APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 549 
No. 573. 
The Marquis of Salisbury to Sir J. Pauncefote. 
| Telegraphic. | 
FOREIGN OFFICE, June 26, 1890. 
The proposal made in your telegram of yesterday has my entire 
concurrence. 
497 No. 374. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Substance telegraphed, 
July 3.) 
WASHINGTON, July 1, 1890. 
My Lorp: [ have the honour to transmit a copy of a note which I 
received yesterday evening from Mr, Blaine, in answer to your Lord- 
ship’s despatch of the 22nd May, of which I left a copy in his hands on 
the 5th ultimo. 
In this note Mr. Blaine endeavours to show that the negotiations 
which preceded the conclusion of the Treaty of 1824 between the United 
States and Russia, and the Treaty of 1825 between Great Britain and 
Ttussia, had, so far as respects maritime jurisdiction, no reference what- 
ever to the Behring’s Sea, but only to the Pacifie Ocean south of the 
Aleutian Islands, and, therefore, that the United States Government 
have not laid themselves open to the charge of asserting rights in the 
Behring’s Sea which they disputed as against Russia, before the cession 
of Alaska to the United States in 1867. 
While repudiating any claim to the Behring’s Sea as a mare clausum, 
Mr. Blaine insists that the claim of Russia to exclusive jurisdiction 
within 100 miles from land was not disputed as regards the Behring’s 
Sea, but, on the contrary, was acquiesced in both by Great Britain and 
the United States at the time of the Treaties above referred to, and 
that it is only since the rights of Russia in Alaska and the Behring’s 
Sea passed to the United States by purchase in 1867 that Great Britain 
has sought to challenge rights which she respected when Alaska was a 
Russian province. 
I have, &c. 
(Signed) JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE, 
[Inclosure in No. 374.] 
Mr. Blaine to Sir J. Pauncefote. 
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, June 30, 1890. 
Sir: On the 5th instant you read to me a despatch from Lord Salisbury, dated the 
22nd May, and by his instruction you left with me a copy. His Lordship writes in 
answer to my despatch of the 22nd January last. At that time, writing to yourself 
touching the current contention between the Governments of the United States and 
Great Britain as to the jurisdiction of the former over the waters of the Behring’s 
Sea, I made the following statement: 
“The Government of the United States has no oceasion and no desire to withdraw 
or modify the positions which it has at any time maintained against the claims of 
the Imperial Government of Russia. The United States will not withhold from any 
nation the privileges which it demanded for itself when Alaska was part of the 
Russian Empire. Nor is the Government of the United States disposed to exercise 
