600 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
J had every reason to expect that, on receipt of my note of the 29th 
April and of the draft Convention which it inclosed, another meeting 
of the Conference would have been summoned to discuss the sufficiency 
or insufficiency of the proposals made by Her Majesty’s Government. 
But the negotiators were not invited to meet again, and my note of 
the April 29th, was not even answered. 
On the 22nd May the public journals announced the rejection of the 
British proposals, and the issue of instructions to the United States 
revenue-cruizers of such a character as rendered necessary the intima- 
tion conveyed in my note to Mr. Blaine of the following day (23rd 
May),* that Her Majesty’s Government would forward without delay a 
formal protest against any interference with British vessels in Behring’s 
Sea outside of territorial waters. 
Mr. Blaine’s reply to that note is dated the 29th May,t and in the 
course of his observations on the protest of Her Majesty’s Government 
he states that ‘“‘no course was left to the United States or Russia” but 
to reject the proposals contained in my note of the 29th April. That 
is the only formal intimation I have ever received that the proposed 
Convention was unacceptable to the United States Government. 
The negotiation which was thus brought to so abrupt a termination 
had been restricted entirely to the question of a close season. All 
questions of legal right in controversy were purposely kept out of view, 
in the hope that they would finally disappear in an international agree- 
ment. That result, however, not having been attained, the United 
States Government have reverted to the claim of legal right to exclude 
all other nations from the fur-seal fishery in Behring’s Sea. Ihave had 
some difficulty in clearly apprehending, even after all the correspond- 
ence which has taken place, the precise proposition of law on which the 
United States Government rely in justification of that claim. 
The attitude of the late Cabinet was quite inconsistent with any 
serious reliance on such rights as are now asserted. Thus, President 
Cleveland, in 1887, ordered the release of three British sealers seized 
in Behring’s Sea, under Section 1956 of the Revised Statutes of the 
United States, which in general terms prohibits the killing of any fur- 
seal “‘ within the limits of Alaska Territory, or the waters thereof.” 
It is true that Secretary Bayard stated that such release was ordered 
“without conclusion of any questions which might be found to be 
involved;” but no further seizures were made in 1888, and the Presi- 
dent proceeded to invite the Governments of Great Britain, Germany, 
France, Russia, Sweden, and Japan to enter into an arrangement for 
the better protection of the fur-seal fisheries in Behring’s Sea. This 
amounted to an admission, in the face of Europe, that the object in 
view conld not be attained consistently with the law of nations 
10 without an international agreement. Another equally signifi- 
cant fact was the refusal of the Senate of the United States to 
allow the insertion of a clause, proposed by the House of Representa- 
tives, in the Act of the 2nd March, 1889, declaring that Section 1956 
of the Revised Statutes above referred to, and under which the seizures 
of British sealers on the high seas have been made, “include and apply 
to all the waters of Behring’s Sea in Alaska embraced within the 
boundary-lines mentioned and described in the Treaty with Russia.” 
The clause, as it now stands, is as follows: 
“Section 1956 of the Revised Statutes of the United States is hereby 
declared to include and apply to all the dominions of the United States 
*Ibid., p. 473. tIbid., p. 475. 
Bech. db: 
