446 APPENDIX TO CASE OP GREAT BRITAIN. 



To that transposition we cannot agree, for the very reason which 

 Count ¥esse]rode alleges in favour of it, viz., that the "econoniie" or 

 arrangenient of the Treaty ought to have reference to the history of 

 the negotiation. 



The whole negotiation grows out of the Ukase of 1821. 



So entirely and absolutely true is this proposition that the settlement 

 of the limits of the respective possessions of Great Britain and Eiissia 

 on the north-west coast of America was proposed by us only as a mode 

 of facilitating the adjustment of the difference arising from the Ukase 

 by enabling the Court of Kussia, under cover of the more coni[)rehen- 

 sive arrangement, to withdraw, with less appearance of concession, the 

 offensive pretensions of that Edict. 



It is comparatively indifferent to us whether we hasten or postpone 

 all questions respecting the limits of territorial possession on the Con- 

 tinent of America, but the pretensions of the Russian Ukase of 1821 to 

 exclusive dominion over the Pacitic could not continue longer unrepealed 

 without compelling us to take some measure of public and effectual 

 remonstrance against it. 



You will therefore take care, in the first instance, to repress any 

 attempt to give this change to the character of the negotiation, and will 

 declare without reserve that the ])oint to which alone the solicitude 

 of the British Government and the jealousy of the British nation 

 attach any great importance is the doing away (in a manner as little 

 disagreeable to Russia as possible) of the effect of the Ukase of 1821. 



Tliat this Ukase is not acted u])on, and that instructions have been 

 long ago sent by the Russian Government to their cruizers in the 

 Pacific to suspend the execution of its provisions, is true; but a private 

 disavowal of a published claim is no security ngainst the revival of 

 that claim. The suspension of tlie execution of a ijrinciple may be i)er- 

 fectly compatible with the continued maintenance of the principle itself, 

 and when we have seen in the course of tins negotiation that the Rus- 

 sian claim to the possession of the coast of America down to latitude 

 59 rests in fact on no other ground than the presumed acquiescence 

 of the nations of Europe in the provisions of an Ukase published by 

 the Emperor Paul in the year 1800, against which it is aftirmed that no 

 public remonstrance was made, it becomes us to be exceedingly careful 

 that we do not, by a similar neglect, on the present occasion allow a 

 similar presumi)tion to be raised as to an acquiescence in the Ukase of 

 1821. 



The right of the subjects of His Majesty to navigate freely in the 

 Pacifick cannot be held as matter of indulgence from any Power. Hav- 

 ing once been publickly questioned, it nuistbe publickly acknowledged. 



We do not desire that any distinct reference should be made to the 

 Ukase of 1821; but we do feel it necessary that the statonuMit of our 

 right should be clear and i)ositive, and that it should stand forth in the 

 C< ivention in the place which properly belongs to it, as a ])lain and 

 substantive sti[)ulation, and not be brought in as an incidental conse- 

 quence of other arrangements to whi(di we attach comparatively little 

 importance. 



This stipulation stands in the front of the Convention concluded 

 between Russia and the United States of America; and we see no rea- 

 son why ui)on similar claims we should obtain exactly the like satis- 

 faction. 



For reasons of the same nature we cannot consent that the liberty of 

 navigation through Behring's Straits should be stated in the Treaty aa 

 a boon from Russia. 



