had ever formed part of the text, and out of eighty-four words, logically and inseparably connected, thirty-five are dropped from Mr. Adams' paragraph in Lord Salisbury's quotation. No edition of Mr. Adams' work gives authority for his lordship's quotation; while the archives of this Department plainly disclose its many errors. I requote Lord Salisbury's version of what Mr. Adams said, and in juxtaposition produce Mr. Adams's full text as he wrote it:

[Lord Salisbury's quotation from Mr. Adams.]

The United States can admit no part of these claims; their right of navigation and fishing is perfect, and has been in constant exercise from the earliest times throughout the whole extent of the Southern Ocean, subject only to the ordinary exceptions and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions.

[Full text of Mr. Adams' paragraph.]'

The United States can admit no part of these claims. Their right of navigation and of fishing is perfect, and has been in constant exercise from the earliest times, after the peace of 1783, throughout the whole extent of the Southern Ocean, subject only to the ordinary exceptions and exclusions of the territorial jurisdictions, which so far as Russian rights are concerned, are confined to certain islands north of the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, and have no existence on the continent of America.

The words in italics are those which are left out of Mr. Adams' paragraph in the dispatch of Lord Salisbury. They are precisely the words upon which the Government of the United States founds its argument in this case. Conclusions or inferences resting upon the paragraph, with the material parts of Mr. Adams' text omitted, are of course valueless.

The first object is to ascertain the true meaning of Mr. Adams' words which were omitted by Lord Salisbury. "Russian rights, said Mr. Adams, "are confined to certain islands north of the 55th degree of latitude. " The islands referred to are as easily recognized to-day as when Mr. Adams described their situation sixty-seven years ago. The best known among them, both under Russian and American jurisdiction, are Sitka and Kadiak; but their whole number is great. If Mr. Adams literally intended to confine Russian rights to those islands, all the discoveries of Vitus Behring and other great navigators are brushed away by one sweep of his pen, and a large chapter of history is but a fable.

But Mr. Adams goes still farther. He declares that "Russian rights have no existence on the continent of America.” If we take the words of Mr. Adams with their literal meaning, there was no such thing as "Russian Possessions in America," although forty-four years after Mr. Adams wrote these words, the United States paid Russia seven millions two hundred thousand dollars for these "Possessions" and all the rights of land and sea connected therewith.

This construction of Mr. Adams' language can not be the true one. It would be absurd on its face. The title to that far northern territory was secure to Russia as early as 1741; secure to her against the claims of all other nations; secure to her thirty-seven years before Captain Cook had sailed into the North Pacific; secure to her more than half a century before the United States had made good her title to Oregon. Russia was in point of time the first power in this region by right of discovery. Without immoderate presumption she might have challenged the rights of others to assumed territorial possessions; but no nation had shadow of cause or right to challenge her title to the vast region of land and water which, before Mr. Adams was Secretary of State, had become known as the "Russian Possessions."

Mr. Adams' meaning was not, therefore, and indeed could not be, what Lord Salisbury assumed. As against such interpretation I shall endeavor to call his lordship's attention to what this Government holds to be the indisputable meaning of Mr. Adams' entire paragraph. To that end a brief review of certain public transactions and a brief record of certain facts will be necessary.

At the close of the year 1799, the Emperor Paul, by a ukase, asserted the exclusive authority of Russia over the territory from the Behring Strait down to the fifty-fifth degree of north latitude on the American coast, following westward "by the Aleutian, Kurile, and other islands" practically inclosing the Behring Sea. To the Russian American Company, which was organized under this ukase, the Emperor gave the right "to make new discoveries" in that almost unknown region, and "to occupy the new land discovered" as "Russian possessions." The Emperor was assassinated before any new discoveries were announced, but his successor, the Emperor Alexander I, inherited the ambition and the purpose of his father, and, in a new ukase of September 4, 1821, asserted the exclusive authority of Russia from Behring Strait southward to the fitty-first degree of north latitude on the American coast, proclaiming his authority, at the same time, on the Asiatic coast as far south as the forty-fifth degree, and forbidding any vessel to approach within 100 miles of land on either continent. I quote the two sections of the ukase that contain the order and the punishment:

SECTION 1. The transaction of commerce, and the pursuit of whaling and fishing, or any other industry on the islands, in the harbors and inlets, and, in general, all along the northwestern coast of America from Behring Strait to the fifty-first parallel of northern latitude, and likewise on the Aleutian Islands and along the eastern coast of Siberia, and on the Kurile Islands; that is, from Behring Strait to the southern promontory of the island of Urup, viz, as far south as latitude forty-five degrees and fifty minutes north, are exclusively reserved to subjects of the Russian Empire.

SEC. 2. Accordingly, no foreign vessel shall be allowed either to put to shore at any of the coasts and islands under Russian dominion as specified in the preceding section, or even to approach the same to within a distance of less than 100 Italian miles. Any vessel contravening this provision shall be subject to confiscation with her whole cargo.

Against this larger claim of authority (viz, extending farther south on the American coast to the 51st degree of north latitude), Mr. Adams vigorously protested. In a dispatch of March 30, 1822, to Mr. Poletica, the Russian minister at Washington, Mr. Adams said:

This ukase now for the first time extends the claim of Russia on the northwest coast of America to the 51st degree of north latitude.

And he pointed out to the Russian minister that the only foundation for the new pretension of Russia was the existence of a small settlement, situated, not on the American continent, but on a small island in latitude 57-Novo Archangelsk, now known as Sitka.

Mr. Adams protested, not against the ukase of Paul, but against the ukase of Alexander; not wholly against the ukase of Alexander, but only against his extended claim of sovereignty southward on the continent to the 51st degree north latitude. In short, Mr. Adams protested, not against the old possessions, but against the new pretensions of Russia on the northwest coast of America-pretensions to territory claimed by the United States and frequented by her mariners since the peace of 1783-a specification of time which is dropped from Lord Salisbury's quotation of Mr. Adams, but which Mr. Adams pointedly used to fix the date when the power of the United States was visibly exercised on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The names and phrases at that time in use to describe the geography

included within the area of this dispute, are confusing and at certain points apparently contradictory and irreconcilable. Mr. Adams' denial to Russia of the ownership of territory on "the Continent of America" is a fair illustration of this singular contradiction of names and places. In the same way the phrase "Northwest coast" will be found, beyond all possible doubt, to have been used in two senses, one including the northwest coast of the Russian possessions, and one to describe the coast whose northern limit is the 60th parallel of north latitude.

It is very plain that Mr. Adams' phrase "the Continent of America,' in his reference to Russia's possessions, was used in a territorial sense, and not in a geographical sense. He was drawing the distinction between the territory of "America" and the territory of the "Russian possessions." Mr. Adams did not intend to assert that these territorial rights of Russia had no existence on the continent of North America. He meant that they did not exist as the ukase of the Emperor Alexander had attempted to establish them-southward of the Aleutian peninsula and on that distinctive part of the continent claimed as the territory of the United States. "America" and the "United States" were

then, as they are now, commonly used as synonymous.

British statesmen at the time used the phrase precisely as Mr. Adams did. The possessions of the crown were generically termed British America. Great Britain and the United States harmonized at this point and on this territorial issue against Russia. Whatever disputes might be left by these negotiations for subsequent settlement between the two powers there can be no doubt that at that time they had a common and very strong interest against the territorial aggrandizement of Russia. The British use of the phrase is clearly seen in the treaty between Great Britain and Russia, negotiated in 1825, and referred to at length in a subsequent portion of this dispatch. A publicist as eminent as Stratford Canning opened the third article of that treaty in these descriptive words:

The line of demarcation between the possessions of the high contracting parties, upon the coast of the continent, and the islands of America to the northwest.

*

Mr. Canning evidently distinguished" the islands of America" from the "islands of the Russian possessions," which were far more numerous; and by the use of the phrase " to the Northwest" just as evidently limited the coast of the Continent as Mr. Adams limited it, in that direction, by the Alaskan peninsula. A concurrence of opinion between John Quincy Adams and Stratford Canning, touching any public ques tion, left little room even for suggestion by a third person.

It will be observed as having weighty significance that the Russian ownership of the Aleutian and Kurile Islands (which border and close in the Behring Sea, and by the dip of the peninsula are several degrees south of latitude 55) was not disputed by Mr. Adams, and could not possibly have been referred to by him when he was limiting the island possessions of Russia. This is but another evidence that Mr. Adams was making no question as to Russia's ownership of all territory bordering on the Behring Sea. The contest pertained wholly to the territory on the northwest coast. The Emperor Paul's ukase, declaring his Sovereignty over the Aleutian and Kurile Islands, was never questioned or denied by any power at any time.

Many of the acts of Mr. Adams' public life received interesting commentary and, where there was doubt, luminous interpretation in his personal diary, which was carefully kept from June 3, 1794, to January 1, 1848, inclusive. The present case affords a happy illustration of the H. Ex. 450-6