103 



ail ocean of iininensured extent." It withdrew its oifer to establish 

 "an exclusive fishery of two leagues from the coasts" of the respective 

 countries, and suggested that one league to each i)ower on its own 

 coasts, as recognized by the law of nations, would suflice and was all 

 that she would admit. 



Not long- after this letter of December 8, 182-1, the treaty between 

 E,ussia and Great Britain, in the form above given, was signed. Mr. 

 Sti'atford Canning-, in the letter informing Mr. George Canning- of that 

 fact, said, among other things: "With respect to Bering- Straits I 

 am happy to have it in my power to assure you, on the joint authority 

 of the Russian plenipotentiaries, that the Emperor of Russia has no 

 intention whatever of maintaining any exclusive claim to the naviga- 

 tion of those straits, or of the seas north of them." Is it to be supposed 

 that the British plenipotentiary understood Russia as asserting- or 

 reserving exclusive rights in the sea south of those straits'? 



In view of this array of documentary evidence the Tribunal is asked 

 to find that the treaty of 1825 used the words "Pacific Ocean" as 

 embracing- only the waters of Bering Sea. If we so declare, then our 

 finding- will, in eftect, be a declaration that although Great Britian, dur- 

 ing- negotiations covering several years, persistently demanded the 

 abrogation of an edict asserting for Russia the right to establish a line 

 100 Italian miles from its shores, washed by seas too vast in extent and 

 too immediately connected with the great oceans of the world to come 

 under the exclusive jurisdiction of any nation, she finally agreed to 

 withdraw her opposition to that assumption of jurisdiction so far as 

 . related to Bering Sea, more than 1,000 miles in length and more 

 than 1,200 miles in width j and this notwithstanding in no i)art of the 

 voluminous correspondence preceding the treaty of 1825 is there one 

 word that expressly, or by necessary implication, indicates any x)ur- 

 pose on the part of Russia to demand, or upon the part of Great Britian 

 to concede, that the Ukase of 1821 should remain in force as to Bering 

 Sea, as distinguished from the North Pacific Ocean. 



I have been unable to reach that conclusion. Nor can that position 

 be sustained consistently with the position taken by Russia itself after 

 1825 as to the sco])e and effect of the treaties of 1821 and 1825. The 

 evidence is conclusive that Russia — whatever may have been em- 

 bodied in the proceedings of the Nessdrode conference after the treaty 

 of 1821 was signed — understood both treaties to have annulled the 

 Ukase of 1821 in its application to foreign vessels, so far as to secure 



