part of his Government to make concessions to Great Britain inconsistent with the right asserted by the United States before the Paris tribunal, he informed me that Mr. Blaine positively refused to allow the Russian Government to become a party to that treaty, and it was therefore obliged to take care of itself as best it could; that his Government did not believe the right asserted by the United States to property in the seals on the high seas was valid, and that Russia could not, therefore, assume the attitude of the United States on that question. I can not resist the belief that in these statements the minister represented the real position of the Russian Government."

Mr. Gresham, Sec. of State, to Mr. White, min. to Russia, No. 112, July 14, 1893, MS. Inst. Russia, XVII. 177.

"I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 109 of the 6th ultimo, transmitting the inquiry of the director of the Asiatic department of the foreign office of the Imperial Government, as to whether the United States will object to the seizure by Russian cruisers of American vessels poaching Russian seals.

"In view of the questions submitted to the Paris tribunal of arbitration and the probability of an early determination of the same, I think the matter may be safely left in abeyance. The long and uninterrupted friendly relations between the United States and Russia, is a guaranty that neither will do anything which would make the solution of any question arising between them, growing out of poaching in the Bering Sea, difficult of solution.

"If it be true that Russia sympathizes with the United States in the present controversy submitted to the Paris tribunal, and believes the right which we asserted is well founded, it is difficult to understand why that Government agreed to make indemnity for the seizure of two British vessels poaching in the Bering Sea near the eastern shore."

Mr. Gresham, Sec. of State, to Mr. White, min. to Russia, No. 113, July 14, 1893, MS. Inst. Russia, XVII. 179.

"I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 205 of January 22, 1896, in reply to the Department's instruction No. 146 of November 22, 1895.

"In that instruction you were directed to ascertain with special reference to the seizure in 1892 of the American fishing vessels Kate and Anna, C. H. White, and James Hamilton Lewis, whether the Imperial Government accepts the Paris tribunal's decision as a correct statement of the limits of Russian jurisdiction in Bering Sea at that time.

"In the note from the Russian foreign office inclosed in your No. 146, that question is not specifically answered, but the right of Russia

to seize the above-named vessels in Bering Sea twenty or more miles from any Russian land is defended by reference to the claim of Russian jurisdiction in Bering Sea made by the United States in its contention with Great Britain before the Paris tribunal. 'Although it is true,' the minister says, that the Imperial Government, as you have had the goodness to remark, was not one of the parties among whom the differences submitted to arbitration had arisen, that is to say, England and the United States, it is not the less to be expected that the Cabinet at Washington, which maintained before the tribunal of arbitration the widest doctrines, will not depart from that breadth of view in the solution to be given equally to matters of arrest of American vessels to which allusion is made in the note before mentioned, although previous to the conclusion of the arrangement of 1894.'

"The question to be considered in the present controversy is simply whether Russia had a right to seize the American fishing vessels named in the place where they were seized in the year 1892. The question of the preservation of the fur seal is not involved, and the provisions of the modus vivendi signed May 4/April 22, 1894, are inapplicable to the solution of the point in issue. It is true that the United States took the position in diplomatic correspondence with Great Britain, and asserted before the Paris tribunal, that Russia had, and had exercised, certain exclusive jurisdictional rights in Bering Sea beyond the ordinary three-mile limit, but this contention was declared by the arbitrators, with only one dissenting voice, to be untenable. Their decision was as follows:

"By the ukase of 1821 Russia claimed jurisdiction in the sea now known as the Behring Sea to the extent of 100 Italian miles from the coasts and islands belonging to her, but, in the course of the negotiation which led to the conclusion of the treaties of 1824 with the United States and of 1825 with Great Britain, Russia admitted that her jurisdiction in the said sea should be restricted to the reach of cannon shot from shore, and it appears that from that time up to the time of the cession of Alaska to the United States, Russia has never asserted in fact, or exercised any exclusive jurisdiction in Behring's Sea or any exclusive rights in the seal fisheries therein beyond the ordinary limit of territorial waters.'

"Mr. Justice Harlan, one of the arbitrators chosen by the United States, made an elaborate historical and legal review of the proposition, and expressed the following conclusion in an opinion which he read to the commission, before the award was made: To the first.— Prior to and up to the time of the cession of Alaska to the United States, Russia did not assert nor exercise any exclusive jurisdiction in Behring Sea, or any exclusive rights in the fur seal fisheries in

that sea, outside of ordinary territorial waters, except that in the ukase of 1821 she did assert the right to prevent foreign vessels from approaching nearer than 100 Italian miles the coasts and islands. named in that ukase. But, pending the negotiations to which that ukase gave rise, Russia voluntarily suspended its execution, so far as to direct its officers to restrict their surveillance of foreign vessels to the distance of cannon shot from the shores mentioned, and by the treaty of 1824 with the United States, as well as by that of 1825 with Great Britain, the above ukase was withdrawn, and the claim of authority, or the power to prohibit foreign vessels from approaching the coasts nearer than 100 Italian miles was abandoned, by the agreement embodied in those treaties to the effect that the respective citizens and subjects of the high contracting parties should not be troubled or molested, in any part of the great ocean commonly called the Pacific Ocean, either in navigating the same or 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 other articles of those treaties.' (Fur Seal Arbitration, vol. 1. p. 110.)

"While the Paris tribunal was sitting upon the question of Russian jurisdiction in Bering Sea, that Government tendered a pecuniary indemnity to Great Britain for the seizure of two British vessels in Bering Sea near the eastern shore, but outside the three-mile limit, while refusing at the same time indemnity for the seizure of four other British vessels which had taken seals within the three-mile limit. This transaction was reported to the Department in your predecessor's despatch No. 111 of June 17, 1893.

"This acknowledgment by Russia that her exclusive jurisdiction stopped within the ordinary three-mile limit in Bering Sea as well as in other portions of the Pacific was used with effect by Great Britain before the Paris tribunal. July 14, 1893, Mr. Gresham, Secretary of State, said to your predecessor: If it be true that Russia sympathizes with the United States in the present controversy submitted to the Paris tribunal, and believes the right which we asserted is well founded, it is difficult to understand why that Government agreed to make an indemnity for the seizure of two British vessels poaching in Bering Sea near the eastern shore.'

"Again, the efforts now being made by Russia to induce the powers interested to extend the regulations for fur-seal fishing in Bering Sea to all the waters of the Pacific Ocean north of the 35th degree of latitude, indicates and implies an acceptance of the decision of the Paris tribunal, and a general policy in consonance with its findings. "In replying to your inquiry, the Russian foreign office seems to have carefully avoided asserting a distinct claim to sovereign rights

in Bering Sea. It merely expresses the assumption that this Government will assent to a settlement of these claims on the basis of its contention before the Paris tribunal. To this you are instructed to say in reply that the United States regards the decision of the Paris tribunal as an authoritative declaration of international law, the effect of which is not even drawn in question by any decisions of a contrary character; which on the other hand is both sound in principle and sanctioned by uniform usage; and which has been most emphatically affirmed by the practice and conduct of Russia herself. The decision is directly applicable to the seizures in question, which are parallel in all essential particulars with the British cases referred to, and are entitled to the same consideration at the hands of the Russian Government.

"You are requested to lay the foregoing views before the Russian foreign office with the least practicable delay, and to insist that the question of the amount of the indemnity to be paid on account of such seizures is the only real question for discussion and should be taken up and disposed of with all reasonable despatch."

Mr Olney, Sec. of State, to Mr. Breckinridge, min. to Russia, April 25, 1896, MS. Inst. Russia, XVII. 444.

"In our own relations with Russia we have recently had an illustration of the absence of binding force of generally accepted principles of international law. I refer to the case of the James Hamilton Lewis and the reply of the Russian Government, referred to in the embassy's No. 177 of the 11th instant, in which the Russian Government, finding that the generally accepted principle of a jurisdiction extending 3. miles out to sea is inadequate to the defense of its case, claims that the limit of marine jurisdiction should be considered, in view of modern conditions, as extending to at least 5 miles from shore."

Mr. Peirce, chargé d'aff. ad. int. at St. Petersburg, to Mr. Hay, Sec. of
State, Nov. 9, 1898, For. Rel. 1898, 546, 549.

Award.

By an agreement concluded at St. Petersburg August 26/Sept. 8, 1900, claims for indemnity growing out of the seizures by the Russian cruisers were submitted to Mr. T. M. C. Asser, member of the council of state of the Netherlands. It was stipulated that the judgment in each case should be governed by the general principles of the law of nations and the spirit of international agreements applicable to the matter. With reference to this stipulation, the arbitrator observed that it was conceded that it should have no retroactive force, and that he should apply to the cases only the principles of the law of nations and the international treaties which were in force and obligatory on the parties at the time of the seizures.

The arbitrator found that the Cape Horn Pigeon, a whaling bark, having sailed from San Francisco, December 7, 1891, with a crew of thirty persons, under the command of a captain named Scullan, was, on September 10, 1892, while engaged in fishing for whales in the Sea of Okhotsk, on the high seas, seized by a Russian cruiser and taken to Vladivostok, where she was detained till October 1, 1902. In this case it was admitted that the commander of the Russian cruiser had been in error in his suspicions that the bark was engaged in an illicit pursuit, and the Russian Government offered to pay a proper indemnity, so that the duty of the arbitrator in this case was confined to fixing the amount. He awarded $38,750, with interest at six per cent from September 9, 1892, till the day of payment. The award included an allowance not only for damage actually suffered, but also for loss of the profits which would have been made in the natural course of things.

In the case of the schooner James Hamilton Lewis it was alleged by the claimants that the vessel was seized August 2, 1891, by a Russian cruiser, about 20 miles from the island of Cuivre; that the schooner was first compelled to lie to by a shot from the cruiser, and was then boarded by a Russian officer in a small boat, who, after taking the ship's papers back with him to the cruiser, returned with some armed men and ordered the master to go as a prisoner on board the cruiser, with all his crew except seven men; that the master refused to obey the order and made an effort to get away; that the cruiser then began a pursuit, and, overhauling the schooner, captured her, and conducted her, with her crew, to Vladivostok; that the schooner, with her equipment and cargo and the personal property of her master, was confiscated, and that her master, officers, and crew were held as prisoners and subjected to severe treatment. Damages were claimed to the amount of $101,336, with interest at 6% per annum.

On the part of the Russian Government it was maintained that the schooner, when first seen by the cruiser, was only 5 miles from the island of Medny or Cuivre, and that she was seized at a place only 11 or 12 miles distant from the shore; that it was to be inferred from a series of circumstances that the schooner had been guilty of hunting seals in Russian territorial waters, and that the Russian officers were therefore justified in pursuing her outside those waters and in seizing and confiscating her, together with the cargo, and that the imprisonment of the crew was caused by their resistance to the arrest and seizure of the ship.

On July 4, 1902, the agent of the United States, Mr. Peirce, made, by specific authority of his Government in reply to a question of the arbitrator, the following declaration:

"The Government of the United States claims, neither in Bering