610 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
because I did not think it desirable to mix up what seemed to me a con- 
troversy on a very unimportant and secondary point with the more 
serious questions which were in issue between the two Governments, 
and to which the correspondence then going on specially applied. I 
understand from you that Mr. Blaine has since asked whether you have 
received any answer to that despatch, and, therefore, I will make some 
observations upon it now, although it appears to me to contain little that 
effects any question of public importance. 
I understand his complaint to be that, in a conversation with Mr. 
Phelps, reported by that gentleman in a despatch dated the 25th Feb- 
ruary, 1883, I had assented to the American proposition to establish, by 
mutual arrangement between the Governments interested, a close time 
for fur-seals between the 15th Apriland the Ist November in each year, 
and between 160° west longitude and 170° east longitude in the Beh- 
ring’s Sea; that I had undertaken to cause an Act to be introduced in 
Parliament to give effect to this arrangement as soon as it could be pre- 
pared, and that I subsequently receded from these engagements. 
The conversation in question took place on the 22nd February, 1888, 
and my own record of it, written on the same day in a despatch to 
your predecessor, is as follows: 
Mr. Phelps then made a proposal on the bases embodied in Mr. Bayard’s despatch 
of the 7th February, a copy of which accompanies my previous despatch of this 
day’s date. Mr. Bayard there expressés the opinion that the only way of preventing 
the destruction of the seals would be by concentrated action on the part of the 
United States, Great Britain, and other interested Powers, to prevent their citizens 
or subjects from killing fur-seals with fire-arms or other destructive weapons north 
of 50° north latitude, and between 160° west longitude and 170° east longitude from 
Greenwich, during the period intervening between the 15th April and the Ist 
November. I expressed to Mr. Phelps the entire readiness of Her Majesty’s Govern- 
ment to join in an Agreement with Russia and the United States to establish a close 
time for seal fishing north of some latitude to be fixed. 
It results from these two records that Mr. Phelps understood me to 
accept en bloc the proposals of the Government of the United States; 
while my own intention and my own recollection of the conversation 
was, that I merely accepted the general principle of a close time north 
of some degree of latitude to be subsequently fixed. This difference 
in the two reports of the same conversation, though not in itself 
very wide, unfortunately covers the controversy between the two Goy- 
ernments, at least in its earlier stage; for the matter in dispute between 
us was the extent of the area and the season over which the close time 
was to extend, and not the expediency of a close timein principle. Mr. 
Blaine speaks of Mr. Phelps as having been long known in his country 
as an able lawyer, accurate in the use of words, and discriminating in 
the statement of facts. In that tribute to Mr. Phelps’ high intel- 
19 lectual qualities I join most unreservedly, as far as my own 
acquaintance with him enabled me to judge. But it is nothing 
unheard of that a man, however highly gifted in this respect, should in 
recording three days afterwards a conversation where no kind of note 
was taken, and no effort made to define the expressions of opinion 
which were exchanged, have slightly misconceived the extent to 
which assent was given to his own proposals. My recollection remains 
unchanged, that | never intended to assent and never did assent to 
the detailed proposals which were put forward on behalf of the United 
States, reserving my opinion on them for fuller consideration; but that 
I expressed the “fullest concurrence on the part of Her Majesty’s Gov- 
ernment in the general principle on which those proposals proceeded, 
namely, the establishment of such close time as should be necessary to 
preserve the species of fur seals from extermination. | 
