268 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



formerly carried on betweeii England and France on the subject. The 

 limit of a cannon-sliot, that is about 3 Italian miles, would alone give 

 rise to no dispute. The Foreign Office observed, in conclusion, that no 

 Power had yet succeeded in limiting the freedom of fishing in open seas, 

 and that such pretensions had never been recognized by the other 

 Powers. They were confident that the fitting out of colonial cruizers 

 would put an end to all diificulties; there had not yet been time to test 

 the efficacy of this measure. 



[Soon after this the whalers began to turn their chief attention to the 

 Sea of Okhotsk.] 



In 1850 the corvette "Olivutsa," of the Russian navy, was sent by the 

 Government to cruize in the jSTorthern Pacific. The Company were 

 invited to offer suggestions with regard to the instructions to be given 

 to cruizers. 



The following is" an extract from their suggestions : " In order to pre- 

 vent the complete extermination of the whales in the Sea of Okhotsk it 

 is most desirable that an armed cruizer should always be stationed at 

 the Shantar Islands to keep away foreign whalers, at all events until 

 such time as it is found possible altogether to prohibit whaling by for- 

 eign ships in that sea." (10th November, 1853, No. 970; Dielo Arkh. 

 Kom. 1842 goda, No. 14, str. 181.) 



Some time before the Company had written to the Foreign Office (22nd 

 March, 1853, No. 368, the same Dielo, p. 163): " If it is found impracti- 

 cable entirely to prohibit for a time fishing by foreigners in the Sea of 

 Okhotsk, as an inland sea. would it not, at any rate, be possible offi- 

 cially to prohibit whalers fi'om coming close to our shores and whaling 

 in the bays and among the islands, detaching one of the cruizers of the 

 Kamtchatka flotilla for this service?" 



The instructions to cruizers were approved on the 9th December, 1853. 

 The cruizers were to see that no whalers entered the bays or gulfs, or 

 came within 3 Italian miles of our shores, that is, the shores of Russian 

 America (north of 54° 41'), the Peninsula of Kamtchatka, Siberia, the 

 Kadjak Archipelago, the Aleutian Islands, the Pribyloff and Com- 

 mander Islands, and the others in Behring Sea, the Kuriles, Sak- 

 42 halin, the Shantar Islands, and the others in the Sea of Okhotsk 

 to the north of 40° 30' north. The cruizers were instructed con- 

 stantly to keep in view that "our Government not only does not wish 

 to prohibit or put obstacles in the way of whaling by foreigners in the 

 northern part of the Pacific Ocean, but allows foreigners to take whales 

 in the Sea of Okhotsk, which, as stated in these instructions, is, from 

 its geographical position, a Russian inland sea.^^* 



* Tliese words are in italics in the oriprinal. 



