566 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
The correspondence then dropped for a time, to be restimed in the 
following spring. Butit is perfectly clear from the above that the 
514 ~— privileges granted to the Kussian American Company in 1799, 
whatever effect they may have had as regards other Russian sub- 
jects, did not operate to exclude American vessels from any part of the 
coast, and that the attempt to exclude them in 1821 was at once resisted. 
Further, that the Russian Government had no idea of any distinction 
between Behring’s Sea and the Pacific Ocean, which latter they con- 
sidered as reaching southward from Behring’s Str aits. Nor throughout 
the whole of the subsequent correspondence is there any reference 
whatever on either side to any distinctive name for Behring’s Sea, or 
any intimation that it could be considered otherwise than as forming 
an integral part of the Pacific Ocean. 
I now come to the despatch from Mr. Adams to Mr. Middleton of the 
22nd July, 1823, to which reference has before been made, and which it 
will be necessary to quote somewhat at length. After authorizing Mr. 
Middleton to enter upon a negotiation with the Russian Ministers eon- 
cerning the differences which had arisen from the Ukaseof the 4th (16th) 
September, 1821, Mr. Adams continues: 
From the tenour of the Ukase, the pretensions of the Imperial Government extend 
‘to an exclusive territorial jurisdiction from the 45th degree of north latitude, on the 
Asiatic coast, to the latitude of 51° north on the western coast of the American Con- 
tinent; and they assume the right of interdicting the navigation and the fishery of 
all other nations to the extent of 100 miles fromthe whole of that coast. 
The United States can admit no part of these claims. Their right of navigation 
and of fishing is perfect, and has been in constant exercise from the earliest times, 
after the peace of 1783, throughout the whole extent of the Southern Ocean, subject 
only to the ordinary exceptions and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions, which, 
so far as Russian rights are concerned, are confined to certain islands north of the 
55th degree of latitude, and have no existence on the continent of America. 
Mr. blaine has argued at great length to show that when Mr. Adams 
used these clear and forcible expressions he did not mean what he 
seemed to say; that when he stated that the United States “could 
admit no part of these claims,” he meant that they admitted all that 
part of them which related to the coast north of the Aleutian Islands; 
that when he spoke of the Southern Ocean, he meant to except Beh- 
ring’s Sea; and that when he contended that the ordinary exceptions 
and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions had no existence, so far 
as Russian rights were concerned, on the Continent of America, he 
used the latter term not in a geographical but in a “territorial” sense, 
and tacitly excepted, by a very singular petitio principii, the Russian 
possessions. In order to carry out this theory, it is necessary for him 
also to assume that the negotiators in the course of the discussions 
made indiscriminate use of the term “north-west coast of America,” 
with a variety of signification which he admits to be ‘‘confusing, and, 
at certain points, apparently contradictory and irreconcilable.” 
The reputation of the American statesmen and diplomatists of that 
day for caution and precision affords of itself strong argument against 
such a view, and, even if this had been otherwise, so forced a construe- 
tion would require very strong evidence to confirm it. But a glance at 
the rest of the despatch and at the other papers will show that the 
more simple interpretation of the words is the correct one. For Mr. 
Adams goes on to say: 
The correspondence between M. Poletica and this Department contained no dis- 
cussion of the principles or of the facts upon which he attempted the justification 
of the Imperial Ukase. This was purposely avoided on our part, under the expecta- 
tion that the Imperial Government could not fail, upon a review of the measure, to 
revoke it altogéther. It did, however, excite much public animadversion in this 
tegen? ie 
