176 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



Now, tbe diilference between the riglit under the terms of this first 

 Article, in reply to the question that you put just now, the dillerence 

 between conciMliiiji: what was never denied, tlie ri.i;lit ol' free navigation 

 through Behring !Sea, which could not be denied unless they intended 

 to make it 'a closed sea, and conceding all that is given under the first 

 Article is very plain, because it is the difference as to the effect of that 

 particular Article on the iudustry or business with which we are now 

 charged. 



Lord Hannen. — The passage I was referriug to will be found at page 

 66, where it is said: 



"As to tlie clause of the same projet" (that is a letter from Count Lieven) "hav- 

 ing; or its object to ensure to Eiij^lish vessels tbe free entry into tlie Icy Sea by the 

 Straits of liehrin.u, it seems, in the first i>lace, that that condition, which is entirely 

 Bew, is by its nature foreign to the special object of the negotiation". 



They did not in the first place yield that, but yielded it in conse- 

 quence of further negotiations; and then the question is, ou what terms 

 did they yield it, and what was the effect of the terms on which they 

 yielded it? 



Mr. Phelps. — Still, the force of the observation that I have made 

 does not api)ear to me, I respectfully submit, to be at all diminished. It 

 is plain that the right to navigate through the Behring Straits was 

 DOt in dispute. If it was in the first place, as suggested by his Lord- 

 ship, that was speedily abandoned by Eiissia, who took the ground 

 that they had never intended to deny it, and they did not deny it; and 

 Mr. Stratford Canning writes he is happy to be assured by all of them 

 that there is no question on that point. 



Then on the question whether the fishing in Behring Sea was included, 

 the British, I repeat, j^roposed words that would have set that at rest. 

 If Kussia meant to assent to that, why strike out the words. She gave 

 no reasou whatever. None can be conjectured. There cannot be an 

 objection to using the words that Mr. Canninghad put in this first j9ro- 

 jet, unless it is that they did not mean to concede so much as that. 



Then you see that the British Government, after those words are 

 stricken out, and the ambiguous language of the present Treaty 

 employed, were laying stress upon the very ])osition in the Treaty which 

 this assumes, and callirig attention to the fact that its importance and 

 prominence is dimini.-lied by being at the end of the Treaty instead of 

 at the beginning; and while Bussia accedes to that suggestion, and 

 restores the article to its position in the Treaty which Great Britain 

 desired it to occu])y, and conceded its inqiortance, nevertheless they 

 declined to insert the words that would have ]uit tliis beyond dispute 

 and Great Britain acquiesced in a draft of the Treaty that did not con- 

 tain them. 



How came they to do so, because the point that they were labouring 

 upon, the right of free navigation as the i)rimary question and the 

 boundary line as the secondary question, were equally conceded by the 

 language of Eussia and is explained by what is said by Mr. Canning. 

 Then in Mr. Addington's letter which will be found on page 66 of the 

 same book as late as August 2nd 1824. 



"A convention concluded between this Government" — that is writ- 

 ten from Washington and the words "this Government" means the 

 United States — 



A convention concluded between this Government and that of Russia for the set- 

 tlement of the respective claims of the two nations to the intercourse with the 

 north-western coast of America reached the Department of State a few days since. 



The Jiiain ]>oiiits determined by this instrument are, as far as I can ci)lUict from 

 the American Secretary of State, (1) the enjoyment of a free and unrestricted inter- 



