254 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



That infonuation will enable you sufficiently to i)rove to the Russian Minister not 

 only that the point of prior discovery may be fairly disputed with Russia, but that 

 the much more certain title of actual occupation by the agents and the trading 

 servants of the Hudson's Bay Company extends at this moment to many degrees of 

 higher latitude on tlie northM'est coast of America than is claimed as tlie territory of 

 Russia by the ukase in question. 



Enlightened statesmen and jurists have long held as insignificant all titles of ter- 

 ritory that are not founded on actual occupation, and that title is, in the opinion of 

 the most esteemed Avriters on public law, to be established only by practical use. 



With respect to the other points in the ukase which have the efl'ect of extending 

 the territorial rights of Russia over the adjacent seas to the unprecedented distance 

 of 100 miles from the line of coast, and of closing a hitherto uno)>striicted paiisage, at 

 the present moment the object of important discoveries for the ])ronu)tion of general 

 commerce and navigation, these pretensions are considered by the best legal author- 

 ities as positive innovations on the rights of navigation; as such they can receive 

 no explanation from further discussion, nor can by possibility be justitiedi Common 

 usage, which has obtained the force of law, has indeed assigned to coasts and shores 

 an accessorial boundary to a short limited distance for the purposes of protection and 

 general convenience, in no manner interfering with tlie rights of others and not ob- 

 structing the freedom of general commerce and navigation. But tliis important 

 qualification the extent of the present claim entirely excludes, and when such a pro- 

 hibition is, as in the j)resent case, applied to a long line of coasts and also to inter- 

 mediate islands in remote seas, where navigation is beset with innumerable and un- 

 foreseen difficulties and where the principal employment of the fisheries must be 

 pursued under circumstances which are incompatible with the prescribed courses, all 

 ])articular considerations concur, in an especial manner, with the general principle 

 in repelling such a pretension as an encroachment on the freedom of navigation and 

 the unalienable rights of all nations. 



I have, indeed, the satisfaction to believe, from a conference which I have had 

 with Coiint Lieven on this matter, that ujion these two })oints — the attempt to shut 

 up the passage altogether, and the claim of exclusive dominion to so enormous a dis- 

 tance from the coast — the Russian Covernment are prejiared entirely to waive their 

 pretensions. The only efi'ort that has been made to justify the latter claim was by 

 reference to an article in the treaty of Utrecht, which assigns 30 leagues from the 

 coast as the distance of jirohibitiou. But to this argument it is sufficient to answer 

 that the assumption of such a space was, in the instance quoted, by stipulation in a 

 treaty, and one to which, therefore, the party to be aftected by it had (whether 

 wisely or not) given its deliberate consent. No inference could be drawn from that 

 transaction in favor of a claim by authority against all the world. 



I have little doubt, therefore, but that the public notification of the claim to con- 

 sider the portions of the ocean included between the adjoining coasts of America and 

 the Russian Empire as a mare clausum, and to extend the exclusive territorial juris- 

 diction of Russia to 100 Italian miles from the coast, will be publicly recalled; and I 

 have the King's connuands to instruct your grace further to require of the Russian 

 Minister (on the ground of the facts and reasonings furnished in this dispatch and 

 its inclosures) that such a portion of territory alone shall be defined as belonging to 

 Russia as shall not interfere with the rights and actual xjossessious of His Majesty's 

 subjects in North America. 

 I am, etc, 



Geo. Canning. 



[Inclosuie 4.] 

 Memorandum on Russian ukase of 1821. 



In the month of September, 1821, His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Russia is 

 sued an tikase asserting the existence in the Crown of Russia of an exclusive right 

 of sovereignty in the countries extending from Bering's Straits to tlie fifty-first de- 

 gree of north latitude on the west coast of America, and to the forty-fifth degree of 

 north latitude on the opposite coast of Asia; and. as a qualified exercise of that 

 right of sovereignty, prohibiting all foreign vessels from approaching within 100 

 Italian miles of those coasts. 



After this ukase had l)een submitted by the King's Covernment to those legal au- 

 thorities whoso duty it is to advise His Majesty on such matters, :v note was addressed 

 by the late Marquis of Londonderry to Count Lieven, the Russian Ambassaibtr, pro- 

 testing against the enactment of fhis ukase, and requesting such amicable ex])Iana- 

 tions as might tend to reconcile tlie pretensions of Russia in that quarter of the 

 globt viih the just rights of His Majesty's Crown and the interests of his subjects. 



