416 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Upon receipt of your Excellency's despatcli No. 48, reporting the 

 arrival of Mr. Hnglies at St. Petersbnrgli, witli the instructions of tlie 

 Government of the United States to Mr. Middleton, I applied to Mr. 

 Eush for information as to the tenour of those instructions. I then 

 found, what I had not before been led to suspect, that Mr. Rush had 

 himself authority to enter into negotiations vritli us as to the respective 

 claims of Great Britain and the United States on the north west coast 

 of America; although he does not appear to have been instructed to 

 invite such negotiation here, if we should prefer leaving it to be con- 

 ducted at St. Petersburgh. 



It seemed, however, tliat it would greatly facilitate j^our Excellency's 

 task at St. Petersburgh if we could come to some satisfactory under- 

 standing with Mr. Push on the principles and leading points of the 

 negotiation, and that, at all events, it was advisable to ascertain so 

 much from Mr. Rush as might enable us to judge Avhether it would 

 or would not be exi)edient to agree to the proposal of the United States 

 for combining our several negotiations with Russia into one. 



Such a combination had indeed already been proposed by us with 

 respect to so much of our respective discussions with Russia as turned 

 upon the maritime pretension of the Russian Ukase. But that pro 

 posal had not been made in contemidation of the territorial question 

 to which the pretensions of the United States have given a new and 

 complicated character. 



The object in applying jointly to Russia for a disavowal or qualifica- 

 tion of her maritime pretension was at once to simplify and to soften to 

 Russia that act of qualification or disavowal, by enabling Russia 

 47 to satisfy both Powers at once, without special and separate con- 

 cession. But as, in the question of territorial limits, Russia, at 

 whatever point her pretensions might be stopjied, could have but one of 

 the two Powers for her neighbour, there did not seem to be any obvi- 

 ous advantage in bringing both to bear upon her together in the set- 

 tlement of those limits. 



It is true that as, while we confine upon the Russian territory to the 

 north, we also confine upon that of the United States to the south, we 

 must at one time or other come to a settlement with each of those 

 Poweis. But there is no obvious or cogent necessity for making those 

 settlements simultaneous, especiiilly as we have already a Convention 

 subsisting with the United States which snspeuds the necessity of any 

 definite settlement with that Government for five years yet to come. 



Wliether, therefore, your Excellency should be empowered, according 

 to the desire of the Government of the United States, to negotiate and 

 conclude a tripartite arrangement with Russia and the United States, 

 or should be instructed to pursue that negotiation with Russia singly, 

 according to the tenour of your present powers, was a question to be 

 determined in a great measure by the more or less probability of a sat- 

 isfactory understanding between Great Britain and the United States 

 as to their relative as well as their joint concerns in such negotiation. 



Now we have good reason to believe that, in respect to the question 

 of territorial dominion between us and Russia, an arrangement may be 

 agreed upon which will satisfy the wishes and secure the convenierice of 

 both parties by a line of denmrcation to be drawn between the south- 

 ernmost Settlement of Russia and the northernmost post of the North- 

 West Company. 



The most southern Establishment of Russia on the north-west coast 

 of America is Sitka, which is not laid down in our latest Maps with 

 sufficient exactness, but which appears by the Russian Map published 



