24 PERIOD FOLLOWING THE TREATIES. 



chapter iv ofto the coast north of latitude 54° 40' were in 



the British Case. 



violation of Russian law. All violations may not 



have been punished, but that the law was none 



the less in force is shown by the seizure of the 



Loriot, by the proclamation of the United States 



Government in 1845, 1 and by the proclamation 



of the Russian Government in 1864. 2 



Visits of whai- Later, however, especially in the years follow- 

 ers to Bering Sea. 



ing 1840, Bering Sea was actually visited, as 

 pointed out at pp. 83 to 90 of the British Case, 

 by numerous vessels, mostly whalers. But it 

 is shown by Bancroft, the author so frequently 

 quoted by the British Government, that the 

 whaling industry was not, for the Russians, a 

 profitable one, 3 and there appears to have been 

 no motive for protecting that industry by the 

 imperial ukase or the regulations of the colo- 

 nial government. Bancroft is also referred to 

 in the British Case (pp. 83 and 84) to show 

 that in 1842 the Russian Government refused 

 Etholin's request that Bering Sea be protected 

 against invasions of foreign whalers, on the 

 ground that the treaty of 1824 between Russia 

 and the United States gave to American citi- 

 zens the riorht to engage in fishing over the 



1 Case of the United States, p. 59. 



9 Post, p. 164. 



3 Bancroft's Alaska, p. 584. 



