Sir Julian Pauncefote to Mr. Blaine.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge your note of this day with reference to the passage in a telegram from the Marquis of Salisbury, which I communicated to you at our interview of the 9th instant, to the effect that “it is beyond the power of Her Majesty’s Government to exclude British or Canadian ships from any portion of the high seas, even for an hour, without legislative action.”
You inform me that without commenting on the fact that his lordship assumes the waters surrounding the Pribylov Islands to be the high seas, the President instructs you to say that it would satisfy your Government if Lord Salisbury would by public proclamation simply request that vessels sailing under the British flag should abstain from entering the Behring Sea for the present season. You add, if this request shall be complied with, there will be full time for impartial negotiations, and, as the President hopes, for a friendly conclusion of the differences between the two Governments.
I have telegraphed the above communication to Lord Salisbury, and I await his lordship’s instructions thereon. In the meanwhile I take this opportunity of informing you that I reported to his lordship, by telegraph, that at the same interview I again pressed you for an assurance that British sealing vessels would not be interfered with in the Behring Sea by United States revenue cruisers while the negotiations continued, but you replied that you could not give such assurance. I trust this is not a final decision, and that in the course of the next few days, while there is yet time to communicate with the commanders, instructions will be sent to them to abstain from such interference.
It is in that hope that I have delayed delivering the formal protest of Her Majesty’s Government announced in my note of the 23d of May.
I have, etc.,