480 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



No. 11. 

 Mr. Dallas to Count Nesselrode. 



St. Petersburgh, March 5 {17), 1838. 



The Undersigned, Envoy Extiaoidinuiy siud ]\Iini,ster Plenipotentiary 

 of the United IStates of America, had the lionour to receive the answer 

 of his Excellency Count Nesselrode, Vice-Chancellor of the Eini)ire, 

 dated the 2.'h'd February, 1S38, to the communication wliicli the Under- 

 signed, conformably to the special charge of his (lovernmcnt, addressed 

 to his p]xcellency on the IHtli (27th) Angust, 18;j7, in lelalion to the 

 interference of certain of His Imjterial Majesty's armed forces with the 

 merchant brig " Loriot,'' owned and commanded by citizens of the United 

 States, and prosecuting a trading voyage to the north-west coast of 

 America. 



The remoteness of the regions where the incidents occurred which 

 constitute the fonndalion of the reclamation on behalf of the parties 

 injured, and the known dihiculty of obtaining circumstantial details of 

 any event in that (piartcr, connected with the assurance of his Excel- 

 lency tliat thelmi)erial IVIinistryhad given to the subject itsseri- 

 13 ous attention, must have engaged the Undersigned to protracted 

 silence, under the conviction that everything which the justice of 

 the case required would ultimately be attained. The note, however, of 

 his Excellency, if accnrately understood, dis]>('nses with the necessity of 

 additional infoiniation, and, adopting the statement of facts derived by 

 the American (iovernment from its citizens, wonld seem to remove all 

 motive for further delay. An early notice, therelorc, of the gronnds upon 

 which a recognition of the claim has been declined is imitelled alike by a 

 profound resjiect for the source whence they emanated, and by a sense of 

 the peculiar importance with which they bear ui)on the relations and 

 interests of the two countries. 



The light in which the President of the United States regarded the 

 treatment of ( Japtain IJlinn preehnled the possibility of his su]»posing 

 it warranted by the pnblic authorities of Kussia. Jle will hear with 

 l)ainful surprise that the subordinate by whom that treatment was 

 inflicted did but obey the instrnctions with which he had been furnished 

 in consequence of the exj)iration of the l\'th Article of the Conven- 

 tion of 1821. 



It Avill be recollected that more than two and a-half years ago the 

 Americaji Secretaiy of State, Mr. Forsyth, in a letter of the 21st July, 

 1835, addressed to His Inqierial Majesty's Minister then atWashington, 

 the Ijaron de Kiudener, exi»resse(l a wish to receive, as early as practi- 

 cable, ]>recise information of the measures His lm|»erial Majesty's (lov- 

 erinnent had adoi)ted or ])rop()sed to adopt in relation to the admission 

 of American vessels into the harbours, bays, and rivers <»f the Knssian 

 Settlements on the northwest coast of the continent; that this re(|uest 

 was reiterated by Mr. Wilkins, the predecessor (»f the Undersign<'d, in 

 a communication of the 1st l^Iovendjer, 1835, and that his Excellency 

 Count Nesselrode, in answer thereto, referring to the si)ring of 183() as 

 the earliest period at which an exact knowledge could be obtained of 

 the measures which the local authorities had adoi)ted, or which it WM)uld 

 be necessary to adopt, left lU) room to donbt that they would then, or as 

 soon as digested, be made known to the American (Jovernment. This 

 information, so desirable as a basis for any corres])()nding measures 

 to which the United States would have been urged by their nniform 

 dispositions of amity towards Kussia, as well as by -.i i)rovi(lent atten- 

 tion to the regularity and security of their own commerce, has never 



