as amountainebain, Tf the coast meant, was the one now contended for, then such a fenr as that expressed by Mr, Cunning was a patent impossibility to him, and all the other negotiators.
The contre-projet submitted in accordance with these instrue- tions by Mr. Stratford Canning provided that:
* * * la dite ligne remontera aa Nord (? iste Prince of Wales appurtenant en entier 4 Ta Russie), le long de la Passe, dite Porthanit Channel, jusqu’d ce yu’ elle tonehe A la Cote de terre ferme au Aéme degré de Latitude Nord, depuis ce point ci, of ta ligne de dlémareation tonehe an Stine deer’, elle snivra le crete des Montagne dans une direction paralléle i la Cote, jusqu’an i4ime degré de Longitnile Ouest (Meine Méridien ).¢
Thus he designates it as “la eréte des Montagnes dans une direc- tion parallele a la Cote.” The treaty has it, ‘la eréte des montagnes situées parallélement a la Cote"?
Russia, while not willing to take the seaward hase of the moun- tains as the boundary, was willing to tuke the crest without any dis- tance limitation, and complained of the insistence of Great Britain. In his letter to Count Lieven of March 13, Isz5, Count Nesselrode arid:
Upon exchanging this instrument for that whieh is to be delivered to you by the Court of Lomlon, the Emperor wishes you, Monsivur le Comte, to remark to Mr, Canning that it would have been more in conformity, in the opinion of his Lnperial Majesty, both with the principles of mutual justice and with those of reciprocal accomodations, to vive as a frontier te the stop of coast which Russia ix to pemsess from the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude to the point of intersection of the one files) and forty-first degree of west longitude the crest of the miouutsins which follow the sinuasities of the eoast.
This stipulation, in fact, would have seenred to the two powers a perfeet equality of advantazes and a natural boundary. England woul lawwe found ber profit in it wherever the mountains are less than ten marine leagues from the sca, ail Russia wherever the distance separating them frou it is greater. [ft seems te us that, in the case of countries whore zeorraphy is still little known, no more ejnituble stipa- lation could be proposed. ¢
Count Lieven reported the reply as follows:
Mr. Canning, while rendering full justive to the intentions whieh determined! the colteessions granted by our court, whose vonduct on this oveasion bas borne indis- qitably the stamp of the fricwdly feelings of Elis Majesty, the Eiperor, toward Englaud, attempted to justify the persistence of the Britizh Goverment by assuring me that it arose solely from a sincere desire to prevent the recurrence of any «is agreeable diseussion in futare, and not from any intention af acquiring an ineredse
WUC, App., 213, tll S.C. App. 3. MOP SoC, App., 227.