pourraient surgir dans son canton et s'adressera au maître de police du district, si les différends sont des affaires de police. Il doit en outre surveiller les Tribunaux de Paix des villages, et se garder bien de s'ingérer dans les affaires des églises et des écoles de village, ni toucher aux revenus et terres qui dépendent d'autres établissemens pieux. Pour les biensfonds et propriétés assignées aux églises, aux bourgades, aux habitans, et à des établissemens d'utilité publique, ainsi que pour ceux appartenant en propriété, aux particuliers, il sera délivré à chacun à part des documens constatant le droit de propriété, et qui seront en outre enregistrés aux bureaux du pays.

Aucun Servien en général, et sans exception, ne pourra être persécuté ni molesté secrètement ou ouvertement avant d'avoir été cité et jugé pardevant les tribunaux.

Ma volonté Impériale ayant fixé et établi les réglemens ci-dessus mentionnés, ce firman Impérial a été rédigé expressément pour te les communiquer et t'a été envoyé orné de mon illustre Hat Impérial. Je t'ordonne donc de veiller à la sûreté de cette province Impériale, tant intérieurement qu'extérieurement, n'en ayant confié le commandement à toi et à ta famille qu'à la condition expresse d'obéir et de te soumettre aux ordres émanant de ma part, d'assurer la prospérité, d'employer tes efforts à aviser aux mesures d'assurer à tous les habitans le repos et la tranquillité, de respecter l'état, l'honneur, le rang, et les services de chacun, et de veiller surtout à ce que les clauses et conditions réglementaires cidessus énoncées reçoivent leur exécution en entier et pour toujours, en mettant ainsi tout ton zèle à attirer sur ma personne Impériale les prières et les bénédictions de toutes les classes des habitans du pays et à confirmer et justifier de cette manière ma confiance et ma bienveillance souveraines à ton égard.

De la même manière, j'ordonne à tous les Serviens en général de se soumettre aux ordres du Prince, en se conformant aux réglemens et aux institutions du pays, et de se conformer soigneusement aux convenances nécessaires. J'ordonne que ce Hatti-Chérif Impérial soit publié, afin que la nation en prenne connaissance; que chacun pénétré de plus en plus de reconnaissance pour ces concessions et bienfaits accordés par ma munificence souveraine à tous également, se conduise en toute circonstance de manière à mériter mon approbation, et que les clauses du présent réglement soient exécutés mot à mot et pour toujours, sans qu'on puisse en aucun tems y contrevenir.

Et toi, aussi, mon Vizir, tu l'auras pour entendu, et réuniras tes efforts à ceux du Prince pour l'exacte et stricte exécution des clauses de ce présent firman Impérial.

(Translation.)

December, 1838.

Statute in the shape of a Firman, granted by His Highness to the inhabitants of the Province of Servia.

To my Vizier Mouhliss Pasha (may he be glorified), and to the Prince of the Servian nation (Milosch Obrenovitz), may his end be happy.

IN virtue of the privileges and immunities granted to the inhabitants of my Province of Servia on account of their fidelity and of their devotion, and in conformity with the tenour of several Hatti-Sheriffs issued previously and at different dates on my part, it has become necessary to grant to the said province an internal administration, and a stable, special, and privileged national statute, on condition that the Servians punctually discharge for the future the duties of fidelity and obedience and pay exactly at the appointed periods to my Sublime Porte the tax, whereof the exaction has been fixed and determined upon.

In conformity then with the organic statute which I have just granted to the Servian nation, the dignity of Prince is conferred upon thee and upon thy family in recompense of thy fidelity and of thy devo

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tion, and agreeably to the contents of the Imperial berat which thou hadst previously received.

The internal administration of the province is entrusted to thy faithful care, and 4,000 purses of annual revenue are assigned unto thee for thine own disbursements. I confide unto thee, at the same time, the appointment of the different officers of the province, the execution of the established regulations and laws, the chief command of the garrisons necessary for the police and for preserving from all infraction the good order and tranquillity of the country, the duty of levying and receiving the public taxes and imposts, of giving to all the officers and function aries of the province the orders and directions for their conduct which may be requisite, of inflicting the punishments to which the guilty shall have been condemned according to the regulations, and I grant unto thee the right of pardoning, under suitable limitations, or at least of modifying the punishments.

These powers being entrusted unto thee, thou wilt consequently possess the absolute right, for the good administration of the country and of the inhabitants, whereof the duties are imposed upon thee, to select, nominate, and employ three persons, who, placed under thy orders, shall form the central administration of the province, and shall occupy themselves, one with the affairs of the interior, another with the finances, and the third with the legal affairs of the country.

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Thou shalt constitute a private chancery, which shall be under the direction of thy Lieutenant, the Pristavnik, whom thou shalt charge with the delivery of passports and with the direction of the relations subsisting between the Servians and the foreign authorities.dt duw basedfoll

There shall be formed and organized a Council composed of the Primates and of the persons of the greatest consideration among the Servians.

The number of the members of this Council shall be seventeen, one of whom shall be the President. No person who is not a Servian' by birth, or who shall not have received the character of a Servian in conformity with the statutes, who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five years, or who is not in possession of real property, can form part of the national Council, nor be reckoned among the number of its members.q1 The President of the Council, as well as the members, shall be selected by thee, on condition that they be perfectly well known among their fellow-citizens, by their capacity and their character for rectitude, for having rendered some services to their country, and for having merited general approbation. After the selection of the members of the Council and their nomination, and previously to their entrance into office, each and all of them, beginning with thyself, shall swear in the presence of the Metropolitan that they undertake to do nothing contrary to the interest of the nation, to the obligations which their offices impose upon them, to those of their conscience, or to my Imperial will; the sole duty of the Council will be to discuss the public interests of the nation, and to afford unto thee its services and its aid.

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No statute shall be adopted, no new tax levied without its having been in the first instance and previously adopted and approved by the Council. The allowances of the members of the Council shall be fixed by thee, by common consent and in a suitable manner, and when they shall have met together in the place where the central administration of the principality is fixed, the circle of their activity shall be confined and limited to the following matters.

To discuss and decide upon questions and matters concerning the institutions and laws of the country, justice, taxes, and other contributions.

To fix the allowances and emoluments of all the servants of the country, as likewise to create new offices if there should be occasion for them.

To estimate the expense annually requisite for the administration of the country, and to deliberate upon the means most suitable and best adapted for imposing and levying the contributions by which the expenditure is to be met.

And, finally, to deliberate upon the compilation of a law which shall

specify the number, the pay, and the service of the national troops entrusted with the maintenance of good order and tranquillity in the country.

The Council shall have the right of drawing up the draft of any law which shall appear to it to be beneficial, and of submitting it after the President and Secretary of the Council shall have affixed their signature thereto; on condition, 'nevertheless, that such law in no way affects the legal rights of the Government of my Sublime Porte, which is master of the country. In the questions debated in the Council, the decision which shall have had in its favour the majority of voices, shall be adopted.

The Council shall have the right to demand every year, in the course of March and April, from the three directors above mentioned, a summary. of their proceedings during the course of the year, and to examine their

accounts.

The three high functionaries, directors of internal affairs, of the finances, and of justice, as likewise the director of the chancery, so long as they exercise their functions, shall form part of the Council, after having taken the oath. The seventeen members of the Council cannot be dismissed without cause, unless it shall be made evident to my Sublime Porte that they have been guilty of some offence or infraction of the laws and statutes of the country.

There shall be chosen and nominated from among the Servians a Kapu Kiaja, who shall continue to reside at my Sublime Porte and carry on the affairs of the Servian nation, in conformity with my sovereign intentions, and with the national institutions and privileges of Servia.

The affairs of the police, and of the quarantine, the transmission of the Prince's orders to the authorities of the districts of the country, the direction of the establishments of public utility and of the post, the repair of the high roads, and the execution of the regulations respecting the troops of the country, shall all be within the province of the officer charged with the affairs of the Interior.

The officer charged with the administration of Finance will have to revise the accounts, to make commerce prosper, to look after and manage the public revenue, the amount of which shall be fixed by the laws of the country, to cause the laws with regard to commerce and financial affairs to be carried into effect, to settle the expenses of the country according to the accounts drawn up by the other officers. He will take care to keep the register of the public and private property, as well as of the real estates both of the country and of the Government, and of the management of the mines and of the forests, as also of the other affairs which relate to his department.

The director charged with the administration of Justice having also within his province the Department of Public Instruction and the diffusion of science, will have to examine and watch whether the sentences which have been passed have been executed or not, to hear and write down the complaints which may be made against the judges, to examine the qualification of those who are called upon to administer justice, and to cause them to deliver to him every three months the return of all the causes which have been decided during that period; to interest himself in the state and in the condition of the prisons, and to improve them. He will also occupy himself in forming the public character by the establishment of new schools and in encouraging instruction in necessary knowledge. He will have to inspect the hospitals and other establishments of public utility, and will put himself in correspondence with the administrators of the churches for the purpose of regulating all that relates to religion, to worship, and to the churches.

No person who is not a Servian by birth, or who may not have been naturalized, according to the fundamental laws of the country, as a Servian, can hold any of the three situations above mentioned.

The three directors in question shall be independent of each other'

in the exercise of their respective functions, none being subject to the other, and each shall have his office apart from the others.

The department of each of them shall be divided into several offices and sections, and every official paper emanating from any one of them on State business must be signed by each respectively; and, moreover, any case which may come within the province of the departments belonging to them respectively, cannot be acted upon without having been previously countersigned by the head of the department, and, in like manner, no order and no case can be acted upon without having been previously entered and registered in the books of the office to which they belong.

The three directors must, in the months of March and April in each year, make an abstract of all the business which has been carried on in. their own offices and in those which are subordinate to them, with a statement in detail, and present it, signed and sealed by them, as well as by the heads of departments, to be examined by the council of the province.

Composition of the Tribunals for Legal Matters.

It is my express will that the inhabitants of Servia, subjects of my Sublime Porte, shall be protected in their properties, their persons, their honour, and their dignity; and this same Imperial will is opposed to any individual whatever being deprived without trial, of his rights of citizen ship, or exposed to any vexation or punishment whatsoever : wherefore it has been judged consistent with the laws of social wants and with the principles of justice, to establish in the country several kinds of courts, in order to punish the guilty or to do justice to every individual, public or private, in conformity with the statutes, and after the right and justification, or, on the contrary, the fault and the criminality, of each shall have been decided by a trial.

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Accordingly, no Servian shall be exposed to the law of retaliation or any other punishment, corporal or pecuniary, that is to say fine, before that, in conformity with the terms of the law, he shall have been tried and condemned before a court. The established courts shall take cognizance, according to law, of matters under litigation, of commercial disputes, and shall examine into and determine upon definitively crimes and offences; and in no case shall the punishment of confiscation of property be inflicted.

The children and kinsmen of the guilty shall not be responsible for the fault of their fathers, nor punished for them. Three Courts are instituted for the administration of justice in Servia.

The first shall be established in the villages, and composed of old men of the place, and called Court of Peace.

The second shall be the Court of First Instance, established in each of the seventeen districts of which Servia is composed.

The third shall be the Court of Appeal at the seat of Government. The Court of Peace of each village shall be composed of a President and two Assessors, elected by the inhabitants of the place; and each of these village Courts shall not have cognizance of any matter above 100 piastres. Furthermore, they shall not inflict punishments exceeding an imprisonment of three days and ten blows. Causes can only be there pleaded and decided upon summarily and verbally. The sentences of the two other Courts alone shall be drawn up in writing. The village Court must send before the Court of the district of which it forms part, a suit of more than 100 piastres, and the trial of a charge which involves a punishment of more than ten blows, and likewise the plaintiff and the defendant.

The district Court, which is to take cognizance in the first instance of a case, shall be composed of a President, of three Members, and a sufficient number of Registers. The President and the Assessors of the Court of First Instance who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, shall not be entitled to be thereunto appointed. This Court shall have the right of examining into, and determining upon, as well law-suits as crimes, offences, and commercial disputes.

A delay of eight days shall be allowed to every person who, having lost his suit before the Court of First Instance of his district, may be desirous of appealing from it to the Court of Appeal. And if, within the space of eight days the said person who has lost his suit shall not have appealed to the Court of Appeal, the sentence of the district Court shall be valid and carried into effect. The Court of Appeal shall only have exclusive cognizance of the revision and decision of the causes and disputes which shall have already been brought before the Court of First Instance, and both the President of the Court of Appeal and also the four Members who shall be associated with him, must absolutely be thirty-five years old.

The members of the Servian Courts must be Servians by birth, or naturalized as such, in conformity with the statutes. As regards the suits which are carried from one Court to another, the President of each Court must deliver to the plaintiff and to the defendant an abstract of the sentence, under his hand and seal.

The members of the village Courts of Peace cannot be members of the two other Courts. If one of the members of these two Courts should die, his successor must be chosen from among the lawyers who shall have held offices in the Courts; and among these the senior in age or service shall be appointed in his turn.

No member of the Court shall be dismissed on the charge of having deviated from his duties before the matter shall be legally proved according to the statutes. When officers having military or civil rank, or priests, after their crime shall have been solemnly proved in consequence of a judgment according to the statutes, shall have been condemned to be punished, as corporal punishment cannot be inflicted on these persons, they shall be punished, either by severe reprimand, or by imprisonment, or by degradation, or, finally, by banishing them to another place. No officer of the principality, civil or military, high or low, shall take part in the business of the three Courts aforesaid, but they shall only be called upon to execute their sentences.

Commerce being free in Servia, every Servian may freely exercise it, and the slightest restriction upon that freedom shall never be allowed, unless the Prince, however, in concert with the Council of the country, should deem it a matter of urgency to impose a temporary restriction upon some article or other.

Every Servian, acting in conformity with the laws of the State, is at full liberty to sell his own goods and properties, to dispose thereof at pleasure, and to bequeath them by will. He cannot be deprived of this right except by a legal sentence of one of the Courts established in the country.

Every Servian who shall have a law-suit, must have recourse to the Court of the district which he inhabits; he can only be summoned before the Court of the district in which he resides.

All forced labour is abolished in Servia, and no forced labour shall be imposed upon any Servian.

The expense occasioned by the maintenance and keeping in order of the bridges and highways shall be apportioned among the municipalities of the villages in the neighbourhood.

In like manner as the central administration of the principality is entrusted with the direction and care of the main post-routes, of the bridges, and other buildings of public utility, individuals must also know that it is necessary on their part to direct their own zeal and attention to that object.

Thou shalt fix, in concert with the Council, and equitably, a daily payment for the poor who are employed on these works; in the same manner as thou shalt agree with the members of the Council to assign fixed annual salaries to all those who are employed in the different services of the principality of the country.

Any officer who for a legal cause shall be desirous of retiring after a certain number of years of service, shall be at liberty to do so; the suitable pension which he shall have deserved, shall be assigned to him after his retirement.