INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 295 



The Chairman. I will ask you some questions now. I call your attention to the 

 matter appearing at pages 178 and 179 of these hearings. You will find there what 

 purports to be an article which appeared in the Cleveland Leader, on Saturday, August 

 11, 1906. Do you know Capt. Alexander McLean? 



Dr. Townsend. Yes, sir; I knew one of the McLeans, and I think it was Alex- 

 ander — no, sir; it was not Alexander; it was Daniel McLean, his brother, whom I 

 knew. 



The Chairman. Do you know who Alexander McLean was? 



Dr. Townsend. Yes, sir. 



The Chairman. Who was he? 



Dr. Townsend. He was a man who led a great many raids on the seal islands; I 

 think on the Commander Islands as well as the Pribilof Islands. 



The Chairman. "What was the name of his ship? 



Dr. Townsend. I can not say. He was at it a good many years and must have had 

 a good many ships. I can not remember the names of them. 



The Chairman. Did he own the /. Hamilton Lewis? 



Dr. Townsend. I might be able to answer that question if I had the proceedings 

 of The Hague Tribunal before me. The J". Hamilton Lewis was one of the vessels in 

 question there. 



The Chairman. He was in the employ of Mr. Herman Liebes, was he not? 



Dr. Townsend. I do not know whose employ he was in. I can not say at the 

 present moment. 



The Chairman. The information I gather from this statement is that he was in the 

 employment of Herman Liebes, who was one of the lessees in the North American 

 Commercial Co. 



Dr. Townsend. I think it is stated somewhere in the The Hague Tribunal hear- 

 ings that Liebes unquestionably owned sealing vessels while he was also an investor 

 or shareholder, probably, in the Fur Seal Co. That is my recollection. 



The Chairman. And one of the vessels was the J". Hamilton Lewis? 



Dr. Townsend. I think the J. Hamilton Lewis was Liebes's vessel. 



Mr. McDermott. "Was that a vessel engaged in pelagic sealing? 



Dr. Towxsend. Yes, sir. 



Mr. McGillicuddy. When you say "sealing," do you mean pelagic sealing? 



Dr. Townsend. Yes, sir. 



Mr. McDermott. They are pirates, are they not? 



Dr. Townsend. Yes, sir. 



As the "'sealing expert" of the Bureau of Fisheries, he had in his 

 own mind, by 1807, this direct personal knowledge of the character 

 of that pelagic sealing which was known as "piracy," and familiarly 

 called "raiding" by the sealers themselves. Only a few of those 

 pelagic sealers as "captains," or "masters" of the fleet of "123 ves- 

 sels" which Townsend was acquainted with (as he deposes on p. 

 750), were guilty of this raiding. These captains who, like Alexander 

 McLean and his brother Dan McLean, were well known among all 

 sealers and often unsparingly denounced by the law-abiding sealing- 

 vessel owners and masters. Had Dr. Townsend been deaf, blind, and 

 dumb during that period from 1885 to 1807, in which he told the com- 

 mittee he was "busy studying the records of these sealers/' he then 

 could not have escaped some knowledge of Alexander McLean as a 

 British subject and "pirate" up to 1880 and then as a bogus 

 "American citizen" in the James Hamilton Lewis during 1800 and 

 1801. 



But he tells the committee that he did know McLean as a 

 "raider" and a "pirate," on page 754, and Dr. Townsend also tells 

 the committee that he knew that Liebes, lessee of the seal islands, 

 owned the James Hamilton Lev:is when he was promoting the claim 

 of "Max Waizman" (the "dummy" owner) and the British pirate, 

 Alexander McLean, as the "American owner and master" of the James 

 Hamilton Lewis at The Hague, June 27-July 4, 1002. (See pp. 

 407-441, H. Doc. No. 1, 57th Cong., 2d sess.) 



