65 



whatever to the opposite view are the words in the first paragraph 

 referring to the benefits and advantages that resulted to the Em^iire 

 from the hunting and trading carried on by the Emperor's loyal subjects 

 "^?^ the northeastern seas and along the coasts of America." But 

 that was merely a recital — in what may, not unreasonably, be called 

 the preamble of the company's charter — of the fiict that Russians had 

 been engaged in hunting and trading, not only "along the coasts of 

 America," but "in the northeastern seas;" not that they had been so 

 engaged in those waters, to the exclusion of the citizens or subjects of 

 other countries rightfully engaged in commerce and navigation on the 

 high seas. 



This is made clear by the granting clause of the company's charter, 

 which, referring to the discovery by Eussian navigators of the north- 

 eastern [northwestern] part of America, and of certain islands, and of 

 the possession held in those localities by Russia, permits the company 

 to have the use, (not of the northeastern seas, but) of all hunting grounds 

 and establishments then existing "on the northeastern [northwestern] 

 coast of America," from the fifty-fifth degree of latitude to Bering 

 Strait, " and also on the Aleutian, Kurile, and other islands, situated in 

 the Northeastern Ocean." And, as already stated, the exclusive right, 

 granted to the company, as declared in section 10, was "to use and 

 enjoy, in the above-described extent of country and islands, all profits 

 and advantages derived from hunting, trade, industries, and discovery 

 of new lands." 



In my judgment there is nothing in the record which even remotely 

 sustains the theory that Russia intended, by the Ukase of 1799, to 

 assert exclusive jurisdiction over, or any sovereign control of, the 

 northeastern sea outside of territorial waters. The only jjurpose was 

 Uj give. to a favored company exclusive privileges within the territory 

 and dominion of that nation. In respect to that Ukase, Mr. Middle- 

 ton, the United States Minister at St. Petersburg, who negotiated the 

 Treaty of 1821 with Russia, said, in a letter to Mr. Adams that it " is, 

 in its form, an act i)urely domestic, and was never notified to any foreign 

 state with injunction to respect its j)rovisions." Ainerican State Papers, 

 Foreign Relations, vol. 5, p. 461. 



'^OY, in ray judgment, is there any document or fact in the public 



history of Russia, as disclosed in the record before us, which justifies 



the contention that that country asserted or exercised, jirior to 1831, 



exclusive jurisdiction over the waters of Bering Sea or any exclusive 



rights in the seal fisheries in that sea, outside of territorial waters. 

 11492 5 



