JURISDICTIONAL EIGHTS IN BERING SEA. 227 



In the same way tlie phrase " Northwest Coast" will be found, beyond 

 all possible doubt, to have been used in two senses, one including the 

 northwest coast of the Eussian possessions, and one to describe the 

 coast whose northern limit is the sixtieth parallel of north latitude. 



It is very plain that Mr. Adams's x)hrase " the continent of America," 

 in his reference to Eussia's jiossessions, was used in a territorial sense, 

 and not in a geographical sense. He was drawing the distinction be- 

 tween the territory of "America" and the territory of the "Eussian 

 ])ossessions." Mr. Adams did not intend to assert that these territorial 

 rights of Eussia had no existence on the continent of North America. 

 He meant that they did not exist as the ukase of the Emperor Alexan- 

 der had attempted to establish them — southward of the Aleutian x^enin- 

 sula and on -that distinctive part of the continent claimed as the ter- 

 ritory of the United States. " America" and the " United States " were 

 then, as they are now, commonly used as synt)nymous. 



British statesmen at the time used the iDhrase i^recisely as Mr. Adams 

 did. The possessions of the Crown were generically termed British 

 America. Great Britain and the United States harmonized at this 

 point and on this territorial issue against Eussia. Whatever disputes 

 might be left by these negotiations for subsequent settlement between 

 the two liowers there can be no doubt that at that time they had a 

 common and very strong interest against the territorial aggrandize- 

 ment of Eussia. The British use of the phrase is clearly seen in the 

 treaty between Great Britain and Eussia, negotiated in 1825, and re- 

 ferred to at length in a subsequent portion of this dispatch. A pub- 

 licist as eminent as Stratford Canning opened the third article of that 

 treaty in these descriptive words: 



The liue of demarcation between the possessions of the hifth coutnioting parties, 

 upon the coast of tlie continent, and the islands of America to the northwest. * * * 



Mr. Canning evidently distinguished "the islands of America" from 

 the "islands of the Eussian possessions," which were far more numer- 

 ous; and by the use of the phrase " to tlie northtvest " just as evidently 

 limited the coast of the continent as Mr. Adams limited it, in that di- 

 rection, by the Alaskan peninsula. A concurrence of opinion between 

 John Quincy Adams and Stratford Canning, touching any public ques- 

 tion, left little room even for suggestion by a third person. 



It will be observed as having weighty significance that the Eussian 

 ownership of the Aleutian and Kurile Islands (which border and close 

 in the Behring Sea, and by the dip of the peninsula are several degrees 

 .south of latitude 55) was not disputed by Mr. Adams, and could not 

 l^ossibly have been referred to by him when he was limiting the island 

 possessions of Eussia. This is but another evidence that Mr. Adams 

 was making no question as to Eussia's ownership of all territory border- 

 ing on the Behring Sea. The contest pertained wholly to the territory 

 on the Northwest Coast. The Emperor Paul's ukase, declaring his sov- 

 ereignty over the Aleutian and Kurile Islands, was never questioned or 

 denied by any i)ower at any time. 



Many of the acts of Mr. Adams's public life received interesting com- 

 mentary and, where there was doubt, luminous interpretation in his 

 personal diary, which was carefutly kept from June 3, 1794, to January 

 1, 1848, inclusive. The present case affords a happy illustration of the 

 corroborative strength of the diary. During the progress of this corre- 

 spondence Baron Tuyll, who had succeeded Mr. Poletica as Eussian 

 Minister in Washington, called upon Mr. Adams at his office on July 17, 

 1823, six days before the date of the disi^atch upon which I have been 



