ORAL ARGUMENT OP HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 145 



of this business, to this industry and to all industries there, was an exclu- 

 sive right, and tliat in the strongest terms tlie right was conveyed to the 

 Kussian American Conii)any to the exclusion of all others, and very 

 large and stringent powers were conferred upon thorn for the purpose 

 of enabling them to maintain it. The language of the Ukase has like- 

 wise become familiar to the Tribunal. In 18Ui the exclusive claim is 

 there re-asserted, and it is in terms said that the Itussian American 

 Company have these industries, or opportunities and facilities of hunt- 

 ing" and tishing, to the exclusion of all others. So that there cannot be 

 a question that down to and including the Ukase of ISlil in the first 

 place the right asserted was an exclusive right; in the second place, 

 that right was neither challenged nor interfered with by anybody in 

 the world, either nation or individual. 



Now, pausing there, in illustration of what I have said about the lan- 

 guage of the Ukase of 1821, I refer to a letter from Mr. Middleton, I 

 believe it was, or it might have been from the British Minister at 8t. 

 Petersburg (in which he speaks of this Ukase of 1821, and says the same 

 thing), — 1 do not quote his very words, but he says this was probably 

 surrepiitioushi obtained from the Emperor; and that the language car- 

 ried an assertion which it was not the intention of the Government 

 really to make: that it was drawn up (that is what he intimates by the 

 word ''surreptitiously") ami the signature obtained to it, without it 

 being perceived by the Emperor or his immediate advisers to go much 

 further than the language went, than it had any occasion to go, or 

 than he could maintain himself against the other nations of the world 

 in going. 



Let us suppose that the Ukase of 1821 had been simply a claim to 

 the exclusive use of the seals in Behring Sea. Suppose instead of say- 

 ing that no ship will be permitted to come within 100 Italian miles of 

 the coast, which if literally construed shuts up the Sea altogether 

 because no ship could get in or being in could get out again, — instead 

 of using language which when it came to be applied to the very imper- 

 fectly known country at that time really amounted to a shutting of it 

 up at the north and at the south, the Ukase had simply asserted the 

 right of E-ussia to the exclusive property in the seals on the Pribiloff" 

 Islands, had, in other words, asserted just what we assert today for the 

 United States; would that have been challenged by Great Britain or 

 by the United States'? Go back to the corresi)ondence which has been 

 before you, and see what were the objects of the United States, and see 

 what were the objects of Great Britain; and see what were the inter- 

 ests, the claims, the supposed rights of those countries; and in the 

 light of all that was said on this subject as well as in the still more 

 striking and conclusive light of the Treaties themselves, enquire whether 

 if liussia in the Ukase 1821 had simply put forth in regard to the seals 

 in Behring Sea what we claim to day, the property right which entitles 

 us to protect them against extermination by foreigners, it would have 

 been challenged on either side. 



There is nothing in the whole case that is more plain than that; and 

 the more carefully the diplomatic correspondence of the three nations is 

 scrutinized, the more clearly it comes out that, if that had been all, 

 nobody would have objected. In the first place, they had no wish 

 and no interest to object; and, in the second i)lace, it would not have 

 occurred to them, if we may judge from anything they said, that they 

 had a right to dispute a claim of that charac^ter. 



When Jtussia put forth this, she claimed down to the 51st degree of 

 north latitude, almost the entire part of what is now British America, 

 B s, PT XV 10 



