JURISDICTIONAL RIGHTS IN BERING SEA. 253 



manner, the Emperor of Russia's just rights, His Majesty will be ready to enter into 

 amicable explanations upon the interests aflected by this instrument in such manner 

 as may be most acceptable to His Imperial Majesty. 



In the meantime, upon the subject of this ukase generally, and especially upon the 

 two main principles of claim laid down therein, viz, an exclusive sovereignty alleged 

 to belong to Russia over the territories therein described, as also the exclusive right 

 of navigating and trading within the maritime limits therein set forth, His Britannic 

 Majesty must be understood as hereby reserving all his rights, not being prepared to 

 admit that the intercourse which is allowed on the face of this instrument to have 

 hitherto subsisted on those coasts and in those seas can be deemed to be illicit; or 

 that the ships of friendly powers, even supposing an unqualified sovereignty was 

 proved to appertain to the Imperial Crown, in these vast and very imperfectly occu- 

 pied territories could, by the acknowledged law of nations, be excluded from navi- 

 gating within the distance of 100 Italian miles, as therein laid down, from the coast, 

 the exclusive dominion of which is assumed (but, as His Majesty's Government con- 

 ceive, in error) to belong to His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of all the Russias. 



LONDONDERKY: 



[Inclosure 2.] 



Memorandum by the Duke of Wellington. — (September 11, ISi^fj.) 



In the course of a conversation which I had yesterday with Count Lieven, he in- 

 formed that he had been directed to give verbal explanations of the ukase respect- 

 ing the northwestern coast of America. I'hese explanations went, he said, to this, 

 that the Emperor did not propose to carry into execution the ukase in its extended 

 sense; that His Imperial Majesty's ships had been directed to cruise at the shortest 

 possible distance from the shore in order to supply the natives with arms and ammu- 

 nition, and in order to warn all vessels that that was his Imperial Majesty's domin- 

 ion, and that His Imperial Majesty had besides given directions to his minister in 

 the United States to agree upon a treaty of limits with the United States. 



[Inclosure 3.] 

 Mr. G. Canning to the DuTce of Wellington. 



Foreign Office, September 27, 1822. 



My Lord Duke : Your grace is already in possession of all that has passed, both 

 here and at St. Petersburg, on the subject of the issue, in September of last year, by 

 the Emperor of Russia, of an ukase, indirectly asserting an exclusive right of sover- 

 eignty Irom Bering Straits to the fifty-first degree of north latitude on the west 

 coast of America, and to the forty-fifth degree north on the opposite coast of Asia, 

 and (as a qualified exercise of that right) prohibiting all foreign ships, under jiain of 

 confiscation, from approaching within 100 Italian miles of those coasts. This ukase 

 having been communicated by Baron Nicolai, the Russian charg6 d'affaires at this 

 court, to His Majesty's Government, was forthwith submitted to the legal authori- 

 ties whose duty it is to advise His Majesty on such matters, and a note was in con- 

 sequence addressed by the late Marquis of Londonderry to Count Lieven, the 

 Russian ambassador, and also communicated to His Majesty's ambassador at St. 

 Petersburg, protesting against the enactments of the said ukase, and requesting 

 such amicable explanations as might tend to recoucile the pretensions of Russia in 

 that quarter of the globe with the just rights of His Majesty's Crown and the in- 

 terests of his subjects. As such explanations will probably be offered to your grace 

 during the conferences about to take place at Vienna, I hasten to signify to you the 

 King's commands as to the language which you will hold on the part of His Maj- 

 esty upon this subject. 



The ojiiuions given in November and December last by Lord Stowell and by His 

 Majesty's advocate-general (copies of which are already in your possession) will fur- 

 nish you with the best legal arguments in oj)position to the pretensions put forward 

 in the Russian ukase ; and as in both these opinions much stress is very properly 

 laid upon the state of actual occupation of the territories claimed by Russia, and the 

 dift'erent periods of time at which they were so occupied, I have obtained from the 

 governor of the principal company of His Majesty's subjects trading in that part of 

 the world the information of which your grace will find in the inclosed ijapers. 



