Grover Cleveland Proclamation Authorization Signed.

CLEVELAND, Grover.

$1,600.00

Item Number: 146748

Washington, D.C:, 1894.

Rare authorization of Proclamation 364: Prohibiting the Hunting of Fur Seals, an act designed to drastically limit the hunting of fur seals by both the United States and Great Britain in and around the Bering Sea; signed by Grover Cleveland as President. Octavo, one page on Executive Mansion letterhead, partially printed. The document is dated April 9, 1894 and directs the Secretary of State to cause the Seal of the United States to be affixed to “my proclamation of the Act of Congress approved the 6th instant, to give effect to the award rendered by the Tribunal of Arbitration at Paris under the treaty between the U. S. & Great Britain of Feby 29, 1892.” Signed by President Grover Cleveland at the conclusion. In fine condition with mail folds and very light toning to the edges.

While the U.S. employed Proclamation 364 in 1894 as a more sustainable seal-harvesting method much like the Russians before them, seal vessels from Great Britain and Ireland mostly opposed or ignored these measures because of their exclusionary nature, which resulted in the United States Revenue Cutter Service, known today as the United States Coast Guard, capturing several Canadian sealer vessels throughout the conflict. The negotiations leading up to the implementation of this Proclamation and subsequent conflict had led to The Bering Sea Arbitration of 1893 and, for a little while, potential war between the United States and Great Britain. Later, The North Pacific Fur Seal Convention Treaty, signed on July 7, 1911, was designed to manage the commercial harvest of fur-bearing mammals in the Pribilof Islands of the Bering Sea. Signed by the United States, Great Britain (also representing Canada), Japan, and Russia, the treaty was the first of its kind in addressing wildlife preservation at an international level.