JTTRTSDICTIONAL RIGHTS IN BERING SP^A 281 



and nins from 54° 40' to 60'° iiortli latitude — the same strip of laud 

 wliicli gave to British America, lying behind it, a free access to the 

 ocean. 



Mr. Stratford Canning also communicated, in his letter of March 1, 

 the following: 



Witli resjiect to Bftlirings Straits, I am li;ip]iy toliavo it in my power to assure you, 

 on tlie joint autliority of the Russian ])lfiii]M)tciitiaTies, that flic Emperor of Uii'isia 

 has no intention whatever of maiuiahihi;/ aiiji c.rcltinire claim to the iiarii/ation of tlione 

 straits or of theseas to the north of them. 



This assurance from the Emperor of Eussia is of that kind Avhere the 

 power to give or to withhold is absolute. If the treaty of 1825 between 

 Great Britain and Jiussia had conceded such rights in the JJering 

 waters as Lord Salisbury now claims, why was Sir Stratford Canning 

 so "happy" to " have it in his power to assure" the British foreign 

 office, on "the anthority of two Eussian plenipotentiaries," that "tlie 

 Emperor had no intention of maintaining an exclusive claim to tlie 

 navigation of theBehring Straits," or of the "seas to the north of them." 

 The seas to the south of the straits were most signihcantly not included 

 in the Imperial assurance. The English statesmen of that day had, 

 as I have before remarked, attempted the abolition of the ukase of Alex- 

 ander only so far as it affected the coast of tlie Pacific Ocean from the 

 fifty-first to the sixtietli degree of north latitude. It was left in full 

 force on the shoies of the Behring Sea. There is no proof whatever 

 that the Eussian Emperor annulled it there. That sea, from east to 

 west, is l,yOO miles in extent; from north to south it is 1,000 miles in 

 extent. The whole of this great body of water, under the ukase, was 

 left open to the world, except a strij) of 100 miles from the shore. But 

 with these 100 miles enforced on all the coasts of the Behring Sea it 

 would be obviously impossible to approach the straits of Behring, which 

 were less than 50 miles in extreme width. If enforced strictly, the 

 ukase would cut oft all vessels from passing through the straits to the 

 Arctic Ocean. If, as Lord Salisbury claims, the ukase had been with- 

 drawn from the entire Behring coast, as it was between the fiftj^-first and 

 sixtieth degrees on the Pacific coast, what need would there have been 

 for Mr. Stratford Canning, the English plenipotentiary, to seek a favor 

 from Eussia in regard to passing through the straits into the Arctic 

 Ocean, where scientific expeditions and whaling vessels desired to gol 



I need not review all the inclosures; but I am sure that, properly 

 analyzed, they will all show that the subject-matter touched only the 

 settlement of the dispute on the Northwest Coast, from the fifty-first to 

 the sixtieth degree of north latitude. In other words, they related to 

 the contest which was finally adjusted by the establishment of the line 

 of 540 40', which marked the boundary between Eussian and English 

 territory at the time of the Anglo-Eussian treaty, as to-day it marks 

 the line of division between Alaska and British Columbia. But that 

 question in no way touched the Behring Sea; it was confined wholly to 

 the Pacific Ocean and the Northwest Coast. 



Lord Salisbury has deemed it proper, in his dispatch, to call the atten- 

 tion of the Crovernment of the United States to some elementary prin- 

 ciples of international law touching the freedom of the seas. For 

 our better instruction he gives sundry extracts from Wheaton and 

 Kent — our most eminent publicists — and, for further illustration, quotes 

 from the disiiatches of Secretaries Seward and Fish, all maintaining the 

 well known principle that a nation's jurisdiction over the sea is limited 



36 



