100 



no dispatch emanating from the British Foreign Office is there any- 

 thing indicating that, in its judgment, Bering Sea was not a i)art of 

 the Great Ocean commonly called the Pacific Ocean, or that its Gov- 

 ernment was concerned simply about navigation and fishing in the 

 waters south of the Alaskan Peninsula, which washed the shores of the 

 particular territory, limited in extent, and then in dispute between that 

 country and Kussia. On the contrary, in the xjrojet of a convention 

 which Mr. George Canning, on the 12th of July, 1824, prepared for the 

 consideration of Russia, it distinctly appears that Great Britain con- 

 templated a treaty covering all the coasts and waters on the North 

 American coast from Bering Strait southward. Article i in that 

 draft provided: "It is agreed between the high contracting parties 

 that their respective subjects shall enjoy the right of free navigation 

 along the whole extent of the Pacific Ocean, comprehending the sea 

 tvithin Bering Straits, and shall be neither troubled nor molested in 

 carrying on their trade and fisheries, in all parts of the said ocean, 

 either to the northward or southward thereof; it being well understood 

 that the said right of fishery shall not be exercised by the subjects of 

 either of the two powers nearer than two marine leagues from the 

 respective possessions of the other." 



In his letter inclosing this projet to Sir Charles Bagot, the British 

 minister at St. Petersburg, Mr. Canning said: "Your Excellency 

 will observe that there are but two points which have struck Count 

 Lieven as susceptible of any question. The first is the assumption 

 of the base of the mountains, instead of the summit, as the line 

 of boundary; the second, the extension of the right of the naviga- 

 tion of the Pacific to the sea beyond Bering Straits. As to the 

 second point, it is, perhaps, as Count Lieven remarks, new. But 

 it is to be remarked, in return, that the circumstances under which 

 this additional security is required will be new also. By the territorial 

 demarcation agreed to in this ^projet\ Eussia will become possessed, 

 in acknowledged sovereignty, of both sides of Bering's Straits. The 

 power which could think of making the Pacific a mare clausum may not 

 unnaturally be supposed capable of a disposition to apply the same 

 character to a strait comprehended between two shores of which it 

 becomes the undisputed owner; but the shutting up of Bering 

 Straits, or the power to shut them up hereafter, would be a thing not 

 to be tolerated by England. Nor could we submit to be excluded, 

 either positively or constructively, from a sea in which the skill and sci- 



