Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1890

Mr. Blaine to Sir Julian Pauncefote.

Department of State,
Washington, June 30, 1890.

Sir: On the 5th instant you read to me a dispatch from Lord Salisbury dated May 22, and by his instruction you left with me a copy. His Lordship writes in answer to my dispatch of the 22d January last. At that time, writing to yourself touching the current contention between the Governments of the United States and Great Britain as to the jurisdiction of the former over the waters of the Behring Sea, I made the following statement:

The Government of the United States has no occasion and no desire to withdraw or modify the positions which it has at any time maintained against the claims of the Imperial Government of Russia. The United States will not withhold from any nation the privileges which it demanded for itself when Alaska was part of the Russian Empire. Nor is the Government of the United States disposed to exercise any less power or authority than it was willing to concede to the Imperial Government of Russia when its sovereignty extended over the territory in question. The President is persuaded that all friendly nations will concede to the United States the same rights and privileges on the lands and in the waters of Alaska which the same friendly nations always conceded to the Empire of Russia.

In answer to this declaration Lord Salisbury contends that Mr. John Quincy Adams, when Secretary of State under President Monroe, protested against the jurisdiction which Russia claimed over the waters of Behring Sea. To maintain this position his lordship cites the words of a dispatch of Mr. Adams, written on July 23, 1823, to Mr. Henry Middleton, at that time our minister at St. Petersburg. The alleged declarations and admissions of Mr. Adams in that dispatch have been the basis of all the arguments which Her Majesty’s Government has submitted against the ownership of certain properties in the Behring Sea which the Government of the United States confidently assumes. I quote the portion of Lord Salisbury’s argument which includes the quotation from Mr. Adams:

After Russia, at the instance of the Russian-American Fur Company, claimed in 1821 the pursuits of commerce, whaling, and fishing from Behring’s Straits to the 51st degree of north latitude, and not only prohibited all foreign vessels from landing on the coasts and islands of the above waters, but also prevented them from approaching within 100 miles thereof, Mr. Quincy Adams wrote as follows to the United States minister in Russia:

“The United States can admit no part of these claims; their right of navigation and fishing is perfect, and has been in constant exercise from the earliest times throughout the whole extent of the Southern Ocean, subject only to the ordinary exceptions and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions.”

The quotation which Lord Salisbury makes is unfortunately a most defective, erroneous, and misleading one. The conclusion is separated from the premise, a comma is turned into a period, an important qualification as to time is entirely erased without even a suggestion that it had ever formed part of the text, and out of eighty-four words, logically and inseparably connected, thirty-five are dropped from Mr. Adams’ paragraph in Lord Salisbury’s quotation. No edition of Mr. Adams’ work gives authority for his lordship’s quotation; while the archives of this Department plainly disclose its many errors. I requote Lord Salisbury’s version of what Mr. Adams said, and in juxtaposition produce Mr. Adams’s full text as he wrote it:

[Lord Salisbury’s quotation from Mr. Adams.]

The United States can admit no part of these claims; their right of navigation and fishing is perfect, and has been in constant exercise from the earliest times throughout the whole extent of the Southern Ocean, subject only to the ordinary exceptions and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions.

[Full text of Mr. Adams’ paragraph.]

The United States can admit no part of these claims. Their right of navigation and of fishing is perfect, and has been in constant exercise from the earliest times, after the peace of 1783, throughout the whole extent of the Southern Ocean, subject only to the ordinary exceptions and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions, which so far as Russian rights are concerned, are confined to certain islands north of the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, and have no existence on the continent of America.

The words in italics are those which are left out of Mr. Adams’ paragraph in the dispatch of Lord Salisbury. They are precisely the words upon which the Government of the United States founds its argument in this case. Conclusions or inferences resting upon the paragraph, with the material parts of Mr. Adams’ text omitted, are of course valueless.

The first object is to ascertain the true meaning of Mr. Adams’ words which were omitted by Lord Salisbury. “Russian rights,” said Mr. Adams, “are confined to certain islands north of the 55th degree of latitude. “The islands referred to are as easily recognized to-day as when Mr. Adams described their situation sixty-seven years ago. The best known among them, both under Russian and American jurisdiction, are Sitka and Kadiak; but their whole number is great. If Mr. Adams literally intended to confine Russian rights to those islands, all the discoveries of Vitus Behring and other great navigators are brushed away by one sweep of his pen, and a large chapter of history is but a fable.

But Mr. Adams goes still farther. He declares that “Russian rights have no existence on the continent of America.” If we take the words of Mr. Adams with their literal meaning, there was no such thing as “Russian Possessions in America,” although forty-four years after Mr. Adams wrote these words, the United States paid Russia seven millions two hundred thousand dollars for these “Possessions” and all the rights of land and sea connected therewith.

This construction of Mr. Adams’ language can not be the true one. It would be absurd on its face. The title to that far northern territory was secure to Russia as early as 1741; secure to her against the claims of all other nations; secure to her thirty-seven years before Captain Cook had sailed into the North Pacific; secure to her more than half a century before the United States had made good her title to Oregon. Russia was in point of time the first power in this region by right of discovery. Without immoderate presumption she might have challenged the rights of others to assumed territorial possessions; but no nation had shadow of cause or right to challenge her title to the vast region of land and water which, before Mr. Adams was Secretary of State, had become known as the “Russian Possessions.”

Mr. Adams’ meaning was not, therefore, and indeed could not be, what Lord Salisbury assumed. As against such interpretation I shall endeavor to call his lordship’s attention to what this Government holds to be the indisputable meaning of Mr. Adams’ entire paragraph. To that end a brief review of certain public transactions and a brief record of certain facts will be necessary.

At the close of the year 1799, the Emperor Paul, by a ukase, asserted the exclusive authority of Russia over the territory from the Behring Strait down to the fifty-fifth degree of north latitude on the American coast, following westward “by the Aleutian, Kurile, and other islands” practically inclosing the Behring Sea. To the Russian American Company, which was organized under this ukase, the Emperor gave the right “to make new discoveries” in that almost unknown region, and “to occupy the new land discovered” as “Russian possessions.” The Emperor was assassinated before any new discoveries were announced, but his successor, the Emperor Alexander I, inherited the ambition and the purpose of his father, and, in a new ukase of September 4, 1821, asserted the exclusive authority of Russia from Behring Strait southward to the fifty-first degree of north latitude on the American coast, proclaiming his authority, at the same time, on the Asiatic coast as far south as the forty-fifth degree, and forbidding any vessel to approach within 100 miles of land on either continent. I quote the two sections of the ukase that contain the order and the punishment:

• Section 1. The transaction of commerce, and the pursuit of whaling and fishing, or any other industry on the islands, in the harbors and inlets, and, in general, all along the northwestern coast of America from Behring Strait to the fifty-first parallel of northern latitude, and likewise on the Aleutian Islands and along the eastern coast of Siberia, and on the Kurile Islands; that is, from Behring Strait to the southern promontory of the island of Urup, viz, as far south as latitude forty-five degrees and fifty minutes north, are exclusively reserved to subjects of the Russian Empire.
• Sec. 2. Accordingly, no foreign vessel shall be allowed either to put to shore at any of the coasts and islands under Russian dominion as specified in the preceding section, or even to approach the same to within a distance of less than 100 Italian miles. Any vessel contravening this provision shall be subject to confiscation with her whole cargo.

Against this larger claim of authority (viz, extending farther south on the American coast to the 51st degree of north latitude), Mr. Adams vigorously protested. In a dispatch of March 30, 1822, to Mr. Poletica, the Russian minister at Washington, Mr. Adams said:

This ukase now for the first time extends the claim of Russia on the northwest coast of America to the 51st degree of north latitude.

And he pointed out to the Russian minister that the only foundation for the new pretension of Russia was the existence of a small settlement, situated, not on the American continent, but on a small island in latitude 57—Novo Arkhangelsk, now known as Sitka.

Mr. Adams protested, not against the ukase of Paul, but against the ukase of Alexander; not wholly against the ukase of Alexander, but only against his extended claim of sovereignty southward on the continent to the 51st degree north latitude. In short, Mr. Adams protested, not against the old possessions, but against the new pretensions of Russia on the northwest coast of America—pretensions to territory claimed by the United States and frequented by her mariners since the peace of 1783—a specification of time which is dropped from Lord Salisbury’s quotation of Mr. Adams, but which Mr. Adams pointedly used to fix the date when the power of the United States was visibly exercised on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The names and phrases at that time in use to describe the geography included within the area of this dispute, are confusing and at certain points apparently contradictory and irreconcilable. Mr. Adams’ denial to Russia of the ownership of territory on “the Continent of America” is a fair illustration of this singular contradiction of names and places. In the same way the phrase “Northwest coast” will be found, beyond all possible doubt, to have been used in two senses, one including the northwest coast of the Russian possessions, and one to describe the coast whose northern limit is the 60th parallel of north latitude.

It is very plain that Mr. Adams’ phrase “the continent of America,” in his reference to Russia’s possessions, was used in a territorial sense, and not in a geographical sense. He was drawing the distinction between the territory of “America” and the territory of the “Russian possessions.” Mr. Adams did not intend to assert that these territorial rights of Russia had no existence on the continent of North America. He meant that they did not exist as the ukase of the Emperor Alexander had attempted to establish them—southward of the Aleutian peninsula and on that distinctive part of the continent claimed as the territory of the United States. “America” and the “United States” were then, as they are now, commonly used as synonymous.

British statesmen at the time used the phrase precisely as Mr. Adams did. The possessions of the crown were generically termed British America. Great Britain and the United States harmonized at this point and on this territorial issue against Russia. Whatever disputes might be left by these negotiations for subsequent settlement between the two powers there can be no doubt that at that time they had a common and very strong interest against the territorial aggrandizement of Russia. The British use of the phrase is clearly seen in the treaty between Great Britain and Russia, negotiated in 1825, and referred to at length in a subsequent portion of this dispatch. A publicist as eminent as Stratford Canning opened the third article of that treaty in these descriptive words:

The line of demarcation between the possessions of the high contracting parties, upon the coast of the continent, and the islands of America to the northwest. * * *

Mr. Canning evidently distinguished “the islands of America” from the “islands of the Russian possessions,” which were far more numerous; and by the use of the phrase “to the Northwest” just as evidently limited the coast of the Continent as Mr. Adams limited it, in that direction, by the Alaskan peninsula. A concurrence of opinion between John Quincy Adams and Stratford Canning, touching any public question, left little room even for suggestion by a third person.

It will be observed as having weighty significance that the Russian ownership of the Aleutian and Kurile Islands (which border and close in the Behring Sea, and by the dip of the peninsula are several degrees south of latitude 55) was not disputed by Mr. Adams, and could not possibly have been referred to by him when he was limiting the island possessions of Russia. This is but another evidence that Mr. Adams was making no question as to Russia’s ownership of all territory bordering on the Behring Sea. The contest pertained wholly to the territory on the northwest coast. The Emperor Paul’s ukase, declaring his sovereignty over the Aleutian and Kurile Islands, was never questioned or denied by any power at any time.

Many of the acts of Mr. Adams’ public life received interesting commentary and, where there was doubt, luminous interpretation in his personal diary, which was carefully kept from June 3, 1794, to January 1, 1848, inclusive. The present case affords a happy illustration of the corroborative strength of the diary. During the progress of this correspondence Baron Tuyll, who had succeeded Mr. Poletica as Russian minister in Washington, called upon Mr. Adams at his office on July 17, 1823, six days before the date of the dispatch upon which I have been commenting, and upon which Lord Salisbury relies for sustaining his contention in regard to the Behring Sea. During an animated conversation of an hour or more between Mr. Adams and Baron Tuyll, the former said:

I told Baron Tuyll specially that we should contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent. * * *

It will be observed that Mr. Adams uses the same phrase in his conversation that has misled English statesmen as to the true scope and meaning of his dispatch of July 23, 1823. When he declared that we should “contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent” (with the word “any” italicized), he no more meant that we should attempt to drive Russia from her ancient possessions than that we should attempt to drive England from the ownership of Canada or Nova Scotia. Such talk would have been absurd gasconade, and Mr. Adams was the last man to indulge in it. His true meaning, it will be seen, comes out in the next sentence when he declares:

I told Baron Tuyll that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments.

In the message of President Monroe to the next Congress (the 18th) at its first session, December 2, 1823, he announced that at the proposal of the Russian Government the United States had agreed to “arrange by amicable negotiations the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent.” A similar proposal had been made by Russia to Great Britain and had been likewise agreed to. The negotiations in both cases were to be at St. Petersburg.

It was in connection with this subject, and in the same paragraph, that President Monroe spoke thus:

In the discussions to which this interest has given rise, and in the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power.

This very brief declaration (in fact merely the three lines italicized), constitutes the famous “Monroe doctrine.” Mr. Adams’ words of the July preceding clearly foreshadowed this position as the permanent policy of the United States. The declaration removes the last doubt, if room for doubt had been left, that the reference made by Mr. Adams was to the future, and had no possible connection with the Russian rights existing for three-quarters of a century before the dispatch of 1823 was written.

It was evident from the first that the determined attitude of the United States, subsequently supported by Great Britain, would prevent the extension of Russian territory southward to the 51st parallel. The treaties which were the result of the meeting at St. Petersburg, already noted, marked the surrender on the part of Russia of this pretension and the conclusion was a joint agreement that 54 degrees and 40 minutes should be taken as the extreme southern boundary of Russia on the northwest coast, instead of the 55th degree, which was proclaimed by the Emperor Paul in the ukase of 1799.

The treaty between Russia and the United States was concluded on the 17th of April, 1824, and that between Russia and Great Britain ten months later, on the 16th of February, 1825. In both treaties Russia acknowledges 54.40 as the dividing line. It was not determined which of the two nations owned the territory from 54.40 down to the 49th parallel, and it remained in dispute between Great Britain and the United States until its final adjustment by the “Oregon treaty,” negotiated by Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Pakenham under the administration of Mr. Polk in 1846.

The Government of the United States has steadily maintained that in neither of these treaties with Russia was there any attempt at regulating or controlling, or even asserting an interest in, the Russian Possessions and the Behring Sea, which lie far to the north and west of the territory which formed the basis of the contention. This conclusion is indisputably proved by the protocols which were signed during the progress of the negotiation. At the fourth conference of the plenipotentiaries, on the 8th day of March (1824), the American minister, Mr. Henry Middleton, submitted to the Russian representative, Count Nesselrode, the following:

The dominion can not he acquired but by a real occupation and possession, and an intention (animus) to establish it is by no means sufficient.

Now, it is clear, according to the facts established, that neither Russia nor any other European power has the right of dominion upon the continent of America between the fiftieth and sixtieth degrees of north latitude.

Still less has she the dominion of the adjacent maritime territory, or of the sea which washes these coasts, a dominion which is only accessory to the territorial dominion.

Therefore she has not the right of exclusion or of admission on these coasts, nor in these seas which are free seas.

The right of navigating all the free seas belongs, by natural law, to every independent nation, and even constitutes an essential part of this independence.

The United States have exercised navigation in the seas, and commerce upon the coasts above mentioned, from the time of their independence; and they have a perfect right to this navigation and to this commerce, and they can only be deprived of it by their own act or by a convention.

This is a clear proof of what is demonstrated in other ways, that the whole dispute between the United States and Russia and between Great Britain and Russia related to the Northwest coast, as Mr. Middleton expresses it, between the “50th and the 60th degrees of north latitude.” This statement is in perfect harmony with Mr. Adams’ paragraph when given in full. “The United States,” Mr. Middleton insists, “have exercised navigation in the seas and commerce upon the coasts above mentioned, from the time of their independence;” but he does not say one word in regard to our possessing any rights of navigation or commerce in the Behring Sea. He declares that “Russia has not the right of exclusion or admission on these coasts [between the 50th and 60th degrees north latitude] nor in these seas which are free seas,” evidently emphasizing “free” to distinguish those seas from the Behring Sea, which was recognized as being under Russian restrictions.

Mr. Middleton wisely and conclusively maintained that if Russia had no claim to the continent between the 50th and the 60th degrees north latitude, “still less could she have the dominion of the adjacent maritime territory,” or, to make it more specific, “of the sea which washes these coasts.” That sea was the Great Ocean, or the Pacific Ocean, or the South Sea, the three names being equally used for the same thing.

The language of Mr. Middleton plainly shows that the lines of latitude were used simply to indicate the “dominion” on the coast between the 50th and 60th parallels of north latitude.

The important declarations of Mr. Middleton, which interpret and enforce the contention of the United States, should be regarded as indisputable authority, from the fact that they are but a paraphrase of the instructions which Mr. Adams delivered to him for his guidance in negotiating the treaty with Count Nesselrode. Beyond all doubt they prove that Mr. Adams’ meaning was the reverse of what Lord Salisbury infers it to be in the paragraph of which he quoted only a part.

The four principal articles of the treaty negotiated by Mr. Middleton are as follows:

• Art. I. It is agreed that, in any part of the Great Ocean, commonly called the Pacific Ocean or South Sea, the respective citizens or subjects of the high contracting powers shall be neither disturbed nor restrained, either in navigation or in fishing, or in the power of resorting to the coasts, upon points which may not already have been occupied, for the purpose of trading with the natives, saving always the restrictions and conditions determined by the following articles:
• Art. II. With a view of preventing the rights of navigation and of fishing exercised upon the Great Ocean by the citizens and subjects of the high contracting powers from becoming the pretext for an illicit trade, it is agreed that the citizens of the United States shall not resort to any point where there is a Russian establishment, without the permission of the governor or commander; and that, reciprocally, the subjects of Russia shall not resort, without permission, to any establishment of the United States upon the Northwest coast.
• Art. III. It is moreover agreed that, hereafter, there shall not be formed by the citizens of the United States, or under the authority of the said States, any establishment upon the Northwest coast of America, nor in any of the islands adjacent, to the north of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes of north latitude; and that, in the same manner, there shall be none formed by Russian subjects, or under the authority of Russia, south of the same parallel.
• Art. IV. It is, nevertheless, understood that during a term often years, counting from the signature of the present convention, the ships of both powers, or which belong to their citizens or subjects, respectively, may reciprocally frequent, without any hindrance whatever, the interior seas, gulfs, harbors, and creeks, upon the coast mentioned in the preceding article, for the purpose of fishing and trading with the natives of the country.

The first article, by carefully mentioning the Great Ocean and describing it as the ocean “commonly called the Pacific Ocean or South Sea,” evidently meant to distinguish it from some other body of water with which the negotiators did not wish to confuse it. Mr. Adams used the term “South Sea “in the dispatch quoted by Lord Salisbury, and used it with the same discriminating knowledge that pervades his whole argument on this question. If no other body of water existed within the possible scope of the treaty, such particularity of description would have had no logical meaning. But there was another body of water already known as the Behring Sea. That name was first given to it in 1817—according to English authority—seven years before the American treaty, and eight years before the British treaty, with Russia; but it had been known as a sea, separate from the ocean, under the names of the Sea of Kamchatka, the Sea of Otters, or the Aleutian Sea, at different periods before the Emperor Paul issued his ukase of 1799.

The second article plainly shows that the treaty is limited to the Great Ocean, as separate from the Behring Sea, because the limitation of the “Northwest coast” between the 50th and 60th degrees could apply to no other. That coast, as defined both by American and British negotiators at that time, did not border on the Behring Sea.

The third article shows the compromise as to territorial sovereignty on the Northwest coast. The United States and Great Britain had both claimed that Russia’s just boundary on the coast terminated at the 60th degree north latitude, the southern border of the Aleutian peninsula. Russia claimed to the 51st parallel. They made a compromise by a nearly equal division. An exactly equal division would have given Russia 54.30; but 10 miles farther north Prince of Wales’ Island presented a better geographical point for division, and Russia accepted a little less than half the coast of which she had claimed all and 54.40 was thus established as the dividing point.

The fourth article of the treaty necessarily grew out of the claims of Russia to a share of the Northwest coast in dispute between the United States and Great Britain. Mr. Adams, in the instruction to Mr. Middleton so often referred to, says:

By the third article of the convention between the United States and Great Britain, of the 20th of October, 1818, it was agreed that any country that might be claimed by either party on the Northwest coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains, should, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open, for the term of ten years from that date, to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two powers, without prejudice to the claims of either party or of any other state.

You are authorized to propose an article of the same import for a term of ten years from the signature of a joint convention between the United States, Great Britain, and Russia.

It will be observed that the fourth article relates solely to the “Northwest coast of America” so well understood as the coast of the Pacific Ocean, between the 50th and the 60th degrees north latitude, and therefore does not in the remotest degree touch the Behring Sea or the land bordering upon it.

The several articles in the treaty between Great Britain and Russia, February 16, 1825, that could have any bearing on the pending contention are as follows:

Articles I and II (substantially the same as in the treaty between Russia and the United States).

Article III. The line of demarcation between the possessions of the high contracting parties, upon the coast of the continent, and the islands of America to the Northwest shall be drawn in the manner following:

Commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, and between the one hundred and thirty-first and the one hundred and thirty-third degrees of west longitude (meridian of Greenwich), the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel, as far as the point of the continent where its strikes the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude; from this last mentioned point the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the one hundred, and forty-first degree of west longitude (of the same meridian); and, finally, from the said point of intersection the said meridian line of the one hundred and forty-first degree in its prolongation as far as the frozen ocean shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions on the continent of America to the northwest.

Article V. (Substantially the same as Article III of the treaty between Russia and the United States.)

Article VI. It is understood that the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, from whatever quarter they may arrive, whether from the ocean or from the interior of the continent, shall forever enjoy the right of navigating freely and without any hindrance whatever all the rivers and streams which, in their course towards the Pacific Ocean, may cross the line of demarcation upon the line of coast described in Article III of the present convention.

Article VII. It is also understood that, for the space often years from the signature of the present convention, the vessels of the two powers, or those belonging to their respective subjects, shall mutually be at liberty to frequent without any hindrance whatever all the inland seas, the gulfs, havens, and creeks on the coast mentioned in Article III, for the purposes of fishing and of trading with the natives.

After the analysis of the articles in the American treaty there is little in the English treaty that requires explanation. The two treaties were draughted under circumstances and fitted to conditions quite similar. There were some differences because of Great Britain’s ownership of British America. But these very differences corroborate the position of the United States. This is most plainly seen in Article VI. By that article the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty were guarantied the right of navigating freely the rivers emptying into the Pacific Ocean and crossing the line of demarcation upon the line of coast described in Article III. The line of demarcation is described in Article III as following “the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude.” Article IV, qualifying Article III, specifies that “wherever the summit of the mountains which extend in a direction parallel to the coast, from the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude to the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude, shall prove to be at a distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British possessions and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia, as above mentioned, shall be formed by a line parallel to the windings of the coast, and shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom.”

By both these articles the line of demarcation ceases to have any parallel relation to the coast when it reaches the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude.

From that point the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude, as far as it extends continuously on land northward, is taken as the boundary between the territories of the two powers. It is thus evident that British subjects were guarantied the right of navigating only such rivers as crossed the line of demarcation while it followed the line of coast. They were limited, therefore, to the rivers that emptied into the Pacific Ocean between 54:40 and 60 degrees north latitude, the latter being the point on the coast opposite the point where the line of demarcation diverges—Mount St. Elias.

By this agreement Great Britain was excluded from all rivers emptying into the Behring Sea, including the great Yukon and its affluent, the Porcupine, which rise and for a long distance flow in British America. So complete was the exclusion from Behring Sea that Great Britain surrendered in this case a doctrine which she had aided in impressing upon the Congress of Vienna for European rivers. She did not demand access to the sea from a river whose source was in her territory. She consented, by signing the treaty of 1825, to such total exclusion from the Behring Sea as to forego following her own river to its mouth in that sea.

It shows a curious association of political events that in the Washington treaty of 1871 the United States conceded to Great Britain the privilege of navigating the Yukon and its branch, the Porcupine, to the Behring Sea in exchange for certain privileges conceded to the United States on the St. Lawrence. The request of Great Britain for the privilege of navigating the Yukon and Porcupine is a suggestive confession that it was withheld from her by Russia in the treaty of 1825—withheld because the rivers flowed to the Behring Sea.

The seventh article is practically a repetition of the fourth article in the treaty between Russia and the United States, and the privilege of fishing: and trading with the natives is limited to the coast, mentioned in Article III, identically the same line of coast which they were at liberty to pass through to reach British America or to reach the coast from British America. They are excluded from going north of the prescribed point on the coast near Mount St. Elias, and are therefore kept out of Behring Sea.

It is to be noted that the negotiators of this treaty, in defining the boundary between the Russian and British possessions, cease to observe particularity exactly at the point on the coast where it is intersected by the sixtieth parallel. From that point the boundary is designated by the almost indefinite prolongation northward of the one hundred and forty-first degree of longitude west. It is plain, therefore, that this treaty, like the Russo-American treaty, limited the “north west coast” to that part of the coast between the fiftieth and sixtieth parallels of north latitude,—as fully set forth by Mr. Middleton in the protocols preceding the treaty between the United States and Russia. The negotiators never touched one foot of the boundary of the Behring Sea, whether on continent or island, and never even made a reference to it. Its nearest point, in Bristol Bay, was a thousand miles distant from the field of negotiation between the powers.

It must not be forgotten that this entire negotiation of the three powers proceeded with full knowledge and recognition of the ukase of 1821. While all questions touching the respective rights of the powers on the northwest coast between the fiftieth and sixtieth parallels were discussed and pressed by one side or the other, and finally agreed upon, the terms of the ukase of 1821, in which the Emperor set forth so clearly the rights claimed and exercised by Russia in the Behring Sea, were untouched and unquestioned. These rights were therefore admitted by all the powers negotiating as within the exercise of Russia’s lawful authority then, and they were left inviolate by England during all the subsequent continuance of Russia’s dominion over Alaska.

These treaties were therefore a practical renunciation, both on the part of England and the United States, of any rights in the waters of Behring Sea during the period of Russia’s sovereignty. They left the Behring Sea and all its coasts and islands precisely as the ukase of Alexander in 1821 left them,—that is with a prohibition against any vessel approaching nearer to the coast than 100 Italian miles, under danger of confiscation. The original ukase of Alexander (1821) claimed as far south as the fifty-first degree of north latitude, with the inhibition of 100 miles from the coast applying to the whole.

The result of the protest of Mr. Adams, followed by the co-operation of Great Britain, was to force Russia back to 54.40 as her southern boundary. But there was no renunciation whatever on the part of Russia as to the Behring Sea, to which the ukase especially and primarily applied. As a piece of legislation this ukase was as authoritative in the dominions of Russia as an act of Parliament; is in the dominions of Great Britain or an act of Congress in the territory of the United States. Except as voluntarily modified by Russia in the treaty with the United States, April 17, 1824, and in the treaty with Great Britain, February 16, 1825, the ukase of 1821 stood as the law controlling the Russian possessions in America until the close of Russia’s ownership by transfer to this Government. Both the United States and Great Britain recognized it, respected it, obeyed it. It did not, as so many suppose, declare the Behring Sea to be mare clausum. It did declare that the waters, to the extent of 100 miles from the shores, were reserved for the subjects of the Russian Empire. Of course many hundred miles east and west and north and south, were thus intentionally left by Russia for the whale fishery and for fishing open and free to the world, of which other nations took large advantage. Perhaps in pursuing this advantage foreigners did not always keep 100 miles from the shore, but the theory of right on which they conducted their business unmolested was that they observed the conditions of the ukase.

But the 100-mile restriction performed the function for which it was specially designed in preventing foreign nations from molesting, disturbing, or by any possibility sharing in the fur trade. The fur trade formed the principal, almost the sole employment of the Russian American Company. It formed its employment, indeed, to such a degree that it soon became known only as the Russian American Fur Company, and quite suggestively that name is given to the company by Lord Salisbury in the dispatch to which I am replying. While, therefore, there may have been a large amount of lawful whaling and fishing in the Behring Sea, the taking of furs by foreigners was always and under all circumstances illicit.

Eighteen years after the treaty of 1825 (in 1843) Great Britain made a commercial treaty with Russia, based on the principle of reciprocity of advantages, but the rights of the Russian American Company, which under both ukases included the sovereignty over the sea to the extent of 100 miles from the shores, were reserved by special clause, in a separate and special article, signed after the principal articles of the treaty had been concluded and signed. Although British rights were enlarged with nearly all other parts of the Russian Empire, her relations with the Russian possessions and with the Behring Sea remained at precisely the same point where the treaty of 1825 had placed them.

Again in 1859 Great Britain still further enlarged her commercial relations with the Empire of Russia, and again the “possessions” and the Behring Sea were held firmly in their relations to the Russian American Company as they had been held in the treaty of 1843.

It is especially notable that both in the treaty of 1843 and the treaty of 1859 it is declared that “in regard to commerce and navigation in the Russian possessions on the northwest coast of America the convention concluded at St. Petersburg, February 16, 1825, shall continue in force.” The same distinction and the same restrictions which Mr. Adams made in regard to the northwest coast of America were still observed, and Great Britain’s access from or to the interior of the continent was still limited to that part of the coast between 54.40 and a point near Mount Saint Elias. The language of the three Russo-British treaties of 1825, 1843, and 1859 corresponds with that employed in Mr. Adams’ dispatch to Mr. Middleton, to which reference has so frequently been made. This shows that the true meaning of Mr. Adams’ paragraph is the key, and indeed the only key by which the treaties can be correctly interpreted and by which expressions apparently contradictory or unintelligible can be readily harmonized.

Immediately following the partial quotation of Mr. Adams’s dispatch, Lord Salisbury quotes the case of the United States brig Loriot as having some bearing on the question relating to the Behring Sea. The case happened on the 15th of September, 1836, and Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of State, in a dispatch to the United States minister at St. Petersburg, declared the course of the Russians in arresting the vessel to be a violation of the rights of the citizens of the United States. He claimed that the citizens of the United States had the right immemorially as well as by the stipulations of the treaty of 1824 to fish in those waters.

Lord Salisbury’s understanding of the case differs entirely from that held by the Government of the United States. The Loriot was not arrested in Behring Sea at all, nor was she engaged in taking furs. She was arrested, as Mr. Forsyth in his dispatch says, in latitude 54:55, more than sixty miles south of Sitka, on the “northwest coast,” to which, and to which only, the treaty of 1824 referred. Russia upheld its action on the ground that the ten-year term provided in the fourth article of the treaty had closed two years before. The case was made the basis of an application on the part of the United States Government for a renewal of that article. This application was pressed for several years, but finally and absolutely refused by the Russian Government. Under the claim of Russia that the term of ten years had expired, the United States failed to secure any redress in the Loriot case. With all due respect to Lord Salisbury’s judgment, the case of the Loriot sustains the entire correctness of the position of the United States in this contention.

It only remains to say that whatever duty Great Britain owed to Alaska as a Russian province, whatever she agreed to do or to refrain from doing, touching Alaska and the Behring Sea, was not changed by the mere fact of the transfer of sovereignty to the United States. It was explicitly declared, in the sixth article of the treaty by which the territory was ceded by Russia, that “the cession hereby made conveys all the rights, franchises, and privileges now belonging to Russia in the said territory or dominions and appurtenances thereto.” Neither by the treaty with Russia of 1825, nor by its renewal in 1843, nor by its second renewal in 1859, did Great Britain gain any right to take seals in Behring Sea. In fact, those treaties were a prohibition upon her which she steadily respected so long as Alaska was a Russian province. It is for Great Britain now to show by what law she gained rights in that sea after the transfer of its sovereignty to the United States.

During all the time elapsing between the treaty of 1825 and the cession of Alaska to the United States in 1867, Great Britain never affirmed the right of her subjects to capture fur-seal in the Behring Sea; and, as a matter of fact, her subjects did not, during that long period, attempt to catch seals in the Behring Sea. Lord Salisbury, in replying to my assertion that these lawless intrusions upon the fur-seal fisheries began in 1886, declares that they had occurred before. He points out one attempt in 1870, in which forty-seven skins were found on board an intruding vessel; in 1872 there was a rumor that expeditions were about to fit out in Australia and Victoria for the purpose of taking seals in the Behring Sea; in 1874 some reports were heard that vessels had entered the sea for that purpose; one case was reported in 1875; two cases in 1884; two also in 1885.

These cases, I may say without intending disrespect to his lordship, prove the truth of the statement which he endeavors to controvert, because they form just a sufficient number of exceptions to establish the fact that the destructive intrusion began in 1886, But I refer to them now for the purpose of showing that his lordship does not attempt to cite the intrusion of a single British sealer into the Behring Sea until after Alaska had been transferred to the United States. I am justified, therefore, in repeating the questions which I addressed to Her Majesty’s Government on the 22d of last January, and which still remain unanswered, viz:

Whence did the ships of Canada derive the right to do, in 1886, that which they had refrained from doing for nearly ninety years?

Upon what grounds did Her Majesty’s Government defend, in the year 1886, a course of conduct in the Behring Sea which had been carefully avoided ever since the discovery of that sea?

By what reasoning did Her Majesty’s Government conclude that an act may be committed with impunity against the rights of the United States which had never been attempted against the same rights when held by the Russian Empire?

I have, etc.,

James G. Blaine.