ARGUMENT OF JOHN S. EWART. 1325 



and, instead of any protest against this ukase of 1821, the United 

 States said that the ukase was perfectly good except that it extended 

 too far down into the ocean, that it was all right in so far as Behring 

 Sea was concerned, but that when it came below the islands it was 

 bad. I read from p. 901 what this volume says about the note that 

 Mr. Elaine, United States Secretary of State, sent to the British 

 Ambassador : 



" This note, which is of considerable length, is almost wholly de- 

 voted to an argument to show that the jurisdictional claim of Russia 

 put forth in the ukase of 1821 was acquiesced in by Great Britain and 

 the United States north of the sixtieth parallel of north latitude. 

 Mr. Blaine contended that the protest of Mr. Adams "- 



That is the protest in which Great Britain joined in 1821. 



" was not against the Russian claim itself, but against its exten- 

 sion southward to the fifty-first degree of north latitude; that the 

 term ' Continent of America,' as used by Mr. Adams, was employed 

 not in the geographical sense, but to distinguish the territory of 

 'America ' from the territory of the ' Russian possessions ; ' that the 

 phrase ' North West coast ' was used in two senses one including the 

 north west coast of the Russian possessions, and the other merely the 

 coat of America whose northern limit was the sixtieth parallel of 

 north latitude, and that it was used by Mr. Adams, as well as by 

 British statesmen at the time, in the latter sense. Mr. Blaine also 

 contended that in the treaties concluded by the United States and 

 Great Britain with Russia in 1824 and 1825 there was no ' attempt at 

 regulating or controlling, or even asserting an interest in, the Rus- 

 sian possessions and the Bering Sea, which lie far to the north and 

 west of the territory which formed the basis of the contention.' He 

 argued that the terms ' Great Ocean,' ' Pacific Ocean,' and ' South 

 Sea ' did not include the Bering Sea." 



Diplomatic correspondence was not sufficient to resolve that diffi- 

 culty and so arbitration was agreed upon. The questions submitted 

 are found at p. 905 of this volume, and it will be seen that this 

 very question of exclusive jurisdiction which the United States was 

 advancing was one of the subjects submitted to the Tribunal : 



" 1. What exclusive jurisdiction in the sea now known as the 

 Bering's Sea, and what exclusive rights in the seal fisheries therein, 

 did Russia assert and exercise prior and up to the time of the cession 

 of Alaska to the United States? 



" 2. How far were these claims of jurisdiction as to the seal fish- 

 eries recognized and conceded by Great Britain ? 



"3. Was the body of water now known as the Bering's Sea in- 

 cluded in the phrase ' Pacific Ocean ' as used in the treaty of 1825 be- 

 tween Great Britain and Russia; and what rights, if any, in the 

 Bering's Sea were held and exclusively exercised by Russia after said 



treaty ? 



" 4. Did not all the rights of Russia as to jurisdiction, and as to 

 the seal fisheries in Bering's Sea east of the water boundary, in the 

 treaty between the United States and Russia of the 30th March, 1867, 

 pass unimpaired to the United States under that treaty ? " 



