296 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



Ill tlie first parngrnpli of Lord Salisbury's dispatcli of February 21 

 lie makes tliefollowiii,i;- declaration: 



It is now (jiiite clear that the a<lvisers of the President <lo not claim liclirin!;- Sea as 

 mare clausiim, and, indeed, that they repudiate that contention in express terms. 



Lord Salisbury's expression is jiut in such forin as to imply (whether 

 he so intended 1 know not) that the United States had hitherto been 

 resting its contention upon the fact that the Behring' Sea was inare 

 clausiim. If that was his intention it would have been well for his lord- 

 ship to specify wherein the United States ever made the assertion. The 

 emphatic denial in my dispatch of December 17 last was intended to 

 put an end to the iteration of the charge and to eliminate it from the 

 current discussion. 



Lord Salisbury comjilains that I did not deal with certain protests, 

 written by Lord Londonderry and the Duke of Wellington in 1822, 

 W'hich he had before quoted. If he will recur to the twenty-sixth ami 

 twenty-seventh pages of my dispatch of December 17, he will observe 

 that I specially dealt with these; that I maintained, and, I tliiiik, proved 

 from the text that there was not a single word in those protests referring 

 to the Behring Sea, but that they referred, in the language of the Duke 

 of Wellington of the 17th of October, 1822, only to the lands "extend- 

 ing along the shores of the Pacific Ocean from latitude 49° to latitude 

 00° north." In the first paragraph of Lord Londonderry's protest of 

 January 18, 1822, addressed to Count Lieven, of Bussia, he alluded to 

 the matters in dispute as '■'•especially connected with the territorial rights 

 of the Biissian Crown on the Northwest Coast of America hordering on the 

 Pacific Ocean, and the commerce and navigation of His Imperial Majestifs 

 suhjects in the seas adjacent thereto.'''' From these and other pertinent 

 facts it is evident that the protests of Lord Londonderry and the Duke 

 of Wellington had nothing whatever to do with the points now in issue 

 between the American and British governments concerning the waters 

 of the Behring Sea. Tbey both referred, in different and substantially 

 identical phrases, to the territory south of the Alaskan Peninsula bor- 

 dering on the Pacific and geographically shut out from the Behring Sea. 

 I regret that my arguments on a point which Lord Salisbury considers 

 of great importance should have escaped his lordship's notice. 



In Lord Salisbury's judgment the contention of the United States 

 now rests wholly upon the ukase of 1821 by the Emperor Alexander 

 I of Russia. The United States has at no time rested its argument 

 solely on the ground mentioned, and this Grovernment regrets that 

 Lord Salisbury should have so misapprehended the American position 

 as to limit its basis of right in Behring Sea to the ukase of 1821. The 

 LTnited States has, among other grounds, insisted, without recurring 

 to any of its inherited and superior rights in Alaska, that this Gov- 

 ernment has as full authority for going beyond the 3 mile line in case 

 of proved necessity as Great Britain iiossesses. 



Two or three instances of the power which Great Britain exercises 

 beyond the o-mile line have already been quoted, but have failed, 

 thus far, to secure comment or explanation from Lord Salisbury. An- 

 other case can be added which, perhaps, is still more to the point. In 

 18S1), only two years ago, the British Parliament enacted a law, the 

 effect of which is fully shown by a map inclosed herewith. Far outside 

 the ."i-mile line the Parliament of Great Biitain has attempted to 

 control a body of water situated beyond the northeastern section of 

 Scotland, 2,701) sijuare miles in extent, and to direct that certain meth- 

 ods of fishing shall not be used within that great body of water uudrr 



