874 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
The Agent reports that he reached the islands on the 10th day of June last; that 
from the Ist January to the Ist May, 1891, no seals were killed on the islands; and 
that from the Ist May to the 10th June, the date of the Agent’s arrival, there were 
killed by the natives for food 1,651 seals. On the morning of the 11th June the 
Agent gave permission to the lessees to commence killing under the Contract with 
the Government of the United States, and he states that, from the 11th to the 15th 
June, 2,920 seals were killed; and that, from the 15th June to the 2nd July, the date 
of the arrival of the steamer ‘‘ Corwin,” bringing the Proclamation of the President 
of the United States, containing the notice and text of the modus vivendi, there were 
killed 4,471 seals. From the 2nd July to the 10th August there were killed, for the 
use of the natives as food, 1,796 seals; and, on leaving the islands, the Agent gave 
instructions to limit the number to be killed by the natives for food up to the 1st 
May, 1892, to 1,233. 
The instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury to the Agent, received by the 
steamer “Corwin,” were that, if in any way his previous instructions were incon- 
sistent with the President’s Proclamation and the Agreement embraced in it, he 
should be governed by the latter. The Agent reports that, after careful considera- 
tion of the text of the Agreement, he decided that the seals killed since the 15th 
June, the date when that instrument was signed, should be deducted from the 7,500 
named in Article 2, thus leaving 3,029 seals to be taken ‘‘ for the subsistence and care 
of the natives” from the 2nd July, 1891, to the lst May, 1892. He says that, in his 
desire to carry out with absolute correctness the modus vivendi, he consulted the two 
United States Commissioners, Messrs. Mendenhall] and Merriam, the Commanders of 
the United States vessels ‘‘Mohican,” ‘ Thetis,” and ‘‘ Corwin,” the United States 
Special Agent, and the Special Inspector, and that they all concurred in his inter- 
pretation of paragraph 2 of the Agreement: that seals killed prior to the 15th June 
did not form part of the 7,500 named in the modus vivendi. He further says that, in 
his first meeting with the British Commissioners, Sir George Baden-Powell and Dr. 
G. M. Dawson, on the 28th July, he submitted the same question to them. Their 
reply was that it was the understanding of the British Government that only 7,500 
seals should be taken during the season, but on examining the text of the Agree- 
ment, they admitted that the Agent’s interpretation of it was correct. This state- 
ment as to the views of the British Commissioners is confirmed by the Report of 
Protessor Mendenhall. 
The Agent claims that his action is not only strictly in accord with the language 
of the Agreement, but with the true intent and spirit of the same, as he understood 
that intent and spirit in the light of all the facts in his possession. He understood 
that the object of the Agreement in allowing 7,500 seals to be killed was for the sub- 
sistence and care of the natives.” The 1,651 seals killed by the natives for food from 
the 1st May to the 10th June were almost immediately eaten by them, as is their 
custom after the scanty supply of meat during the winter and spring months, and 
no part of these seals was salted or preserved for future use. During the killing 
season by the lessees, under their quota for commercial purposes, the natives are 
kept very busy, and have no time to prepare meat for future use, and only so much 
is used for food as is cut off for present use; so that the seals killed between the 
10th June, when the season commenced, and the 2nd July, when the notice of the 
modus vivendi was received, were not available for the future subsistence of the 
natives. As stated, there only remained 3,029 seals to be taken for their subsistence 
from the 2nd July, 1891, to the lst May, 1892. The Agent cites the fact that, from 
the close of the commercial killing season of 1890 on the 20th July, there were killed 
by the natives for food up to the 3lst December, 1890, 6,218 seals, including 3,468 
pup seals, the further killing of the latter being now prohibited. It was plain to 
the Agent that, under the construction which he had placed upon the modus vivendi, 
the supply of meat for the natives during the coming winter would be entirely 
101 inadequate, and before his departure from the islands he called upon the 
lessees to bring in a sufficient supply of salt beef to carry the natives through 
the winter and up to the Ist May, 1892. 
The Agent had no means of determining the scope and meaning of the phrase of 
the British Commissioners as used in your note, “this year’s catch,” or “the catch 
of this season,” as used in their communication to him dated the 30th July, except 
by the interpretation to be given to the text of the modus vivendi, as contained in 
paragraphs 1 and 2. The ‘‘same period,” found in paragraph 2, he understood to 
refer to the period within which the British Government undertook to prohibit seal- 
killing in Behring’s Sea. The British Commissioners informed the Agent that, as 
to the British Government, this period did not begin until a reasonable time after 
the 15th June (the date of signing), sufficient for the naval vessels to reach the sea. 
The Agent interpreted the paragraphs cited as mutually binding, and he could not 
assume that it would be claimed that their provisions were to take effect on one date 
a the interest of the British sealers, and on another in the interest of the United 
tates. 
