APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 641 
Lord Londonderry in the despatch above quoted. This is more plainly shown by a 
‘“Memorandum on the Russian Ukase” delivered by the Duke on the 17th October to 
Count Nesselrode, Russia’s Representative at Verona. The Duke was arguing against 
the Ukase of Alexander, as it affected British interests, and his language plainly 
shows that he confined himself to the ‘ north-west coast of America bordering on the 
Pacific Ocean.” To establish this it is only necessary to quote the following para- 
graph from the Duke’s Memorandum, viz. : 
‘‘Now, we can prove that the English North-West Company and the Hudson’s Bay 
Company have for many years established forts and other trading places in a country 
called New Caledonia, situated to the west of a range of mountains called the Rocky 
Mountains, and extending along the shores of the Pacific Ocean from latitude 49° to 
latitude 60° north. 
The Duke of Wellington always went directly to the point at issue, and he was 
evidently not concerning himself about any subject other than the protection of the 
English territory south of the Alaskan Peninsula, and on the north-west coast border- 
ing on the Pacific Ocean. England owned no territory on the coast north of the 
Alaskan Peninsula, and hence there was no reason for connecting the coast above the 
peninsula in any way with the question before the Congress. Evidently the Duke 
did not, in the remotest manner, connect the subject he was discussing with the waters 
or the shores of the Behring’s Sea. 
The most significant and important of all the inclosures is No. 12, in which Mr. 
Stratford Canning, the British negotiator at St. Petersburgh, communicated, under 
date of the Ist March, 1825, to Mr. G. Canning, Minister of Foreign Affairs, the text 
of the Treaty between England and Russia. Some of Mr. Stratford Canning’s state- 
ments are very important. In the second paragraph of his letter he makes the 
following statement: 
“The line of demarcation along the strip of land on the north-west coast of 
America assigned to Russia is laid down in the Convention agreeably to your direc- 
TIONS pe 
After all, then, it appears that the ‘strip of land,” to which we have already 
referred more than once, was reported by the English Plenipotentiary at St. Peters- 
burgh. This clearly and undeniably exhibits the field of controversy between Russia 
and England, even if we had no other proof of the fact. It was solely on the north- 
west coast bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and not in the Behring’s Sea at all. Itis 
the same strip of land which the United States acquired in the purchase of Alaska, 
and runs from 54° 40/ to 60° north latitude—the same strip of land which gave to 
British America, lying behind it, a free access to the ocean. 
52 Mr. Stratford Canning also communicated, in his letter of the Ist March, 
the following: 
‘With respect to Behring’s Straits, 1am happy to have it in my power to assure 
you, on the joint authority of the Russian Plenipotentiaries, that the Emperor of 
Russia has no intention whatever of maintaining any exclusive claim to the navigation of 
those straits or of the seas to the north of them.” 
This assurance from the Emperor of Russia is of that kind where the power to 
give or to withhold is absolute. If the Treaty of 1825 between Great Britain and 
Russia had conceded such rights in the Behring waters as Lord Salisbury now claims, 
why was Sir Stratford Canning so ‘‘ happy” to ‘‘have it in his power to assure” the 
British Foreign Office, on ‘‘the authority of two Russian Plenipotentiaries,” that 
‘the Emperor had no intention of maintaining an exclusive claim to the navigation 
of the Behring’s Straits,” or of the ‘‘seas to the north of them.” The seas to the south 
of the straits were most significantly not included in the Imperial assurance. The 
English statesmen of that day had, as I have before remarked, attempted the aboli- 
tion of the Ukase of Alexander only so far as it affected the coast of the Pacific 
Ocean from the 51st to the 60th degree of northlatitude. It was left in full force on 
the shores of the Behring’s Sea. There is no proof whatever that the Russian 
Emperor annulled it there. That sea, from east to west, is 1,300 miles in extent; 
from north to south it is 1,000 miles in extent. The whole of this great body of 
water, under the Ukase, was left open to the world, except astrip of 100 miles from 
the shore. But with these 100 miles enforced on all the coasts of the Behring’s Sea 
it would be obviously impossible to approach the Straits of Behring, which were 
less than 50 miles in extreme width. If enforced strictly, the Ukase would cut off 
all vessels from passing through the straits to the Arctic Ocean. If, as Lord Salis- 
bury claims, the Ukase had been withdrawn from the entire Behring coast, as it was 
between the 51st and 60th degrees on the Pacific coast, what need would there have 
been for Mr, Stratford Canning, the English Plenipotentiary, to seek a favour from 
Russia in regard to passing through the straits into the Arctic Ocean, where scientific 
expeditions and whaling vessels desired to go? 
I need not review all the inclosures, but I am sure that, properly analyzed, they 
will all show that the subject-matter touched only the settlement of the dispute on 
the north-west coast, from the 51st to the 60th degree of north latitude. In other 
Bs, Pry 41 
