556 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
By this Agreement Great Britain was excluded from all rivers emptying into the 
Behri ing’s Se: a, including the Great Yukon and its affluent the Porcupine, which rise, 
and for a long distance : flow, in British America. So complete was the exclusion 
from Behring’ s Sea that Great Britain surrendered in this case a doctrine which she 
had aided in impressing upon the Congress of Vienna for European rivers. She did 
not demand access to the sea from a river whose source was in her territory. She 
cousented, by signing the Treaty of 1825, to such total exclusion from the Behring’s 
Sea as to forego ‘followi ing her own river ‘to its mouth in that sea. 
It shows a curious association of political events that in the Washington Treaty 
of 1871 the United States conceded to Great Britain the privilege of navigating the 
Yukon and its branch the Porcupine to the Belring’s Sea in exchange for certain 
privileges conceded to the United States on the St. Lawrence. ‘The request of Great 
Britain for the privilege of navigating the Yukon and the Porcupine is a suggestive 
confession that it was withheld from her by Russia in the Treaty of 1825, withheld 
because the rivers flowed to the Behring’s Sea. 
The VIIth Article is practically a repetition of the [Vth Article in the Treaty 
between Russia and the United States, and the privilege of fishing and trading with 
the natives is limited to the coast mentioned in Article III, identically the same line 
of coast which they were at liberty to pass through to reach British America or to 
reach the coast from British America. ‘They are excluded from going north of the 
prescribed point on the coast near Mount St. Elias, and are therefore kept out of 
Behring’s Sea. 
It is to be noted that the negotiators of this Treaty in defining the boundary 
between the Russian and British possessions cease to observe particularity exactly 
at the point on the coast where it is intersected by the 60th parallel. From that 
point the boundary is designated by the almost indefinite prolongation northward of 
the 141st degree of longitude west. It is plain, therefore, that this Treaty, like the 
Russo-American Treaty, limited the ‘north-west coast” to that part of the coast 
between the 50th and 60th parallels of north latitude, as fully set forth by Mr. Mid- 
dleton in the Protocols preceding the Treaty between the United States and Russia. 
The negotiators never touched one foot of the boundary of the Behring’s Sea, whether 
on continent or island,and never even made a reference to it. Its nearest point in 
Bristol Bay was 1,000 miles distant from the field of negotiation between the Powers. 
It must not be forgotten that this entire negotiation of the three Powers proceeded 
with full knowledge and recognition of the Ukase of 1821. While all questions 
touching the respective rights of the Powers on the north-west coast between the 
50th and 60th parallels were discussed and pressed by one side or the other, and 
finally agreed upon, the terms of the Ukase of 1821, in which the Emperor set forth 
so clearly the rights claimed and exercised by Russia in the Beliing’s Sea, were 
untouched and unquestioned. These rights were therefore admitted by all the 
Powers negotiating as within the exercise of Russia’s lawful authority then, and 
they were left inviolate by England during all the subsequent continuance of Russia’s 
dominion over Alaska. 
These Treaties were therefore a practical renunciation, both on the part of England 
and the United States, of any rights in the waters of Behring’s Sea during the period 
of Russia’s sovereignty. ‘They left the Behring’s Sea, and all its coasts and islands, 
precisely as the Ukase of Alexander in 1821 left them—that is, with the prohibition 
against any vessel approaching nearer to the coast than 100 Italian miles under dan- 
ger of confiscation. The original Ukase of Alexander of 1821 ciaimed as far south 
as the 51st degree of north latitude, with the inhibition of 100 miles from the coast 
applying to the whole. 
The result of the protest of Mr. Adams, followed by the co-cperation of Great 
Britain, was to force Russia back to 54° 40’ as her southern boundary. But there 
was no renunciation whatever on the part of Russia as to the Behring’s Sea, to 
which the Ukase especially and primarily applied. As a piece of legislation this 
Ukase was as authoritative in the dominions of Russia as an Act of Parliament is 
in the dominions of Great Britain or any Act of Congress in the territory of the 
United States. 
ixcept as voluntarily modified by Russia in the Treaty with the United States, 
17th April, 1824, and in the Treaty with Great Britain, 16th February, 1825, 
505 the Ukase of 1821 stood as the law controlling the Russian possessions in 
America until the close of Russia’s ownership by transfer to this Government. 
soth the United States and Great Britain recognized it, respected it, obeyed it. It 
did not, as so many suppose, declare the Bebring’s Sea to be mare clausum. It did 
declare that the waters, to the extent of 100 miles from the shore, were reserved for 
the subjects of the Russian Empire. Of course, many hundred miles east and west 
and north and south were thus intentionally left by Russia for the whale fishery, and 
for fishing open and free to the world, of which other nations took large advantage. 
Perhaps, in pursuing this advantage, ‘foreigners did not always keep 100 miles from 
the shore; but the theory of right on which they conducted their business unmo- 
lested was that they observed the conditions of the Ukase. 
