OEAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. 0. M. P. 421 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — Sir Ricliard, can you refer uie to that docu- 

 ment of June 12, 1824, referred to in the Counter Case of the United 

 States, page 15, the one you read a whih', ago? I do not know where 

 it is in the record. 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — I will in a moment, Judge. It is not 

 printed; but that extract is correct. 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — It is correct? 



Sir EicHARD Webster. — Oh, yes ; that extract is correct. We have 

 only got the Russian document, not the other parts; but it is a perfectly 

 correct extract; and I call your attention, as you have been good 

 enough to allow me to do so, to the date as being in 1824, when, as you 

 know, Sir, the comi)any were doing the utmost they could to support 

 the Ukase of 1821. Therefore I am justified iu saying — and I am sure 

 you will follow me — that in no sense, from the point of view I am 

 following, was it a contemporaneous document. 



But it is curious, Sir, that the ofticial document of the 7th of April 

 1821, coming from the United States Minister at St. Petersburg contra- 

 dicts that, if any reliance can be ])laced upon it, for in 1824 the official 

 Minister of the United States, writing to Sir. Adams, makes that state- 

 ment with the authority of his position at a time when unquestionably 

 the company were using all the powers they had to get an extension of 

 their privileges. 



But, Mr. President, this matter is really put beyond all question by 

 the Eiccord-Pigott correspondence; and this incident in the case is a 

 very curious one. I trust my learned friends will not misunderstand 

 me. I am satisfied that everything that has been put forward on behalf 

 of the United States both by their agent and tlieir couuseP has been 

 put forward in the fullest good faith; but I shall have to call attention 

 to the fact that when it is necessary to remove the impression of an 

 argument which is founded on original and official documents, they are 

 suggested for the first time in this case, after the lapse of years and 

 years, to be either incorrect in their phraseology or to have a different 

 meaning to that which the words themselves would indicate. That 

 occurs more than once in the course of tliis case. 



Now, sir, in the original case now withdrawn, the Eiccord-Piggott 

 corres];)ondence was put forward as an instance of Eussia preventing 

 foreign trade. It is sufficient for my purpose to call your attention, 

 Sir, simply to the fact — 1 read nothing from it — that on page 45 of the 

 United States Case, the Eiccord-Pigott incident appeared as under the 

 date, quite correctly, of 1819. It ran through four pages, from 45 to 49; 

 and it was used, perfectly legitimately — as the documents were then 

 supposed to exist: — in order to support the case, which they then 

 believed to be the truth, that Eussia had prevented vessels from going 

 into Behring Sea. Will you be good enough, Mr. President, to kindly 

 let your eye ruu on to page 49 — all is now struck out from page 45 to 

 page 49 — but at page 49 you will observe that the thread of the story is 

 then taken up : 



It thus appears from tbe forejioing citations tliat, so far as it concerns the coasts 

 and waters of Bering Sea, the ulvase of 1821 was merely declaratory of proexisting 

 claims of exclusive jurisdiction as to trade, which had been enforced therein for 

 many years. 



That is not withdrawn. That is a statement made on evidence which 

 they then believed to be true, that for many years the trade of foreigners 

 had been prohibited in Behring Sea. 



The Ukase of 1799 which set forth a claim of exclusive Russian jurisdiction as far 

 south as latitude 55", called forth no protest from any foreign powers, nor was objec- 

 tion offered to the exclusion of foreign ships from trade with the natives and hunt- 



