183S.] PROCEEDINGS OF THE RUSSIANS. 363 



this demand, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, Count Nessel- 

 rode, did not attempt to offer any reply, contenting himself simply 

 with declaring that his sovereign was not inclined to renew the 

 fourth article, as it afforded the Americans the opportunity of fur- 

 nishing the natives on the coasts with spirituous liquors and fire-arms ; 

 though no case was adduced in support of that assertion. Thus 

 the matter rests ; the American traders being excluded from visiting 

 any of the coasts of the Pacific north of the parallel of 54 degrees 

 40 minutes, on the ground that those coasts are acknowledged by 

 the United States to belong to Russia, whilst the latter power, by 

 its treaty with Great. Britain in 1825, directly denies any rights, 

 on the part of the United States, to the coasts south of that parallel. 

 The Russian government also refused the same privilege to British 

 vessels after 1835, and moreover opposed by force the exercise of 

 another privilege claimed by the British under the treaty of 1825, 

 namely, that of navigating the rivers flowing from the interior of 

 the continent to the Pacific across the line of boundary therein 

 established. In 1834, the Hudson's Bay Company fitted out an 

 expedition for the purpose of establishing a trading post on the large 

 river Stikine, which enters the channel named by Vancouver Prince 

 Frederick's Sound, between the main land and one of the islands 

 of the north-west archipelago claimed by Russia, in the latitude of 

 56 degrees 50 minutes. Baron Wrangel, the Russian governor- 

 general, having, however, been informed of the project, erected a 

 block-house and stationed a sloop of war at the mouth of the 

 Stikine ; and, on the appearance of the vessel bringing the men 

 and materials for the contemplated establishment, the British were 

 warned not to attempt to pass into the river, and were forced to 

 return to the south. All appeals to the treaty were ineffectual, and 

 the Hudson's Bay Company was obliged to desist from the prose- 

 cution of the plan, after having, as asserted on its part, spent more 

 than twenty thousand pounds in fitting out the expedition. 



of inference, as the convention of 1824 contains nothing more than a negation of the 

 right of the United States to occupy new points within that limit. Admitting that 

 this inference was in contemplation of the parties to the convention, it cannot follow 

 that the United States ever intended to abandon the just right, acknowledged by the 

 first article to belong to them, under the law of nations ; that is, to frequent any part of 

 the unoccupied coast of North America, for the purpose of fishing or trading with the 

 natives. All that the convention admits is, an inference of the right of Russia to 

 acquire possession by settlement north of 54 degrees and 40 minutes north ; and, 

 until that possession is taken, the first article of the convention acknowledges the 

 right of the United States to fish and trade, as prior to its negotiation." 



