40 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
The vessels captured were six in number, three of them being described as British, 
one American from San Francisco, but the nationality of the other two is not given. 
It is not pretended that any of them was within a marine league of the shore; in 
fact, the only vessel whose place of capture is specifically stated in the despatch is 
the British schooner ‘‘Thornuton,” which, the Captain of the ‘‘Corwin” says, was 
captured about 70 miles south-south-east of St. George. This would bring her 150 
miles from the chain of the Aleutian Islands, and 300 from the nearest point of the 
mainland. 
The captured schooners were taken to Ounalaska, where they were libelled for 
condemnation, and their crews were conveyed to Sitka, where the masters and mates, 
in addition to the loss of their vessels, were tried before Judge Dawson, and fined 
and imprisoned, In the ease of the ‘‘Thornton,” the captain was fined 500 dollars. 
Judge Dawson, in passing sentence, was very severe on the prisoners, and likened 
their offence to piracy, telling them that they had no more right to go into the 
waters of another nation to interfere with its industries than they had to go upon 
another man’s land and appropriate his crops. Judge Dawson, although only 
24 a District Judge, considers that his jurisdiction extends over the whole of the 
waters of Alaska, comprising about 1,000,000 square miles of what would else- 
where be regarded as the high seas, so that he may sately be regarded as the greatest 
maritime Judge extant. 
If it should be reported some days in the papers that a Gloucester fishermen had 
been captured by a Canadian cruizer 300 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, and that 
her master and mate, in addition to the loss of their vessel, had been heavily fined, 
and were then languishing in a Canadian prison, there would probably be some 
indignation in New England. Yet that, as regards the maritime aspect of the case, 
is substantially what the Alaskan seizures amount to. It is maintained, however, 
that the circumstances of these cases are modified by the fact that Russia claimed 
the whole Bebring’s Sea as part of her territory, and that the waters claimed by 
this Government were ceded as part of Alaska. Judge Dawson is reported to have 
said on this point that Russia had claimed and exercised jurisdiction over all that 
portion of Behring’s Sea embraced in the boundary-line set forth in the Treaty, and 
that claim had been tacitly recognized and acquiesced in by the other Maritime 
Powers of the world for a long series of years prior to the Treaty of the 30th March, 
1867. He held that the jurisdiction had been transferred, and that the United States 
had acquired absolute control and dominion over the area described in the Treaty, 
and that British vessels, manned by British subjects, had no right to navigate the 
waters for the purpose of killing fur-bearing seals. If this is good law, that is the 
end of the matter; but is it good law? Unless we are greatly in error, there are 
copies of despatches on the files of the State Department, written prior to 1867, in 
which the Russian claim is distinctly repudiated and denied. Circumstances may 
have changed since then as to our attitude towards the subject, but the principle 
has not. And we doubt greatly whether the United States would ever have admitted 
such a claim if made by another nation. What would be said, for instance, if the 
British undertook to prevent an American whaler from entering Hudson Bay or 
traversing the western half of that arm of the Atlantie Ocean which leads to it? 
Maritime law and international law are the same whether on the Atlantic or the 
Pacific, and there is certainly something grotesque in the sight of hundreds of 
American fishermen hovering on the Canadian Atlantic coast just beyond the 3-mile 
limit, and claiming to enter all bays more than 3 miles wide at the mouth and fish, 
while, on the Pacific, Canadian vessels are captured 300 miles from the mainland, 
and the claim is made that a bay more than 1,000 miles wide at the mouth shall be 
a closed sea to them. 
There is another aspect to the case, not international but national. One of the 
vessels captured was an American schooner from San Francisco. All other American 
vessels, except those of the Alaska Seal Fur Company, are therefore excluded from 
these waters, which are claimed as belonging to Alaska. Is there any warrant for 
this in the Constitution of the United States? It has been the evil policy of the 
nation to give up the whole Territory of Alaska to one gigantic monopoly, to dis- 
ceurage settlement and all legitimate enterprises not connected with the fur trade. 
Is this policy to be continued? It surely was not for this purpose that the territory 
was bought, bnt that its resources might be developed, and such parts of it as are 
suitable for settlement opened to industrious workers. But for nineteen years 
Alaska has been nothing but the reserve of a great Corporation, which is even now 
scheming to obtain a renewal of its franchises there. The matter is one of the 
greatest interest and importance to the American people, who are not desirous of 
establishing monopolies in Alaska or elsewhere, but wish to see all their territory 
opened up and made available for the use of all our citizens. 
