These instructions were sent as stated by him, ‘after fall consideration of Ue motives which are alleged by the Russian government for adhering te their last proposition.”
Me. Canning had also renml Count Nesselrode'’s letter ta Count Lieven from which the extract quoted above is taken, as appenurs by his letter of May 2, 1824. cu Count Lieven,
In consenting to the line up Portland Channel, Mr. Cunning had hefore him, therefore. Russias tint decision and arcuiients in support of it. in which Portland Channel was proposed by nwme and without au single reference to astronomical locations, about which no questions had arisen, it being merely described wenerully as offering a suitable natural partition selected on the broad evounds of the mutual con- venience of both sides: the United States-Russian Treaty tixing the line at HL) 40° and Count Nesselrode’s statement that this admission hy the United States that the Russian ** boundary shonld cone down ts faras 54 40°" was regarded as strengthening thetr arguments. By this he meant, ofcourse. the arguments for the same boundary at d4- 40’ on the nminland with Great Britain, for the loundary on the ishinds at that latitude had alremly been agreed to.
It cun hardly be questioned that under such cireumstances Mr. Canning’s assent to the tine through Portland Channel contemplated “urrying the line, to its entrance at least, along the 54° 4 parallel, and that there was in his mind no doubt that its entrance would he foul to coincide with that paratlel,
The bouudary line throueh Porth Channel was not thereafter the subject of diseussion in the negotiations: but the references to the Channel snd the part that it plivs in the boundary in the later neyotiations settle heyond dispute the understanding of the parties that a line at 54 40° would ran approximately through the center of the entrance of Portland Channel,
Sir C. Bagot in reporting the later newotiations to Mr. G. Canning, Aug. 12, 1824,[1] says that ove of the points of difference was the perpetual liberty of navigation and trade along the coasts of the /sxére. The /s/éer veferved to was deseribed in the proposed conventions before the negotiators in which the line started on Prince of Wales Ishind at 54° 40° and was then carried as follows:
the line of frontier. . . shall ascend northerly along the channel called Portland Channel, etc.
- ↑ U. S. C. App., 190.
