APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 575 
amicable explanations as might tend to reconcile the pretensions of Russia in that 
quarter of the globe with the just rights of His Majesty’s Crown and the interests 
of his subjects. As such explanations will probably be offered to your Grace dur- 
ing the Conferences about to take place at Vienna, I hasten to signify to you the 
King’ s commands as to the language which you will hold on the part of His Majesty 
upon this subject. 
The opinions given in November and December last by Lord Stowell and by His 
Majesty’s Advocate-General (copies of which are already in your possession) will 
furnish you with the best legal arguments in opposition to the pretensions put for- 
ward in the Russian Ukase; and, as in both these opinions much stress is very prop- 
erly laid upon the state of actual occupation of the territories claimed by Russia, 
and the different periods of time at which they were so occupied, I have obtained 
from the Governor of the principal Company of His Majesty’s subjects trading in 
that part of the world the information which your Grace will find in the inclosed 
apers. 
; That information will enable you sufficiently to prove to the Russian Minister, not 
only that the point of prior discovery may be fairly disputed with Russia, but that 
the much more certain title of actual occupation by the agents and the trading serv- 
ants of the Hudson’s Bay Company extends at this moment to many degrees of 
higher latitude on the north-west coast of America than is claimed as the territory 
of Russia by the Ukase in question. 
Enlightened statesmen and jurists have long held as insignificant all titles of ter- 
ritory that are not founded on actual occupation, and that title i is, in the opinion of 
the most esteemed writers on public law, to be established only by practical use. 
With respect to the other points in the Ukase which have the éffect of extending 
the territorial rights of Russia over the adjacent seas to the unprecedented distance 
of 100 miles from the line of coast, and of closing a hitherto unobstructed passage, 
at the present moment the object of important discoveries for the promotion of gen- 
eral commerce and navigation, these pretensions are considered by the best legal 
authorities as positive innovations on the rights of navigation; as such they can 
receive no explanation from further discussion, nor can by possibility be jus- 
522 tified. Common usage, which has obtained the force of law, has indeed as- 
signed to coasts and shores an accessorial boundary to a short limited distance 
for purposes of protection and general convenience, in no manner interfering with 
the rights of others, and not obstr ucting the freedom of general commerce and navi- 
gation. But this important qualification the extent of the present claim entirely 
excludes, and when such a prohibition is, as in the present case, applied to a long 
line of coasts and also to intermediate islands in remote seas, where navigation is 
beset with innumerable and unforeseen difficulties, and where the principal employ- 
ment of the fisheries must be pursued under circumstances which are incompatible 
with the prescribed courses, all particular considerations concur, in an especial man- 
ner, with the general principle, in repelling such a pretension as an encroachment 
on the freedom of navigation, and the unalienable rights of all nations. 
Thave, indeed, the satisfaction to believe, from a conference which I have had with 
Count Lieven on this matter, that upon these two points—the attempt to shut up the 
passage altogether, and the claim of exclusive dominion to so enormous a distance 
from the coast—the Russian Government are prepared entirely to waive their pre- 
tensions. The only effort that has been made to justify the latter claim was by ref- 
erence to an Article in the Treaty of Utrecht, which assigns 30 leagues from the coast 
as the distance of prohibition. But to this argument it is sufficient to answer that 
the assumption of such a space was, in the instance quoted, by stipulation in a 
Treaty, and one to which, therefore, the party to be affected by it had (whether 
wisely or not) given its deliberate consent. No inference could be drawn from that 
transaction in favour of a claim by authority against all the world. 
I have little doubt, therefore, but that the public notification of the claim to con- 
sider the portions of the ocean included between the adjoining coasts of America 
and the Russian Empire as a mare clausum, and to extend the exclusive territorial 
jurisdiction of Russia to 100 Italian miles from the coast, will be publicly recalled; 
and I have the King’s commands to instruct your Grace further to require of the 
Russian Minister (on the ground of the facts and reasonings furnished in this 
despatch and its inclosures) that such a portion of territory alone shall be defined 
as belonging to Russia as shall not interfere with the rights and actual possessions 
of His Majesty’ 8 subjects in North America, 
Tan, &ce. 
(Signed) GEO. CANNING, 
