1 rm 
APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 551 
This construction of Mr. Adams’ language cannot be the true one. It would be 
absurd on its face. The title to that far northern territory was secure to Russia as 
early as 1741; secure to her against the claims of all other nations; secure to her 
thirty-seven years before Captain Cook had sailed into the North Pacific; secure to 
her more than half-a-century before the United States had made good her title to 
Oregon. Russia was in point of time the first Power in this region by right of dis- 
covery. Without immoderate presumption she might have challenged the rights of 
others to assume territorial possessions, but no nation had shadow of cause or right 
to challenge her title to the vast region of land and water which, before Mr. Adams 
was Secretary of State, had become known as the ‘‘ Russian possessions.” 
499 Mr. Adams’ meaning was not, therefore, and indeed could not be, what Lord 
Salisbury assumed. As against such interpretation, I shall endeavour to call 
his Lordship’s attention to what this Government holds to be theindisputable mean- 
ing of Mr. Adams’ entire paragraph. ‘To that end a brief review of certain public 
transactions and a brief record of certain facts will be necessary. 
At the close of the year 1799 the Emperor Paul, by a Ukase, asserted the exclusive 
authority of Russia over the territory from the’ Behring’s Strait down to the 55th 
degree of north latitude on the American coast, following westward ‘by the Aleu- 
tian, Kurile, and other islands,” practically inclosing the Behring’s Sea. To the 
Russian American Company, w hich was organized under this Ukase, the Emperor 
gave the right ‘“‘to make new discoveries” in that almost unknown region, and ‘to 
occupy the new land discovered” as ‘‘ Russian possessions.” ‘The Emperor Was assas- 
sinated before any new discoveries were announced; but his successor, the Emperor 
Alexander I, inherited the ambition and the purpose of his father, and tw a new Ukase 
of the 4th September, 1821, asserted the exclusive authority of Russia from Behring’s 
Straits southward to the 51st degree of north latitude on the American coast, pro- 
claiming his authority at the same time on the Asiatic coast as far south as the 45th 
degree, and forbidding any vessel to approach within 100 miles of land on either 
continent. I quote the two sections of the Ukase that contain the order and the 
punishment: 
“Section 1. The transaction of commerce and the pursuit of whaling and fishing 
or any other industry on the islands in the harbours and inlets, and, in general, all 
along the north-western coast of America from Behring’s Strait to. the 5ist parallel 
of northern latitude, and likewise on the Aleutian Islands and along the eastern 
coast of Siberia and on the Kurile Islands, that is from Behring’s Strait to the south- 
ern promontory of the Island of Urup, viz., as far south as latitude 45° 50/ north, are 
exclusively reserved to subjects of the Russian Empire. 
“Section 2. Accordingly, no foreign vessel shall be allowed either to put to shore 
at any of the coasts and islands under Russian dominion, as specified in the preced- 
ing section, or even to approach the same to within a distance of less than 100 Italian 
miles. Any vessel contravening this provision shall be subject to confiscation with 
her whole cargo.” 
Against this larger claim of authority (viz., extending farther south on the Ameri- 
can coast to the 51st degree of north latitude) Mr. Adams vigorously protested. In 
a despatch of the 30th March, 1822, to M. Poletica, the Russian Minister at Wash- 
ington, Mr. Adams said: 
“‘This Ukase now for the first time extends the claim of Russia on the north-west 
coast of America to the 51st degree of north latitude.” 
And he pointed out to the Russian Minister that the only foundation for the new 
pretension of Russia was the existence of a small Settlement, situated, not on the 
American Continent, but on a small island in latitude 57°—Novo Archangelsk, now 
known as Sitka. 
Mr. Adams protested, not against the Ukase of Paul, but against the Ukase of 
Alexander; not wholly against the Ukase of Alexander, but only against his extended 
claim of sov ereignty southward on the continent to the 5ist degree north latitude. 
In short, Mr. Adams protested, not against the old possessions, but against the new 
pretensions of Russia on the north-west coast of America—pretensions to territory 
claimed by the United States, and frequented by her mariners since the peace of 1783, 
a specification of time which is dropped from Lord Salisbury’s quotation from Mr. 
Adams, but which Mr. Adams pointedly used to fix the date when the power of the 
United States was visibly exercised on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. 
The names and phrases at that time in use to describe the geography included 
within the area of this dispute are confusing, and, at certain points, apparently con- 
tradictory and irreconcilable. Mr. Adams” "denial to Russia of the ownership of 
territory on the ‘‘Continent of America” is a fair illustration of this singular con- 
tradiction of names and places. In the same way the phrase ‘“north-w est coast” 
will be found, beyond all possible doubt, to have been used in two senses: one includ- 
ing the north-west coast of the Russian possessions, and one to describe the coast 
whose northern limit is the 60th parallel of north latitude. 
