APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 433 



I hope to dispatch a messenger to your Excellency with these instruc- 

 tions in the course of the next week. 



Meantime the inclosed paper will put your Excellency generally in 

 possession of the sentiments of His jMajesty's Government upon these 

 several subjects. But your Excellency will not take any step upon 

 them until you shall have received my promised instructions. 

 I am, &c. 



(Signed) George Canning. 



No. 43. 



Mr. G. Canniny to Sir C Bagot. 



No. 20.] Foreign Office, July 12, 1831. 



Sir: After full consideration of the motives which are alleged by 

 the Kussian Government for adhering to their last pro[)08itions respect- 

 ing the line of demarcation to be drawn between British and Eussiau 

 occupancy on the north-west coast of America; and of the comparative 

 inconvenience of admitting some relaxation in the terms of your 

 Excellency's last instructions, or of having the question between the 

 two Governments unsettled for an indefinite time, His IMajesty's Gov- 

 ernment have resolved to authorize your Excellency to consent to 

 include the south points of Prince of Wales' Island Avithin the Russian 

 frontiers, and to take as the line of demarcation, a line drawn from the 

 southernmost point of Prince of Wales' Island from south to north 

 through Portland Channel, till it strikes the mainland in latitude 50; 

 thence following the sinuosities of the coast, along the base of the 

 mountains nearest the sea to jMount Elias, and thence along the 139th 

 degree of longitude to the Polar Sea. 



1 inclose the draft of a lorojetof Convention founded upon these prin- 

 ciples, which your Excellency is authorized to sign previously to your 

 quitting St. Petersburgh. 



The advantages conceded to Russia by the line of demarcation, 

 traced out in this Convention, are so obvious, as to render it quite 

 impossible that any objection can reasonably be offered on the part of 

 the Russian Government to any of the stipulations in our favour. 



There are two points which are left to be settled by your Excellency: 



1. In fixing the course of the eastern boundary of the strij) of land 

 to be occupied by Russia on the coast, the seaward base of the moun- 

 tains is assumed as that limit; but we have experience that other 

 mountains on the other side of the American Continent, which have 

 been assumed in former Treaties as lines of boundary, are incorrectly 

 laid down in the Maps; and this inaccuracy has given rise to very 

 troublesome discussions. It is therefore necessary that some 

 C2 other security should be taken that the line of demarcation to be 

 drawn parallel with the coast, as far as Mount St. Elias, is not 

 carried too far inland. 



This is done by a proviso that that line should in no case {i.e., not 

 in that of the mountains, which appear by the Map almost to border 

 the coast, turning out to be far removed from it) be carried further to 

 the east than a specified number of leagaos from the sea. The utmost 

 extent which His Majesty's Government would be disposed to concede 

 would be a distance of 10 leagues; but it would be desirable if your 

 Excellency were enabled to obtain a still more narrow limitation. 

 S. Ex. 177, pt. 4 28 



