ut wielded the broadsword of equity, he
often caught the public conscience, and then he was not an opponent to
be despised.

Blaine at once undertook the defense of the contention that Bering Sea
was "closed" and the exclusive property of the United States, in
spite of the fact that this position was opposed to the whole trend of
American opinion, which from the days of the Revolution had always stood
for freedom of the high seas and the limitation of the water rights of
particular nations to the narrowest limits. The United States and Great
Britain had jointly protested against the Czar's ukase of 1821, which
had asserted Russia's claim to Bering Sea as territorial waters; and if
Russia had not possessed it in 1821, we certainly could not have bought
it in 1867. In the face of Canadian opinion, Great Britain could never
consent, even for the sake of peace, to a position as unsound as it was
disadvantageous to Canadian industry. Nor did Blaine's contention that
the seals were domestic animals belonging to us, and therefore subject
to our protection while wandering through the ocean, carry conviction to
lawyers familiar with the fascinating intricacies of the law, domestic
and international, relating to migratory birds and beasts. To the
present generation it seems amusing that Blaine defended his basic
contention quite as much on the ground of the inhumanity of destroying
the seals as of its economic wastefulness. Yet Blaine rallied Congress
to his support, as well as a great part of American sentiment.

The situation, which had now become acute, was aggravated by the fact
that most American public men of this period did not separate their
foreign and domestic politics. Too many sought to secure the important
Irish vote by twisting the tail of the British lion. The Republicans,
in particular, sought to identify protection with patriotism and were
making much of the fact that the recall of Lord Sackville-West, the
British Minister, had been forced because he had advised a correspondent
to vote for Cleveland. It spoke volumes for the fundamental good sense
of the two nations that, when relations were so strained, they could
agree to submit their differences to arbitration. For this happy outcome
credit must be given to the cooler heads on both sides, but equal credit
must be given to their legacy from the cool heads which had preceded
them. The United States and Great Britain had acquired the habit of
submitting to judic