APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAN BRITAIN. 695 
No. 10. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.——( Received May 14.) 
WASHINGTON, May 5, 1891. 
My Lorp: I have the honour to inclose a copy of a note which I 
received last night from Mr. Blaine containing detailed proposals for a 
modus vivendi during the approaching fishery season in Bebring’s Sea, 
based on the principle of a cessation of seal killing both at sea ‘and on 
land. The note contains a lengthy defence of the reservation desired 
by the President of the right to kill 7,500 seals for the support of 
6 the native residents of the Pribyloff Islands, a reservation which 
seems to me seriously to detract from the equality and simplicity 
of the original proposal. As regards Mr. Blaine’s narrative of what 
passed between us in relation to the proposed modus vivendi, your Lord- 
ship will perceive from my despatch of yesterday’s date that he appears 
to have forgotten that the reason why I did not telegraph to your Lord- 
ship his alternative proposal for a modus vivendi was that it had been 
arranged between us, at my suggestion, that he should make the pro- 
posal concurrently with his reply to your Lordship’s despatch of the 
21st February, for which I had so urgently pressed him. 
IT cannot call to my mind that the President’s name was ever mentioned 
in the course of our two interviews, which Mr. Blaine correctly describes 
as ‘a conversational exchange of views.” 
If the President was so anxious that the alternative proposal should 
be telegraphed at once to your Lordship, it is to be regretted that Mr. 
Blaine did not apprize me of the President’s wishes, as | should have 
certainly complied with them. 
Mr. Blaine’s reply to your Lordship’s despatch of the 21st February 
was not delivered until the 14th April, and then it was not accom- 
panied by the proposal for a modus vivendi. But fortunately I had 
informed your Lordship of the proposal by letter a few days after it was 
made, and I received a prompt reply by telegram which I communicated 
to Mr. Blaine on the 20th April. 
Mr. Blaine, therefore, cannot justly complain of any delay on my part, 
or on the part of Her Majesty’s Government, in relation to this matter. 
I have, &c. 
(Signed) JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE, 
[Inclosure in No. 10.] 
Mr. Blaine to Sir J. Pauncefote. 
WASHINGTON, May 4, 1891. 
Sir: During the month of March last, a few days after the adjournment of Con- 
gress, acting under the instructions of the President, I proposed to you that a modus 
vivendi be agreed upon touching the seal fisheries pe nding the result of arbitration 
of the question atissue between the two Governments. ‘The President's first proposal 
which I submitted to you was that no Canadian sealer should be allowed to come 
within a certain number of miles of the Pribyloff Islands. 
It was, however, the conclusion of the President, after reading Lord Salisbury’s 
despatch of the 21st Febr uary, that this modus viv endi might possibly provoke conflict 
in the Behring’s Sea, and to avoid that result, he instructed me to propose that seal- 
ing both on land and sea, should be suspended by both nations during the progress 
of arbitration, or during the season of 1891. On both occasions it was aconversational 
exchange of views, the first at my office at the State Department, the second at my 
1esidence. 
