none of the islands was included in the lease. Count Nesselrode, one of the negotiators of the treaty of 1825, reported to the Emperor that the Russian American Company believed that it would be advisable to cede to the Hudson's Bay Company the exclusive right of trade on the shore of the continent between latitude 54° 40′ and the Cross Strait"." The territory covered by the lease is described in the Russian version of the lease as "the coast (the islands excluded) and the interior portion of the land situated between Cape

*

*

* *

Spencer * * and latitude 54 40'."5

In his narrative of a journey around the world, published in 1847, Sir George Simpson, the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who signed the lease on behalf of that company, stated: "Russia, as the reader is of course aware, possesses on the mainland, between lat. 54 40′ and lat. 60, only a strip, never exceeding thirty miles in depth". When testifying before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1857, Governor Simpson said: "There is a margin of coast marked yellow in the map [U. S. Counter Case, Atlas, No. 35] from 54 40′ up to Cross Sound, which we have rented from the Russian American Company for a term of years"."

Mr. R. M. Martin, in his defense of the Hudson's Bay Company, published in 1849, states that the territory of the Russian American Company "includes all the Pacific coast and islands north of 54-40"* Again he writes that the lease provided that "the Hudson's Bay Com pany should enjoy for ten years the exclusive use of the continent assigned to Russia by Mr. Canning in 1825, and extending from 54 40' north, to Cape Spencer”./

In the application, made in 1859 by the Russian American Company to the Russian Government, for the privilege to renew the lease, the territory is stated to be "a part of our possessions on the North West coast of America, a strip of land extending in a North Westerly direction from 54 40′ north”.9 In 1867 an American company attempted to enter into a lease with the Russian American Company,

as the term of the agreement with the Hudson's Bay Company was about to expire. The Russian company reported the circumstances to its government and stated that the area desired by the Americans was enclosed by the following limits:

"Beginning at the point on the Pacific Ocean where 54-40' north latitude intersects 134 30' of west longitude," thence up Chatham Strait to the head of Lynn Canal, thence north to the boundary, thence southward along that boundary to "latitude 54° 40′ and thence west to the point of beginning"." The report further stated that the said territory-excluding the islands-is exactly that which is now leased to the Hudson's Bay Company". It is manifest from

this statement that the parallel 54 40′ was considered the Russian boundary to the south and that the astronomical rather than the geographical description was intended to control the line of demarcation until it entered Portland Canal.

Major D. R. Cameron's report, published in 1878, is submitted in evidence by Great Britain together with all the appendix which accompanied it, except an extract from the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of 1869. An examination of this extract discloses that it is entirely at variance with the present claim of Great Britain as to the southern boundary and the course of the line to the head of Portland Canal. The expression used is" Portland Inlet through the center of which runs the boundary between the British and lately acquired territory of the United States." Attention is called in the British Case to the location of "Portland Inlet ". It is the name given to the main channel of the estuary, extending as far inland as Point Ramsden and bounded on the north and west by Wales and Pearse Islands. The boundary line, if drawn along the parallel 54° 40', would enter this inlet.

The location of this portion of the boundary seems to have remained substantially unquestioned until the meeting of the Joint High Commission in 1898. It is true that theories and claims of an extravagant character had from time to time been advanced by Canadian writers in support of changing the accepted boundary and causing it to run up Clarence Strait and Behm Canal, up Clarence Strait and Ernest

@ U. S. Counter Case. App. p. 34; see also Ibid., pp. 178, 204, 262.

Sound, or up the eastern side of Revilla Gigedo Island. These claims, which will be later discussed, originated in British Columbia and were never adopted or apparently even countenanced by the British Gov

ernment.

In 1885 Mr. Bayard, the Secretary of State, wrote Mr. Phelps, the United States minister at London, upon the subject of the Alaskan boundary. He referred to the fact that some recent British (presumably meaning Canadian) geographers had deflected the line from the main channel known as Portland Inlet" and caused it to pass through "a narrow and intricate channel lying north-westward from Portland Inlet." Secretary Bayard proceeded to show the untenable character of such a claim and the unwarranted deflection of the line to Pearse Canal, and added, "It is not, therefore, conceived that this water part of the boundary line can ever be called in question between the two Governments.”

a

Mr. Phelps enclosed this letter on January 19, 1886, to the Marquis of Salisbury. To the assumption on the part of the United States that the boundary, which had been unquestioned for sixty years and accepted as passing east of Pearse and Wales Islands, was not in controversy, the British Government made neither denial nor comment, leaving the United States for over twelve years to conclude that its statement as to the southern boundary was in accord with the views of Great Britain. Having no indication from the British Government that it did not fully agree with the statement made by Mr. Bayard, and having received apparent confirmation of that government's acquiescence, in the fact that the joint survey of 1893 and 1894 commenced its operations at the head and not at the entrance of Port land Canal, the United States in 1896 erected store houses on Pearse and Wales islands and the western shore of the upper reach of Portland Canal."

Captain Gaillard, in charge of this work, visited during its prosecution the British port of Port Simpson near the entrance to Portland Canal, making no secret of the purpose of his visit to the region. On November 3, 1896, he made his report, which was transmitted to Congress and by that body ordered printed as a public document on

a British Case, App., p. 250.

Ibid., p. 251.

Ibid., p. 253, footnote.

d Ibid., p. 301.

December 11, 1896. Yet to these sovereign acts of the United States the British Government made neither protest nor objection till some time after the course of the southern boundary line had been brought in question by the British High Commissioners in 1898.

It may be even a matter for conjecture whether the British representatives on the commission of 1898 could, under their instructions, have committed their government to any claim advanced by them in regard to Portland Canal. There is no intimation in their instructions that the line from the point of beginning to the head of Portland Canal was in question. On the contrary they are informed that "from Portland Channel to Glacier Bay" there are difficulties in tracing the line; and “that steps should be taken as early as possible for arriving at an agreement as to the intention of the parties to the Treaty of 1825 as to how the boundary line along the strip from Portland Canal to Mount St. Elias should be drawn." e

Four years after the meeting of the Joint High Commission, the Marquis of Lansdowne at the instance of the Canadian Privy Council directed the British ambassador at Washington to make inquiry of the United States Government "as to the nature of these storehouses, and the reason for their erection in this territory the title to which was, and still is, the subject of diplomatic negotiations between Great Britain and the United States "." (The language of the Report of the Privy Council and of Lord Pauncefote's despatch is the same.)

To the inquiry of the British ambassador Secretary Hay replied, February 28, 1902. stating that he was not aware that the British Government had "ever advanced any claim to this territory before the signature of the Protocol of May 30, 1898, preliminary to the appointment of the Joint High Commission". On September 6, 1902, the British chargé d'affaires addressed a note to the acting Secretary of State calling his attention to a note of the British minister, dated June 5, 1891, and stating that it raised an issue as to the boundary in the region where the storehouses had been erected. An examination of the note referred to shows it to consist of a quotation from a

@ British Case, App. p. 300; U. S. Counter Case, App. p. 240.

b British Case, App., pp. 297–298.

report of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey stating that acts of Congress had provided for a preliminary survey of the whole of the Alaskan boundary, from Cape Muzon to the Arctic Ocean, and a reminder, made at the instance of the Dominion Government, that the question of the boundary at this point is, at the present time, the subject of some difference of opinion and of considerable correspondence", and could only be determined by an international commission. The only "point" at which the boundary at that time had been the subject of "considerable correspondence" between the two governments was the Stikine River. There had been no stated difference of opinion then as to the location of Portland Canal. In fact the note of Sir Julian Pauncefote, having failed to specify in what particular there was disagreement between the governments, was considered by the United States so general in character as to require no answer, and no reply was made by the Secretary of State to his note.

The United States, therefore, contends that the storehouses upon Pearse and Wales Islands were erected prior to a time when that territory was a subject of diplomatic negotiations; that previous to that time the British Government had not given any intimation that it questioned the universally accepted boundary between Cape Muzon and the head of Portland Canal; and that, in fact, that government had never officially made any claim to Pearse and Wales Islands until the submission of its printed Case to this Tribunal, unless the verbal and unrecorded claims of the British High Commissioners in 1898 can be termed official.

The entire contention set out in the British Case as to the location of the southern boundary rests upon four points: (1) that the parallel 54° 40′ was not to be considered in drawing the southern boundary from Cape Muzon to Portland Canal; (2) that Vancouver's narrative was before the negotiators and therefore the nomenclature used therein must be followed: (3) that Sir Charles Bagot spoke of the coast between 56 and 54° 45' as necessary to Great Britain; and (4) that the United States on taking possession of the territory in 1867 failed to establish a military post on Wales Island but instead erected one on Tongass Island, northwest of Pearse Canal.

The United States contends that it has shown that the course of the southern boundary was along 54° 40′ to the entrance of Portland Canal (or Inlet), and that such course was almost universally recog