ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 123 



an establisliment upon the immense extent of coast from Cape Mendocino to the 

 fifty-ninth dej^ree of hititude. Eeyoud that limit the Russian factories commence, 

 most of which are scattered and distant from each other, like the factories estab- 

 lished by the European nations for the last three centuries on the coast of Africa. 

 Most of these little Russian colonies communicate with each other only by sea, and 

 the new denominations of Russian America, or Russian ])ossessions in the new con- 

 tinent, must not lead us to believe that the coast of Behring's Bay, the peninsula of 

 Alaska, or the country of the Ischugatschi have become Russian provinces in the 

 same sense given to the word when speaking of the Spanish provinces of Sonora or 

 New Biscay." (Humboldt's New Spain. Vol. II, Book 3, chap. 8, p. 496.) 



In Mr. Poletica's letter of 28th February, 1822, to me, he says that when the 

 Emperor Paul I granted to the present American Company its first charter, in 1799, 

 he gave it the exclusire possession of the northwest coast of America, which belonged 

 to Russia, from the lifty-lifth degree of north latitude to Behring Strait. 



In his letter of 2d of April, 1822, he says that the charter of the Kussian Ameri- 

 can Company, in 1799, was merely conceding to them a part of the sovereignty, or, 

 rather, certain exclusive privileges of commerce. 



This is the most correct view of fhe subject. The Emperor Paul granted to the 

 Russian American Comjiany certain exclusive privileges of commerce — exclusive 

 with reference to other Russian subjects; but Russia had never before asserted a 

 right of sovereignty over any part of the North American continent, and in 1799 the 

 people of the United States had been at least for twelve years in the constant and 

 uninterrupted enjoyment of a profitable trade with theuatives of that very coast, of 

 which the ukase of the Emperor Paul could not deprive them. 



It was in the same year, 1799, that the Kussian settlement at Sitka was first made, 

 and it was destroyed in 1802 by the natives of the country. There were, it seems, at 

 the time of its destruction, three American seamen who perished with the rest, and 

 a. new settlement at the same place was made in 1804. 



In 1808 Count Romanzoft", being then Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Commerce, 

 addressed to Mr. Harris, consul of the Uniteil States at St. Petersburg, a letter com- 

 plaining of the traffic carried on by citizens of the United States with the native 

 islanders of the northwest coast, instead of trading with the Russian possessions in 

 America. The Count stated that the Russian Company had represented this traffic 

 as clandestine, by which means the savage islanders, in exchange for otter skins, had 

 been furnished with firearms and powder, with which they had destroyed a Russian 

 fort, with the loss of several lives. He expressly disclaimed, however, any disposi- 

 tion on the ]iart of Russia to abridge this traffic of the citizens of the United States, 

 but proposed a convention by which it should be carried on exclusively with the 

 agents of the Russian American Company at Kadiak, a small island near the jjrom- 

 ontory of Alaska, at least 700 miles distant from the other settlement at Sitka. 



On the 4th of January, 1810, Mr. Daschkoff, charge d'affaires, and consul general 

 from Russia, renewed this proposal of a convention, and requested as an alternative 

 that the United States should, by a legislative act, prohibit the trade of their citizens 

 with the natives of the northwest coast of America as unlawful and irretjular, and 

 thereby induce them to carry on the trade exclusively with the agents of the Russian 

 American Company. The answer of the Secretary of State, dated the 5th of May, 

 1810, declines those proposals for reasons which were then satisfactory to the Russian 

 Government, or to which at least no reply on their part was made. Copies of these 

 papers and of those containing the instructions of the minister of the Uuited States 

 then at St. Petersburg, and the relation of his conferences with the chancellor of the 

 empire, Count Romanzoff, on this subject are herewith inclosed. By them it will be 

 seen that the Russian Government at that time explicitly declined the assertion of 

 any boundary line upon the north west coast, and that the proposal of measures for con- 

 fining the trade of the citizens of the Uuited States exclusively to the Russian settle- 

 ment at Kadiak and with the agents of the Russian American Company had been 

 made by Count Romauzofi' under the impression that they would be as advantageous 

 to the interests of the United States as to those of Russia. 



It is necessary now to say that this impression was erroneous; that the traffic of 

 the citizens of the United States with the natives of the northwest coast was neither 

 clandestine, nor unlawful, nor irregular; that it had been enjoyed many years before 

 the Russian American Company existed, and that it interfered with no lawful right 

 or claim of Russia. 



This trade has been shared also by the English, French, and Portuguese. In the 

 prosecution of it the English settlement of Nootka Sound was made, which occa- 

 sioned the differences between Great Britain and Spain in 1789 and 1790, ten years 

 before the Russian Ameiican Company was first chartered. 



It was in the prosecution of this trade that the American settlement at the month 

 of the Columbia River was made in 1811, which was taken by the British during the 

 late war, and formally restored to them on the 6th of October, 1818. By the treaty 

 of the 22d of February, 1819, with Spain, the United States acquired all the rights 



