APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 419 



has promised to write by this messenger to Mr. Mi<ldleton to prepare him 

 for your LLxcelleiicy's coutiiiuing' to act uiwu your former instructious. 



It remains, thereiore, ouly for me to direct your Excellency to resume 

 your uegotiatiou with the Court of St. Petersburgh at the point at 

 which it was suspended inconsequence of the expected accession of the 

 United States, and to endeavour to bring it as speedily as possible to an 

 amicable and honourable conclusion. 



The questions at issue between Great Britain and liussia are short 

 and simple. 



The Kussiau Ukase contains two objectionable i)retensions : first, an 

 extravagant assumption of maritin^o supremacy; secondly, an unwar- 

 ranted claim of territorial dominion. 

 49 As to the first, the disavowal of Eussia is, in substance, all 



that we could desire. Nothing remains for negotiation on that 

 head but to clothe that disavowal in precise and satisfactory terms. 

 We would much rather that those terms should be suggested by Kussia 

 herself than have the air of pretending to dictate them; you will there- 

 fore urge Count Nesselrode to furnish you with his notion of such a 

 declaration on this point as may be satisfactory to your Gov-ernment. 

 That declaration may be made the preamble of the Convention of 

 limits. 



As to the territorial question, I have already stated that the line of 

 demarcation the most satisfactory to us would be one drawn through 

 •'Chatham Strait," the channel separating the island on which Sitiia is 

 situated ironi the island to the eastward of it, or if the Kussians have 

 establishments on that island also, then throngh the channel called 

 "Stephen's Passage," which separates the whole archipelago from the 

 mainland. 



If one or the other of these channels cannot be obtained as the 

 boundary, then the line must be drawn on the maiidand to the north 

 of tlu^ northernmost post of the iSTorth-West Company from east to 

 west till it strikes the coast, and thence may descend to whatever lati- 

 tude may be necessary for taking in the island on which Sitka stands. 



It does not ap]iear from your Excellency's despatch how far the line 

 proposed by M. Poletica to be drawn at latitude 55^ was intended to 

 run to the eastward. If to the Eocky Mountains it, obviously, would 

 be wholly inadmissible by us, inasnuich as the (;omnuuiication of the 

 North-West Coni])any from Canada through those mountains with the 

 whole of the north west country is in a higher latitude than 55°. 



Neither has Eussia. any claim whatever to any inland territory 

 approaching that latitude. She has no occupancy inland. Mr. Pelly's 

 Eeport denies that she has any even on the coast. And it is to the 

 coast alone that discovery could, iu the nature of things, give any title. 



It is absolutely essential, therefore, to guard against any unfounded 

 pretension, or any vague exjiectation of Eussia to the eastward, and for 

 this ])urpose it is necessary that whatever degree of latitude be assumed, 

 a definite degree of longitude should also be assigned as a limit between 

 the territorial rights of the two Powers. 



If your Excellency can obtain the strait which separates the islands 

 from the mainland as the boundary, the prolongation of the line drawn 

 throngh that strait would strike the Tuainland near Mount Elias — the 

 lowest po'ut of unquestioned Eussian discovery. But if that were too 

 nuich to insist upon, the 135th degree of longitude, as suggested by 

 your Excellency, northward from the head of Lynn's Harbour, might 

 sutlice. 



