APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 609 
Captain Petit, schooner “‘ Mary Taylor.” 
Captain Hackett, schooner ‘‘Annie Seymour.” 
Captain W. Cox, schooner “f Triumph.” 
They left the Behring’s Sea on the 23rd August, and reached Victoria, British 
Columbia, in thirteen days. This season has been the worst they have experienced 
(Captain Cox, of the “Triumph,” having been sealing for five years), and state it is 
due to the bad weather they experienced in July, which is the month they always 
make the biggest catch; as for twenty-one days, then, nothing but heavy fog was 
experienced, ‘and they consequently conld not get out their boats and canoes to hunt; 
they state they saw of plenty of seals whenever it cleared a little. 
Mr. Hackett, of the ‘‘ Annie Seymour,” says he met the American cruizer ‘‘ Rush,” 
while his boats were round the schooner, actually engaged in sealing, and the 
eruizer steamed round them, but took no notice whatever; he had his colours flying, 
and after about half-an-hour she steamed away. 
None of the other schooners they spoke with had met with any interference, or 
been spoken to by the cruizers. They knew of the “Rush” having been to Sand 
Head, Shumagin Group, and served a Proclamation on board the ‘‘ Ariel,” but, as 
they were at North-East Bay, they had not met her then. 
They also mentioned that two- thirds of their catch consisted of female seals, but 
that after the Ist July very few indeed were captured ‘‘in pup,” and that when ‘seal- 
ing outside the Behring’s Sea, round the coast, on the way up (where this year the 
heaviest catches were made), they acknowledged that seals ‘‘in pup” were fre- 
quently captured. 
One captain stated he saw what he thought to be an English man-of-war, but as 
this could not have been, the vessel may have been the United States surveying-ship 
“Albatross,” or a Russian man-of-war or cruizer, though I have no intelligence of 
any of the Siberian fleet being in those parts. 
I might add that the sealers say they heard rumours of a new seal-rookery being 
formed on Middleton Island, which is outside the Behring’s Sea, but American 
territory. 
18 No. 14. 
Admiralty to Foreign Office.—(Received October 14.) 
ADMIRALTY, October 14, 1890. 
Sir: Iam commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty 
to transmit, for the information of the Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, copy of a telegram, dated the 14th instant, from the Com- 
mander-in-chief on the Pacific Station. 
Iam, &e. 
(Signed) EVAN MACGREGOR, 
{Inclosure in No. 14.—Telegraphic. ] 
Rear-Admiral Hotham to Admiralty. 
““WARSPITE,” AT VICTORIA, October 14, 1890. 
All the sealing schooners have returned. 
No. 15. 
The Marquis of Salisbury to Sir J. Pauncefote. 
FOREIGN OFFICE, October 22, 1890. 
Str: Your despatch of the 28th July last, sage a letter from Mr. 
Blaine under date the 19th July, reached me shor tly betore the close 
of the Session of Parliament. I did not answer it at the time, chiefly 
BS, PT V——39 
