JURIF^ICTIONAL RIGHTS IN BERING SEA. 283 



less of its nationality, be forcibly seized and summarily forfeited to the 

 British Kinji'. 



The Uniied States had grave and special reasons for resenting this 

 peremptory assertion of poMcr by Great Britain. On the 3d day of 

 Jnly, 1815, a fortniglit after the battle of Waterloo and twelve days 

 before Napoleon became a prisoner of war, an important commercial 

 treaty was concluded at London between the United States and Great 

 Britain. It was the sequel to the Treaty of Ghent, which was con- 

 cluded some six months before, and was remarkable, not only from the 

 character of its provisions, Out from the eminence of the American 

 negotiators — John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Albert Gallatin. 

 Among other i)rovisions of this treaty relaxing the stringent colonial 

 policy of England was one which agreed that American ships should be 

 admitted and hospitably received at the island of St. Helena. Before 

 tlie ratitications of the treaty were exchanged, in the following Novem- 

 ber, it was determined that Na])oleon should be sent to St. Helena, 

 England thereupon declined to ratify the treaty unless the United 

 Stiites should surrender the provision respecting that island. After 

 that came the stringent enactment of Parliament forbidding vessels to 

 hover within 1!4 miles of the island. The United States was already a 

 gieat commercial power. She had 1,400,000 tons of shipping; more 

 tlian 500 ships bearing her Hag were engaged in trade around the 

 capes. Lord Salisbury has had inuch to say about the liberty of the 

 seas, but these 500 American ships were denied the liberty of the seas 

 in a space 50 miles wide in the South Atlantic Ocean by the express 

 authority of Great Britain. 



The act of Parliament which asserted this power over the sea was to 

 be in force as long as Napoleon should live. Napoleon was born the 

 same year with Wellington, and was therefore but 10 years of age when 

 he was sent to St. Helena. His expectation of life was then as good as 

 that of the duke, who lived until 1852. The order made in Ayjril, 1816, 

 to obstruct tree imvigation in a section of the South Atlantic might, 

 therefore, have been in force for the period of the thirty-six years, if 

 not longer. It actually proved to be for five years only. Napoleon 

 died in 1821. 



It is hardly conceivable that the same nation which exercised this 

 authority in the broad Atlantic over whicli, at that vei'y time, 

 800,000,000 of peoj)le made their commercial exchanges, should deny 

 the right of the United States to assume control over a limited area, 

 for a fraction of each year, in the sea which lies far beyond the line of 

 trade, whose silent waters were never cloven by a commercial i)row, 

 whose uninhal)ited shores have no port of entry and could never be ap- 

 ])roached on a lawful errand uiuler any other liag than that of the United 

 States. Is this Government to understand that Lord Salisbury justi- 

 fies the course of England f Is this Government to understand that 

 Lord Salisl)ury maintains the right of England, at her will and pleasure, 

 to (.(bstruct the highway of commerce in mid-ocean, and that she will at 

 the same time interjtose objections to the United States exercising- her 

 jurisdiction beyond the 3-mile limit, in a remote and unused sea, for the 

 sole pur])ose of preserving the most valuable fur-seal fishery in the 

 world, from remediless destruction'? 



If Gi'eat Britain shall consider that the precedent set at St. Helena 

 of obstruction to the navigable waters of the ocean is too remote for 

 ]>resent quotation, I invite her attention to one still in existence. Even 

 to-day, while Her IMajesty's Government is aiding one of her colonies to 

 destroy the American seal fisheries, another colony, with her consent. 



