JURISDICTIONAL RIGHTS IN BERING SEA. 251 



effectually to preclude its revival. And this security the British Gov- 

 ernmeut uudoubtedly considered that both they and the United States 

 had obtained by the conventions of 1824 and 1S25. 



Upon this point the instructions given by Mr. George Canning to 

 IMr. Stratford Canning, when the latter was named plenipotentiary to 

 negotiate the treaty of 1825, have a material bearing. 



Writing under date of the 8th December, 1824, after giving a sum- 

 mary of the negotiations n^ to that date, he goes on to say — 



It is comparatively indifferent to ns -whether we hasten or postpone all questions 

 respecting the limits of territorial possessions on the continent of America, but the 

 pretensions of the Russian ukase of 1821, to exclusive dominion over the Pacific, 

 could not continue lontier unrepealed without compelling us to take some measure of 

 public and effectual renioustrauce against it. 



You will, therefore, take cvare in the first instance to repress any attempt to give 

 this change to the character of the negotiations, and will declare, without reserve, 

 that the point to which alone the solicitude of the British Government and the jeal- 

 ousy of the British nation attach any great importance is the doing away (in a 

 manner as little disagreeable to Russia as possible) of the effect of the ukase of 1821. 



That this ukase is not acted upon, and that instructions have long ago been sent 

 by the Russian Government to their cruisers in the Pacific to suspend the execution 

 of its provisions is true, but a private disavowal of a published claim is no security 

 against the revival of that claim ; the suspension of the execution of a principle may 

 be perfectly compatible with the continued maintenance of the principle itself. 



The right of the subjects of His Majesty to navigate freely in the Pacific can not 

 be held as a matter of indulgence from any power. Having once been publicly ques- 

 tioned it must be publicly acknowledged. 



Wo do not desire that any distinct reference should be made to the ukase of 1821, 

 but we do feel it necessary that the statemeut of our right should be clear and posi- 

 tive, and that it should stand forth in the convention in the place which properly 

 belongs to it as a plain and substantive stipulation, and not be brought in as an in- 

 cidental consequence of other arrangements to which we attach comparatively little 

 importance. 



This stipulation stands in the grant of the convention concluded between Russia 

 and the United States of America, and wo see no reason why, upon similar claims, we 

 should not obtain exactly the like satisfaction. 



For reasons of the same nature we can not consent that the liberty of navigation 

 through Behring Straits should be stated in the treaty as a boon from Russia. 



The tendency of such a statement would be to give countenance to those claims of 

 exclusive jurisdiction against which we, on our own behalf and on that of the whole 

 civilized world, protest. 



* * « » * # * 



It will of course strike the Russian plenipotentiaries that, by the adoption of the 

 American article respecting navigation, etc., the provision for an exclusive fishery of 

 2 leagues from the coasts of our respective possessions falls to the ground. 



But the omission is, in truth, immaterial. 



The law of nations assigns the exclusive sovereignty of 1 league to each power off 

 its own coasts without any specified stipulation, and though Sir Charles Bagot was 

 authorized to sign the convention with the specific stipulation of 2 leagues in igno- 

 rance of what had been decided in the American convention at tlie time, yet after 

 that convention has been some montiis before the world, and after the opportunity^ of 

 reconsideration has been forced upon us bj^ the act of Russia herself, we can not now 

 consent, in negotiating de novo, to a stipulation which, while it is absolutely unim- 

 portant to any practical good, would appear to establish a contract between the 

 United States and us to our disadvantage. 



Mr. Stratford Canning, in his disjiatch of the 1st March, 1825, inclos- 

 ing the convention as signed, says: 



With respect to Behring Straits I am hax)py to have it in my power to assure you, 

 on the joint authority of the Russian plenipotentiaries, that the Emperor of Russia 

 has no intention whatever of maintaining any exclusive claim to the navigation of 

 these straits or of the seas to the north of them. 



These extracts show conclusively (1) that England refused to admit 

 any part of the Eussian claim asserted by the ukase of 1821 to a mari- 

 time jurisdiction and exclusive right of fishing- throughout the whole 



