38 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tween Mr. Blaine and Lord Salisbury was the interdiction to foreign 

 vessels of an approach to the shores and islands referred to nearer 

 than 100 miles. This, of course, was no assertion of exclusive juris- 

 diction, or of jurisdiction at all, in the strict sense of that term. 

 It was the assertion of a right to protect interests attached to the 

 shore from threats and danger of invasion. It was in no wise dif- 

 ferent in its nature from a multitude of assertions of a right to 

 exercise national authority over certain parts of the sea made by 

 different nations before and since, and by none more frequently or ex- 

 tensively than by Great Britain. It was an assertion of power essen- 

 tially the same as that of which the hovering laws are instances. The 

 extent of the interdiction from the shore — 100 miles — might have been 

 extreme, although this is by no means certain. A distance which 

 would be excessive in the case of a frequented coast, the pathway of 

 abundant commerce, might be entirely reasonable in a remote and almost 

 uninhabited quarter of the globe to which there was little occasion for 

 vessels to resort except for the purpose of engaging in prohibited trade. 

 It must be remembered that the interdiction was not made for the pur- 

 pose of preventing, or restricting, pelagic sealing. That pursuit had 

 not even been thought of at that time. Had that danger then threat- 

 ened the sealing interests of Russia a much more extensive restriction 

 might justly have been imposed. 



As already observed it is not intended by the undersigned to inti- 

 mate that the question what authority over Bering Sea Russia claimed 

 the right to exercise and how far the claim was acquiesced in by Great 

 Britain, has no importance in the present controversy ; but to point out 

 the nature of that claim, and to indicate its appropriate place in the 

 present discussion. It has a very distinct significance as showing that 

 assertions on the part of Russia of a right to defend and protect her 

 colonial trade and local industries by the reasonable exercise of force 

 in Bering Sea were assented to by Great Britain during the whole 

 period of the Russian occupation of Alaska, and, by consequence, that 

 the present complaints of the latter against a similar exercise of power 

 by the United States are wholly inconsistent with her former attitude 

 and admissions. 



Again referring to the broad distinction between that power of sov- 

 ereign jurisdiction exercised by a nation over nonterritorial waters, 

 which consists in the enactment of municipal laws designed to be opera- 

 tive upon such waters against the citizens of other nations, and the 

 exercise of authority and power over such waters limited to the neces- 



