57 



(the ndvlsers of tlie President) reply, as a justifieatiou for the seizure 

 of British ships in the open sea, upon the contention that the interests 

 of the seal fisheries give to the United States Government any right 

 for that purpose which, according to international law, it would not 

 otherwise possess.' The Government of the United States has steadily 

 held just the reverse of the position which Lord Salisbury has imputed 

 to it. It holds tliat the ownership of the islands upon which the seals 

 breed, that the habit of the seals in regularly resorting thither and rear- 

 ing their young thereon, that their going out from the islands in search 

 of food and regnlarly returning thereto, and all the facts and incidents 

 of their relation to the island, give the United States a property interest 

 therein; that this property interest was claimed and exercised by Kussia 

 during the whole period of its sovereignty over the land and waters of 

 Alaska; that England recognized this property interest so far as recog- 

 nition is implied by abstaining from all interference with it during the 

 whole period of Russia's ownership of Alaska and during the first nine- 

 teen years of the sovereignty of the United States. It is yet to be deter- 

 mined whether the lawless intrusion of Canadian vessels in 18SG and 

 subsequent years has changed the law and equity of the case thereto- 

 fore prevailing." U. 8. Case, Vol. 1, App., 295, 298. 



The general contention of the British Government, during the negotia- 

 tions, so far as the questions of right and jurisdiction were concerned, 

 was that Russia neither asserted nor exercised, and could never have 

 rightfully asserted or exercised, exclusive jurisdiction or exclusive 

 rights in the open waters of Bering Sea, except that by the Ukase of 

 1821 she forbade foreign vessels from .approaching nearer than 100 

 Italian miles from the coast of the North American continent between 

 Bering Strait and the fifty-first degree of north latitude, or the coasts 

 of the Asiatic continent from the same strait to the forty- fifth degree of 

 north latitude, or the intervening islands belonging to her; that against 

 this prohibition both Great Britain and the United States earnestly 

 protested, and it was withdrawn or abandoned by Russia when she 

 made the treaty of 1824 with the United States, and that of 1825 

 with Great Britain; that the pursuit of fur seals in the open seas could 

 not of itself be regarded as contra honos mores unless and until, for si)ecial 

 reasons, it has been agreed by international arrangement to forbid it; 

 that Great Britain has always claimed the freedom of navigation and 

 fishing in the waters of Bering Sea outside the usual territorial limit of 



