568 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
Art. III. It is agreed that no settlement shall be made hereafter on the north-west 
coast of America by citizens of the United States or under their authority, north, nor 
by Russian subjects, or under the authority of Russia, south of the 55th degree of 
north latitude. 
In an explanatory despatch to Mr. Rush, the American Minister in 
London, same date, Mr. Adams says: 
The right of carrying on trade with the natives throughout the north-west coast 
they (the United States) cannot renounce. With the Russian settlements at Kodiak, 
or at New Archangel, they may fairly claim the advantage of a free trade, having so 
long enjoyed it unmolested, and because it has been and would continue to be as 
advantageous at least to those settlements as to them. But they will not contest the 
right of Russia to prohibit the traffic, as strictly confined to the Russian settlement 
-itself, and not extending to the original natives of the coast. 
It is difficult to conceive how the term ‘north-west coast of America” 
used here and elsewhere can be interpreted otherwise than as applying 
to the north-west coast of America generally, or how it can be seriously 
contended that it was meant to denote only the more westerly portion, 
excluding the more north-westerly part, because by becoming a Russian 
possession this latter had ceased to belong to the American Continent. 
Mr. Blaine states that when Mr. Middleton declared that Russia had 
no right of exclusion on the coasts of America between the 50th and 
60th degrees of north latitude, nor in the seas which washed those 
coasts, he intended to make a distinction between Behring’s Sea and 
the Pacific Ocean. But upon reference to a Map, it will be seen that 
the 60th degree of north latitude strikes straight across Behring’s Sea, 
leaving by far the larger and more important part of it to the south; so 
that I confess it appears to me that by no conceivable construction of 
his words can Mr. Middleton be supposed to have excepted that sea 
from those which he declared to be free. 
With regard to the construction which Mr. Blaine puts upon the 
Treaty between the United States and Russia of the 17th April, 1824, 
I will only say that it is, as far as I am aware, an entirely novel 
516 one, that there is no trace of its having been known to the various 
publicists who have given an account of the controversy in 
Treaties on International Law, and that itis contrary, as I shall show. 
to that which the British negotiators placed on the Treaty when they 
adopted the Ist and Iind Articles for insertion in the British Treaty of 
the 28th February, 1825. I must further dissent from his interpretation 
of Article VII of the latter Treaty. That Article gives to the vessel 
of the two Powers “liberty to frequent all the inland seas, gulf, 
havens, and creeks on the coast mentioned in Article ILI, for the purpee 
of fishing and of trading with the natives.” The expression ‘cosst 
mentioned in Article I1I” can only refer to the first words of the 
Article: “The line of demarcation between the possessions of the Hign 
Contracting Parties upon the coast of the continent and the islandsof 
America to the north-west shall be drawn,” &c. That is to say, it 
included all the possessions of the two Powers on the north-west caist 
of America. For there would have been no sense whatever in stipuiat- 
ing that Russian vessels should have freedom of access to the small 
portion of coast which, by a later part of the Article, is to belong to 
Russia. And as bearing on this point it will be noticed that Articb 
V1, which has a more restricted bearing, speaks only of ‘the su)- 
jects of His Britannic Majesty,” and of ‘the line of coast describd 
in Article III.” 
The stipulations of the Treaty were formally renewed by Artices 
inserted in the General Treaties of Commerce between Great Britin 
aud Russia of 1843 and 1859. But Mr. Blaine states that “the rigts 
Shemp,<> sage 
