194 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



Sir Charles Kussell. — In view of that statement Sir, I must ask 

 leave to intervene. 



Mr. Phelps. — Certainly. 



Sir Charles Russell. — There is a distinct statement by the Eus- 

 sian Foreign Office that they have no right to exclude foreign ships 

 from that part of the great ocean which separates the eastern sliore and 

 Siberia from the western shore of America, or to make the payment of 

 a sum of money a condition of allowing them to take whales. 



Mr. Phelps. — That is cited from Bancroft, I presume. 



Sir Charles Russell. — No, from the official papers. 



Mr. Phelps. — I understand that Bancroft the historian gives the 

 additional facts as you will find in the Counter Case, page 25. It is 

 part of the same declaration as that which my learned friend has 

 alluded to. I should think myself that it was a very grave question, 

 at least, whether the right of the whaler in navigating Behring Sea 

 might not have been within what was conceded. I do not care to dis- 

 cuss that, because we have nothing to do with it. It may be so, or 

 may not be so; I only meant by this allusion to show that on that 

 extreme point — and it certainly would be extreme — the Russian Gov- 

 ernment had communications with the Russian American Company to 

 which I have alluded. 



Marquis Venosta. — Do you consider the book Teckmanieff a relia- 

 ble document ? 



Mr. Phelps. — That is a question that I am not able to answer. 

 From the use that is made of it, I should think not, and from its 

 exceeding facility for mistranslation, I should think not; but I really 

 am not qualified and not sufficiently acquainted with the author or 

 any other Russian literature to express an opinion on the subject. I 

 notice that Professor Elliott refers frequently to him, and that the pas- 

 sages on which he depends generally turn out to have been mistrans- 

 lated, and those are usually the circumstances under which the author 

 makes his ai)pearance in this case. 



Marquis Venosta. — The book of Teckmanieff" is an historical book, 

 a printed book, but is not an official document and for that reason I 

 have asked your opinion. 



Mr. Phelps. — That is an opinion I am not competent to express. 

 The particular historian I was last alluding to is one cited on the other 

 side — Bancroft, an American writer. There are two of those Russian 

 writers — Teckmanieff', and Veniaminoff, and possibly I have con- 

 founded them in the observations I have made. If so, it arises from 

 my own ignorance on that subject. 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — Teckmanieff" is the man who wrote about the 

 Russian American Company. 



Mr. Phelps. — Then this is what we claim and all we claim, and I 

 have been drawn into saying more than I should have said on this sub- 

 ject in view of its relative importance to this case. We have attempted 

 to establish — whether successfully or not — that the property interest 

 which the United States Government has in this herd, which entitles 

 it to protect it, derives a confirmation or a corroboration and a strength 

 from a possession and an assertion on the part of Russia that was abso- 

 lutely unbroken, so far as this seal industry was concerned, from the 

 earliest discovery down to the present time. 



Therefore, if you will permit me to read again what we have 

 expressed in the United States Argument, at page 40, as the answers 

 which we should respectfully submit should be made to the questions 

 in the Treaty on this subject, I shall trouble you no further in respect 



