Mr. Gresham to Sir Julian Pauncefote.
Washington, August 21, 1894.
Excellency: Referring to our verbal communications of a recent date, I have now the honor formally to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 7th of June last, in which you propose in behalf of Her Majesty’s Government the establishment of a mixed commission for the purpose of “verifying and adjusting the claims for compensation for the seizure of British sealing vessels in Bering Sea.”
While no serious difficulty is anticipated in settling and determining the claims by means of a mixed commission, it is a matter of interest to both Governments that they should, if possible, be disposed of in a simpler and less expensive way. Proceedings by admixed commission, while always more or less formal and cumbersome, are, like all other processes of litigation, necessarily attended with expense, not infrequently considerable in amount, as well as with delay.
In the present case the award and findings of the Tribunal of Arbitration [Page 225] at Paris have, to a great extent, determined the facts and the principles on which the claims should be adjusted, and in the course of the negotiations for a mixed commission, they have been subjected by both Governments to a thorough examination, both upon the principles and the facts which they involve.
Under these circumstances the President, after full consideration of the whole subject, has reached the conclusion that it may be practicable as well as advantageous to effect a direct settlement of the claims by the payment of a lump sum in full satisfaction of all demands for damages against the United States growing out of the controversy between the two Governments as to the fur seals in Bering Sea; and to this end I am instructed by the President to propose the sum of $425,000.
This propositon, if it should prove to be acceptable to Her Majesty’s Government, is to be understood as having been made subject to the action of Congress on the question of appropriating the money. The President can only undertake to submit the matter to Congress at the beginning of its session in December next, with a recommendation that the money be appropriated and made immediately available for the purpose above expressed; and if at any time before the appropriation is made your Government shall desire, it is understood that the negotiations on which we have for some time been engaged for the establishment of a mixed commission will be renewed.
I have, etc.