ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 147 



201, these facts are confirmed by Mr. Byrue and by Veiiiannnofif, and by 

 Lutjeiis, and by other autliorities, and that is at pages I'JG and 104. 



The profits of the Enssian-American Company up to 1821, when the 

 Ukase was issued, had been 30 per cent on its capital, and in the sec- 

 ond period of its lease following 1821, it was 55 per cent. You will find 

 those figures in the United States Case, vol. 1, page 200, and at the 

 time of the negotiation of these Treaties, the sea otter had almost 

 entirely disappeared and the fur-seal product was the chief source of 

 its industry. 



It is that business which we are asked to infer was conceded — thrown 

 open to the world, or to these countries, which constituted the world so 

 far as that subject was then concerned — it is that business and that 

 property which we are invited to believe was given away by Eussia, 

 when, as you perceive by the correspondence, no such demand was 

 made, and the subject of the fur-seal does not appear in the entire lim- 

 its of the correspondence. 



Senator Morgan. — Are those facts disputed about the number of 

 seals taken by Eussia in that period? 



Mr. Phelps. — I do not understand them to be disputed, because we 

 have given in our case — in the Appendix — the reference I have just 

 made. But they are the evidence on the side of Great Britain, and I 

 am aware of no evidence to the contrary. That is the condition of 

 things in which we approach the question of the construction of the 

 Treaties that followed the Ukase of 1821. 



Now referring to this correspondence — some confusion in my judgment 

 has been thrown upon this branch of the case, by trying to consider the 

 negotiation between Great Britain and Eussia, and the negotiation 

 between America and Eussia at the same time; — they were entirely sep- 

 arate as you will remember. 



The American negotiation was first; it resulted in the Treaty of 1824. 

 The British negotiation was subsequent — not subsequent to 1824, but 

 subsequent to the American negotiation — and related to the Treaty of 

 1825. To understand what the parties did we must take it in the order 

 of time and consider these negotiations separately. Let us find out in 

 the first place what Eussia and America did, and then we shall be a 

 long way towards determining what Great Britain and Eussia did. I 

 confine myself, therefore, in the first place to the negotiation between 

 the United States and Eussia, and leave Great Britain quite out of the 

 enquiry for the present moment. What did Mr. Adams object to in the 

 first place in his very first letter to Mr. de Poletica, the Eussian Minis- 

 ter, when the language of the Ukase of 1821 was brought to his atten- 

 tion. On page 132 of the 1st. United States Appendix you will see 

 this first letter dated F(ibruary 25th 1822: 



I am directed by the President of the United States to inform you that he ha^seen 

 ■with surprise in this edict the assertion of a territorial claim on the part of Russia, 

 extending to the fifty first degree of north latitude on this continent, and a regula- 

 tion interdicting to all commercial vessels other than Russian, upon tlie penalty of 

 seizures and confiscation the approach upon the high seas within 100 Italian miles of 

 the shores to which that claim is nuide to apply. The relations of the United States 

 with his Imperial Majesty have always been of the most friendly character; and it is 

 the earnest desire of this Government to preserve them in that state. 



It was expected, before any act which should define the boundary between the ter- 

 ritories of the United States and Russia on this continent, that the same would have 

 been arranged by treaty between the parties. To exclude the vessels of our citizens 

 from the shore, beyond the ordinary distance to which the territorial jurisdiction 

 extends, has excited still greater surprise. 



This ordinance afiects so deeply the rights of the United States and of their citi- 

 zens tliat I am instructed to in(|uirc whether you are autliorized to give ex])lanation8 

 of the grounds of right upon princi])ies generally recognized by the laws and usages 

 of nations which can warrant the claims and regulations contaiuid in it. 



