TO THE UNITED STATES. 73 



no farther amplification seems necessary. The -,.^*?"^^®'^^^j"."^" 



i '' diction exercised 



•by Russia and be 

 motives tlierefor. 



controlhng motive which inspired the exercise of J^^.^"'^^^'^''^"'^^'^^ 



this jurisdiction is also apparent from the foregoing 

 historical review. It has been shown herein that 

 the Russian American Company possessed a mo- 

 nopoly of the commerce of Russian territory in 

 America, and administered its political affairs 

 under the direction of the Imperial Government. 

 It has also been seen that the great source of 

 wealth of the Russian American Company was 

 the fur-seals of the Pribilof Islands in Bering 

 Sea, and that so jealously was this source of 

 wealth guarded by the orders and authority of 

 the Imperial Government that foreign vessels 

 were pi'ohibited from hunting seals in any part 

 of Bering Sea, or in the passes of the Aleutian 

 Islands ; and that for the enforcement of this 

 prohibition cruisers were employed in patrolling 

 that sea so long as it remained Russian territory. 



A high authority on the subject estimates the vaine of furs 



„ iNi'i taken piior to ces- 



value 01 the turs (largely ot seals) winch weresiou 

 marketed by the Russians up to 1823 at a sum 

 equal to about thirty-five million dollars^; and 

 the same authority states that the furs taken and 

 lost at sea and otherwise in those years exceeded 

 the number which reached a market. Venia- 

 minof, the Russian bishop, in his work on the 



1 Berg, p. 168. 

 2716 10 



