APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 387 



9. That in 1789 the Spanish packet "St. This Estahlisliment, even if authentic 

 Charles" found in the latitude of 48 and that they were the descendants of Tchi- 

 49 a Russian Colony of twenty families, ricoff, would boon Nootka, an Island, and 

 which were the descendants of the com- therefore giving no right of possession 

 pauions of Tchiricoff. to the mainland. It is singular, if they 



were the descendants of Tchiricoff, that 

 neither Krusenstern or Kotzebue mention 

 the circumstance, and that neither Van- 

 couver or Cook, or any traders have 

 noticed it. 



No. 14. 

 Mr. 0. Canning to the BuTce of Wellington. 



No. 6.] Foreign Office, September 37, 1822. 



My Lord Duke: Your Grace is already in possession of all that 

 has passed both here and at St. Petersburgii on the subject of the issue 

 in September of last year, by the Emperor of Russia, of an Ukase 

 indirectly asserting an exclusive right of sovereignty from Behring's 

 Straits to the 51st degree of north latitude on the west coast of 

 America, and to tlie ^5th degree north on tlie op])Osite coast of Asia, 

 and (as a qualified exercise of that right) prohibiting all foreign ships, 

 under pain of confiscation, from approaching within 100 Italian miles 



of those coasts. 

 22 The Ukase having been communicated by Baron Nicolai, the 



Russian Cliarg^ d' Affaires at this Court, to His Majesty's Gov- 

 ernment, was fortliwith submitted to the legal authorities whose duty 

 it is to advise His Majesty on such matters; and a note was in conse- 

 quence addressed by the late Marquis of Londonderry to Count Lieven, 

 the Russian Ambassador, and also communicated to His Majesty's 

 Ambassador at St. Petersburgh, protesting against the enactments of 

 the said Ukase, and requesting such amicable explanations as might 

 tend to reconcile the pretensions of Russia in that quarter of the globe 

 with the just rights of His Majesty's Crown and the interests of his snb- 

 jects. 



As such explanations will probably be offered to your Grace during 

 the Conferences about to take place at Vienna, I hasten to signify to you 

 the King's commands as to the language which you will hold on the 

 l>art of His Majesty upon this subject. 



The opinions given in November and December last by Lord Stowell 

 and by His Majesty's Advocate-General (copies of wliich are already iu 

 your possession) will furnish you with the best legal arguments in 

 opposition to the pretensions put forward in the Russian Ukase; and 

 as, iu both these opinions, much stress is very properly laid upon the 

 state of actual occupation of the territories claimed by Russia, and 

 the different periods of time at which they were so occupied, I have 

 obtained from the Governor of the principal Company of His Majesty's 

 subjects trading in that part of the world the information which your 

 Grace will find in the inclosed papers. That information will enable you 

 sufficiently to prove to the Russian Ministers, not only that the point of 

 prior discovery may be fairly disputed with Russia, but that the much 

 more certain title of actual occupation by the agents and the trading 

 servants of the Hudson's Bay Company extends at this moment to many 

 degrees of higher latitude on the north-west coast of America than is 

 claimed as the territory of Russia by the Ukase in question. 



