63 



by wliose autliority, it was made, against all otlier European govern- 

 ments, wLich title might be cousuiumated by xiossessiou. The exclu- 

 sion of all other Europeans necessarily gave to the nation making the 

 discovery the sole right of acquiring the soil from the natives, and estab- 

 lishing settlements upon it. It was a right with which no Europeans 

 could interfere. It was a right which all asserted for themselves, and to 

 the assertion of which by others all assented." 



In my judgment there is nothing in the Ukase of 1799 which either 

 expressly or by necessary implication indicates the purpose of Russia 

 to assert such sovereign authority over the open waters of Bering 

 Sea as would enable it to exclude the vessels of other powers from 

 that sea, or even to prohibit hunting or fishing in its waters, beyond 

 the ordinary territorial limits x^rescribed by the law of nations. 



Prior to 1799 numerous rival comx)anies or associations, maintained 

 by Eussian capital, were engaged in trading with the native inhabit- 

 ants residing on the coasts or islands of Bering Sea. Many com- 

 plaints were made to the Emperor of cruelty and wrong practices by 

 those associations toward the natives. The " promyshleniki," it was 

 said, "could easily toke by force what they had not the means to buy, or 

 what the natives did not care to sell." "Thus," says Bancroft, "foi 

 many years matters were aUowed to take their course; but toward the 

 end of the eighteenth century the threatened exhaustion of the known 

 sources of supply caused much uneasiness among the Siberian mer- 

 chants engaged in the fur trade, and some of them endeavored to rem- 

 edy the evil by soliciting special privileges from the Government for 

 the exclusive right to certain islands, with the understanding that a 

 fixed percentage of the gross yield — usually one-tenth — was to be paid 

 into the public treasury. Such privileges were granted freely enough, 

 but it was another matter to make the numerous half-piratical traders 

 respect or even pay the least attention to them." History of Alaska^ 

 375-6. And we have the authority of a report made by a committee, 

 under royal permission, for saying that out of this condition of aftairs 

 arose the necessity recognized by the Russian Government of one 

 strong company which " would serve on the one hand to perpetuate 

 Russian supremacy tliere, and on the other woidd prevent many dis- 

 orders and preserve the fur trade, the principal wealth of the country, 

 affording i)rotection to the natives against violence and abuse, and 

 tending toward a general improvement of their condition." Hence 

 the creation of the Russian-American Company by the Ukase of 1799> 



