raises no presumption of couseut, That Count Nesselrode did not isseut to 54° 45′ as fixing die point at which the line wus to enter Porthiod Channel. is shown in his report of the proceedings above quoted, that “we proposed to carry the southern frontier of our domains to latitude 54° 40′ and to make it abut upon the continent at Porthind Canal. of which the opening into the ovean is at the same latitude as Prince of Wales Island.”
This statement is contained in his letter[1] to Count Lieven reporting the conchision on that sume diy of the treaty with the United States, lixing the line at 54° 40′, so that his reference to that line, in con- nection with the British neyvotiations, has special significance,
In the second plice the reference to 54° 45′ in Sir CL Bayot’s state- ment Was Hot necessarily intended to refer to the mouth of Portland Channel, and from the context it appears Chit un entirely different meaning is the more probable one, The reference to 54° 45′ is made in connection with the exehision of British sovercienty over the inlets and small Inys between that point and 56-, and one of the reasons assigned for objecting to this is that the Russian-Americun Company possessed no establishinents on the mainland between those parallels. Tt will be observed, therefore. that the latitudes 56° and 54° 45′ are mentioned as tixing two points on the mainland between which the Russinu-Ainericats Company possessed no establishments, and there- fore 54° 45′ was necessurily not intended to be the point at which the proposed Russian line should center Portland Channel. whieh was not to be ut the point of the mainlind, but through the channel itself.
Sir C. Bagot had distinetly so interpreted Russia's proposal in his amended proposil offered during these newotintions “in answer to the proposal made by the Russian plenipotentiaries, that the line of demarcation drawn from the southern extremity of Prince of Wales Ishund fo the month of Portland Chouuel. thence ap the middle of this channel nutil (tt touches the mainland., etc.”[2]
In this connection it is important to note that the Russian proposal did not fix the exact location of the proposed line by astronomical locations, but simply that it should “follow Portland Channel to the mountains,” etc., so that Sir Charles Bagot’s reference to 54° 45′ was not intended as a correction of the Russian line.
