APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 871 
No. 147. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salishury.—( Received October 22.) 
WASHINGTON, October 12, 1891. 
My Lorp: In my despatch of the 4th September last I had the 
honour to report that, in accordance with your Lordship’s instructions, 
I addressed a note to the United States Government calling their 
attention to the violation of Article 2 of the Behring’s Sea Agreement 
for a modus vivendi, signed on the 15th June last (which limited the 
killing of seals on the islands until May 1892 to 7,500), and expresing 
the conviction of Her Majesty’s Government that the President would 
not countenance any evasion of the true spirit of the Agreement, and 
would take the necessary measures to insure its strict observance. 
938 I have now the honour to inclose copies of that note, and of 
the reply of the United States Government, which I received on 
the 10th instant. In transmitting these documents I venture to submit 
to your Lordship the following observations. 
No question can reasonably arise as to the meaning of the Agreement 
as understood by the two Governments. Your Lordship will remember 
that when Mr. Blaine first proposed a reservation of the right to kill a 
limited number of seals on the islands for the care and subsistence of 
the natives, I objected to the suggestion as detracting from the principle 
of equality which was a feature of the original proposal. Mr. Blaine, 
in his note to me of the 4th May, 1891 (of which a copy was inelosed 
in my despatch of the 5th of that month),* dwelt at great length on 
the various grounds, principally humanitarian, upon which the proposal 
was based, and coneluded as follows: 
‘‘Tn this exigency the President instructs me to propose to Lord Salis- 
bury that he concede to the North American Company the right to take 
a sufficient number of seals, and no more than sufficient, to recompense 
them for their outlay in taking care of the natives, and that, in the 
phrase of the President, all ‘commercial killing of seals be prohibited 
pending the result of arbitration.’ 
‘““The Secretary of the Treasury has a right to fix the number neces- 
sary to the end desired. After full consideration, he has limited the 
number to 7,500 to be killed by the Company to repay them for the 
outlay demanded for the support of the 300 people on the Pribyloff 
Islands.” 
Her Majesty’s Government consented to the reservation, on the terms 
and for the purposes above mentioned, and, in the course of the further 
negotiations, they pointed out that “it was on the fidelity with which 
the condition of not killing more than 7,500 seals was observed that the 
equality of the proposed Agreement depended.” They therefore asked 
for facilities for the supervision by British agents of the proceedings of 
the Company on the seal islands. To this the Acting Secretary of 
State, in his note to me of the 6th June, 1891 (of which a copy was 
inclosed in my despatch of the 9th June), replied as follows: 
“He” (the President) ‘‘directs me to ask you to remind Lord Salis- 
bury that the limitation of the killing of seals upon the islands is abso- 
lutely within the control of the United States, as a daily count is made 
by sworn officers, and to inform him that already, in order to insure 
such control pending these negotiations, the agents of the Treasury 
Department who have been dispatched to the seal islands have been 
*See “United States No. 2 (1891),” p. 5. 
