388 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Enlightened statesmen and jurists liave long held as insignificant all 

 titles of territory that are not founded on actual occupation, and that 

 title is in the ojnnion of the most esteemed writers on public law to be 

 established only by practical use. 



With respect to the other points in the Ukase which have the effect 

 of extending the territorial rights of Russia over the adjacent seas to 

 the unprecedented distance of 100 miles from the line of coast, and of 

 closing a hitherto unobstructed passage, at the present moment the 

 object of important discoveries for the promotion of general commerce 

 and navigation, these pretensions are considered by the best legal 

 authorities as positive innovations on the right of navigation. As such, 

 they can receive no explanation from further discussion, nor can by pos- 

 sibility be justified. Common usage, which has obtained the force of 

 law, has indeed assigned to coasts and shores, an accessorial boundary 

 to a short limited distance for purposes of protection and general con- 

 venience, in no manner interfering with the rights of others, and not 

 obstructing the freedom of general commerce and navigation. 



But this important qualification the extent of the present claim 

 entirely excludes, and when such a prohibition is, as in the present 

 case, applied to a long line of coasts, and also to intermediate islands 

 in remote seas where navigation is beset with innumerable and unfore- 

 seen difficulties, and where the principal employment of the fisheries 

 must be pursued under circumstances which are incompatible with the 

 prescribed courses, all particular considerations concur, in an especial 

 manner, with the general principle, in repelling such a pretension as an 

 encroacliment on the freedom of navigation, and the unalienable rights 

 of all nations. 



1 have indeed the satisfaction to believe, from a conference which I 

 have had with Count Lieven on this matter, — that upon these two 

 points, — the attempt to shut up the passage altogether, and the claim 

 of exclusive dominion to so enormous a distance from the coast, — the 

 Russian Government are prepared entirely to waive their pretensions. 

 The only effort that has been made to justify the latter claim was by 

 reference to an Article in the Treaty of Utrecht which assigns 30 leagues 

 from the coast as the distance of prohibition. But to this argument it 

 is sufihcient to answer, that the assumption of such a space was, in the 

 instance quoted, by stipulation in a Treaty, and one to which, therefore, 

 the party to be affected by it had (whether wisely or not) given its 

 deliberate consent. No inference could be drawn from that transaction 

 in favour of a claim by authority against all the world. 



I have little doubt, therefore, but that the public notification of the 

 claim to consider the portions of the ocean included between the 

 adjoining coasts of America and the Russian Emi)ire as a mare clausum, 

 and to extend the exclusive territorial jurisdiction of Russia to 100 

 Italian miles from the coast, will be publicly recalled, and I have 

 23 the King's commands to instruct your Grace further to require 

 of the Russian Minister (on the ground of the facts and reason- 

 ings furnished in their despatch and its inclosures) that such a portion 

 of territory alone shall be defined as belonging to Russia as shall not 

 interfere with the rights and actual possessions of Her Majesty's sub- 

 jects in North America. 



I am, &c. (Signed) George CAK.iiNa. 



