get amongst 
the seals, working their way to the passes, principally the Unimak and the 72nd Pass, 
as it is called (172° west longitude). ‘These passes the vessels all go through between 
the Ist and 10th July. 
The time the vessels are in the Behring’s Sea is from the 1st or 10th July to about 
the 15th or 30th September, though, if a vessel is lucky, she has frequently left by 
the latter half of August, not to return again that season, 
{Inclosure 2 in No. 365.] 
Captain Hulton to Licutenant-Governor Nelson. 
“AMPHION,” AT ESQUIMALT, May 28, 1890. 
Str: I have the honour to request that you will be good enough to instruct the 
Collector of Customs to furnish me as quickly as possible with a detailed list of the 
sealing-vessels owned by British subjects that have been cleared for the north (pre- 
sumably for Behring’s Sea) for this summer’s sealing. 
On the list, I am anxious to have shown me the tonnage and rig of the vessels, 
names of the captains, numbers of their crews, and the names and addresses of their 
owners; and I further request that the Collector of Customs may be directed to give 
me every assistance in getting the fullest information possible. 
I have, &e. 
(Signed) E. Grey HULTON. 
