LNVESTIGATION OP THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 153 



seals to be killed on St. George Island for natives' food from August 10, 1891, to May 1, 

 1892, is limited to 800, and it is of the utmost importance that that number shall not be 

 exceeded under any circumstances. So much depends upon the faithful fulfillment 

 of our national pledges we must not do anything to prejudice them. * * * 



Joseph Murray, 



First Assistant Agent. 



Here is the written record officially made of the fact that the lessees 

 actually continued to kill seals (on St. Paul — 4,782 of them — large, 

 choice seals) after they had been ordered not to do so by the Treasury 

 Department. 



And still more; if it had not been for that protest which the British 

 commissioners made July 29, as above stated, in that "private" 

 meeting, those lawless lessees and their official confederates would 

 have continued to kill "food" seals during the rest of the year. 



This exhibit declares that nothing stood between the lessees and 

 their uninterrupted seal killing during the modus vivendi but that 

 quick action of the British commissioners; the prohibition of the 

 President, the specific orders of the Treasury Department, and their 

 repeated reiteration by Chief Special Agent Williams, that nothing to 

 exceed 7,500 "food" seal skins should be taken, was to them, a mere 

 use of words to conceal their illegal work, not to stop it; a fulgur 

 brutum, in short. 



They took 10,782 skins on St. Paul, when ordered not to exceed 

 6,000 during the entire season. 



They took 3,218 seal skins on St. George when ordered not to exceed 

 1,500 during the entire season. 



And they did all that up to, and by August 11, 1891, with the 

 official orders prohibiting that killing posted June 13, 1891, on the 

 islands. 



Mr. J. Stanley-Brown who shares this malfeasance with Special 

 Agent Williams in 1891, came up again, June 9, 1892, as the United 

 States chief special agent, and on Friday, July 8, following, turned 

 the entire control of the killing over to the lessees; and, for that 

 service, he was made the "superintendent" of the lessees' business 

 on the islands in June, 1894. (See Exhibit B.) 



W. H. Williams, the agent who was put (suddenly) April 5, 1891, 

 in Goff's place by Charles Foster, and who was so selected because 

 Foster had complete control over him, went up to St. Paul Island 

 and landed there June 10, 1891. lie was accompanied by Joseph 

 Stanley-Brown, who also went as Charles Foster's "own man" to 

 get the facts. 



It will be noted in the foregoing statement, that when Williams, 

 after cooperating with Brown in this killing of seme 14,000 seals 

 during the season of 1891, in violation of the international law which 

 fixed it at 7,500 for that year — it will be noted that he leaves the 

 islands on August 11, 1891, and returns to Washington. 



Does he ever return to these islands? No. Mr. Joseph Stanley- 

 Brown takes his place; and, on Thursday, June 9, 1892, arrives on 

 St. Paul Island as the chief special agent in charge. 



What had Williams done? Why was he quietly put over and 

 transferred to London as Goff before him had been transferred to 

 Montreal ? 



He was transferred because he spoke plainly, after his unpleasant 

 experience on the islands during the summer of 1891, as a tool of the 

 lessees. He told his friends at home, and in Washington, that this 



