1810.] PROPOSITIONS OF RUSSIA TO THE UNITED STATES. 275 



of his dominions. A desire was at the same time expressed, that 

 some act should be passed by Congress, or some convention be 

 concluded between the two nations, which might have the effect of 

 preventing the continuance of such irregularities. No disposition 

 being shown by the American government to adopt any of those 

 measures, Count Romanzoff, the minister of foreign affairs at St. 

 Petersburg, proposed to Mr. John Quincy Adams, the plenipoten- 

 tiary of the United States at that court, an arrangement, by which 

 the vessels of the Union should supply the Russian settlements on 

 the Pacific with provisions and manufactures, and should transport 

 the furs of the company to Canton, under the restriction of their 

 abstaining from all intercourse with the natives of the north-west 

 coasts of America. Mr. Adams, in his answer, showed several 

 reasons for which his government could not, with propriety, accede 

 to this proposition ; and he moreover desired to know within what 

 limits it was expected that the restriction should he observed. This 

 question was, doubtless, embarrassing to the Russian minister, who, 

 however, after some time, replied, that the Russian American Com- 

 pany claimed the whole coast of America on the Pacific and the 

 adjacent islands, from Bering's Strait, southward to and beyond 

 the mouth of the Columbia River ; whereupon the correspondence 

 was immediately terminated. 



There was, certainly, no disposition, on the part of the United 

 States, to encourage their citizens in the trade which formed the 

 subject of the complaints of the Russians, or to offend that power 

 by refusing to cooperate in suppressing such a trade. But the 

 American government properly considered that no means existed 

 for enforcing the restrictions, with justice and regularity, even on 

 the coasts which might be admitted to belong to Russia ; while, at 

 the same time, the right of that nation to the possession of the 

 coasts so far south as the Columbia, could not be recognized, for 

 reasons which will be made apparent in the ensuing chapter. 



