6 CHAPTER I. 



Head (A). — The User up to the year 1821 of the Waters of Behring Sea 

 and other Waters of the North Pacific. 



The United States Contentions. 



(1.) United States Case, p. 25 — 

 "By tirst discovery, occupation, and permanent colonization, the shores and 

 islands of Bering Sea, the Aleutian chain, and the Peninsula of Alaska became, 

 probably as early as 1800, an undisputed part of the territory of the Kussian 

 Empire." 



(2.) United States Case, p. 26— 



"While the title of Russia to the territory north and west of, and including, the 

 Peninsula of Alaska, was universally recognized, her claim to the Northwest 

 Coast of the American Continent .... was earnestly disputed by more 

 than one powerful nation." 



(3.) United States Case, p. 33— 

 "While the claim of Russia to the territory embracing the Aleutian Islands, the 

 Peninsula of Alaska, and the coasts and islands of Bering Sea was undisputed, 

 the shores and the adjacent islands of the American Continent south of latitude 

 60° as far as California, were during the latter part of the eighteenth and the 

 first quarter of the present century the subject of conflicting claims on the part 

 of Russia, Great Britain, Spain, and the United States." 



(4.) United States Case, p. 42 — 



"After the Ukase or Charter of 1799, granting to the Rnssian American Company 

 certain exclusive control of trade and colonization, its authorities, acting under 

 the sanction of the Russian Government, did not permit foreign vessels to visit 

 Bering Sea." 



(5.) United States Case, p. 49 — 

 "The Ukase of 1799, which set forth a claim of exclusive Russian jurisdiction as 

 far south as latitude 55°, called forth no protest from any foreign Powers, nor 

 was objection offered to the exclusion of foreign ships from trade with the 

 natives and hunting fur-bearing animals in the waters of Bering Sea and on the 

 Aleutian Islands as a result of that Ukase and of the grant of exclusive privileges 

 to the Russian-American Company." 



(6.) United States Case, p. 69— 



"Prior and up to the date of the treaties of 1824 and 1825, Russia did assert and 

 exercise exclusive rights of commerce, hunting, and fishing ou the shores and 

 in all the waters of Bering Sea." 



Summary of British Reply. 



The title said in Contention (2.) to have been "universally recognized," is notshov/n 

 to have been recognized at all during the period in question. Her only Settle- 

 ment north of the Aleutian Islands was Nushagak, with five Russian inhabitants, 

 founded in 1818. Any title by discovery was open to doubt. There was none 

 by occupation or colonization. 

 7 Throughout the evidence which relates to this period, no distinction, as regards 



the title of Russia or its recognition by other nations, is drawn between 

 coasts north and south of latitude 60°, 



.9 



