114 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



in tlie dispatch to which 1 am replying. While, therefore, there may have been a 

 large aiuount of lawful whaling and lishiug in the Behring Sea, the taking of furs 

 by foreigners was always and under all circumstances illicit. 



He there asserts that it Avas not the purpose of the Ukase of 1821 to 

 estabhsh a mare clausum^ as was by so many supposed, but that its 

 object was to preserve for the exchisiveuse aud eujoyment by Eussian 

 subjects the benefits of the fur trade, the lOO-niile exclusion being an 

 instrumentality for that purj^ose. 



The next imj)ortant note in the correspondence is that of August 2, 

 1890, by Lord Salisbury; but that again is confined to this discussion of 

 Russian rights; and tliere is nothing, 1 believe, pertinent to the point 

 which I am now upon, namely, that of showing what the distinct atti- 

 tude of the Government of the United States was. This was in the 

 course of the correspondence and controversy between Mr. Blaine and 

 Lord Salisbury concerning the extent of the Russian pretensions and 

 the extent to which they had been acquiesced in. To that Mr. Blaine 

 rejoins in a letter beginning on page 203, and it is that letter which 

 contains the single observation which might be taken as a justification 

 for the statement that jNIr. Blaine had put the American claims in the 

 controversy upon the basis of an acquisition by Russia and a transmis- 

 sion to the United States of a sovereign dominion over Bering Sea. 

 That observation I have already alluded to, but I return to it again. 

 It is found on page 203. 



The United States contends that the Behring Sea was not mentioned, or even 

 referred to, in either treaty, and was in no sense included in the phrase "Pacific 

 Ocean". If Great Britain can maintain her position that the Behring Sea at the 

 time of the treaties with Russia of 1824 aud 1825 was included in the Pacific Ocean, 

 the Government of the United States has no well-grounded complaint against her. 

 If, on the other hand, this Government can prove beyond all doubt that the Behring 

 Sea, at the date of the treaties, was understood by the three signatory Powers to be 

 a separate body of water, and was not included in the phrase " Pacihc Ocean", then 

 the American case against Great Britain is complete and undeniable. 



Those observations standing alone might fairly be taken as indicat- 

 ing that Mr. Blaine had put the whole position of the United States 

 in this controversy upon its ability to maintain that Russia had acquired 

 by the Ukase of 1S21, and other acts, sovereign authority and sovereign 

 jurisdiction over Bering Sea. It is impossible that he could have 

 intended it I say it is impossible that he could have intended it, 

 because it is utterly inconsistent with what he says in the same letter. 

 I assume that he intended by that observation that if Great Britain 

 succeeded in making out her case, the United States, so far as that ques- 

 tion teas concerned, would have no ground of complaint against her; 

 and so, on the contrary, if the Uuited States succeeded in making out 

 her case. Great Britain, -so /ar as that question 7r as concerned, would hii\e 

 no just ground of complaint against the seizures; but that he did not 

 mean to change his ground, becomes perfectly apparent from his more 

 distinct assertions near the close of the same letter; and I must again 

 read them. 



The repeated assertions that the Government of the United States demands that 

 the Behring Sea be pronounced mare chiii.inm, are without foundation. The Govern- 

 ment has never claimed it and never desired it. It expressly disavows it. At the 

 .san.c time the ITnited States does not lack abundant authority, according to the 

 ablest exponents of international law, for lioLling asmall section of the Beliring Sea 

 for the protection of the fur-seals. Controlling a comparatively restricted area of 

 water for that one speciiic ])iirpose is by no means the equivalent of declaring the sea, 

 or any part thereof, maredauswm. For is it by any means so serious an obstruction 

 as Great Britain assumed to make in the South Atlantic, nor so groundless an inter- 

 ference with the common law of the sea as is maintained by British authority to- 

 day in the Indian Ocean. The President does not, however, desire the long post- 



