THE ALASKAN BO UNDAR Y . 429 



the published correspondence of the British negotiators with- 

 the foreign office and of the Russian negotiators with their 

 ambassador in London. I can only give the leading features. 

 It having been determined that the treaty of limits should be 

 agreed upon as a cover to the more essential stipulation to be 

 contained in it, to wit, the disavowal of the maritime jurisdic- 

 tion, the negotiators, in the first instance, addressed themselves 

 to a fixation of the east-and-west line, or, more particularly, to 

 the point on the northwest coast of America which should limit 

 the possessions of the two governments. Prom the first mo- 

 ment the boundary was broached Russia had indicated that it 

 would rest its claim to territory on the line of latitude 55°, 

 being the limit fixed by the Emperor Paul in the charter of 

 1799 to the Russian American Company, and which had never 

 been objected to by Great Britain.* 



Sir Charles Bagot, however, in the first instance, proposed *' a 

 line drawn through Chatham strait to the head of Lynn canal, 

 thence northwest to the 140° of longitude " t (see map No. 1). 

 This line was rejected by the Russian negotiators, and, at the re- 

 quest of Mr Bagot, they submitted a counter-proposal, which was 

 in effect the same as that suggested in the first instance above 

 mentioned, the line of latitude 55° ; but " as the parallel of 55° 

 would divide Prince of Wales island," they proposed to start 

 the boundary line at the southern extremity of that island, and 

 thence " follow Portland channel up to the mountains which 

 border the coast." t The Russian proposal was met by a second 

 proposition from Sir Charles Bagot, to wit, " a line traced from 

 the west toward the east along the middle of the channel which 

 separates 'Prince of Wales and Duke of York islands from all 

 the islands situated to the north of the said islands until it 

 touches the mainland."? This was likewise rejected, and he 

 then made a third and final proposal of " a line drawn from the 

 si mthern extremity of the strait called ' Duke of Clarence sound ' 

 through the middle of this strait to the middle of the strait 

 which separates Prince of Wales and Duke of York islands from 

 all the islands lying north of those islands, thence toward the 

 east through the middle of the same strait to the mainland." II 



This last British proposition was rejected by the Russian ne- 

 gotiators in a paper of some length, in which they set forth the 

 situation of the parties in interest, and why it was impossible for 

 Russia to modify its proposal. They show that the parties whose 



* lb., 390, 412. fib., 424. t lb., 427. g lb., 428. || lb., 430. 



