APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 455 



81 I trust that the objects to which the commimicatioiis trans- 



mitted with those despatches relate have been found to be suffi- 

 ciently secured by the Convention, which, under your instructions, I 

 have signed, during my residence here, in concert with the Eussian 

 Plenipotentiaries. 



With respect to the right of fishing, no explanation whatever took 

 place between the Plenipotentiaries and myself in the course of our 

 negotiations. As no objection was started by them to the Article 

 which I offered in obedience to your instructions, I thought it unad- 

 visable to raise a discussion on the question ; and the distance from the 

 coast at which the right of fishing- is to be exercised in common i^assed 

 Avitlnmt specification, and consequently rests on the law of nations as 

 generallj" received. 



Conceiving, however, at a later period that you might possibly wish 

 to declare the law of nations thereon, jointly with the Court of llussia, 

 in some ostensible shape, I broached the matter anew to Count Nessel- 

 rode, and suggested that he should authorize Couiit Lieven, on your 

 invitation, to exchange notes with you declaratory of the law as fixing 

 the distance at 1 marine league from the shore. 



Count ISTesselrode replied that he should feel embarrassed in submit- 

 ting^ this suggestion to the Emperor just at the moment when the rati- 

 fications of the Convention were on the point of being dispatched to 

 London; and he seemed exceedingly desirous that nothing should 

 happen to retard the ac<'oniplishment of that essential formality. lie 

 assured me at the same time that his Government would be content, 

 in executing the Convention, to abide by the recognized law of nations; 

 and that, if any question should hereaffer be raised u])on the subject, 

 he should not refuse to join in making the suggested declaration, on 

 being satisfied that the general rule under the law of nations was such 

 as we supposed. 



Having no authority to press the point in question, I took the assur- 

 ance thus given by Count Nesselrode as sufficient, in all probability, to 

 answer every national purpose. 



lleferring to the American Treaty I am assured, as well by Count 

 Nesselrode as by Mr. Middleton, that the ratification of that instrument 

 was not accompanied with any explanations calculated to modify or 

 affect in any way the force and meaning of its Articles. But I under- 

 stand that, at tiie close of the negotiation of that Treaty, a Protocol, 

 intended by the liussians to fix more specifically the limitations of the 

 rigiit of trading with their possessions, and understood by the Amer- 

 ican Envoy as having no such effect, was drawn up and signed by both 

 parties. No reference whatever was made to this paper by the Eussinn 

 Plenipotentiaries in the course of my negotiation with them; and you 

 are aware. Sir, that the Articles of the Convention which I concluded 

 depend for their force entirely on the general acceptation of the terms 

 in which they are expressed. 

 I have, &c. 



(Signed) Stratford Canning. 



