460 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 



From 1843 to 1850 there were constant complaints by the Compauj- of the increas- 

 ing boldness of the whalers. They were not content with landing on the Aleutian 

 and Kurile Islands, cutting wood wherever they chose, boiling blubber on the shore," 

 then 10 lines lower down "Traffic in furs was openly carried on between the natives 

 and the American Captains, and when the Colonial authorities made some whalers 

 leave Novo Arkhangelsk (N P) on that account, they quietly continued the traffic in 

 the Bay of Sitka, and disregarded all protests. The following case also deserves to 

 be noticed; in 1847 one of the whalers came to Behring Island, and on the Captain 

 being told that he must not traffic in seal-skins on a neighbouring small island, he 

 ordered the overseer of the island to be turned off his ship, and immediately went 

 on shore with his men, with the evident intention of disregarding the prohibition. 



It was only when active steps were taken to resist them that the whalers left, but 

 before going they cut down a plantation which had been groAvn with great trouble, 

 the island being without other trees or shrubs. Few of the districts of the colony 

 escaped the visits of the whalers, which were everywhere accompanied by acts of 

 violence on their part. 



Whenever complaints of such acts reached the Company, they took all the steps 

 in their power to protect the country under their administration ; but all their efl'orts 

 led to no satisfactory result. In 1843, almost immediately after the first protest of 

 the Company, the colonial authorities were alarmed at the large number of whalers 

 engaged round the shores of Kadiak, as the Company's fur trade was certain to suffer 

 from their presence. 



And there was a request for a cruiser made to prevent the vessels 

 from interfering and going into the territorial waters of Eussia. 

 Then lower down, there is this. 



In 1847 a representation from Governor Tebenkoff in regard to new aggressions on 

 the part of the whalers gave rise to further correspondence. Some time before, in 

 June 1846, the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia had exi)ressed his opinion that, 

 in order to limit the whaling operations of foreigners, it would be fair to forbid 

 them to come within 40 Italian miles of our shores, the ports of Petropaulovsk and 

 Okhotsk to be excluded, and a payment of 100 silver roubles to be demanded at those 

 ports from every vessel for the right of whaling. He recommended that a ship of 

 war should be employed as a cruiser to watch foreign vessels. The Foreign Office 

 expressly stated as follows in reply. We have no right to exclude foreign ships from 

 that part of the Great Ocean which separates the eastern shore of Siberia from the 

 north-western shore of America or to make the payment of a sum of money a condi- 

 tion to allowing them to take whales. 



I need not remind you, Mr. President, as my learned friend, the Attor- 

 ney General, pointed out, that could only be and is only the Behring 

 Sea, no other part of the Great Ocean corresponds with that. 



Then, at the bottom of the page, going on to the year 1853, you will 

 actually find the instructions to cruisers: 



The cruisers were to see that no whalers entered the bays or gulfs, or came within 

 3 Italian nules of our shores, that is, the shores of Russian America (north of 54° 

 41'), the Peninsula of Kamchatka, Siberia, the Kadiak Archipelago, the Aleutian 

 Islands, the Pribilof and Commander Islands, and the others in Behring Sea, the 

 Kuriles, Sakhalin, the Shantar Islands, and the others in the Sea of Okhotsk to the 

 north of 46° 30' north. The cruisers were instructed constantly to keep in view that 

 " our Government not only does not wish to prohibit or put oljstacles in the way of 

 whaling by foreigners in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean; but allows foreign- 

 ers to take whales in the Sea of Okhotsk, which, as stated in these instructions, is, 

 frovi its geographical position, a Russian inland sea". 



InTow in the face of that brief summary which I have been fortunately 

 able to take from one document, referring to 1842, 1813, 1847 and 1853, 

 it is obvious, and cannot I submit be denied by the Counsel for the 

 United States, that there were at this time no acts supporting the con- 

 tention that Russia never withdrew her prohibition with regard to navi- 

 gation and fishing in Behring Sea, that Great Britain had recognized 

 that the prohibition extended to Behring Sea. I will read it if you 

 please, Mr. President, from pages 56 and 57 of the United States Case 

 which still stands. 



But neither in the protests negociations, nor treaties is any reference found to 

 Behring Sea, and it must be conceded from a study of those instruments and the sub- 

 sequent events that the question of jurisdictional rights over its waters was left 



