148 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 



esty's Government an ackiiowledgraeut of territorial ri<;lits which are assumed by 

 Russia over a i)ortion of sea tliat may become of great importance with reference to 

 the trade of that part of the world, and the discoveries which are now directed to 

 that quarter. 



It is important to observe that he, a hiwyer, at once sees that the 

 assertion of the chiim to excUtde others from a definite area of the sea 

 from the coasts, is an assertion of territorial sovereignty, and accord- 

 ingly he, at once, so describes it. You will see he says on page 2 of 

 the volume II of the Appendix to the Case of the British Government: 



The commnnication in<lirectly asserts an exclusive right in the sovereignty 

 ''d'une mer fermee snr I'espace de mer, dont les possessions'' (from Behriug's Straits 

 to SI'-' north, on the west coast of America, and 45'-' nnrth on the coast of Asia) 

 " forment leslimites", and it proceeds to announce as a (lualitied exercise of that 

 right the exclusion of all foreign ships, under pain of coufiscatiou, fr(»m approaching 

 within 100 miles of those coasts. 



The extent of territory so assumed is much greater than is ordinarily recognized 

 by the principles of the law of nations. 



and so on. 



Now the letter from Count Kesselrode to Connt Lieven, on the next 

 page, is practically the same. I think in every important res])ect it is 

 the same as Baron de Nicolay's letter which I have already read, and 

 thercfoie I forbear to trouble the Tribunal with it. Sir Charles Bag(»t 

 was, at this time, the Biitish Minister at St. Petersburgh, and he 

 writes a letter on the 17th of November, beginning on the bottom of 

 jiage 4, referring to his dispatch in which he transmitted the heads of 

 the Ukase. I will not trouble the Tribunal with reading the whole of 

 the letter, but the last passage but one is important: 



When I found that the Ukase had been already communicated to yonr Lordship 

 I abstained from entering with Count Nesselrode into any further discussion 



897 of it, or inquiring of him, upon what grounds the 5l8t degree of north lati- 

 tude (which, after tlie last Treaty between Spuin and the United States, 



reduces the possessions of Great Britain to two degrees of latitude) had been now 



declared, — 



that is to say, Great Britain was being squeezed between those two 

 claims. 



I believe for the first time, to be the boundary of the Russian dominion upon 

 those coasts, but I have adverted to the novel principle involved in that Regulation 

 of the Decree which dooms to confiscation all foreign vessels which may approach 

 witliin 100 Italian miles of the Russian coasts, and I find that this extraordinary pre- 

 tension has been adopted from, and is supposed to be justified by the Xllih Article 

 of the Treaty of Utrecht. 



Now I pass over a good many pages of the correspondence and come 

 to page 12, where there is an important letter, from Lord Stowell, which 

 my friend Mr. Carter read; and you will see that Lord Stowell regarded, 

 as every lawyer must regard, the assertion of exclusive control oA-er an 

 area as an assertion of exclusive tlominion, territorial dominion, over 

 that area. 



Now Lord Stowell begins by saying: 



I have perused these papers and it appears to me to be unsafe to proceed to any 

 controversial discussion of the proposed Regulations till it is shown that they issue 

 from a competent authority founded upon an acknowledged title of territorial and 

 exclusive possession of the portions of the globe to which they relate. 



and so on. Then he proceeds in the 2nd paragraph to say : 



The territories claimed are of different species — islands — portions of. the conti- 

 nent — and largo portions ot the sea adjoining. 



