JURISDICTIONAL RIGHTS IN BERING SEA. 247 



or at New Archangel, they may fairly claim the advantage of a free trade, having so 

 long enjoyed it unmolested, and l»ecanse it has been and wonld continue to be as ad- 

 vantageous at least to those settlements as to them. But they will not contest the 

 right of Russia to prohibit the traffic, as strictly conhned to the Russian settlement 

 itself, and not extending to the original natives of the coast. * * * 



It is difficult to couceive liow the term " Nortliwest Coast of America," 

 used here and elsewhere, can be interpreted otherwise than as applying 

 to the IS'orthwest Coast of America generally, or how it can be seriously 

 contended that it was meant to denote only the more westerly portion, 

 excluding the more northwesterly part, because by becoming a Russian 

 possession this latter had ceased to belong to the American continent. 



Mr. Blaine states that when Mr. Middleton declared that Russia had 

 no right of exclusion on the coasts of America between the fiftieth and 

 sixtieth degrees of north latitude, nor in the seas which washed those 

 coasts, he intended to make a distinction between Behring Sea and the 

 Pacific Ocean. But upon reference to a map it will be seen that the 

 sixtieth degree of north latitude strikes straight across Behring Sea, 

 leaving by far the larger and more important part of it to the south, 

 so that I confess it appears to me that by no conceivable construction 

 of his w^ords can Mr. Middleton be supposed to have excepted that sea 

 from those which he declared to be free. 



With regard to the construction which Mr. Blaine puts upon the 

 treaty between the United States and Russia of the 17th April, 1824, I 

 will only say that it is, as far as I am aware, an entirely novel one, that 

 there is no trace of its having been known to the various publicists who 

 have given an account of the controversy in treaties on international 

 law, and that it is contrary, as I shall show, to that which the British 

 negotiators placed on the treaty when they adopted the first and second 

 articles for insertion in the British treaty of the 28th February, 1825, 

 I must further dissent from his interpretation of Article VII of the lat- 

 ter treaty. That article gives to the vessels of the two powers "liberty 

 to frequent all the inland seas, gulfs, havens, and creeks on the coast 

 mentioned in Article III for the purj)ose of fishing and of trading with 

 the natives." The expression "coast mentioned in Article III" can 

 only refer to the first words of the article : " The line of demarcation be- 

 tween the possessions of the high contracting parties upon the coast of 

 the continent and the island of America to the northwest shall be drawn," 

 etc. That is to say, it included all the possessions of the two powers on 

 the North west Coast of America. For there would have been no sense 

 whatever in stipulating that Russian vessels should have freedom of 

 access to the small ijortion of coast which, by a later part of the article, 

 is to belong to Russia. And as bearing on this point it will be noticed 

 that Article VI, which has a more restricted bearing, speaks only of " the 

 subjects of His Britannic Majesty" and of "the line of coast described in 

 Article III." 



The stipulation of the treaty were formally renewed by articles in- 

 serted in the general treaties of commerce between Great Britain and 

 Russia of 1813 and 1859. But Mr. Blaine states that— 



The rights of the Russian American Company ■vrhich, under both ukases, included 

 the sovereignty over the sea to the extent of 100 miles from the shores, were reserved 

 by special clause in a separate and special article signed after the principal articles 

 of the treaty had been concluded and signed. 



Upon this I have to observe, in the first place, that the ukase of 1799 

 did not contain any mention whatever of sovereignty over the sea; sec- 

 ondly, that the context of the separate article is such as altogether to 

 preclude the interpretation that it was meant to recognize the objec- 

 tionable claim contained in the ukase of 1821. I will quote the article 

 at length: 



