APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. Do 
But the 100-mile restriction performed the function for which it was specially 
designed in preventing foreign nations from molesting, disturbing, or by any possi- 
bility sharing in the fur trade. The fur trade formed the principal, almost the sole, 
employment of the Russian American Company. It formed its employment, indeed, 
to such a degree that it soon became known only as the Russian American [uw Com- 
pany, and quite suggestively that name is given to the Company by Lord Salisbury 
in the despatch to which Lam replying. While, therefore, there may have been a 
large amount of lawful whaling and fishing in the Behring’s Sea, the taking of furs 
by foreigners was always and under all circumstances illicit. 
Kichteen years after the Treaty of 1825 (in 1843) Great Britain made a Commercial 
Treaty with Russia based on the principle of reciprocity of advantages, but the rights 
of the Russian American Company, which under both Ukases included the sover- 
eignty over the sea to the extent of 100 miles from the shores, were reserved by special 
clause in a separate and special Article signed after the principal Articles of the 
Treaty had been concluded and signed. Although British rights were enlarged with 
nearly all other parts of the Russian Empire, her relations with the Russian posses- 
sions and with the Behring’s Sea remained at precisely the same point where the 
Treaty of 1825 had placed them. 
Again, in 1859, Great Britain still further enlarged her commercial relations with 
the Emperor of Russia, and again the “possessions” and the Behring’s Sea were held 
firmly in their relations to the Russian American Company as they had been held in 
the Treaty of 1843. 
It is especially notable that, both in the Treaty of 1843 and the Treaty of 1859, it 
is declared that ‘‘in regurd to commerce and navigation in the Russian possessions 
on the north-west coast of America the Convention concluded at St. Petersburgh, 
16th February, 1825, shall continue in force.” The same distinction and the same 
restrictions which Mr. Adams made in regard to the north-west coast of America 
were still cbserved, and Great Britain’s access from or to the interior of the conti- 
nent was still limited to that part of the coast between 54° 40’ and a point near 
Mount St. Elias. The language of the three Russo-British Treaties of 1825, 1843, and 
1859 corresponds with that employed in Mr. Adams’ despatch to Mr. Middleton to 
which reference has so frequently been made. This shows that the true meaning of 
Mr. Adams’ paragraph is the key, and indeed the only key, by which the Treaties 
can be correctly interpreted, and by which expressions apparently contradictory or 
unintelligible can be readily harmonized. 
Immediately following the partial quotation of Mr. Adams’ despatch, Lord Salis- 
bury quotes the case of the United States brig ‘‘Loriot” as having some bearing on 
the question relating to the Behring’s Sea. The case happened on the 15th Septem- 
ber, 1836, and Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of State, in a despatch to the United States 
Minister at St. Petersburgh, declared the course of the Russians in arresting the 
vessel to be a violation of the rights of the citizens of the United States; he claimed 
that the citizens of the United States had the right immemorially, as well as by the 
stipulations of the Treaty of 1824, to fish in those waters. 
Lord Salisbury’s understanding of the case differs entirely from that held by the 
Government of the United States. The ‘‘Loriot” was not arrested in the Behring’s 
Sea at all, nor was she engaged in taking furs. She was arrested, as Mr. Forsyth 
in his despatch says, in latitude 54° 55’, more than 60 miles south of Sitka, on the 
“north-west coast,” to which, and to which only, the Treaty of 1824 referred. Russia 
upheld its action on the ground that the ten-year term provided in the IVth Article 
of the Treaty had closed two years before. The case was made the basis of an appli- 
cation on the part of the United States Government for a renewal of that Article. 
This application was pressed for several years, but finally and absolutely refused by 
the Russian Government. Under the claim of Russia that the term of ten years had 
expired, the United States failed to secure any redress in the ‘‘Loriot” case. 
506 With all due respect to Lord Salisbury’s judgment, the case of the ‘‘Loriot” 
sustains the entire correctness of the position of the United States in this 
contention. 
It only remains to say that whatever duty Great Britain owed to Alaska as a Rus- 
sian province, whatever she agreed to do, or to refrain from doing, touching Alaska 
and the Behring’s Sea, was not changed by the mere fact of the transfer of sover- 
eignty to the United States. It was explicitly declared in the VIth Article of the 
Treaty by which the territory was ceded by Russia, that ‘‘the cession hereby made 
conveys all the rights, franchises, and privileges now belonging to Russia in the 
said territory or dominions, and appurtenances thereto.” Neither by the Treaty 
with Russia of 1825, nor by its renewal in 1843, nor by its second renewal in 1859, did 
Great Britain gain any right to take seals in Behrine’s Sea. In fact, those Treaties 
were a prohibition upon her which she steadily respected so long as Alaska was a 
Russian province. It is for Great Britain now to show by what law she gained rights 
in that sea after the transfer of its sovereignty to the United States. | ; 
During all the time elapsing between the Treaty of 1825 and the cession of Alaska 
to the United States in 1867, Great Britain never affirmed the right of her subjects 
