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'In the variety and extent of its operations,' declare the

Staaten. members of the Imperial Council, no other Company can compare with it. 17. Dec. 1890. In addition to a commercial and industrial monopoly, the Government has invested it with a portion of its own powers in governing the vast and distant territory over which it now holds control. A change in this system would now be of doubtful benefit. To open our ports to all hunters promiscuously would be a death-blow to the fur trade, while the Government, having transferred to the Company the control of the Colonies, could not now resume it without great expense and trouble, and would have to create new financial resources for such a purpose.""

The Imperial Council, it will be seen, did not hesitate to call the RussianAmerican Company a monopoly, which it could not have been if Lord Salisbury's construction of the Treaty was correct. Nor did the Council feel any doubt that to open the ports of the Behring's Sea "to all hunters promiscuously would be a death-blow to the fur trade."

Bancroft says further:

"This opinion of the Imperial Council, together with a Charter defining the privileges and duties of the Company, was delivered to the Czar, and received his signature on the 11th October, 1844. The new Charter did not differ in its main features from that of 1821, though the boundary was of course, changed in accordance with the English and American Treaties. None of the Company's rights were curtailed, and the additional privileges were granted of trading with certain ports in China and of shipping tea direct from China to St. Petersbourgh."

The Russian-American Company was thus chartered for a third period of twenty years, and at the end of the time it was found that the gross receipts amounted to 75,770,000 roubles, a minor part of it from the tea trade. The expenses of administration were very large. The shareholders received dividends to the amount of 10,210,000 roubles-about 900 per cent. for the whole period, or 45 per cent. per annum on the original capital. At the time the third period closed, in 1862, the Russian Government saw an opportunity to sell Alaska, and refused to continue the Charter of the Company. Agents of the United States had initiated negotiations for the transfer of Alaska as early as 1859. The Company continued, practically, however, to exercise its monopoly until 1867, when Alaska was sold by Russia to the United States. The enormous profits of the Russian American Company in the fur trade of the Behring's Sea continued under the Russian flag for more than forty years after the Treaties of 1824 and 1825 had been concluded. And yet Lord Salisbury contends, that during this long period of exceptional profits from the fur trade Great Britain and the United States had as good a right as Russia to take part in these highly lucrative ventures. || American and English ships in goodly numbers during this whole period annually visited and traded on the north-west coast on the Pacific Ocean. And yet, of

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all these vessels of the United States and Great Britain, not one ever sought Nr. 10362. to disturb the fur fisheries of the Behring's Sea or along its coasts, either Staaten. of the continent or of the islands. So far as known, it is believed, that 17. Dec. 1890. neither American nor English ships ever attempted to take one fur-seal at the Pribyloff Islands or in the open waters of the Behring's Sea during that period. The 100-mile limit was for the preservation of all these fur animals, and this limit was observed for that purpose by all the maritime nations that sent vessels to the Behring waters. || Can any one believe it to be possible that the maritime, adventurous, gain-loving people of the United States and of Great Britain could have had such an inviting field open to them forty years and yet not one ship of either nation enter the Behring's Sea to compete with the Russian-American Company for the inordinate profits which had flowed so steadily and for so long a period into their treasury from the fur trade? The fact that the ships of both nations refrained, during that long period, from taking a single fur-seal inside the shores of that sea is a presumption of their lack of right and their recognized disability so strong that, independently of all other arguments, it requires the most authentic and convincing evidence to rebut it. That English ships did not enter the Behring's Sea to take part in the catching of seals is not all that can be said. Her acquiescence in Russia's power over the seal fisheries was so complete, that during the forty years of Russia's supremacy in the Behring's Sea (that followed the Treaties of 1824-25) it is not believed that Great Britain even made a protest, verbal or written, against what Bancroft describes at the "Russian monopoly." A certain degree of confusion and disorganization in the form of the government that had existed in Alaska was the inevitable accompaniment of the transfer of sovereignty to the United States. The American title was not made complete until the money, specified as the price in the Treaty, had been appropriated by Congress and paid to the Russian Minister by the Executive Department of the Government of the United States. This was effected in the latter half of the year 1868. The acquired sovereignty of Alaska carried with it by Treaty "all the rights, franchises and privileges" which had belonged to Russia. A little more than a year after the acquisition, the United States transferred certain rights to the Alaska Commercial Company over the seal fisheries of Behring's Sea for a period of twenty years. Russia had given the same rights (besides rights of still larger scope) to the RussianAmerican Company for three periods of twenty years each, without a protest from the British Government, without a single interference from British ships. For these reasons this Government again insists, that Great Britain and the United States recognized, respected and obeyed the authority of Russia in the Behring's Sea; and did it for more than forty years after the Treaties with Russia were negotiated. It still remains for England to explain why she persistently violates the same rights when transferred to the ownership of the United States.

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The IInd Article of the American Treaty is as follows:

"Article II. With a view of preventing the rights of navigation and of 17. Dec. 1890. fishing exercised upon the Great Ocean by the citizens and subjects of the High Contracting Powers from becoming the pretext for an illicit trade, it is agreed that the citizens of the United States shall not resort to any point where there is a Russian establishment, without the permission of the Governor or Commander; and that, reciprocally, the subjects of Russia shall not resort, without permission, to any establishment of the United States upon the northwest coast."

The IInd Article of the British Treaty is a follows: "Article II. In order to prevent the right of navigation and fishing, exercised upon the ocean by the subjects of the High Contracting Parties, from becoming the pretext for an illicit commerce, it is agreed that the subjects of His Britannic Majesty shall not land at any place where there may be a Russian establishment, without the permission of the Governor or Commandant; and, on the other hand, the Russian subjects shall not land, without permission, at any British establishment on the north-west coast."

In the IInd Articles of the Treaties it is recognized that both the United States and Great Britain have establishments on the "north-west coast," and, as neither country ever claimed any territory north of the 60th parallel of latitude, we necessarily have the meaning of the north-west coast significantly defined in exact accordance with the American contention.

An argument, altogether historical in its character, is of great and, I think, conclusive force touching this question. It will be remembered that the Treaty of the 20th October, 1818, between the United States and Great Britain, comprised a variety of topics, among others, in Article III, the following:

"It is agreed that any country that may be claimed by either party on the north-west coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains, shall, together with its harbours, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open, for the term of ten years from the date of the signature of the present Convention, to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two Powers; it being understood that this Agreement is not to be construed to the prejudice of any claim which either of the two High Contracting Parties may have to any part of the said country, nor shall it be taken to affect the claims of any other Power or State to any part of the said country, the only object of the High Contracting Parties, in that respect, being to prevent disputes and differences amongst themselves."

While this Article placed upon a common basis for ten years the rights of Great Britain and America on the north-west coast, it made no adjustment of the claims of Russia on the north, or of Spain on the south, which are referred to in the Article as "any other Power or State." Russia had claimed down to latitude 55° under the Ukase of 1799. Spain had claimed in

17. Dec.1890.

definitely northward from the 42nd parallel of latitude. But all the Spanish Nr. 10362. Vereinigte claims had been transferred to the United States by the Treaty of 1819, Staaten. and Russia had been so quiet until the Ukase of 1821 that no conflict was feared. But after that Ukase a settlement, either permanent or temporary, was imperatively demanded. || The proposition made by Mr. Adams which I now quote shows, I think, beyond all doubt, that the dispute was wholly touching the north-west coast on the Pacific Ocean. I make the following quotation from Mr. Adam's instruction to Mr. Middleton, our Minister at St. Petersburgh, on the 22th July, 1823:

"By the Treaty of the 22nd February, 1819, with Spain, the United States acquired all the rights of Spain north of latitude 42°; and by the IIIrd Article of the Convention between the United States and Great Britain of the 20th October, 1818, it was agreed that any country that might be claimed by either party on the north-west coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains, should, together with its harbours, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open, for the term of ten years from that date, to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two Powers, without prejudice to the claims of either party or of any other State.

"You are authorized to propose an Article of the same import for a term of ten years from the signature of a Joint Convention between the United States, Great Britain, and Russia."

Instructions of the same purport were sent by the same mail to Mr. Rush, our Minister at London, in order that the proposition should be completely understood by each of the three Powers. The confident presumption was that this proposition would, as a temporary settlement, be acceptable to all parties. But before there was time for full consideration of the proposition, either by Russia or Great Britain, President Monroe, in December 1823, proclaimed his famous doctrine of excluding future European Colonies from this continent. Its effect on all European nations holding unsettled or disputed claims to territory was to create a desire for prompt settlement so that each Power could be assured of its own, without the trouble or cost of further defending it. Great Britain was already entangled with the United States on the southern side of her claims on the north-west coast. That Agreement she must adhere to, but she was wholly unwilling to postpone a definite understanding with Russia as to the northern limit of her claims on the north-west coast. Hence a permanent Treaty was desired, and in both Treaties the "ten-year" feature was recognized-in the VIIth Article of the British Treaty and in the IVth Article of the American Treaty. But neither in correspondence nor in the personal conferences that brought about the Agreement was there a single hint that the settlement was to include anything else whatever than the north-west coast on the Pacific-Ocean, south of the 60th parallel of north latitude.

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Fortunately, however, it is not necessary for the United States to rely on this suggestive definition of the north-west coast, or upon the historical facts 17. Dec.1890. above given. It is easy to prove from other sources that in the Treaty between the United States and Russia the coast referred to was that which I have defined as the "north-west coast" on the Pacific Ocean south of 60° north latitude, or, as the Russians for a long time believed it, 59° 30'. We have in the Department of State the originals of the Protocols between our Minister at St. Petersburgh, Mr. Henry Middleton, and Count Nesselrode, of Russia, who negotiated the Treaty of 1824. I quote, as I have quoted in my note of the 30th June, a Memorandum submitted to Count Nesselrode by Mr. Middleton as part of the 4th Protocol:

"Now, it is clear, according to the facts established, that neither Russia nor any other European Power has the right of dominion upon the Continent of America between the 50th and 60th degrees of north latitude. || "Still less has she the dominion of the adjacent maritime territory, or of the sea which washes these coasts, a dominion which is only accessory to the territorial dominion. || "Therefore, she has not the right of exclusion or of admission on these coasts, nor in these seas, which are free seas. || "The right of navigating all the free seas belongs, by natural law, to every independent nation, and even constitutes an essential part of this independence. || "The United States have exercised navigation in the seas, and commerce upon the coasts above mentioned, from the time of their independence; and they have a perfect right to this navigation and to this commerce, and they can only be deprived of it by their own act or by a Convention."

Mr. Middleton declares that Russia had not the right of dominion "upon the Continent of America between the 50th and 60th degrees of north latitude." Still less has she the dominion of "the adjacent maritime territory or the sea which washes these coasts." He further declares that Russia had not the "right of exclusion or of admission on these coasts, nor in these seas, which are free seas" that is, the coast and seas between the 40th and 60th degrees of north latitude on the body of the continent.

The following remark of Mr. Middleton deserves special attention:

"The right of navigating all the free seas belongs, by natural law, to every independent nation, and even constitutes an essential part of this independence."

This earnest protest by Mr. Middleton, it will be noted, was against the Ukas of Alexander which proposed to extend Russian sovereignty over the Pacific Ocean as far south as the 51st degree of latitude, at which point, as Mr. Adams reminded the Russian Minister, that ocean is 4,000 miles wide. It is also to be specially noted that Mr. Middleton's double reference to "the free seas" would have no meaning whatever if he did not recognize that freedom on certain seas had been restricted. He could not have used the phrase if he had regarded all seas in that region as "free seas."