424 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



proposing tbat the question of strict right should be provisionally 

 waived on botli sides, and tbat the adjustment of our mutual preten- 

 sions should be made upon the sole principle of the respective con- 

 venience of both countries. 



This basis of negotiation being wilUngly accepted by all parties, I 

 stated that, so far as I understood the wishes and interests of Eussia, 

 her j)rincipal object must be to secure to herself her fisheries upon the 

 islands and shores of the north-west coasts of North America, and the 

 posts which she might have already established upon tliejn ; that, on the 

 other hand, our cliief objects were to secure the posts upon the continent 

 belonging totheHudson's Bay Company, the embouchures of such rivers 

 as might afford an outlet for our fur-trade into the Pacific, and the two 

 banks of the Mackenzie Eiver; that, in the belief that such Mere our 

 respective objects, I would propose as our boundary a line drawn through 

 Chatham Straits to the head of Lynn Canal, thence north-west to the 

 ]40th degree of longitude west of Greenwich, and thence along that 

 degree of longitude to the Polar Sea. 



This proposal was made by me verbally, and was taken for considera- 

 tion by the Eussiau Plenipotentiaries, who at our next meeting offered a 

 "contre projet," which T afterwards requested might be reduced to writ- 

 ing, and of which I inclose a copy (luclosure 1). 



In offering this " contre-projet," Count Nesselrode seemed to intimate 

 that, however dis])osed the Emperor might be to retract pretensions 

 advanced by himself which might be thought to conflict with the interests 

 of other Powers, it would be asking too much of the Imi^erial dignity to 

 require that pretensions advanced twenty-five years ago by the Emperor 

 Paul, and which had been hitherto undisputed, should be now renounced. 

 I thought it my duty, ui)ou an intimation of this kind being made, to 

 declare at once that all considerations of such a nature were incompat- 

 ible with the stipulated basis of our negotiation, and that if the ques- 

 tion of national dignity Avas to be touched, I, too, should have much to 

 say upon that head, and should probably find it quite impossible to make 

 those concessions which, upon the simple ground of mutual convenience, 

 I might x)erhaps without difticulty do. This explicit declaration had its 

 desired effect, and the Eussiau Plenipotentiaries engaged not to intro- 

 duce again arguments of this kind into our discussions. 



As the "contre-projet" offered to me appeared to be, generally speak- 

 ing, entirely inadmissible, I drew up such a modification of my original 

 proposal as would, I thought, meet the only reasonable objection made 

 to it (an objection nuide in conversation by the Eussiau Plenipoten- 

 tiaries), viz., the inconvenience which Eussia might experience by ves- 

 sels of the United States claiming a right, under their Convention with 

 Great Britain, to visit the waters lying between King George's Archi- 

 pelago and the islands and continent to the eastward of it, and which 

 might, in this manner, seriously annoy the subjects of His Imperial 

 Majesty in their ])ursuits and occupations upon those shores. 



This modification of my first proposal will be found in the inclosed 

 paper (Inclosure 2), which I delivered to the Eussiau Plenii)otentiaries 

 at our next Conference. 



You will observe that in making the proposal so modified, I, in fact, 

 exceeded, in some degree, the strict letter of your insf ructions by assign- 

 ing to Eussia the islands lying between Admiralty Island to the north, 

 and Duke of York and Prince of Wales Islands to the south, but 1 enter- 

 tained sanguine expectations that such a ])roposaI, c()U])]('d with the 

 concession of a line of coast extending 10 marine leagues into the inte- 

 rior of the continent, would have been considered as amply suflicieut 



