678 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
or acquired by the act of issuing it any claims over the open sea beyond 
the territorial limit of 5 miles, which they would not otherwise have 
possessed. But it is said that this prohibition, worthless in itself, 
acquired validity and force against the British Government because 
that Government can be shown to have accepted its provisions. The 
Ukase was a mere usurpation; but it is said that it was converted into 
a valid international law, as against the British Government, by the 
admission of that Government itself. 
Tam not concerned to dispute the contention that an invalid claim may, 
as against another Government, acquire a validity which in its incep- 
tion it did not possess, if it is formally or effectively accepted by that 
Government. But the vital question for decision is whether any other 
Government, and especially whether the Government of Great Britain, 
has ever accepted the claim put forward in this Ukase. Our conten- 
tion is, that not only can it not be shown that the Government of Great 
Britain, at any time since 1521, has admitted the soundness of the pre- 
tension put forward by that Ukase, but that it can be shown that it 
has categorically denied it on more than one occasion. On the 18th 
January, 1822, four months after the issue of the Ukase, Lord London- 
derry, then British Foreign Secretary, wrote in the following terms to 
Count Lieven, the Russian Ambassador in London: 
Upon the subject of this Ukase generally, and especially upon the two main prin- 
ciples of claim Jaid down therein, viz., an exclusive sovereignty alleged to belong to 
Russia over the territories therein described, as also the exclusive right of navigat- 
ing 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 be illicit; or that the 
ships of friendly Powers, even supposing an unqualified sovereignty was proved to 
appertain to the Imperial Crown, in these vast and very imperfectly occupied terri- 
tories, 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. 
On the 17th October in the same year the Duke of Wellington, 
Ambassador at Verona, addressed to Count Nesselrode a note con- 
taining the following words: 
Objecting, as we do, to this claim of exclusive sovereignty on the part of Russia, 
I might save myself the trouble of discussing the particular mode of its exer- 
88 cise as set forth in this Ukase. But we object to the sovereignty proposed to 
be exercised under this Ukase not less than we do to the claim of it. We cannot 
admit the right of any Power possessing the sovereignty of a country to exclude the vessels 
of others from the seas on its coasts to the distance of 100 Italian miles. 
Again, on the 28th November, 1822, the Duke of Wellington addressed 
a note to Count Lieven containing the following words: 
The second ground on which we object to the Ukase is that His Imperial Majesty 
thereby excludes from a certain considerable extent of the open sea vessels of other 
nations. We contend that the assumption of this power is contrary to the law of 
nations; and we cannot found a negotiation upon a paper in which it is again 
broadly asserted. We contend that no Power whatever can exclude another from 
the use of the open sea; a Power can exclude itself from the navigation of a certain 
coast, sea, &c., by its own act or engagement, but it can not by right be excluded 
by another. This we consider as the law of nations; and we cannot negotiate 
upon a paper in which a right is asserted inconsistent with this principle. 
It is evident, therefore, that so far as diplomatic representation went, 
the King’s Government of that date took every step which it was in 
their power to take, in order to make it clear to the Russian Govern. 
ment that Great Britain did not accept the claim to exelude her sub- 
jects for 100 miles distance from the coast, which had been put forward 
in the Ukase of 1821. 
