574 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
This document, containing Regulations of great extent and importance, both in its 
territorial and maritime bearings, has been considered with the utmost attention, 
and with those favourable sentiments which His Majesty’s Government always bear 
towards the acts of a State with which His Majesty has the satisfaction to feel him- 
self connected by the most intimate ties of friendship and alliance, and having been 
referred for the Report of those high legal authorities whose duty it is to advise His 
Majesty on such matters, the Undersigned is directed, till such friendly explanations 
can take place between the two Governments as may obviate misunderstanding upon 
so delicate and important a point, to make such provisional protest against the 
enactments of the said Ukase as may fully serve to save the rights of His Majesty’s 
Crown, and may protect the persons and properties of His Majesty’s subjects from 
molestation in the exercise of their lawful callings in that quarter of the globe. 
The Undersigned is commanded to acquaint Count Lieven that, it being the King’s 
constant desire to respect and cause to be respected by his subjects, in the fullest 
manner, the Emperor of Russia’s just rights, His Majesty will be ready to enter into 
amicable explanations upon the interests affected by this instrument, in such man- 
ner as may be most acceptable to His Imperial Majesty. 
In the meantime, upon the subject of this Ukase generally, and especially upon 
the two main principles of claim laid down therein, viz., an exclusive sovereignty 
alleged to belong to Russia over the territories therein described, as also the exclu- 
sive right of navigating and trading within the maritime limits therein set forth, 
His Britannic Majesty must be understood as hereby reserving all his rights, not 
being prepared to admit that the intercourse which is allowed on the face of this 
instrument to have hitherto subsisted on those coasts, and in those seas, can be 
deemed to beillicit; or that the ships of friendly Powers, even supposing an unquali- 
fied sovereignty was proved to appertain to the Imperial Crown, in these vast and 
very imperfectly occupied territories, could, by the acknowledged law of nations, 
be excluded from navigating within the distance of 100 Italian miles, as therein laid 
down, from the coast the exclusive dominion of which is assumed (but as His Majesty’s 
Government conceive in error) to belong to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of All 
the Russias. 
(Signed) LONDONDERRY. 
521 {Inclosure 2 in No. 382.] 
Memorandum by the Duke of Wellington.—(September 11, 1822. 
In the course of a conversation which I had yesterday with Count Lieven, he 
informed that he had been directed to give verbal explanations of the Ukase respect-. 
ing the north-western coast of America. These explanations went, he said, to this, 
that the Emperor did not propose to carry into execution the Ukase in its extended 
sense; that [lis Imperial Majesty’s ships had been directed to cruize at the shortest 
possible distance from the shore, in order to supply the natives with arms and ammu- 
nition, and in order to warn aJl vessels that that was His Imperial Majesty’s dominion, 
and that His Lnperial Majesty had besides given directions to his Minister in the 
United States to agree upon a Treaty of Limits with the United States. 
[Inclosure 3 in No. 382.] 
Mr. G. Canning to the Duke of Wellington. 
FOREIGN OFFICE, September 27, 1822. 
My Lorp DvuKE: Your Grace is already in possession of all that has passed both 
here and at St. Petersburgh, on the subject of the issue, in September of last year, by 
the Emperor of Russia, of an Ukase, indirectly asserting an exclusive right of sov- 
ereignty from Behring’s Straits to the 51st degree of north latitude on the west coast 
of America, and to the 45th degree north on the opposite coast of Asia; and (as a 
qualified exercise of that right) prohibiting all foreign ships, under pain of confis- 
cation, from approaching within 100 Italian miles of those coasts. ‘This Ukase hav- 
ing been communicated by Baron Nicolai, the Russian Chargé d’Affaires at this 
Court, to His Majesty’s Government, was forthwith submitted to the legal authori- 
ties whose duty it is to advise His Majesty on such matters, and a note was in 
consequence addressed by the late Marquis of Londonderry to Count Lieven, the Rus- 
sian Ambassador, and also communicated to His Majesty’s Ambassador at St. Peters- 
burgh, protesting against the enactinents of the said Ukase, and requesting such 
