182 CASES OF THE PEAIlL, LORIOT, AND HARRIET. 



st rumen t, acknowledged the right of possession of the same territory 

 by Great Britain. 



"The United States can only be considered iuferentially as having ac- 

 knowledged the right of Russia to acquire, above the designated merid- 

 ian, by actual occupation, a just claim to unoccupied lands. Until 

 that actual occupation be taken, the first article of the convention rec- 

 ognizes the American right to navigate, fish, and trade, as prior to its 

 negotiation. Such is esteemed the true construction of the convention ; 

 the construction which both nations are interested in affixing, as the 

 benefits are equal and mutual, and the great object is secured of re- 

 moving the exercise of a common right from the danger of becoming a 

 dispute about exclusive privileges. 



"At the hazard of proving tedious, the undersigned has thus endeav- 

 ored to convey to his excellency Count Nesselrode the views suggested 

 by his recent communication." 



Count Nesselrode never took any notice of this note. 1 On March 9, 

 1838, however, he addressed the United States minister, in part, as fol- 

 lows : 2 



" The undersigned has had the honor to receive the note that Mr. Dal- 

 las, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United 

 States of America, was pleased to address him on the 16th (28th) of 

 December relative to the proposition previously brought forward by 

 Mr. Wilkins to renew the fourth article of the convention of April 5 

 (17), 1821, of which the effect had been limited to a term of ten years, 

 and which had consequently expired in 1834. 



"The desire not to decide a question of this importance without a 

 thorough knowledge of the subject did not permit the Imperial Gov- 

 ernment to give an opinion in relation to it until detailed information 

 had been collected, as well in regard to the wants of the Russian estab- 

 lishments in America as to the influence that the state of things secured 

 by the fourth article had exercised there. * * * 



"The information then expected has since reached the undersigned, 

 and it appears that the execution of the temporary provisions contained 

 in the fourth article had not been unattended with serious inconven- 

 iences, and that it has been really injurious to the prosperity of the 

 Russian establishments on the northwest coast. The greater part of 

 the foreign vessels which resort to this coast in virtue of the said stipu- 

 lations have only made use of the right of trading with the natives in 

 order to sell them spirituous liquors, firearms, and gunpowder. Accord- 

 ing to the tenor of the fifth article, these articles were expressly 

 excluded from the trade, but experience has proven that this exclusion, 

 and also the legislative measures by which the Government of the 

 United States sought to carry it into effect, were illusory, since by the 

 same article the contracting parties had deprived themselves of all 

 means of controlling the vessels which should visit these latitudes, so 

 that entire cargoes of rum, of firearms, and ammunition, have been 

 carried, without hindrance, into the Russian possessions and sold to 

 the natives, thus necessarily endangering the germs of order and civili- 

 zation which the agents of the Russian American Company have 

 already succeeded in introducing among these tribes. * * * 



" This state of things could not fail to occasion complaints and remon- 

 strances, which, the Imperial Government being ever anxious for the 

 preservation of its relations with the United States, would alone, from 

 that time, be an adequate motive to induce it to desire that the stipula- 



1 Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 1, Twenty-fifth Cong... 3d sess., pp. 71, 72. 2 Ibid., p. 69. 



