418 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



ties to throw that Convention loose, and thus to bring the question 

 wliich it has conckided for a time into discusiou ])recisely for the pur- 

 pose of a coincidence, as embarrassing as it is obviously unnecessary. 



If liussia, being aware of the disposition of the United States to 

 concede to her the limit of latitude ^5^, should on that account be 

 desirous of a joint negotiation, she must recollect that the proi)Osal of 

 the United States extends to a joint occux)ancy also, for a limited time, 

 of the whole territory belonging to the three Powers; and that the Con- 

 vention now subsisting between us and the United States gives that 

 joint occupancy reciprocally to us in the territory to which both lay 

 claim. 



To this principle it is understood the Russian Government object; 

 nor, so far as we are concerned, should we be desirous of pressing it 

 upon them; but as between ourselves and the United States we are not 

 ])rei)ared to abandon it, at least for the term for which the Convention 

 of 1818 has to run. There would be some awarkwardness in a tripartite 

 negotiation which was not to be conducted and concluded in all its 

 parts ui)on an uniform principle. 



These reasons had induced us to hesitate very much as to the expe- 

 diency of acceding to the proposition of the United States for a com- 

 mon negotiation between the three Powers; when the arrival of the 

 Speech of the President of the United States at the (>i)ening of the 

 Congress supplied another reason at once decisive in itself, and sus- 

 ceptible of being stated to Mr. Hush with more explicitness than those 

 which I have now detailed to your Excellency, I refer to the principle 

 declared in that Speech, which prohibits any further attempt by Euro- 

 pean Powers at colonization in America. 



Upon applying to Mr. Eush for an explanation of this extraordinary 

 doctrine, I found hiin unprovided with any instructions iipon it. He 

 said, indeed, that he had not heard from his Government since the 

 opening of the Congress, and had not even received officially a copy of 

 the President's Speech. 



His conviction, however, was, that against whatever power the Presi- 

 dent's doctrine was directed, it could not be directed against us. He 

 appealed in support of that conviction to the existence of the Conven- 

 tion ot 1818, by which we and the United States hold for a time joint 

 occupancy and common enjoyment of all the territory on the north- 

 west coast of America above latitude 42°. 



It was obviously the impression on Mr. Rush's mind that this pre- 

 tension on the part of his (ioverjinient was intended as a set-oft' against 

 the maritime ]n'etension of the Russian Ukase. 



I do not mean to authorize your Excellency to report this construc- 

 tion at St. Petersburg!! as that of the American Minister, but you will 

 have no difficulty in stating it as one to which we think the President's 

 Speech liable, as that indeed which appears to us to be by far the most 

 l)robable construction of it; as such, it furnishes a coiu;lusive reason 

 for our not mixing ourselves in a negotiation between two parties whose 

 opposite i)retensions are so extravagant in their several ways as to be 

 subject not so nmch of practical adjustment as of reciprocal disavowal. 



Mr. Rush is himself so sensible of the new consideration which is 

 introduced into the negotiation by this new princii)leof the President's 

 that although he had hitherto urged with beconnng pertinacity the 

 adoption of the suggestion of his Government, lie has, since the arrival 

 of the President's S]»('('(',h, ceased to combat my desire to jmrsue the 

 course already begun of a separate negotiation at St. Petersburg!!, and 



