NETHERLANDS. 1782. TREATY OF PEACE AND COMMERCE. Concluded October 8, 1782; ratified by the Continental Congress Jan I. Amity. uary 22, 1783. ARTICLES. II. Most favored nation; Nether- III. Most favored nation; United IV. Religious liberty. V. Protection of vessels. VI. Disposition of property. VII. Employment of advocates. VIII. Detention of vessels. IX. Reciprocal privileges in business X. Merchant ships from enemy's port. XI. Contraband goods. XII. Confiscation of goods in enemy's ship. XIII. Injury by vessels of war. XV. Restoration of goods from privateers. XVI. Shipwrecks. XVII. Asylum for vessels. XVIII. Disposal of property in case of war. XIX. Letters of marque from foreign state. XX. Treatment of vessels. XXI. Consuls. XXII. Treaty with France. XXIII. Treaties with Barbary powers. XXIV. Contraband. XXV. Passports. XXVI. Treatment of vessels by pri vateers. XXVII. Employment of seamen. XIV. Responsibility of captains of pri- XXVIII. Regulation of refraction. vateers. XXIX. Ratification. Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands and the United States of America, to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticutt, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, desiring to ascertain, in a permanent and equitable manner, the rules to be observed relative to the commerce and correspondence which they intend to establish between their respective States, countries, and inhabitants, have judged that the said end cannot be better obtained than by establishing the most perfect equality and reciprocity for the basis of their agreement, and by avoiding all those burdensome preferences which are usually the sources of debate, embarrassment, and discontent; by leaving also each party at liberty to make, respecting commerce and navigation, such ulterior regulations as it shall find most convenient to itself; and by founding the advantages of commerce solely upon reciprocal utility and the just rules of free intercourse; reserving withal to each party the liberty of admitting at its pleasure other nations to a participation of the same advantages. This treaty was abrogated by the overthrow of the Netherlands Government in 1795. On these principles their said High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands have named for their Plenipotentiaries, from the midst of their assembly, Messieurs their Deputies for the Foreign Affairs; and the said United States of America, on their part, have furnished with full powers Mr. John Adams, late Commissioner of the United States of America at the Court of Versailles, heretofore Delegate in Congress from the State of Massachusetts Bay, and chief justice of the said State, who have agreed and concluded as follows, to witt: ARTICLE I. There shall be a firm, inviolable, and universal peace and sincere friendship between their High Mightinesses the Lords the States General of the United Netherlands and the United States of America and between the subjects and inhabitants of the said parties, and between the countries, islands, cities, and places situated under the jurisdiction of the said United Netherlands and the said United States of America, their subjects and inhabitants, of every degree, without exception of persons or places. ARTICLE II. The subjects of the said States General of the United Netherlands shall pay in the ports, havens, roads, countries, islands, cities, or places of the United States of America, or any of them, no other nor greater duties or imposts, of whatever nature or denomination they may be, than those which the nations the most favoured are or shall be obliged to pay; and they shall enjoy all the rights, liberties, priviledges, immunities, and exemptions in trade, navigation, and commerce which the said nations do or shall enjoy, whether in passing from one port to another in the said States, or in going from any of those ports to any foreign port of the world, or from any foreign port of the world to any of those ports. ARTICLE III. The subjects and inhabitants of the said United States of America shall pay in the ports, havens, roads, countries, islands, cities, or places of the said United Netherlands, or any of them, no other nor greater duties or imposts, of whatever nature or denomination they may be, than those which the nations the most favoured are or shall be obliged to pay; and they shall enjoy all the rights, liberties, priviledges, immunities, and excemptions in trade, navigation, and commerce which the said nations do or shall enjoy, whether in passing from one port to another in the said States, or from any one towards any one of those ports from or to any foreign port of the world. And the United States of America, with their subjects and inhabitants, shall leave to those of their High Mightinesses the peaceable enjoyment of their rights in the countries, islands, and seas, in the East and West Indies, without any hindrance or molestation. ARTICLE IV. There shall be an entire and perfect liberty of conscience allowed to the subjects and inhabitants of each party, and to their families; and no one shall be molested in regard to his worship, provided he submits, as to the public demonstration of it, to the laws of the country: There shall be given, moreover, liberty, when any subjects or inhabitants of either party shall die in the territory of the other, to bury them in the usual burrying-places, or in decent and convenient grounds to be appointed for that purpose, as occasion shall require; and the dead bodies of those who are burried shall not in any wise be molested. And the two contracting parties shall provide, each one in his jurisdiction, that their respective subjects and inhabitants may henceforward obtain the requisite certificates in cases of deaths in which they shall be interested. ARTICLE V. Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands and the United States of America shall endeavor, by all the means in their power, to defend and protect all vessells and other effects, belonging to their subjects and inhabitants, respectively, or to any of them, in their ports, roads, havens, internal seas, passes, rivers, and as far as their jurisdiction extends at sea, and to recover, and cause to be restored to the true proprietors, their agents, or attor nies, all such vessells and effects, which shall be taken under their jurisdiction: And their vessells of war and convoys, in cases when they may have a common enemy, shall take under their protection all the vessells belonging to the subjects and inhabitants of either party, which shall not be laden with contraband goods, according to the description which shall be made of them hereafter, for places, with which one of the parties is in peace and the other at war, nor destined for any place block [ad]ed, and which shall hold the same course or follow the same rout; and they shall defend such vessells, as long as they shall hold the same course or follow the same rout, against all attacks, force, and violence of the common enemy, in the same manner as they ought to protect and defend the vessells belonging to their own respective subjects. ARTICLE VI. The subjects of the contracting parties may, on one side and on the other, in the respective countries and States, dispose of their effects. by testament, donation, or otherwise; and their heirs, subjects of one of the parties, and residing in the country of the other, or elsewhere, shall receive such successions, even ab intestato, whether in person or by their attorney or substitute, even although they shall not have obtained letters of naturalization, without having the effect of such commission contested under pretext of any rights or prerogatives of any province, city, or private person: And if the heirs to whom such successions may have fallen shall be minors, the tutors or curators established by the judge domiciliary of the said minors may govern, direct, administer, sell, and alienate the effects fallen to the said minors by inheritance, and, in general, in relation to the said successions and effects, use all the rights and fullfill all the functions which belong, by the disposition of the laws, to guardians, tutors, and curators: Provided, nevertheless, that this disposition cannot take place but in cases where the testator shall not have named guardians, tutors, curators, by testament, codicil, or other legal instrument. ARTICLE VII. It shall be lawfull and free for the subjects of each party to employ such advocates, attorneys, notaries, solicitors, or factors as they shall judge proper. ARTICLE VIII. Merchants, masters and owners of ships, mariners, men of all kinds, ships and vessells, and all merchandizes and goods in general, and effects of one of the confederates, or of the subjects thereof, shall not be seized or detained in any of the countries, lands, islands, cities, places, ports, shores, or dominions whatsoever of the other confederate, for any military expedition, publick or private use of any one, by arrests, violence, or any colour thereof; much less shall it be permitted to the subjects of either party to take or extort by force anything from the subjects of the other party, without the consent of the owner; which, however, is not to be understood of seizures, detentions, and arrests which shall be made by the command and authority of justice, and by the ordinary methods, on account of debts or crimes, in respect whereof the proceedings must be by way of law, according to the forms of justice. ARTICLE IX. It is further agreed and concluded that it shall be wholly free for all merchants, commanders of ships, and other subjects and inhabitants of the contracting parties, in every place subjected to the jurisdiction of the two Powers respectively, to manage themselves their own business; and moreover, as to the use of interpreters or brokers, as also in relation to the loading or unloading of their vessells, and everything which has relation thereto, they shall be, on one side and on the other, considered and treated upon the footing of natural subjects, or, at least, upon an equality with the most favored nation. ARTICLE X. The merchant-ships of either of the parties, coming from the port of an enemy, or from their own, or a neutral port, may navigate freely towards any port of an enemy of the other ally: They shall be, nevertheless, held, whenever it shall be required, to exhibit, as well upon the high seas as in the ports, their sea-letters and other documents described in the twenty-fifth article, stating expressly that their effects are not of the number of those which are prohibited as contraband; and not having any contraband goods for an enemy's port, they may freely, and without hindrance, pursue their voyage towards the port of an enemy. Nevertheless, it shall not be required to examine the papers of vessells convoyed by vessells of war, but credence shall be given to the word of the officer who shall conduct the convoy. ARTICLE XI. If, by exhibiting the sea-letters and other documents described more particularly in the twenty-fifth article of this treaty, the other party shall discover there are any of those sorts of goods which are declared prohibited and contraband, and that they are consigned for a port under the obedience of his enemy, it shall not be lawful to break up the hatches of such ship, nor to open any chest, coffer, packs, casks, or other vessells found therein, or to remove the smallest parcell of her goods, whether the said vessell belongs to the subjects of their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands or to the subjects or inhabitants of the said United States of America, unless the lading be brought on shore, in presence of the officers of the court of admiralty, and an inventary thereof made; but there shall be no allowance to sell, exchange, or alienate the same until after that due and law full process shall have been had against such prohibited goods of contraband, and the court of admiralty, by a sentence pronounced, shall have confiscated the same, saving always as well the ship itselff as any other goods found therein, which are to be esteemed free, and may not be detained on prentence of their being infected by the prohibited goods, much less shall they be confiscated as lawfull prize: But, on the contrary, when, by the visitation at land, it shall be found that there are no contraband goods in the vessell, and it shall not appear by the papers that he who has taken and carried in the vessell has been able to discover any there, he ought to be condemned in all the charges, damages, and interests of them, which he shall have caused, both to the owners of vessells and to the owners and freighters of cargoes with which they shall be loaded, by his temerity in taking and carrying them in; declaring most expressly the free vessells shall assure the liberty of the effects with which they shall be loaded, and that this liberty shall extend itselff equally to the persons who shall be found in a free vessell, who may not be taken out of her, unless they are military men actually in the service of an enemy. ARTICLE XII. On the contrary, it is agreed that whatever shall be found to be laden by the subjects and inhabitants of either party, on any ship belonging to the enemies of the other, or to their subjects, although it be not comprehended under the sort of prohibited goods, the whole may be confiscated in the same manner as if it belonged to the enemy; except, nevertheless, such effects and merchandizes as were put on board such vessell before the declaration of war, or in the space of six, months after it, which effects shall not be, in any manner, subject to confiscation, but shall be faithfully and without delay restored in nature to the owners who shall claim them, or cause them to be claimed, before the confiscation and sale, as also their proceeds, if the claim could not be made but in the space of eight months after the sale, which ought to be publick: Provided, nevertheless, that if the said merchandizes are contraband, it shall by no means be lawfull to transport them afterwards to any port belonging to enemies. ARTICLE XIII. And that more effectual care may be taken for the security of subjects and people of either party, that they do not suffer molestation from the vessells of war or privateers of the other party, it shall be forbidden to all commanders of vessells of war and other armed |