APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 255 



The minute investigation we have bestowed on the Eussian "title by 

 first occupation" has sufficiently taxed the patience of our readers, and 

 we spare them an examination of that which "results from a peaceable 

 possession of more than half a century," for it is obvious in the present 

 case that unless the fact of occui)ation is clearly established the claim 

 to "peaceable possession" must fall. We readily concede to Kussia 

 priority of discovery, first occupation, and are by no means disposed 

 to disturb her "peaceable possession" of the Aleutian Islands and 

 adjacent coast, including Cook's River, Prince William's Sound, and 

 Behring Bay. We are not remarkably disinterested in making this con- 

 cession, for, to all practical purposes, we would as soon contend for one 

 of the floating icebergs that are annually detached from the polar 

 masses. The trade carried on by citizens of the United States with 

 those places was never very valuable, and for many years has been alto- 

 gether abandoned. In a territorial point of view, it is of little impor- 

 tance whether those distant regions are inhabited by the aboriginal 

 savage or the Siberian convict. As to the fact, however, we give a short 

 quotation from Vancouver to show that in 1791 the Russians were very 

 far from having "peaceable jiossession" even of Behring Bay.* In 

 relating transactions at that place, when in company with a large hunt- 

 ing party of Eussian Indians, he says, "Portoff embraced this occasion 

 to inform M. Pnget that, on the evening of the 28th, while he and his 

 whole party were on one of the small islands in Port Mulgrave" (situ- 

 ated in Behring Bay), "they were surprised by a visit from about fifty 

 of the natives ; and, notwithstanding the superior numbers of his party 

 (about 900 !), he had so little confidence in the courage of the Kodiak 

 and Cook's Inlet Indians that he was extremely anxious to be quit of 

 such dangerous visitors, and had determined on returning to Kodialc as 

 soon as the ^ Chatham^ should leave the bayJ^ The destruction of the 

 Settlement at Norfolk Sound in 1802 is as little calculated to confirm 

 the fact of peaceable i)ossession at that period. In short, it is perfectly 

 well known to every navigator, Russian as well as others, who has visited 

 that part of the world that no Russian Settlement now exists, or ever 

 did exist, between the latitudes of 58° and 12°, except the one so often 

 mentioned at Norfolk Sound. On what, then, rests the Russian claim 

 to any part of the country between those parallels ? Simply on the facts 

 that Tchiricoff", in 1711, saw land in 55° 30', and that M. Baranofif, in 

 1799, made a Settlement at Norfolk Sound, which was destroyed in 1802, 

 and re-established in 1801. Such, we conceive, is the plain result of an 

 investigation of the very authorities which M. de Poletica himself has 

 adduced. 



We are not among those who believe that a distant view of a cape or 

 mountain — or dixipping the first anchor in a bay or harbour — nay, we 

 carry our incredulity so far as to doubt if the magical ceremony of land- 

 ing on a coast, hoisting a piece of bunting, cutting an inscription, or 

 even that last great act of Empire, burying a bottle, can invest the 

 nation, whose flag the navigator happens to bear, with the rights of 

 sovereignty over a country inhabited by a brave and independent peo- 

 ple, whose right to the soil which they possess, and the freedom they 

 enjoy, is coeval with time itself. We therefore attach uo importance to 

 the circumstance of land being seen by Tchiricoff" in 1711; but if M. de 

 Poletica does, we are perfectly willing to try titles with him on the 

 score of discovery. It .is well known that Spain, by the Ilird Article 

 of the Treaty of 1819, ceded to the United States all her rights to the 



*Vol. iii, pp. 231,232. 



