Mr. Olney to Sir Julian Pauncefote.
Washington , April 14, 1896 .
Excellency: I have the honor to state that, as appears from a letter of the 11th instant from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, the President has designated the revenue steamers Bear, Rush, Perry, Corwin, Grant, and Wolcott to cruise in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering [Page 266] Sea, including the waters of Alaska within the dominion of the United States, for the enforcement of the acts of Congress approved April 6 and 24 and June 5, 1894, giving effect to the award rendered by the tribunal of arbitration at Paris, for the preservation of fur seals and the issuance of regulations governing vessels employed in fur-seal fishing during the season of 1896.
In this relation your attention is respectfully called to Article I of the British order in council, dated April 30, 1894, as follows:
I. The commanding officer of any vessel belonging to the naval or revenue service of the United States of America, and appointed for the time being by the President of the United States for the purpose of carrying into effect the powers conferred by this article, the name of which vessel shall have been communicated by the President of the United States to Her Majesty as being a vessel so appointed as aforesaid, may, if duly commissioned and instructed by the President in that behalf, seize and detain any British vessel which has become liable to be forfeited to Her Majesty under the provisions of the recited act, and may bring her for adjudication before any such British court of admiralty as is referred to in section 103 of “the merchant shipping act, 1854” (which section is set out in the second schedule to the recited act), or may deliver her to any such British officer as is mentioned in the said section for the purpose of being dealt with pursuant to the recited act.
Asking that the foregoing information may be imparted to Her Majesty’s Government,
I have, etc.,