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



So there yon see, still further bearing out the communications between 

 the English Ministers, the Eussian instructions to their own officers, 

 that they are to exercise their surveillance over an extent of ocean 

 reaching only to the extent of a cannon shot from the shore; and this 

 we know is now treated as three miles. 



Now we come to a point at which this 100 mile claim absolutely 

 disappears from the controversy. On page 45 JNIr. Lyall, the Oliairniau 

 of a Committee of ship-owners who were interested in this matter, writes 

 to Mr. George Canning, on the 19th of November 1823; and he refers 

 to a previous communication. 



When you had the goodness to inform me that a representation had been made to 

 that Government, and that you had reason to believe that the Ukase would uot be 

 acted upon; and very shortly after this commnuicatioii I was iulbiined, on what I 

 considered undoubted authority, that the Russian Government had consented to with- 

 draw that unfounded pretension. 



Then he says : 



The Committee of this Society bein^ about to make their Annual Report to the 

 ship-owners at larj^re, it would be satisfactory to them to be able to state therein tliat 

 official advices liad been received from St. Petersburg that the Ukase had been 

 annulled ; and should that be the case, 1 have to express the hoi)e of the Couuuittee 

 to be favored with a communication from you to that effect. 



Whereupon, Mr. Canning, before he answers Mr. Lyall, communicates 

 with Count Lieven and says: Here is a question which has been i)ut to 

 me. What am I to tell these shipowners? 



I have received the inclosed letter from the Ship-owners Society; my ansvrer to it 



must be in writing, and not long after it will be in print. 



I wish, therefore, that you should know beforehand what the nature of it will be, 



and for that purpose I inclose a draft of it, which I will be obliged to you if 



904 you will return with any remark that may occur to you, returning also Mr. 



Lyall's letter. 



Here is Count Lieven's answer, which I translate thus: 



I am infinitely obliged for your communication that you have been good enough to 

 make me. In returning the two annexed inclosures to your letter, and in availing 

 myself of the permission that you have had the goodness to give me, I beg the liberty 

 of observing to you that it will be desirable that the passage marked in pencil in the 

 minute of your response should be substituted by the announcement. 



Then follow the words in inverted comas. 



"That the new instructions given to the commanders of Russian cruisers are con- 

 ceived with the object of preventing disturbance between the Russian vessels aud 

 those of other nations, and that in general they may be considered as having sus- 

 pended provisionally the effect of the Imperial Ukase of the 4th of September 1821." 



The President. — That is not quite right. It should be as being 

 such as to suspend. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — That i« still stronger; I am much obliged 

 to you. 



Thereupon Mr. Secretary Canning by his Secretary communicates to 

 the ship-owners in this way: 



Mr. Canning cannot authorize me to state to yon in distinct terms that the Ukase 

 has been annulled, because the negotiation to which it gave rise is still pending, 

 embracing, as it does, many points of great intricacy as well as importance. 



But I am directed by Mr. Canning to acquaint you that orders have been sent out 

 by the Court of St. Petersburgh to their Naval Commanders calculated to prevent any 

 collision between Russian ships and those of other nations, and, in effect, suspending 

 the Ukase of September 1821. 



Here we have got to a definite point: the suspension of the Ukase of 

 1821. What had been done therefore amounted to this — a paper asser- 

 tion of territorial sovereignty by the Ukase, aud by the Charter under 



