122 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



Stiites at the opening of the Congross supplied another reason at once decisive in 

 itself, and susceptible of being stated to Mr. Rush with more explicitness than those 

 which I have now detailed to your excellency, I refer to the principle declared in 

 that speech, which prohibits any further attempt by European Powers at coloniza- 

 tion in America. 



So tliat the original action iu common between Great Britain and the 

 United States and the snbseqnent breaking np of that common action 

 by Great Britain all ap])ear to be qnite evident. They are important 

 however to my present argnment oidy as showing that Great Britain 

 and the United States, acting as they did originally in common, were 

 at the start entiiely well acqnainted with the views of each other. 



Now the next piece of evidence which it is important to notice in 

 order to ascertain the views with which the two i)arties approached 

 this negotiation — for that is what I am now upon— is to be found in 

 the instructions issued to the negotiators. I call attention to the 

 instructions from the United States Government which will be found 

 in a letter from Mr. John Quincy Adams to Mr. Minister Middleton on 

 page 141, Vol. I, Appendix to the Case of the United States. 1 think 

 1 ought to read the whole of that letter. 



M7\ Adams to Mr. Middhion. 



No. 16.] Department of State, Washington, July SS, 1823. 



Sir : I have the honor of inclosing herewith copies of a note from Baron de Tnyll, 

 the Russian minister, recently arrived, lirojjosing, on the part of His Majesty tlie 

 Emperor of Russia, that a jjower should be transmitted to you to enter uj)on a 

 negotiation with the miuister.s of his Government concerning the diifercnces which 

 have arisen from the Imperal ukase of 4th (16tli) Sejitember, 1821, relative to the 

 northwest coast of America, and of the answer from this Deiiartment acceding to 

 this proposal. A full power is accordingly inclosed, and you will consider this 

 letter as communicating to you the President's instructions for the conduct of the 

 negotiation. 



From the tenor of the ukase, the pretentions of the Imperial Government extend 

 to an exclusive territorial jurisdiction from the forty-iiftli degree of north latitude, 

 on the Asiatic coast, to the latitude of lifty-one norrli on the western coast of the 

 American continent; and they assume the right of interdicting the navigation and 

 the fishery of all other nations to the extent of 100 miles from the whole of that 

 coast. 



The United States can admit no part of these claims. Their right of navigation 

 and of tishing is perfect, and has been in constant exercise from the earliest times, 

 after the peace of 1783, throughout the whole extent of the Southern Ocean, subject 

 only to the ordinary exceptions and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions, which, 

 so far as Russian rights are concerned, are confined to certain islands north of the 

 fifty-fifth degree of latitude, and have no existence on the continent of America. 



The correspondence between Mr. Poletica and this De]iartnient contained no dis- 

 cussion of the principles or of the facts upon which he attempted the justification of 

 the Imperial ukase. This was purposely avoided on our part, under the expectation 

 that the Imperial Government could not fail, upon a review of the measure, to 

 rev(dve it altogether. It did, however, excite much public animadversion in this 

 country, as the ukase itself had already done in England. I inclose herewith the 

 North American Review for October, 1822, No. 37, which contains an article (p. 370) 

 written by a person fully master of the subject; and for the view of it taken in 

 England I refer you to the tifty-secoud number of the Quarterly Review, the article 

 upon Ijieutenant Kotzebue's voyages. From tiie article in the North American 

 Review it will be seen that the rights of discovery, of occupancy, and of uncon- 

 tested possession, alleged by Mr. Poletica, are all without foundation in fact. 



It does not apx)ear that there ever has been a permanent Russian settlement on 

 this continent south of latitude 59^, that of New Archangel, cited by Mr. Poletica, 

 in latitude 57° 30', being upon an island. So far as prior discovery can constitute a 

 foundation of right, the pa])ers which I have referred to prove that it belongs to the 

 United States as far as .59' north, by the transfer to them of the rights of Spain. 

 There is, however, no part of the globe where the mere fact of discovery could be 

 held to give weaker claims than on the northwest coast. "The great sinuosity," 

 says Humboldt, "formed by the coast between the fifty-fifth and sixtieth parallels 

 of latitude eml)races discoveries made by Gali, Rehring and Tchivikoff, Quadra, 

 Cook, La Perouse, Malesjjier, and Vancouver. No European nation has yet formed 



