ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 163 



It is really of no importance. We p;ive this subject more time than 

 it deserves. I agree with my learned friend, Sir Kicliard Webster, that 

 this map could not have been before these ne<i,otiators. The reference to 

 Arrowsmith's last map is the last map that was pi-obably then in hand. 

 That might be either one of those — the hydro.<ira])liic ma|) I have 

 referred to, or the map of 1818 of the countries round the jSTorth Pole 

 — possibly that of 1811, two of which appear in the case. I now speak 

 of the American negotiations; it is ])lain that when the Treaty of 1824 

 was negotiated between Great Britain and the United States, this map 

 could not have been before them, and there is no evidence to show that 

 it was. I will consider later on whether it came too late and figured in 

 the negotiations of the Treaty of 182.">, which is a very different ques- 

 tion; it is enough for my ]>urpose, that there is no i)retence that it was 

 before Mr. Adams or M. de Poletica or the Russian Foreign Office — no 

 ])retence on the exidence that there was a reference to it, and from its 

 date there could not have been, especially as comnuinications at that 

 time of the world were much slower in getting to foreign countries 

 than they are now, and especially when there was no possible object 

 or inducement in either country to lefer to it. 



There are some other earlier English maps — Cook's Voj'^ages — Lieut. 

 Roberts' chart of 18(18 published in London, in which Behring Sea 

 appears as the Sea of Kamschatka — the various maps of Cook's dis- 

 coveries earlier than that, before the century commenced; all of them 

 vary, and of course are merely maps to accompany particular discov- 

 eries, not geographical maps or charts. 



Now let me put this question with some degree of confidence. Sup- 

 pose it were necessary ujion the evidence in this case, that is to say 

 ui)on the maps, for there is no other — the authors of this negotiation 

 have long passed away and have left behind them no evidence of what 

 was in their minds or of what was said in these negotiations except 

 these letters — suppose it were now necessary to decide this question of 

 whether Behring Sea was or was not included in the term Pacific 

 Ocean in that Treaty by the maps, that is all the evidence that there is. 



Lord Hannen. — You say that is all the evidence. You have not 

 referred — ]u^obably you are going to — to the treatises. 



Mr. Phelps. — I was not intending to refer to gazeteers. They are 

 principally of a later date. There are a few cited of a previous date, 

 but they are very inferior to the map for the purpose of laying down 

 the divisions and subdivisions. 



It is not, as I tried to exi)lain this morning, the observation of a 

 writer or a speaker when his mind is not upon the point which is in 

 dispute. 



But when a geogra])her of acknowledged authority undertakes to 

 lay down a ma]) for publication, possibly officially, certainly with all 

 the prestige he has, and o]ieu to the criticism of the world as to its 

 accuracy, then it shows what he thought. It may be worth little, 

 or worth much; still it shows what he understood. Men may write 

 books, because to the making of books there is, unhappily, no end; 

 they may use general phraseology which amounts to nothing either 

 way. I conhl not r<dy for a moment on casual expressions that might 

 be accumulated on our side of the contention, and I pay no regard to 

 the few that have been brought together on the other side of the con- 

 tention. AVe have not attemjjted to do that. But when a map is made 

 and published to the world and intended to be accurate — it is there 

 you have to look, if you value it, to ascertain either the authoritative 

 speech of men, or the common understanding of men. Because I need 



