JURISDICTIONAL RIGHTS IN BERING SEA. 271 



If His Lordsliip liad examiued his map somewhat more closely, he 

 would have found my statement literally correct. When Mr. Middle- 

 ton referred to ''the continent of America between the fiftieth and six- 

 tieth degrees of north latitude," it was impossible that he could have 

 referred to the coast of Behring Sea, for the very simple reason tliat 

 the fiftieth degree of latitude is altogether south of the Bering Sea. 

 The fact that the sixtieth parallel " strikes straight across the Bering- 

 Sea" has no more pertinence to this discussion than if His Lordship 

 had remarked that the same parallel passes through the Sea of Okhotsk, 

 which lies to the west of Behring Sea, just as the arm of the North 

 Pacific lies to the east of it. Mr. Middleton was denying Eussia's domin- 

 ion upon a continuous line of coast upon the continent between two 

 specified points and over the waters washing that coast. There is 

 such a continuous line of coast between the fiftieth and sixtieth degrees 

 on the Pacific Ocean: but there is no such hue of coast on the Bering- 

 Seas, even if you measure from the southernmost island of the Aleutian 

 chain. In a word, the argument of Lord Salisbury on this point is 

 based upon a geographical imi)0ssibility. (See illustrative map on 

 opposite page.) ^ 



But, if there could be any doubt left as to what coast and to what 

 waters Mr. Middleton referred, an analysis of the last paragraph of the 

 fourth protocol Avill dispel that doubt. When Mr. IMiddleton declared 

 that ^^the United States have exercised yiavlgation in the seas, and com- 

 merce upo7i the coasts, above mentioned, from the time of their independ- 

 ence,''^ he makes the same declaration that had been previously made 

 by Mr. Adams. That declaration could only refer to the Northwest 

 Coast as I have described it, or, as Mr. Middleton phrases it, " the con- 

 tinent of America between the fiftieth and sixtieth degrees of north 

 latitude." 



Even His Lordship would not dispute the fact that it was ujiou this 

 coast and in the waters washing it that the United States and Great 

 Britain had exercised free navigation and commerce continuously since 

 1784. By no possibility could that navigation and commerce have been 

 in the Behring Sea. Mr. Middleton, a close student of history, and ex- 

 l^erienced in diplomacy, could not have declared that the United States 

 had ''exercised navigation" in the Behring Sea, and "commerce ui)on 

 its coasts," /rortt the time of their indeperidence. As a matter of history, 

 there was no trade and no navigation (except the navigation of explor- 

 ers) by the United States and Great Britain in the Behring Sea in 1784, 

 or even at the time these treaties were negotiated. 



Captain Cook's voyage of exploration and discovery through the 

 waters of that sea was completed at the close of the year 1778, and his 

 "Voyage to the Pacific Ocean" was not published in London until five 

 years after his death, which occurred at the Sandwich Islands on the 

 14th of February, 1779. The Pribilof Islands were first discovered, 

 one in 1786 and the other in 1787. Seals were taken there for a few 

 years afterwards by the Lebedef Company, of Russia, subsequently 

 consolidated into the Russian American Company; but the taking of 

 seals on those islands was then discontinued by the Uussians until 180o, 

 when it was resumed by the Russian American Company. 



At the time these treaties were negotiated there was only one settle- 

 only trading vessels which had entered that sea were the vessels of the 

 ment, and that of Russians, on the shores of the Behring* Sea, and the 

 Russian Fur Company. Exploring expeditions had, of course, entered. 



' For map see House Ex. Doc. No. 144, Fifty-first Congress, second session, p. 31. 



