230 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



exercise; and that there is an ancient common law of nations which 

 will not, and cannot, be abrogated by the sic volo of a Power of yester- 

 day. It has apparently escaped the recollection of His Imperial Maj- 

 esty's advisers that if his example were to be followed hy the maritime 

 nations of Europe, his own ports would be hermetically sealed, and an 

 end put at once to the assumption of long-ax^propriated coasts by 

 Ens si a. 



With respect to the legality of taking possession of an unoccupied 

 territory, to the exclusion of the original discoverer, some doubts, we 

 understand, are still entertained among jurists. It is time, we think, 

 to come to a decision one way or another on a point of so much impor- 

 tance. 



Let us examine, however, what claim Russia can reasonably set up 

 to the territory in question. To the two shores of Behring Strait, we 

 admit, she would have an undoubted claim, on the score of priority of 

 discovery, that on the side of Asia having been coasted by Deshnew 

 in 1648, and that of America visited by Behring in 1741, as far down 

 as the latitude 59°, and the peaked mountain, since generally known 

 by the name of Cape Fairweather ; to the southward of this point, how 

 ever, Russia has not the slightest claim. Tiie Spaniards visited the 

 northern parts of this coast in 1774, when Don Juan Perez, in the cor- 

 vette " Santiago," traced it from latitude 53° 53' to a promontory in 

 latitude 55°, to which he gave the name of Santa Margarita, being the 

 north-west extremity of Queen Charlotte's Island of our charts, and on 

 his return touched at Nootka, about which we were once on the point 

 of going to war. 



In the following year the " Santiago" and " Felicidad," under the 

 orders of Don Juan Bruno Heceta and Don Juan de la Bodega y Quadra, 

 proceeded along the north-west coast, and descried in latitude 50° 8' 

 high mountains covered with snow, which they named Jacinto, and also 

 a lofty capo, in latitude 57° 2', to which they gave the name of Engano. 

 Holding a northerly course, they reached latitude 57° 58', and then 

 returned. 



Three years after these Spanish voyages Cook reconnoitred this coast 

 more closely, and proceeded as high up as the Icy Cape. It was sub- 

 sequently visited by several English ships for the purposes of trade, 

 and though every portion of it was explored with tlie greatest acimracy 

 by that most excellent and j^ersevering navigator, Vancouver, as far as 

 the head of Cook's Inlet, in latitude Gl° 15', yet, on the ground of 

 priority of dis(;overy, it is sufficiently clear that England has no claim 

 to territorial possession. On this principle, it would jointly belong to 

 Russia and Spain ; but on the same principle, Russia would be com- 

 pletely excluded from any portion of it to the southward of 59°. She 

 lias, however, been tacitly permitted to form an establishment named 

 Sitka at the liead of Norfolk Sound in latitude 57°; and this, appar- 

 ently, must have tempted her to presume that no op]M)sition would be 

 offered to an extension of territory down to the 51st (legree of latitude, 

 which includes all the detailed discoveries of Cook and Vancouver, i. e., 

 New Hanover, New Cornwall, New Norfolk on the main, and tlie Islands 

 of King George, Queen Cliarlotte, and Prince of Wales upcm the coast. 



There is, however, one. trilling circumstance of which we are per- 

 suaded His Iin]>erial Majesty was ignorant wlien he issued his 

 16 swee])iiig Ukase, namely, that the whole country, from latitude 

 56° 30' to the boundary of the United States in latitude 48°, or 

 thereabouts, is now, and has long been, in the actual possession of the 

 British North-west Company. The communication with this vast ter- 



