JUEISDICTIONAL RIGHTS IN BERING SEA. 245 



Behriiig Sea and the Pacific Ocean, wliicli latter tliey considered as 

 reaching southward from Bering Straits. Nor throughout the whole 

 of the subsequent correspondence is there any reference whatever on 

 either side to any distinctive name for Behring Sea, or any intimation 

 that it could be considered otherwise than as forming an integral part 

 of the Pacific Ocean. 



I now come to the dispatch from Mr. Adams to Mr. Middleton of the 

 22d of July, 1823, to which reference has before been made, and which 

 it will be necessary to quote somewhat at length. After authorizing 

 Mr. Middleton to enter upon a negotiation with the Kussian ministers 

 concerning the differences which had arisen from the ukase of the 4th 

 (16th) September, 1821, Mr. Adams continues: 



From the tenor of the ukase, the pretensions of the Imperial Government extend 

 to an exclusive territorial jurisdiction from the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, 

 on the Asiatic coast, to the latitude of 51" north on the western coast of the Ameri- 

 can continent; and they assume the right of interdicting the navigation and the 

 fisherj' of all other nations to the extent of 100 miles from the whole of that coast. 



The United States can admit no part of these claims. Their right of navigation 

 and of fishing is perfect, and has been in constant exercise from the earliest times, 

 after the peace of 1783, throughout the whole extent of the Southern Ocean, subject 

 only to the ordinary exceptions and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions which, 

 so far as Russian rights are concerned, are confined to certain islands north of the 

 fifty-fifth degree of latitude, and have no existence on the continent of America. 



Mr. Blaine has argued at great length to show that when Mr. Adams 

 used these clear and forcible expressions he did not mean what he 

 seemed to say; that when he stated that the United States "could 

 admit no part of these claims," he meant that they admitted all that 

 part of them which related to the coast north of the Aleutian Islands; 

 that when he spoke of the Southern Ocean he meant to except Behring 

 Sea; and that when he contended that the ordinary exceptions and 

 exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions had no existence, so far as 

 Eussian rights were concerned, on the continent of America, he used 

 the latter term not in a geographical but in a "territorial" sense, and 

 tacitly excepted, by a very singular petitio principii, the Russian posses- 

 sions. In order to carry out this theory it is necessary for him also to 

 assume that the negotiators, in the course of the discussions, made indis- 

 criminate use of the term "Northwest Coast of America," with a variety 

 of signification which he admits to be " confusing, and, at certain points, 

 apparently contradictory and irreconcilable." 



The reputation of the American statesmen and diplomatists of that 

 day for caution and precision aftbrds of itself strong argument against 

 such a view, and even if this had been otherwise, so forced a construc- 

 tion would require very strong evidence to confirm it. But a glance at 

 the rest of the dispatch and at the other papers will show that the 

 more simple interpretation of the words is the correct one. For Mr. 

 Adams goes on to say: 



The correspondence between M. Poletica and this Department contained no dis- 

 cussion of the principles or of the facts upon which he attempted the justification 

 of the imperial ukase. This was purposely avoided on our part, under the expecta- 

 tion that the Imperial Government could not fail, upon a review of the measure, to 

 revoke it altogether. It did, however, excite much public animadversion in this 

 country, as the ukase itself had already done in England. I inclose herewith the 

 North American Review for October, 1822, No. 37, which contains an article (pa^e 

 370) written by a person fully master of the subject; and for the view of it taken in 

 England I refer you to the fifty-second number of the Quarterly Review, the article 

 upon Lieutenant Kotzebue's voyages. From the article in the North American Re- 

 view it will be seen that the rights of discovery, of occupancy, and of uncontested 

 possession alleged by M, Poletica are all without foundation in fact. * • * 



