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mal in the waters of Behring Sea as well as on the coasts of Japan and in their conterminous waters. I shall have the honor to await, in deference to Count Ito's expressed request, your instructions in response to the respectful proposition of the Japanese Government before entering upon any formal negotiations on this subject. On receipt of this dispatch by the Department of State, I have the honor to suggest that if the reply to my cablegram of the 29th ultimo has been mailed to this legation by the Department, that in that end a brief telegram signifying your willingness to include the sea-otter in the said negotiations would advance the negotiations and gratify this Government as well, who manifests a deep interest in securing an early arrangement by our respective governments for the better protection of the fur-seal and seaotter fisheries in American and Japanese waters.

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SIR: I have the honor herewith to forward to your excellency, and to beg your early and favorable consideration of, a copy of an instruction which I have had the honor to receive from the Department of State of my Government.

The general proposition respectfully submitted in this instruction by my Government, as well as the obvious and convincing reasons there set forth in favor of its adoption by the friendly powers named therein, will, I am sure, receive from your excellency's Government the same earnest consideration as they have received from the United States.

As already indicated unofficially to the foreign office, I shall, in furtherance of the wishes and instructions of my Government, be gratified and obliged if your excellency will formally appoint any future time and place when and where I may have the honor to confer and discuss with your excellency, or any other representative of His Imperial Majesty's Government, the subject of an arrangement or special convention between the United States of America and the Empire of Japan having reference to the better protection of the fur-seal fisheries in Behring Sea.

I avail, etc.,

RICHARD B. HUBBARD.

No. 8584].

¡Inclosure 2 in No. 393.-Translation.]
Count Ito Hirobumi to Mr. Hubbard.

DEPARTMENT FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
Tokio, October 8, 1887.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellenty's note of the 6th instant, in which you are pleased to inclose the copy of a communication from the honorable the Secretary of State in reference to the seal fisheries in Behring Sea, and, in pursuance of instructions contained in that dispatch, invite His Imperial Majesty's Government to enter into an arrangement with the Government of the United States having for its object the protection of fur seals in Behring Sea from indiscriminate destruction and consequent extermination.

The unregulated and indiscriminate slaughter of the sea-otter as well as the fur seal on the coasts of Japan and in their conterminous waters is a subject which has for many years engaged the serions attention of the Imperial Government.

The experience of His Imperial Majesty's Government justifies the belief that the end sought to be obtained can be best secured by means of a co-operative international action, and they therefore cordially approve of the suggestion of the honorable the Secretary of State.

His Imperial Majesty's Government would be willing to enter into an arrangement for the purpose indicated, but they would wish, for the reasons assigned by Mr. Bayard in favor of the protection of the fur seal in Behring Sea, to extend the principle

of protection to the sea-otter as well as the fur seal, and to enlarge the protected zone so as to embrace the known habitat of that animal.

I beg that you will bring this proposal to the attention of the Government of the United States, and I would suggest that this be done in advance of any negotiations on the subject.

I avail myself, etc.

No. 28.

COUNT ITO HIROBUMI.

No. 171.]

Mr. Bayard to Mr. Hubbard.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 21, 1887.

SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatches Nos. 388 and 393, dated, respectively, September 29 and October 10, and in reply to express the satisfaction of this Department at the favorable response of the Japanese Government to negotiate for the protection of the seal fisheries in Behring Sea.

The Department hopes to be able, at an early day, to instruct you further on the subject. At present, owing doubtless to the shortness of the time, few replies have been received from foreign governments to the circular invitation of the United States in this regard. And it is thought desirable to await for a time further responses, which might affect the course of the negotiations.

I am, etc.,

No. 29.

T. F. BAYARD.

No. 483.]

Mr. Hubbard to Mr. Bayard.

UNITED STATES LEGATION,

Tokio, Japan, June 23, 1888. (Received July 16.) SIR Respectfully referring to the correspondence between the Department of State and this legation, looking to the conclusion of a convention between Japan and the United States and some other powers for the protection of the fur-seal fisheries in Behring Sea, and the protection of the sea otter, as subsequently suggested by Japan, I have the honor to inform the Department that instruction No. 171, of Novem ber 21, 1887, which has heretofore been acknowledged, is the last that has been received by me from the Department on this subject.

I desire to inform the Department that the Japanese foreign office has in a friendly spirit of inquiry asked if I could furnish information as to when my Government would be ready (as Japan had been ready for some time past) to resume the consideration of the proposed convention.

I have, in response to this inquiry, forwarded to the foreign office a copy of your said instruction No. 171, dated November 21, 1887, with the accompanying note, dated June 20, transmitting the same. The Japanese minister for foreign affairs has been recently advised by the Russian minister to Japan that the United States Government and those of Russia and Great Britain had discussed, at London, the matter of a sim ilar convention for the protection of the fur-seal fisheries and sea-otter in Behring Sea. He also communicated the fact that the Government at

St. Petersburg desired to conclude with Japan a convention for the mutual protection of the seal and otter within their own seas and contiguous waters.

This fact has been the immediate cause of the inquiry submitted to me, to which the inclosure herewith is in response.

I have, etc.,

[Inclosure in No. 483.]

RICHARD B. HUBBARD.

No. 284.]

Mr. Hubbard to Count Okuma.

UNITED STATES LEGATION,
Tokio, June 20, 1888.

SIR: Referring to my note to his exellency Count Ito, dated October 6, 1887, and his reply thereto dated November 8, 1887, concerning a proposed arrangement which the United States invited Japan to enter into with the United States and certain other powers, for the protection of the fur seals in Behring Sea from indiscriminate destruction and consequent extermination, I have now the honor to inclose an instruction* from my Government in response to my dispatch to the honorable the Secretary of State, informing him of Japan's willingness to enter such an arrangement.

It will be observed by your excellency that my Government is awaiting the replies of some other foreign governments to the invitation of the United States to enter into such a convention.

I have not communicated with your excellency's department since my note of the 6th of October, on account of awaiting further instructions from my Government in the premises, to which the instruction herewith inclosed especially refers. The substance of the inclosed instruction has not been heretofore communicated to your excellency's Government, hoping that I might, as indicated, ere now have been furnished with final instructions to conclude a convention between our respective governments, embracing all the points of discussion on which a common and friendly concurrence and understanding had been reached and of which my Government was advised in my dispatches to which the inclosed instruction is in response.

I avail myself, etc.,

RICHARD B. HUBBARD.

No. 491.]

No. 30.

Mr. Hubbard to Mr. Bayard.

UNITED STATES LEGATION,

Tokio, Japan, July 13, 1888. (Received August 8.) SIR: I have the honor to inclose herewith a copy of a note from the Japanese minister for foreign affairs dated July 7, in which I am requested to instruct the United States consuls in Japan not to ship Japanese subjects on board American vessels engaged or about to engage in otter or seal hunting.

The reasons for such a request are set forth in the minister's note. In compliance with Count Okuma's request, I have instructed the United States consul-general at Kanagawa, and through him the other consular representatives of the United States in Japan, to refrain from shipping any Japanese subjects on any American otter or seal hunting vessels.

I have the honor to inclose a copy of my communication to the United States consul-general on the subject, and hope that my action in the premises will meet the approval of the Department of State.

In order that the Department may more fully understand the imme

* See supra, No. 28.

diate causes which have led the Japanese Government to take the course indicated in regard to the shipment of Japanese subjects on otter and seal hunting vessels, I beg to submit a brief account of the attack on the British schooner Nemo, to which Count Okuma refers:

The Nemo is a schooner of 150 tons, owned and commanded by one Snow, a British resident of Yokohama, and was manned by Japanese sailors. The schooner is what is known as an "otter and seal hunter." On the 27th of May last, while the schooner was en route to the hunting grounds, it was, according to the commander's statement, be calmed off Copper Island (Russian territory). Early on the morning of May 27, while the schooner was still becalmed, the commander put of in a boat with a crew of six Japanese sailors, accompanied or followed by two other boats of Japanese sailors. The commander of the Nemo was the only foreigner in the boats. When about 200 yards from shore. and after the commander of the Nemo had discharged his rifle at one or more otters, his boat was fired upon by an unknown number of men concealed behind the rocks or a bluff of the shore, and using, as the commander of the Nemo supposes, Winchester rifles.

The firing was kept up with great rapidity, and all of the men in the boat, including the commander, being wounded, it was with great difficulty that the boat was gotten out of reach of the firing, the commander and one sailor being the only occupants of the boat who were able to propel it, and being both wounded, the craft moved very slowly.

When the commander's boat got out of range of the firing (the second boat had one man wounded, but the third had not approached within range of the firing), it was ascertained that one of the Japanese had been killed outright, and two others afterwards died on the Nemo from the wounds then received,

The commander was wounded in the hand and in the thigh, but he and the other Japanese who were wounded have, I understand, about recovered.

The schooner was brought to Yokohama, where an inquiry into the affair was held by the British consul, who found that the attack was unprovoked.

I have, etc.,

RICHARD B. HUBBARD.

[Inclosure 1 in No. 491.-Translation.]

Count Okuma to Mr. Hubbard.

DEPARTMENT FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Tokio, the 9th day, the 7th month, the 21st year of Meiji.

SIR: The recent attack at Copper Island upon the British schooner Nemo (with the circumstances and results of which you are doubtless familiar), coupled with the fact that the unlicensed taking of otter and seal within the jurisdiction of His Imperial Majesty is prohibited by law, has impressed upon the Imperial Government the necessity of adopting more effectual measures on the one hand to proteet His Imperial Japanese Majesty's subjects from the consequences of acts for which as seamen they could hardly be held responsible, and on the other to put a stop to an unlawful occupation.

With these objects in view, I have the honor to request that you will instruct the consuls of your country in Japan to refrain, until otherwise advised, from shipping Japanese subjects on board any American vessels engaged or about to engage in otter or seal hunting.

I avail,, etc.,

COUNT SHIGENOBU OKUMA.

[Inclosure 2 in No. 491.!

Mr. Hubbard to Mr. Greathouse.

UNITED STATES LEGATION,

Tokio, July 12, 1888.

SIR: I have to inclose for your information and observance and guidance a copy of a note from the Japanese minister for foreign affairs, in which as the diplomatic representative of the United States, I am requested to instruct consular representatives of the United States resident in the Empire to refrain, until further notice, from shipping Japanese subjects on board any American vessel engaged or about to engage in otter or seal hunting.

This action, as the minister for foreign affairs states, has been occasioned by the "necessity of adopting more effectual measures on the one hand to protect, His Imperial Japanese Majesty's subjects from the consequences of acts for which as seamen they could hardly be held responsible, and on the hand to put a stop to an unlawful occupation."

In view of the fact that the United States Government recognizes the exclusive jurisdiction of all governments over their own subjects, and in view of the extraterritorial jurisdiction in the open ports of Japan, by which Japan has no means of enforcing the observance of its laws by masters of American vessels, I deemed it proper, under the comity of nations-a comity which the United States has shown to Japan in causing the observance of Japanese quarantine regulations and in other instances to instruct you to observe the request of the Japanese Government in this particular; and you will therefore refrain, until further notice, from shipping Japanese subjects on board any American vessel engaged or about to engage in otter or seal hunting.

You are further instructed to forward a copy of this communication, together with a copy of the note from the minister for foreign affairs, to each of the United States consuls at Osaka and Hiogo and Nagasaki, with instructions that they will observe the same.

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Tokio, Japan, July 13, 1888. (Received August 8.) SIR: Referring to the correspondence which has taken place between the Department of State and this legation concerning a proposed convention between the United States and Japan and some other powers, looking to the protection of the fur-seal fisheries in Behring Sea, I have the honor to inclose a copy of a note, dated July 9, from the Japanese minister of foreign affairs, inquiring as to the nature of the consultation now being conducted at London on this subject, with a view of instructing the Japanese minister at London to take part in said consultation provided it has assumed the nature of an international conference in which the views of the several powers interested may be interchanged.

The note from Count Okuma and my reply to the same, also herewith inclosed, fully explain themselves, and are forwarded to the Department with the view of eliciting such reply as may be desired advisable in the premises.

There is no doubt that the Nemo affair, to which I had the honor to refer in my dispatch No. 491 of this date, has had the effect of increasing Japan's interest in the proposed convention and her desire to see it concluded at an early day.

I have, etc.,

RICHARD B. HUBBARD,

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