be 4 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
instructed to stop the killing when 7,500 have been taken, and to await 
the arrival of further orders; though, ordinarily, the taking of seals on 
the islands does not begin until about the Ist July. The enforcement 
of an agreed limitation being so fully in the control of the United States, 
the President is sure that Lord Salisbury will not question the absolute 
good faith of this Government in observing its stipulation to limit the 
catch to 7,500.” 
The two Governments therefore agreed that, up to May 1892, only 
7,500 seals should be killed for the support of the 300 people on the 
Pribyloft Islands, and that all “commercial killing” (to use the language 
of Mr. Blaine) should be stopped. It is important to note that the 
agents of the United States Treasury Department, who had been dis- 
patched to the seal islands long before the signature of the Agreement, 
had been instructed as far back as the 27th May “to stop the killing 
when 7,500 had been taken.” 
The following are the Articles of the Agreement relating to the restric- 
tion on the killing of seals: 
1. Her Majesty’s Government will prohibit, until May next, seal-killing in that 
part of Behring’s Sea lying eastward of the line of dem areation described in Article 
I of the Treaty of 1867 between the United States and Russia, and will promptly use 
its best efforts to insure the observance of this prohibition by British subjects and 
vessels. 
2. The United States Government will prohibit seal-killing for the same period in 
the same part of Behring’s Sea, and on the shores and islands thereof the property 
of the United States (in excess of 7,500 to be taken on the islands for the subsistence 
and care of the natives), and will promptly use its best efforts to insure the observ- 
ance of this prohibition by United States citizens and vessels. 
It is difficult to understand by what process of reasoning the United 
States Treasury Agent at the seal islands can have come to the con- 
clusion that he was authorized under the above Agreement to permit 
the killing of 12,071 seals. 
Sir George Baden-Powell and Dr. Dawson, the British Commissioners 
sent to Behring’s Sea, in a telegram "from the Pribyloff Islands 
99 dated the 5th August, reported to your Lordship that this year’s 
catch of seals had already considerably exceeded the number of 
7,500, the limit fixed in the Agreement; and, in a despatch of the 
same date, they stated that. at St. Paul they had been informed that 
the Treasury Agent had been instructed, as far back as the 27th May, 
to keep the quota of seals taken by the Company under 7,500, and that 
en route to the islands he was advised by telegram to interpret his 
instructions in accordance with the United States Proclamation, which 
embodied the Agreement of the 15th June verbatim. This accor ds 
entirely with what i is stated in the Acting Secretary of State’s note to 
me of the 6th June, which I have quoted above. 
The British Behring’s Sea Commissioners, in their despatch above 
referred to, state that the Treasury Agent, Major Williains, arrived at 
the Eribylom Islands on the 10th June, and that, on the 20th June, the 
quota of 7,500 seals having been killed, he stopped all further killing 
for the Comp: Wy. 
Up to the 20th June, therefore, the Treasury Agent entertained no 
doubt as to the limit of seals to be killed, and as to his instructions and 
his duties under the Agreement. It was only when a copy of the 
President’s Proclamation arrived at the islands on the 2nd July that he 
entertained doubts as to whether he ought not to allow 7,500 seals to 
be killed from and after the 15th June, the date.of the signature of the 
Agreement, ignoring all the killing of seals which had taken place 
prior and up to that date. On the 28th J uly he imparted his doubts to 
a on 
“~y 
