And whereas the said Convention has been duly ratified on both parts, and the respective ratifications of the same were exchanged 79 at Washington, on the eleventh day of the present month, by

John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State of the United States, and the Baron de Tuyll, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Imperial Majesty, on the part of their respective Governments:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, James Monroe, President of the United States, have caused the said Convention to be made public, to the end that the same, and every clause and Article thereof, may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the United States and the citizens thereof.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this twelfth day of January, in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five, and of the Independence of the United States the forty-ninth.

(Signed)

JAMES MONROE.

By the President:
(Signed)

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,

Secretary of State.

No. 13.]

No. 54.

Mr. S. Canning to Mr. G. Canning.—(Received March 2.)

ST. PETERSBURGH, February 1 (13), 1825. SIR: I avail myself of the return of the messenger Meates to inform you that yesterday evening I had my first conference with the Russian Plenipotentiaries, Count Nesselrode and M. de Poletica.

After mutually communicating our full powers, those of the Russian Plenipotentiaries being the same which were exhibited to Sir Charles Bagot, I stated that the "Projet" which I was prepared to give in,

agreeably to your instructions, respecting the differences growing out of the Imperial Ukase of September 1821 would be found to contain fresh proofs of the conciliatory spirit in which His Majesty's Government had directed this negotiation, that it was now time to bring the negotiation, either in one way or another, to its final conclusion, and, with this view, His Majesty's Ministers, in empowering me to offer a new Projet," ," had gone at once to the utmost extent of concession, justified by their sense of duty, in order to remove the objections of the Russian Government.

66

On reading the "Projet" some difficulties were started and some discussion took place; but I hold it unnecessary to trouble you with a more particular account of this conference as the Russian Plenipotentiaries were not then prepared to express any decided opinion as to those parts of the "Projet" which do not entirely come up to their proposals, and I have expressly reserved to myself the liberty of recording my expla nations in an official shape in the event of their persisting to object to any essential part of its contents.

Count Nesselrode said that he hoped to be ready with his answer in the course of a week. The Emperor's being again at Czarskoe-Zelo for two or three days may possibly occasion some delay.

I have, &c.

No. 6.]

No. 55.

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

FOREIGN OFFICE, March 15, 1825. SIR: Your despatches to No. 13 inclusive have been received and laid before the King.

I inclose to you a copy of a despatch received from Mr. Addington, by which you will see that the Government and Senate of the United States have ratified the Treaty of North-West American Boundaries and Navigation, which was negotiated at St. Petersburgh last year. It is hardly necessary to point out to you the additional force which the conclusion of this transaction gives to that part of your instructions on the same subject, which prescribes the demand for this country of terms as favourable as those which have been obtained by the United States. I am, &c.

80

(Signed)

GEORGE CANNING.

No. 56.

No. 15.]

Mr. S. Canning to Mr. G. Canning.—(Received March 21.)

ST. PETERSBURGH, February 17 (March 1), 1825. SIR: 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 third Article of the new "Projet," as it stood when I gave it in, into the third, fourth, and fifth 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 fourth Article had already appeared parenthetically in the third Article of the "Projet," and the whole of the fourth 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 Plenipotentiaries, I propose to leave one of them with Mr. Ward for the archives of the Embassy.

I have, &c.

No. 30.]

Mr. S. Canning to Mr. G. Canning.-(Received May 3.)

ST. PETERSBURGH, April 3 (15), 1825. SIR: I beg leave to trouble you with a few words in acknowledgment of your two despatches, the one containing a copy of a letter addressed by you to his Excellency Prince de Polignac on the subject of certain oyster fisheries lying between the Island of Jersey and the adjacent coast of France; and the other inclosing a despatch from Mr. Addington to you, announcing the ratification of the Convention concluded last year between Russia and the United States touching the navigation of the Pacific Ocean and other matters connected with that subject.

81 I trust that the objects to which the communications transmitted with those despatches relate have been found to be sufficiently secured by the Convention, which, under your instructions, I have signed, during my residence here, in concert with the Russian Plenipotentiaries.

With respect to the right of fishing, no explanation whatever took place between the Plenipotentiaries and myself in the course of our negotiations. As no objection was started by them to the Article which I offered in obedience to your instructions, I thought it unadvisable to raise a discussion on the question; and the distance from the coast at which the right of fishing is to be exercised in common passed without specification, and consequently rests on the law of nations as generally received.

Conceiving, however, at a later period that you might possibly wish to declare the law of nations thereon, jointly with the Court of Russia, in some ostensible shape, I broached the matter anew to Count Nesselrode, and suggested that he should authorize Count Lieven, on your invitation, to exchange notes with you declaratory of the law as fixing the distance at 1 marine league from the shore.

Count Nesselrode replied that he should feel embarrassed in submitting this suggestion to the Emperor just at the moment when the ratifications of the Convention were on the point of being dispatched to London; and he seemed exceedingly desirous that nothing should happen to retard the accomplishment of that essential formality. He assured me at the same time that his Government would be content, in executing the Convention, to abide by the recognized law of nations; and that, if any question should hereafter be raised upon the subject, he should not refuse to join in making the suggested declaration, on being satisfied that the general rule under the law of nations was such as we supposed.

Having no authority to press the point in question, I took the assurance thus given by Count Nesselrode as sufficient, in all probability, to answer every national purpose.

Referring to the American Treaty I am assured, as well by Count Nesselrode as by Mr. Middleton, that the ratification of that instrument was not accompanied with any explanations calculated to modify or affect in any way the force and meaning of its Articles. But I understand that, at the close of the negotiation of that Treaty, a Protocol, intended by the Russians to fix more specifically the limitations of the right of trading with their possessions, and understood by the American Envoy as having no such effect, was drawn up and signed by both parties. No reference whatever was made to this paper by the Russian Plenipotentiaries in the course of my negotiation with them; and you are aware, Sir, that the Articles of the Convention which I concluded depend for their force entirely on the general acceptation of the terms in which they are expressed.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

STRATFORD CANNING.