APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN, 841 
IT have felt much anxiety lest the President should persist in the 
endeavour to obtain a previous admission of liability on the part 
12 of Her Majesty’s Government in a case involving (as I stated in 
my note to the United States Government) such important issues 
and presenting such novel features. 
It was not until yesterday that I received the official reply of the 
United States Government to my note of the 13th instant, of which I 
telegraphed the substance to your Lordship. 
I have the honour to inclose a copy of that reply, from which your 
Lordship will perceive that the President, while maintaining that the 
United States would be justified in insisting that Her Majesty’s Govern- 
ment should admit responsibility in certain events, is willing to waive 
that point, and to modify his proposals with a view to remove what 
seems to be the last point of difference in this protracted discussion. 
The President urges that the clause should contain a statement in 
general terms of the claims which each Government desires to prefer, 
and, in his reply, he proposes a new form in which the claims are so 
stated and left for the decision of the Arbitrators, thus conceding the 
principle for which I have contended. 
The statement of the British claim in this new clause appears to me 
to be too restrictive, as it would seem to exclude losses and injuries 
arising from interference with our vessels as distinguished from actual 
Seizures, and takes no account of the personal claims of the British sub- 
jects imprisoned and otherwise damnified in the proceedings resulting 
from those seizures. 
I do not apprehend that the United States Government will object to 
our claim being stated in our own terms; and, subject to that modifica- 
tion, I venture to think that the clause now proposed by the President 
will be acceptable to Her Majesty’s Government, and will practically 
bring this long negotiation to a satisfactory termination. 
I have, &e. 
(Signed) : JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE, 
{Inclosure in No. 118.] 
Mr. Wharton to Sir J. Pauncefote. 
WASHINGTON, July 23, 1891. 
Sir: The President directs me to say, in response to your note of the 13th instant, 
that he noticed with pleasure the good progress towards a full agreement upon the 
terms of arbitration indicated by your statement that only the 7th el: Vuse, aS Pro- 
posed by this Government, appears to you ‘‘to raise any serious difficulty.” 
Yhat clause was thus stated in my note of the 25th June: 
“Tt shall be competent to the Arbitrators to award such compensation as, in their 
judgment, shall seem equitable, to the subjects or citizens of Great Britain whose 
vessels may have been seized by the United States in the Behring’s Sea, if such 
seizures shall be found by the Arbitrators to have been unwarranted; and it shall 
also be competent to the Arbitrators to award to the United States such compensa- 
tion as, in their judgment, shall seem equitable for any injuries resulting to the 
United States, or to the lessees from that Government of the privilege ot taking 
seals on the Pribyloff Islands, by reason of the killing of seais in the Behring’s Sea 
by persons acting under the prote ction of the British flag, outside of the ordinary 
territorial limits, and since the Ist day of January, 1886, if such killing shall be 
found to have been an infraction of the rights of the United States.” 
The objection you make to this clause is thus stated by you: 
“Her Majesty’s Government have no desire to exclude from the consideration of 
the Arbitrators any claim of compensation in relation to the Behring’s Sea fisheries 
which the United States Government may consider themselves entitled to prefer 
consistently with the recognized principles of international law; but they are of 
