List of early maps, with designation of waters now known as Behring Sea, etc.-Continued. Description of map. D'Auville's map of the Western Hemisphere. Map of the "Hemisphere Septentrional' Map published in the London Magazine... Nouvelle Carte des découvertes par les Road map from Paris to Tobolsken. Map of the New Northern Archipelago, in rects. .do Jeffery's atlas; chart containing part of Sea of Kamschatka... Jeffery's atlas Carte der Entdekungen zwischen Siberia Map of the new discoveries in the Eastern St. Petersburg atlas. Halbkugel der Erde, by Bode Chart of the northwest coast of America and the northeast coast of Asia, prepared by Lieut. Henry Roberts, under the immediate inspection of Capt. Cook; published by William Faden. Map of the Empire of Russia and Tartary, by F. L. Gulsefeld. Map of discoveries made by the Russians Dunn's atlas; map of the world.. Chart of the world, exhibiting all the Chart of the Great Ocean or South Sea, conformable to the account of the voyage of discovery of the French frigates la Boussole and l'Astrolabe; La Pé rouse. Karte des Nordens von America; G. Fors ter. .do do 1774 ...do 1775 .do Paris ..do do 1777 1777 1778 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 Nuremberg. 1786 St. Petersburg.... 1787 London 1788 .do 1788 1790 .do 1790 Greenough's map in Wilkinson's atlas.... Sea of Kamtschatka ........ London 1791 List of early maps, with designation of waters now known as Behring Sea, etc.—Continued. Description of map. Map of the northeastern part of Siberia, Carte von Nord-Amerika, by F. L. Gulse- C. F. Delmarche's atlas; Mappemonde, by Robert du Vaugondy, including new discoveries of Captain Cook. La Pérouse's chart of the Great Ocean or W. Heather's marine atlas.. Wilkinson's general atlas; a new Mer- Map of the world; Graberg. Map magazine, composed according to the latest observations of foreign navigators, corrected to 1802. 1803 Meer von Kamtschatka..... Weimar Atlas des ganzen Erdkreises, by Chris Meer von Kamtchatka... tian Gottlieb Reichard. Arrowsmith's general atlas Map of Savrilia Sarytscheff's journey in Jedediah Morse's map of North America.. Atlas of the Russian Empire, adopted by Map in Carey's atlas.. Lieutenant Roberts's chart, improved to Mappemonde in atlas of Malte-Brun Karte des Grossen Oceans, asually the Karte von Amerika; Streits Karte von America; Geographic Insti- Map of the world, by von Krusenstern... Encyproptype de l'Amérique Septentrionale, by Brué. gmith's general atlas..... Sea of Kamtchatka Sea of Kamschatka .do Sea of Kamtchatka. This chart also designates the coast from Columbia River (499) to Cape Elizabeth (60°) as the "Nord-West Kuste." List of early maps, with designation of waters now known as Behring Sea, etc.-Continued. Description of map. Designation of waters now Where published. Date. Allgemeine Weltkarte, with voyage of Sea of Kamtschatka Grand Atlas Universal, edited by Chez Atlas élémentaire, by Lapie et Poirson... Map in Thompson's atlas.. Fielding Lucas's atlas. Reichard and von Haller's German atlas.. John Pinkerton's modern atlas. Map engraved by Kirkwood & Son. Carté Générale de l'Amérique; De La- Carte d'Amérique Sept'le et Mérid'le; Chart of Alaska, by J. K. Eyries and Bassin du Nord ou de Bering ....do Sea of Kamtschatka do Sea of Kamschatka Sea of Kamtschatka Mer de Bering ou Bassin du Behring Sea Chart of the Arctic Ocean and North......do America, by Lapie. Carte Générale du Globe; Brué.. London Bassin du Nord. Paris 1815 1816 1816 1817 Edinburgh. 1817 Baltimore. 1817 Weimar. 1818 Edinburgh. 1818 Philadelphia. 1818 Edinburgh. 1819 London 1819 Atlas Classique et Universel, by M. Lapie. Mer de Behring on Bassin Anthony Finley's Atlas.. Atlas of Buchon; cartes des Possessions Map in Butler's Atlas.. Atlas Historico de Le Sage. No. 34.] Bassin du Nord... Sea of Kamschatka Mer de Bering Lord Salisbury to Sir Julian Pauncefote. FOREIGN OFFICE, February 21, 1891. SIR: The dispatch of Mr. Blaine, under date of the 17th December, has been carefully considered by Her Majesty's Government. The effect of the discussion which has been carried on between the two Governments has been materially to narrow the area of controversy. It is now quite clear that the advisers of the President do not claim Behring's Sea as a mare clausum, and indeed that they repudiate that contention in express terms. Nor do they rely, as a justification for the seizure of British ships in the open sea, upon the contention that the interests of the seal fisheries give to the United States Government any right for that purpose which, according to international law, it would not otherwise possess. Whatever importance they attach to the preservation of the fur-seal species-and they justly look on it as an object deserving the most serious solicitude-they do not conceive that it confers upon any maritime power rights over the open ocean which that power could not assert on other grounds. The claim of the United States to prevent the exercise of the seal fishery by other nations in Behring Sea rests now exclusively upon the interest which by purchase they possess in a ukase issued by the Emperor Alexander I, in the year 1821, which prohibits foreign vessels from approaching within 100 Italian miles of the coasts and islands See also globe, London, 1797, by D. Adams, globe maker to the King, on which Bering Sea is designated as Eastern Ocean. then belonging to Russia in Behring Sea. It is not, as I understand, contended that the Russian Government, at the time of the issue of this ukase, possessed any inherent right to enforce such a prohibition, or acquired by the act of issuing it any claims over the open sea beyond the territorial limit of 3 miles which they would not otherwise have possessed. But it is said that this prohibition, worthless in itself, acquired validity and force against the British Government because that Government can be shown to have accepted its provisions. The ukase was a mere usurpation; but it is said that it was converted into a valid international law, as against the British Government, by the admission of that Government itself. I am not concerned to dispute the contention that an invalid claim may, as against another Government, acquire a validity which in its inception it did not possess, if it is formally or effectively accepted by that Government. But the vital question for decision is whether any other Government, and especially whether the Government of Great Britain, has ever accepted the claim put forward in this ukase. Our contention is, that not only can it not be shown that the Government of Great Britain, at any time since 1821, has admitted the soundness of the pretension put forward by that ukase, but that it can be shown that it has categorically denied it on more than one occasion. On the 18th January, 1822, four months after the issue of the ukase, Lord Londonderry, then British foreign secretary, wrote in the following terms to Count Lieven, the Russian ambassador in London: Upon the subject of this ukase generally, and especially upon the two main principles of claim laid down therein, viz, an exclusive sovereignty alleged to belong to Russia over the territories therein described, as also the exclusive right of navigating and trading within the maritime limits therein set forth, His Britannic Majesty must be understood as hereby reserving all his rights, not being prepared to admit that the intercourse which is allowed on the face of this instrument to have hitherto subsisted on these coasts and in those seas can be deemed to be illicit; or that the ships of friendly powers, even supposing an unqualified sovereignty was proved to appertain to the Imperial Crown in these vast and very imperfectly occupied territories, could, by the acknowledged law of nations, be excluded from navigating within the distance of 100 Italian miles, as therein laid down, from the coast. On the 17th October, in the same year, the Duke of Wellington, ambassador at Verona, addressed to Count Nesselrode a note containing the following words: Objecting, as we do, to this claim of exclusive sovereignty on the part of Russia, I might save myself the trouble of discussing the particular mode of its exercise as set forth in this ukase. But we object to the sovereignty proposed to be exercised under this ukase not less than we do to the claim of it. We can not admit the right of any power possessing the sovereignty of a country to exclude the vessels of others from the seas on its coasts to the distance of 100 Italian miles. Again, on the 28th November, 1822, the Duke of Wellington addressed a note to Count Lieven containing the following words: The second ground on which we object to the ukase is that His Imperial Majesty thereby excludes from a certain considerable extent of the open sea vessels of other nations. We contend that the assumption of this power is contrary to the law of nations, and we can not found a negotiation upon a paper in which it is again broadly asserted. We contend that no power whatever can exclude another from the use of the open sea; a power can exclude itself from the navigation of a certain coast, sea, etc., by its own act or engagement, but it can not by right be excluded by another. This we consider as the law of nations, and we can not negotiate upon a paper in which a right is asserted inconsistent with this principle. It is evident, therefore, that so far as diplomatic representation went, the King's Government of that date took every step which it was in their power to take in order to make it clear to the Russian Government that Great Britain did not accept the claim to exclude her sub jects for 100 miles' distance from the coast, which had been put forward in the ukase of 1821. Mr. Blaine does not deal with these protests, which appear to Her Majesty's Government to be in themselves amply sufficient to decide the question whether Great Britain did or did not acquiesce in the Russian claim put forward by the ukase. He confines himself mainly, in the dispatch under consideration, to the consideration of the treaties which were subsequently made between Great Britain and Russia and America and Russia in the year 1825, and especially of that between Russia and Great Britain. This treaty, of which the text is printed at the close of Mr. Blaine's dispatch, does not contain a word to signify the acquiescence of Great Britain in the claim recently put forward by Russia to control the waters of the sea for 100 miles from her coast. There is no stipulation upon which this interpretation can be imposed by any process of construction whatsoever. But there is a provision having, in our judgment, a totally opposite tendency, which indeed was intended to negative the extravagant claim that had recently been made on the part of Russia, and it is upon this provision that the main part of Mr. Blaine's argument, as I understand it, is founded. The stipulation to which I refer is contained in the first article and runs as follows: ARTICLE 1. It is agreed that the respective subjects of the high contracting parties shall not be troubled or molested in any part of the ocean commonly called the Pacific Ocean, either in navigating the same, in fishing therein, or in landing at such parts of the coast as shall not have been already occupied, in order to trade with the natives, under the restrictions and conditions specified in the following articles. I understand Mr. Blaine's argument to be that, if Great Britain had intended to protest against the claim of Russia to exclude ships for 100 miles from her coasts in Behring Sea, she would have taken this opportunity of doing so; but that, in confining herself to stipulations in favor of full liberty of navigation and fishing in any part of the ocean commonly called the Pacific Ocean, she, by implication, renounced any claim that could arise out of the same set of circumstances in regard to any sea that was not part of the Pacific Ocean. And then Mr. Blaine goes on to contend that the phrase "Pacific Ocean" did not and does not include Behring Sea. Even if this latter contention were correct, I should earnestly demur to the conclusion that our inherent rights to free passage and free fishing over a vast extent of ocean could be effectively renounced by mere reticence or omission. The right is one of which we could not be deprived unless we consented to abandon it, and that consent could not be sufficiently inferred from our negotiators having omitted to mention the subject upon one particular occasion. But I am not prepared to admit the justice of Mr. Blaine's contention that the words "Pacific Ocean" did not include Behring Sea. I believe that in common parlance, then and now, Behring Sea was and is part of the Pacific Ocean; and that the latter words were used in order to give the fullest and widest scope possible to the claim which the British negotiators were solemnly recording of a right freely to navigate and fish in every part of it, and throughout its entire extent. In proof of the argument that the words "Pacific Ocean" do not include Bering Sea, Mr. Blaine adduces a long list of maps in which a designation distinct from that of "Pacific Ocean" is given Behring Sea; either "Behring Sea," or Sea of Kamchatka," or the "Sea of Anadir." The argument will hardly have any force unless it is applicable with equal truth to all the other oceans of the world. But no one will dispute 66 |