36 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The design of the foregoing review of the principal points made in 

 the diplomatic discussions which preceded the Treaty under which this 

 Tribunal was constituted has been to show that the main grounds upon 

 which, from first to last, the claims of the United States were based 

 were the property and industrial interests of that nation; and that the 

 purpose of Mr. Blaine, in taking up the discussion tendered by Lord 

 Salisbury in relation to the ukase of 1821 and the subsequent treaties 

 of 1824 and 1825, was simply to point out that the assertions by Russia 

 of exceptional authority over certain portions of the high seas were, 

 so far as respects Bering Sea, not only never abandoned by her, but 

 were practically conceded and acquiesced in by Great Britain, and 

 that, consequently, the United States could assert against Great Brit- 

 ain a right to protect their scaling interests, not only upon general 

 principles of international law, but upon the additional and reinforc- 

 ing ground that Russia, in order to defend the same interests, had 

 asserted and exercised an exceptional authority over Bering Sea for 

 nearly half a century with the acquiescence of Great Britain, and that 

 any right thus acquired had passed to the United States by the cession 

 of Alaska. 



In the view of the undersigned, Mr. Blaine was entirely successful 

 in establishing his contention that the assertion by Russia of an ex- 

 ceptional authority over the seas, including an interdiction of the 

 approach of any foreign vessel within 100 miles of certain designated 

 shores, while abandoned by her treaty with Great Britain in 1825 as to 

 all the northwest coast south of the 00th parallel of north latitude, 

 was, so far as respects Bering Sea, and the islands thereof, and the coast 

 south of the 00th parallel, never abandoned by her, but was acquiesced 

 in by Great Britain. And if the undersigned believed the point to be 

 one upon which any of the claims of the United States really depended, 

 they would deem it their duty to again present the argument of Mr. 

 Blaine, together with further suggestions which would reinforce it. 

 But they greatly prefer to place the case of the United States upon its 

 real and original grounds, which, as it seems to them, admit of no dis- 

 pute, and not to rely upon arguments which, however successful in their 

 avowed purposes, are yet, perhaps, to be deemed somewhat aside from 

 the main question. They prefer to submit to this Tribunal that Russia 

 had for nearly a century before the cession of Alaska established and 

 maintained a valuable industry upon the Pribilof Islands, founded 

 upon a clear and indisputable property interest in the fur seals which 



