of 1821, and for settling the respective territorial claims of Great Britain and Russia on the north-west coast of America, I have received His Majesty's commands to direct you to repair to St. Petersburgh for that purpose, and to furnish you with the necessary instructions for terminating the long-protracted negotiation.

The correspondence which has already passed upon this subject has been submitted to your perusal. And I inclose you a copy

1. Of the "Projet" which Sir Charles Bagot was authorized to conclude and sign some months ago, and which we had every reason to expect would have been entirely satisfactory to the Russian Government.

2. Of a "Contre-Projet" drawn up by the Russian Plenipotentiaries, and presented to Sir Charles Bagot at their last meeting before Sir Charles Bagot's departure from St. Petersburgh.

3. Of a despatch from Count Nesselrode, accompanying the transmission of the "Contre-Projet" to Count Lieven.

In that despatch, and in certain marginal annotations upon the copy of the " of the "Projet," are assigned the reasons of the alterations proposed by the Russian Plenipotentiaries. In considering the expediency of admitting or rejecting the proposed alterations, it will be convenient to follow the Articles of the Treaty in the order in which they stand in the English " Projet."

You will observe in the first place that it is proposed by the Russian Plenipotentiaries entirely to change that order, and to transfer to the latter part of the instrument the Article which has hitherto stood first in the "Projet.

To that transposition we cannot agree, for the very reason which Count Nesselrode alleges in favour of it, viz., that the "Economie," or arrangement of the Treaty, ought to have reference to the history of the negotiation.

The whole negotiation grows out of the Ukase of 1821.

So entirely and absolutely true is this proposition, that the settlement of the limits of the respective possessions of Great Britain and Russia on the north-west coast of America was proposed by us only as a mode of facilitating the adjustment of the difference arising from the Ükase, by enabling the Court of Russia, under cover of the more comprehensive arrangement, to withdraw, with less appearance of concession, the offensive pretensions of that Edict.

It is comparatively indifferent to us whether we hasten or postpone all questions respecting the limits of territorial possession on the Continent of America; but the pretensions of the Russian Ukase of 1821 to exclusive dominion over the Pacific could not continue longer unrepealed without compelling us to take some measure of public and effectual remonstrance against it.

You will therefore take care, in the first instance, to repress any attempt to give this change to the character of the negotiation; and will declare without reserve that the point to which alone the solicitude of the British Government and the jealousy of the British nation attach any great importance is the doing away (in a manner as little disagreeable to Russia as possible) of the effect of the Ukase of 1821.

That this Ukase is not acted upon, and that instructions have been long ago sent by the Russian Government to their cruizers in the Pacific to suspend the execution of its provisions, is true; but a private disavowal of a published claim is no security against the revival of that claim: the suspension of the execution of a principle may be perfectly compatible with the continued maintenance of the principle itself, and when we have seen in the course of this negotiation that the Russian claim to the possession of the coast of America down to latitude 59° rests, in fact, on no other ground than the presumed acquiescence of the nations of Europe in the provisions of an Ukase published by the Emperor Paul in the year 1800, against which it is affirmed that no public remonstrance was made, it becomes us to be exceedingly careful that we do not, by a similar neglect on the present occasion, allow a similar presumption to be raised as to an acquiescence in the Ukase of 1821.

The right of the subjects of His Majesty to navigate freely in the Pacific cannot be held as matter of indulgence from any Power. Having once been publicly questioned, it must be publicly acknowledged.

We do not desire that any distinct reference should be made to the Ukase of 1821; but we do feel it necessary that the statement of our right should be clear and positive, and that it should stand forth in the Convention in the place which properly belongs to it, as a plain and substantive stipulation, and not be brought in as an incidental consequence of other arrangements to which we attach comparatively little importance.

This stipulation stands in the front of the Convention concluded between Russia

and the United States of America; and we see no reason why, upon similar claims, we should not obtain exactly the like sadisfaction.

For reasons of the same nature we cannot consent that the liberty of navigation through Behring's Straits should be stated in the Treaty as a boon from Russia.

The tendency of such a statement would be to give countenance to those claims of exclusive jurisdiction against which we, on our own behalf, and on that of the whole civilized world, protest.

No specification of this sort is found in the Convention with the United States of America; and yet it cannot be doubted that the Americans consider themselves as secured in the right of navigating Behring's Straits and the sea beyond them.

It cannot be expected that England should receive as a boon that which the United States hold as a right so unquestionable as not to be worth recording.

Perhaps the simplest course, after all, will be to substitute, for all that part of the "Projet" and "Contre-Projet" which relates to maritime rights, and to navigation, the first two Articles of the Convention already concluded by the Court of St. Petersburgh with the United States of America, in the order in which they stand in that Convention.

Russia cannot mean to give to the United States of America what she withholds from us, nor to withhold from us anything that she has consented to give to the United States.

The uniformity of stipulations in pari materiá gives clearness and force to both arrangements, and will establish that footing of equality between the several Contracting Parties which it is most desirable should exist between three Powers whose interests come so nearly in contact with each other in a part of the globe in which no other Power is concerned.

This, therefore, is what I am to instruct you to propose at once to the Russian Minister as cutting short an otherwise inconvenient discussion.

This expedient will dispose of Article I of the "Projet," and of Articles V and VI of the "Contre-Projet."

The next Articles relate to the territorial demarcation.

With regard to the port of Sitka or New Archangel, the offer came originally from Russia, but we are not disposed to object to the restriction which she now applies to it.

We are content that the port shall be open to us for ten years, provided only that if any other nation obtains a more extended term, the like term shall be extended to us also.

We are content also to assign the period of ten years for the reciprocal liberty of access and commerce with each other's territories, which stipulation may be best stated precisely in the terms of Article IV of the American Convention.

These, I think, are the only points in which alterations are required by Russia, and we have no other to propose.

A "Projet," such as it will stand according to the observations of this despatch, is inclosed, which you will understand as furnished to you as a guide for the drawing up of the Convention; but not as prescribing the precise form of words, nor fettering your discretion as to any alterations, not varying from the substance of these instructions.

It will, of course, strike the Russian Plenipotentiaries that by the adoption of the American Article respecting navigation, &c., the provision for an exclusive fishery of two leagues from the coasts of our respective possessions falls to the ground.

But the omission is, in truth, immaterial. The law of nations assigns the exclusive sovereignty of one league to each Power off its own coasts, without any specific stipulation, and though Sir Charles Bagot was authorized to sign the Convention with the specific stipulation of two leagues, in ignorance of what had been decided in the American Convention at the time, yet, after that Convention has been some months before the world, and after the opportunity of reconsideration has been forced upon us by the act of Russia herself, we cannot now consent, in negotiating de novo, to a stipulation which, while it is absolutely unimportant to any practical good, would appear to establish a contract between the United States and us to our disadvantage.

Count Nesselrode himself has frankly admitted that it was natural that we should expect, and reasonable that we should receive, at the hands of Russia, equal measure, in all respects, with the United States of America.

It remains only, in recapitulation, to remind you of the origin and principles of

It is not, on our part, essentially a negotiation about limits. negotiation about limits. It is a demand of the repeal of an offensive and unjustifiable arrogation of exclusive jurisdiction over an ocean of unmeasured extent; but a demand, qualified and mitigated in its manner, in order that its justice may be acknowledged and satisfied without soreness or humiliation on the part of Russia.

We negotiate about territory to cover the remonstrance upon principle.

But any attempt to take undue advantage of this voluntary facility we must

oppose.

If the present "Projet" is agreeable to Russia, we are ready to conclude and sign the Treaty. If the territorial arrangements are not satisfactory, we are ready to postpone them, and to conclude and sign the essential part-that which relates to navigation alone, adding an Article stipulating to negotiate about territorial limits hereafter.

But we are not prepared to defer any longer the settlement of that essential part of the question; and if Russia will neither sign the whole Convention nor that essential part of it, she must not take it amiss that we resort to some mode of recording, in the face of the world, our protest against the pretensions of the Ukase of 1821, and of effectually securing our own interests against the possibility of its future operations.

Sir,

Inclosure 16 in No. 382.

Mr. S. Canning to Mr. G. Canning.

St. Petersburgh, February 17 (March 1), 1825.

BY the messenger Latchford I have the honour to send you the accompanying Convention between His Majesty and the Emperor of Russia respecting the Pacific Ocean and north-west coast of America, which, according to your instructions, I concluded and signed last night with the Russian Plenipotentiaries.

The alterations which, at their instance, I have admitted into the "Projet," such as I presented it to them at first, will be found, I conceive, to be in strict conformity with the spirit and substance of His Majesty's commands. The order of the two main subjects of our negotiation, as stated in the preamble of the Convention, is preserved in the Articles of that instrument. The line of demarcation along the strip of land on the north-west coast of America, assigned to Russia, is laid down in the Convention agreeably to your directions, notwithstanding some difficulties raised on this point, as well as on that which regards the order of the Articles, by the Russian Plenipotentiaries.

The instance in which you will perceive that I have most availed myself of the latitude afforded by your instructions to bring the negotiation to a satisfactory and prompt conclusion is the division of the IIIrd Article of the new "Projet," as it stood when I gave it in, into the IIIrd, IVth, and Vth Articles of the Convention signed by the Plenipotentiaries.

This change was suggested by the Russian Plenipotentiaries, and at first it was suggested in a shape which appeared to me objectionable; but the Articles, as they are now drawn up, I humbly conceive to be such as will not meet with your disapprobation. The second paragraph of the IVth Article had already appeared parenthetically in the IIIrd Article of the "Projet," and the whole of the IVth Article is limited in its signification and connected with the Article immediately preceding it by the first paragraph.

With respect to Behring's Straits, I am happy to have it in my power to assure you, on the joint authority of the Russian Plenipotentiaries, that the Emperor of Russia has no intention whatever of maintaining any exclusive claim to the navigation of those straits, or of the seas to the north of them.

It cannot be necessary, under these circumstances, to trouble you with a more particular account of the several conferences which I have held with the Russian Plenipotentiaries, and it is but justice to state that I have found them disposed. throughout this latter stage of the negotiation, to treat the matters under discussion with fairness and liberality.

As two originals of the Convention prepared for His Majesty's Government are signed by the Plenipotentiarics, I propose to leave one of them with Mr. Ward for the archives of the Embassy.

I have, &c.