1822.] DISCUSSION OF THE RUSSIAN CLAIMS. 333 



coasts of America, and at the promulgation, by that power, of rules 

 of restriction so deeply affecting the rights of the United States 

 and their citizens ; and he desired to know whether the minister 

 was authorized to give explanations of the grounds of the right 

 claimed, upon principles generally recognized by the laws and 

 usages of nations. 



To this M. Poletica replied by a long letter, containing a sketch — 

 generally erroneous — of the. discoveries of his countrymen on the 

 north-west coasts of America, which extended, according to his 

 idea, southward as far as the 49th parallel of latitude. He de- 

 fended the assumption of the 51st parallel as the southern limit of 

 the possessions of his sovereign, upon the ground that this line was 

 midway between the mouth of the Columbia, where the citizens of 

 the United States had made an establishment, and the Russian 

 settlement of Sitka ; and he finally maintained that his government 

 would be justifiable in exercising the rights of sovereignty over the 

 ivhole of the Pacific north of the said parallel, inasmuch as that sec- 

 tion of the sea was bounded on both sides by Russian territories, and 

 was thus, in fact, a close sea. The secretary of state, in return, 

 asserted that, " from the period of the existence of the United 

 States as an independent nation, their vessels had freely navigated 

 those seas ; and the right to navigate them was a part of that inde- 

 pendence, as also the right of their citizens to trade, even in arms 

 and munitions of war, with the aboriginal natives of the north- 

 west coast of America, who were not under the territorial jurisdic- 

 tion of other nations." He denied in toto the claim of the Russians 

 to any part of America south of the 55th degree of latitude, on 

 the ground that this parallel was declared, in the charter * of the 

 Russian American Company, to be the southern limit of the dis- 



* The first article of the charter or privilege granted by the emperor Paul to the 

 Russian American Company, on the 8th of July, 1799, is as follows : — 



"In virtue of the discovery, by Russian navigators, of a part of the coast of 

 America in the north-east, beginning from the 55th degree of latitude, and of 

 chains of islands extending from Kamtchatka, northward towards America, and 

 southward towards Japan, Russia has acquired the right of possessing those lands ; 

 and the said company is authorized to enjoy all the advantages of industry, and all 

 the establishments, upon the said coast of America, in the north-east, from the 55th 

 degree of latitude to Bering's Strait, and beyond it, as also upon the Aleutian and 

 Kurile Islands, and the others, situated in the eastern Arctic Ocean." 



By the second article, — 



" The company may make new discoveries, not only north, but also south, of the 

 said 55th parallel of latitude, and may occupy and bring under the dominion of Rus- 

 sia all territories thus discovered, observing the rule, that such territories should not 

 have been previously occupied and placed under subjection by another nation." 



