128 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



face, and that we should not accept it, unless the language is such as 

 to compel that acceptance. Now, when we return to the languag*' ot 

 the Treaty, we at once find reason for the belief that the term "Pacific 

 Ocean" was not intended to cover such a broad expanse. The language 

 is: "It is agreed that in any part of the great Ocean. . . commonly called 

 the Pacific Ocean or South St'a." Those words "commonly called" are 

 not destitute of significance; they were not inserted here without a 

 purpose. Did the Pacific Ocean, as spoken of in that age, include 

 Bering Sea? What do we mean by "commoidy called"? Does it 

 import the meaning assigned to it by distinguished geographers? Is 

 that what is meant by "commonly called"? jSTo, I imagine not. The 

 expression means that which is called the South l*acific Ocean or South 

 Sea by common men engaged in fishing or navigation; and I appre- 

 hend that, if seamen, navigators, masters of vessels, commercial firms 

 engaged in business and resorting to that sea, were asked whether the 

 expression included Bering Sea or not, they would say it did not. 

 Therefore, I think it was intended by the use of the words "commonly 

 called," to limit the term "Pacific Ocean" to what was understood by 

 it according to common usage among the men of that time who were 

 in the habit of using that term in their business concerns. Now let us 

 look at the maps of that day, for there are a multitude of them referred 

 to in the Cases of the contending parties. As to the majority of these 

 maps, I think I may say nearly all ot them — I do not wish to make a 

 positive assertion, for I have not made an accurate study of them — but 

 as to the vast majority of them, Bering Sea is re})resented as a sea by 

 itself, sometimes t-alled Bering Sea, sometimes the jSTorthern Ocean, 

 sometimes the Sea of Kamchatka; but generally represented upon all 

 the maps of the time as a sea separate and by itself. I cannot helj) 

 thinking, therelore, that if it was the intention of these parties, of 

 these Governments, to embrace by the terms of this Treaty the coasts 

 and islands of the Bering Sea, they would have used some language 

 expressly and unequivocally indicating this, and that we should not 

 infer that liussia made a surrender without consideration of her un- 

 questioned rights along the shores of the whole of Bering Sea, unless 

 language is found in the Treaty unequivocally imi)orting that lact. So 

 much as to the iace of the Treaty itself, and it seems to me that the 

 argument is very strong — I will not say conclusive, tor this is a subject 

 which admits of argument on both sides — that the phrase "Ocean 

 commonly called the Pacific Ocean or South Sea" was, in the minds of 

 those two agreeing Governments, limited to the Pacific Ocean south of 

 Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Now I come to a ]ioint which seems 

 to me quite conclusive of this question — the learned Arbitrators will 

 bear in mind that I am discussing the meaning of these terms in the 

 American Treaty. After this Treaty had been finally concluded, but 

 before it had been ratified, its terms came to the knowledge of the 

 Bussian American Company which had by grants from Russia the 

 exclusive right to all the industries in Bering Sea. That Company per- 

 ceived, or thought it perceived, that it might be asserted at some time 

 on the part of the United States and its citizens that, by the language 

 of the Treaty, the Russian industries in Bering Sea were, to some 

 extent, thrown open to the citizens of the United States; and in con- 

 sequence of that apprehension it made a communication to its own 

 Government; and I call attention to a letter from the Minister of 

 Finance of the Russian Government to the Board of Administration 

 of the Russian-American Company answering that communication, 

 which a])])ears an page loo ot the Counter Case of the United States. 

 This letter Avas written from St. Petersburg, September 4th, 1824. 



