ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. G. 579 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — What you read was no doubt in the letter of 

 the same date from Mr. Adams to Mr, Rush, on page 6 of your volume 

 II, Part. 2. In the British copy that part you read is omitted. 



Mr. EoBiNSON. — Yes, I had noted between the first and second sen- 

 tences, that there was this omission I do not know how it happened, 

 but it is supplied in the Appendix to our Counter Case Vol. I at page 

 56, and, therefore, it is of no consequence. I looked at it before the 

 Counter Case had appeared, and made that note, and had forgotten to 

 take a note of the fact that it was put in in full in the Counter Case. 



Mr. TUPPER. — I may be permitted to say that these papers of the 

 United States correspondence were printed from the blue book pub- 

 lished by the United States Government in Washington in the year 

 1888 — a collection of all the papers relating to the subject — and they 

 were taken in that way. 



Mr. Robinson. — As we have it now it is of no great importance how 

 it came to be omitted earlier. 



But Mr. Blaine, I observe, wilting on the 30th of June, 1890, Vol. Ill, 

 Appendix to British Case, p. 498 says. 



If Mr. Adams literally intended to confine Russian rights to those Islands, all the 

 discoveries of Vitus Behring and other great naviirators are brushed away by one 

 sweep of his pen, and a large chapter of history is but a fable. 



Then he says at the foot of the page: 



Witliout immoderate presumption, Russia might have challenged the rights of 

 others to assume territorial possessions; but no nation had shadow of cause or right 

 to challenge her title to the vast regions of land and water which, before Mr. Adams 

 was Secretary of State, had become known as the " Russian iiossessions". 



Now you see that at that time the United States having bought 

 from Russia were standing upon that title, and of course, it being their 

 own title, it was only natural that they should make the most of it; 

 but we have to contrast the position, taken by the United States in 18L'3 

 with the position taken when they had purchased the title of Russia 

 and were resting upon it. This is what Mr. Blaine says here, which, as 

 I have said, I find some difficulty in reconciling with the position taken 

 by Mr. Adams; and I submit that you will find that the position of Mr. 

 Adams is the right one. 



In another place Mr. Blaine asks whether it is likely, if Russia's title 

 had not been good, the United States would have paid the sum of 

 $7,200,000 for the territory. I have not that passage before me at this 

 moment; but of course the answer to that is very obvious. Whatever 

 Russia's rights might have been, they were conceded and settled to be 

 down to 54-40 by the treaties; and if the United States, forty years 

 after the treaty, desired to acquire that property, it was necessary for 

 them to pay for it whatever they might think it was worth; and I 

 fancy that much as it increased between 1824 and 1867, it has probably 

 increased more since that time. 



So much then for those two points, which, in the view which I am 

 endeavoring to take of the case, would have comparatively little bear- 

 ing, but I think they may be disposed of by simi^ly asking the Tribunal 

 to read the words which I have read from the corresiDou deuce, accom- 

 panying the words of the Ukase, the words of the protest, and compare 

 with them the words of the Treaty; and as to the other, so far as it is 

 material, to contrast Mr. Adams' view of the title with that taken by 

 Mr. Blaine, and examine, if it is thought worth while, the history of 

 the discoveries up to that time, and see whicli is the most correct. I 

 venture to think, us it is natural that it should be, that Mr. Adams, 



