96 



It was impossible for him to have assented to the views of Baron Tayll 

 excej)t upon the theory that he recognized the treaty of 1824 as having 

 no reference at all to the waters of the Bering Sea as part of the Great 

 Ocean commonly called the Paciiic Ocean or South Sea, a conclusion at 

 variance with all that he contended for throughout the negotiations 

 arising from the Ukase of 1821. In my opinion, Mr. Blaine was mistaken 

 in saying that Mr. Adams expressed his concurrence in Baron TaylPs 

 interpretation of the treaty of 1821. It is, I think, quite clear that Mr. 

 Adams prudently withheld any expression of his opinion, disclaiming 

 authority in himself or in the President of the United States to change 

 or give any binding interpretation of the treaty. He frankly stated to 

 Baron Tuyll that the treaty as made must, when ratified, be carried out 

 according to its proper interpretation and meaning. He warned him 

 that if, on the exchange of the ratificatioas, he should deliver a note of 

 the purport of that informally delivered, he, Mr. Adams, should tell 

 him "that the construction of treaties depending here upon the judi- 

 ciary tribunals, the Executive Government, even if disposed to acqui- 

 esce in that of the Eussian Government as announced by him, could 

 not be binding upon the courts nor upon this nation." Baron Tuyll 

 distinctly said that he understood the relations subsisting in Amer- 

 ica between the executive and judicial departments of Government. 

 So that the utmost that can be said is, that the United States had notice, 

 before the ratidcation of the treaty of 1824, of the interpretation which 

 Russia, possibly, at some future time, would place upon the treaty, so 

 far as it embraced the subject to which Baron Tuyll referred in his 

 Explanatory Note. 



The material inquiry, however, is whether Great Britain had any 

 notice of what took x>lace in the interview between Baron Tuyll and 

 Mr. Adams. This question must be answered in the negative. It is 

 not claimed that the Explanatory Note of Baron Tuyll was ever pub- 

 lished or brought to liglit from the files of the State Department of 

 the United States until it was produced in this case. Nor is it pre- 

 tended that a copy of it was ever sent to Great Britain. The only 

 document relied upon to show knowledge upon the part of Great 

 Britain of the interpretation placed by the United States upon the 

 treaty of 1824 is the letter of Mr. Addington, the British representa- 

 tive at Washington, written August 2, 1824, to Mr. George Canning. Mr. 

 Addington said: "A convention concluded between this Government 

 and that of Kussia for the settlement of the rcspectivQ (;laima of the 



