146 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



Arkansas Eiver to tlie Soutli Sea: by wliicli treaty the United Slates 

 acquired all tlierigiits of Spain north of that para.llel. 



The right of the United States to the Columbia Eiver, and to the 

 interior territory waslied by its waters, rests upon its discovery from 

 the sea and nomination by a citizen of the United States ; upon its ex- 

 ploration to the sea by Captains Lewis and Clarke; upon the settlement 

 of Astoria, made under the protection of the United States, and thus 

 restored to them in 1818; and upon this subsequent acquisition of all 

 the rights of Spain, the onlj^ European power who, prior to the discov- 

 ery of the river, had any pretenses to territorial rights on tJie north- 

 west coast of America. 



The waters of the Columbia Eiver extend by the Multnomah to the 

 forty-second degree of latitude, where its source approaches within a 

 few miles of those of the Platte and Arkansas, and by Clarke's Ei\'er 

 to the fiftieth or fifty-first degree of latitude; thence descending 

 southward, till its sources almost intersect those of the Missouri. 



To the territory thus watered, and immediately contiguous to the 

 original possessions of the United States, as first bounded by the 

 Mississippi, they consider their right to be now established by all the 

 principles which have ever been applied to European settlements ux)on 

 the American hemisphere. 



By the ukase of the Eu^iicror Alexander, of the ith (IGth) of Sep- 

 tember, 1821, an exclusive territorial right on the northwest coast of 

 America is asserted as belonging to Eussia, and as extending from the 

 northern extremity of the continent to latitude 51°, and the navigation 

 and fishery of all other luitions are interdicted by the same ukase to 

 the extent of 100 Italian miles from the coast. 



When Mr. Poletica, the late Eussian minister here, was called upon 

 to set forth the grounds of right conformable to the laws of nations 

 which authorized the issuing of this decree, he answered in his letters 

 of February 28 and April 2, 1822, by alleging first discovery, occupancy, 

 and uninterrupted possession. 



It appears upon examination that these claims have no foundation in 

 fact. The right of discover ij on this continent, claimable by Eussia, 

 is reduced to the probability that, in 1711, Captain Tchirikofi" saw from 

 the sea the mountain called St. Elias, in about the fifty-ninth degree of 

 north latitude. The Spauish navigators, as early as 1582, had dis- 

 covered as far north as 57° 30'. 



As to occupancy. Captain Cook, in 1779, had the express declaration 

 of Mr. Ismaeloft', the chief of the Eussian settlement at Unalaska, that 

 they laiew nothing of the continent iu America; and in the Nootka 

 Sound controversy between Spain and Great Britain it is exjdicitly 

 stated in the Spanish documents that Eussia had disclaimed all })reten- 

 sion to interfere with the Spanish exclusive rights to heyond Prince 

 William Sound, latitude 61°. Xo evidence has been exhibited of any 

 Eussian settlem<?nt on this continent south and east of Prince William 

 Sound to this day, with the excei)tiou of that in California, made in 

 1816. 



It never has been admitted by the various European nations which 

 have formed settlements in this henusphere that the occupation of an 

 island gave any claim whatever to territorial possessions on the conti- 

 nent to which it was adjoining. The recognized principle has rather 

 been the reverse, as, by the law of nature, islands must be rather con- 

 sidered as appendages to continents than continents to islands. 



The^idy color of claim alleged by^Ir. Poletica which has an appear- 

 ance of plausibility is that which he asserts as an authentic fact, "that 



