Throughout the proceedings leading up to this lease and in subse- quent references to it, the understanding on both sides is uniformly shown to have been that the boundary extended to 54° 40° and that the Porthuxl Channel of the boundary was the channel, through the entrance of which that parallel is found. The following extracts leave no doubt on that point:
Our Company Helieves that * * * it wenld be advisable to cede to the Hudson's Bay Company the exclusive right of teule on the shore of the conti- nent hetween Intitude 44° 40’ and the Cross Strait.e [Report of Count Newrelrode.)
In the letter of the Direetors of the Russian-American Company to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jannary 25, 185, the lease is referred to as ‘of # part of our possessions on the North West coast of American, a strip of Jand extending in a North Westerly direction from latitude 54° 40° north, ete.”
Tn the memorandum submitted by the Russian Minister of Finance tothe Vice Chancellor in his letter of March li, 167, he says of the lease that it relnted to ‘*that part of the mainland belonging to Russia whieh lies between Cape Speneer and 54° 4 northern Iuti- tude” ete."
He also save that the United Stites Minister on behalf of certain merchants in California has offered to leuse exactly the same territory leased to the Hudsons Bay Company, together with the ishimds, and this territory he deseribes a= rnnning part of the way ** southward along the above mentioned boundary (the houndary between Russian and English possessions) to latitude 54 40'™ ete,
In the testimony of Sir George Simpson before the Conmuittee of the Honse of Conmmons, (857, he stys:
There ts a margin of exart marked yellow in the map from 52° 40’ up te Cross Sound, whieh we have rented from the Russian-American Company for a term of years,”
Sir George Simpson also says in his Narrative of his Journey Round the World, IstI-2, speaking of the lease:
Russia, as the reader is, of course, aware, preseeses on the mainland, between fat. 34° 40’ and lat, GO°, a strip, ete, '
ol So. CoApp., sh MTL S.C. C. App, 38, oULS.C. C. App., 21. ‘UL S.C. App, 318. eT. 8.6. 'C. Ay tH.
