796 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
{Inclosure 1 in No. 56.] 
Sir J. Pauncefote to Mr. Wharton. 
WASHINGTON, June 8, 1891. 
Sir: I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 6th instant, 
containing the terms of a proposed Agreeme nt for a modus vivendi during the present 
seal fishery season in Behring’s Sea, which I communicated at once by “telegraph to 
the Marquis of Salisbury. 
I have this day received a reply from his Lordship, in which he transmits a draft 
of the proposed Agreement, with certain modifications and additions. 
I beg to inclose acopy of it, and to request that you will be good enough to submit 
it to your Government for their consideration. 
I have, &e. 
(Signed) JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE. 
32 : {Inclosure 2 in No. 56.) 
Tr. Wharton to Sir J. Pauncefote. 
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, June 9, 1891. 
Stmr: Iam directed by the President, in response to your note of the sth June, 
delivered this morning, to say that he regrets that at the moment when the two 
Governments seemed to have reached an agreement in this matter, which is one call- 
ing for the utmost promptness of action, new conditions should be suggested by 
Lord Salisbury. With the acceptance of the proposition submitted in my last note 
relating to permission to British agents to visit the seal islands, an agreement had 
been reached upon all the conditions that had been previously discussed or sug- 
gested in this connection. The President does not object to the modification of his 
proposal suggested in the first Article submitted by you, for he assumes that the 
terms used, w vhile not as strong perhaps as those suggested by this Government, do 
fully commit the Government of Great Britain to prompt and energetic measures in 
the repression of the killing of seals by the subjects and vessels of “that nation. 
The proposals submitted ‘by you on the 3rd June contain this clause: 
“During the period above specified the United States Government shall have the 
right to kill 7,500 seals.” Now his Lordship adds a most extraordinary and not 
altogether clear condition (I quote): “ to be taken on the shores and islands as food 
skins, and not for tax or shipment.” 
This new condition is entirely inadmissible, and, in the opinion of the President, 
inconsistent with the assent already given by Her Majesty’s Government to the 
proposition of the United States in that behalf. 
tt had been particularly explained in the correspondence that the lessees of the 
privilege of taking seals upon the islands assumed obligations to supply to the 
natives the food and other things necessary for their subsistence and comfort, and 
that the taking of the limited number of seals was not only to supply flesh to the 
natives, but, in some part, to recompense the Company for furnishing other neces- 
sary articles of food, clothing, and tuel. The President is surprised that it should 
now be suggested that none of these skins should be removed from the islands, and 
he cannot understand how British interests can be promoted by allowing them to 
go to waste. 
The previous communications of Her Majesty’s Government had, in the opinion of 
President, concluded this matter. 
As to the third clause of your proposition, | am directed to say that the contention 
between the United States and Great Britain has relation solely to the respective 
rights of the two Governments in the waters of Behring’s Sea outside of the ordi- 
nary territorial limits, and the stipulations for the co-operation of the two Govern- 
ments during this season have, of course, the same natural limitation. 
This is recognized in Articles 1 and 2 of your proposal, for you will observe that 
the obligation assumed by Her Majesty’s Government is to prohibit seal-killing in a 
certain part of Behring’s Sea, whereas the obligation assumed in the second Article 
by the Government of ‘the United States is to prohibit seal-killing in the same part 
of Behring’s Sea, and the shores and islands thereof the property of the United 
States. 
The killing, therefore, of seals on the islands, or within the territorial waters of 
the United States, falls only within the prohibition of this Government. His Lord- 
ship will also see that it is altogether beyond the power of the President to stipu- 
late that an offence committed in the undisputed territory of the United States 
eect tA 
