362 PROCEEDINGS OF THE RUSSIANS. [1838. 



the fact that the period of ten years, fixed by the fourth article of 

 the convention of 1824 between the two nations, during which the 

 vessels of both parties might frequent the bays, creeks, harbors, and 

 other interior waters on the north-west coast, had expired : and 

 the Russian government had chosen to consider that article as the 

 only limitation of its right to exclude American vessels from all 

 parts of the division of the coast on which the United States, by 

 the convention, engaged to form no establishments ; disregarding 

 entirely the first article of the same agreement, by which all unoc- 

 cupied places on the north-west coast were declared free and open 

 to the citizens or subjects of both nations. The government of the 

 United States immediately protested against this exclusion ; and 

 their plenipotentiaries at St. Petersburg have been instructed to 

 demand its revocation.* To the reasons offered in support of 



* See President Van Buren's message to Congress of December 3d, 1838, and the 

 accompanying documents. The letters of Messrs. Wilkins and Dallas, successively 

 plenipotentiaries of the United States at St. Petersburg, relating the particulars of 

 their negotiations with the Russian minister, will be found very interesting, from the 

 luminous views of national rights presented in them. The instructions of Mr. For- 

 syth, the American secretary of state, to Mr. Dallas, dated November 3d, 1837, are 

 also especially worthy of attention. After repeating the cardinal rule as to the con- 

 struction of instruments, — that they should be so construed, if possible, as that every 

 part may stand, — he proceeds to show that the fourth article of the convention of 

 April, 1824, was to be understood as giving "permission to enter interior bays, &c, 

 at the mouth of which there might be establishments, or the shores of which might 

 be in part, but not wholly, occupied by such establishments ; thus providing for a 

 case which would otherwise admit of doubt, as it would be questionable whether the 

 bays, &c, described in it, belonged to the first or the second article. In no sense," 

 continues Mr. Forsyth, " can it be understood as implying an acknowledgment, on 

 the part of the United States, of the right of Russia to the jiossession of the coast 

 above the latitude of 54 degrees 40 minutes north ; but it should be taken in con- 

 nection with the other articles, which have, in fact, no reference whatever to the 

 question of the right of possession of the unoccupied parts of the coast. In a spirit 

 of compromise, and to prevent future collisions or difficulties, it was agreed that 

 no new establishments should be formed by the respective parties north or south of 

 a certain parallel of latitude, after the conclusion of the agreement; but the question 

 of the right of possession beyond the existing establishments, as it subsisted previous 

 to, or at the time of, the conclusion of the convention, was left untouched. The 

 United States, in agreeing not to form new establishments north of the latitude of 

 54 degrees and 40 minutes, made no acknowledgment of the right of Russia to the 

 possession of the territory above that line. If such admission had been made, Russia, 

 by the same construction of the article referred to, must have acknowledged the 

 right of the United States to the territory south of the line. But that Russia did not 

 so understand the article, is conclusively proved by her having entered into a similar 

 agreement in a subsequent treaty (1825) with Great Britain, and having, in fact, 

 acknowledged in that instrument the right of possession of the same territory by 

 Great Britain. The United States can only be considered as acknowledging the 

 right of Russia to acquire, by actual occupation, a just claim to unoccupied lands 

 above the latitude of 54 degrees 40 minutes north ; and even this is a mere matter 



