MR. PRESIDENT,--I now conclude this examination. From a review of the
origin of the treaty, and the general considerations with regard to it,
we have passed to an examination of these possessions under different
heads, in order to arrive at a knowledge of their character and value.
And here we have noticed the existing government, which was found to
be nothing but a fur company, whose only object is trade; then the
population, where a very few Russians and Creoles are a scanty fringe
to the aboriginal races; then the climate, a ruling influence, with its
thermal current of ocean and its eccentric isothermal line, by which
the rigors of the coast are tempered to a mildness unknown in the same
latitude on the Atlantic side; then the vegetable products, so far as
observed, chief among which are forests of pine and fir waiting for
the axe; then the mineral products, among which are coal and copper,
if not iron, silver, lead, and gold, besides the two great products
of New England, “granite and ice”; then the furs, including precious
skins of the black fox and sea-otter, which originally tempted the
settlement, and remain to this day the exclusive object of pursuit;
and, lastly, the fisheries, which, in waters superabundant with animal
life beyond any of the globe, seem to promise a new commerce. All these
I have presented plainly and impartially, exhibiting my authorities as
I proceeded. I have done little more than hold the scales. If these
incline on either side, it is because reason or testimony on that side
is the weightier.