III. The fubjects and inhabitants of the faid United States of America fhall pay in the ports, havens, roads, countries, islands, cities, or places of the faid United Netherlands, or any of them, no other nor greater duties or impofts, of whatever nature or denomination they may be, than those which the nations the most favoured are or fhall be obliged to pay, and they fhall enjoy all the rights, liberties, privileges, immunities, and exemptions in trade, navigation, and commerce, which the faid nations do or fhall enjoy, whether in paffing from one port to another in the faid ftates, 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 fubjects and inhabitants, shall leave to thofe of their High Mightineffes the peaceable enjoyment of their rights in the countries, iflands, and feas in the Eaft and Weft Indies, without any hindrance or moleftation.

IV. There fhall be an entire and perfect liberty of confcience 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 admits as to the publick demonftration of it, to the laws of the country; there fhall be given, moreover, liberty, when any fubjects or inhabitants of either party fhall die in the territory of the other, to bury them in the ufual burying places, or in decent and convenient grounds to be appointed for that purpose, as occafion fhall require; and the dead bodies of those who are buried fhall not, in any wife, be molefted. And the two contracting parties fhall provide each one in his jurifdiction, that their refpective fubjects and inhabitants may henceforward obtain the requifite certificates in cafes of deaths in which they fhall be interested,

V. Their High Mightineffes the States General of the United Netherlands, and the United States of America, shall endeavour, by all the means in their power, to defend and protect all veffels and other effects belonging to their fubjects and inhabitants refpectively, or to any of them in their ports, roads, havens, internal feas, paffes, rivers, and as far as their jurifdiction extends at fea, and

to recover and cause to be restored to the true proprietors, their agents, or attornies, all fuch veffels and effects which shall be taken under their jurifdictions, and their veffels of war and convoys, in cafes when they may have a common enemy, fhall take under their protection all the veffels belonging to the fubjects and inhabitants of either party, which fhall not be laden with contraband goods, according to the defcription which fhall be made of them hereafter, for places with which one of the parties is in peace and the other at war, not deftined for any place blocked, and which shall hold the fame course or follow the fame route: and they fhall defend fuch veffels as long as they fhall hold the fame courfe or follow the fame route against all attacks, force, and violence of the common enemy, in the fame manner as they ought to protect and defend the veffels belonging to their own refpective fubjects.

VI. The fubjects of the contracting parties may, on one fide and on the other, in the refpective countries and ftates, difpofe of their effects by teftament, donation, or otherwise; and their heirs, subjects of one of the parties, and refiding in the country of the other or elsewhere, fhall receive fuch fucceffions, even ab inteftato, whether to perfon or by their attorney or fubftitute, even although they fhall not have obtained letters of naturalization, without having the effect of fuch commiffion contested under pretext of any rights or prerogatives of any province, city, or private perfon; and if the heirs, to whom fuch fucceffion may have fallen, fhall be minors, the tutors or curators established by the judge domieniary of the faid minors, may govern, direct, adminifter, fell, and alterate the effects fallen to the faid minors by inheritance, and in general, in relation to the faid fucceffions and effects, use all the rights and fulfil all the functions which belong to the difpofition of the laws, to guardians, tutors, and curators: provided, nevertheless, that this difpofition cannot take place but in cafes where the teftator fhall not have named guardians, tutors, curators, by teftament, codicil, or other legal inftrument.

VII. It

VII. It shall be lawful and free for the fubjects of each party to employ fuch advocates, attornies, notaries, folicitors, or factors, as they fhall judge proper.

VIII. Merchants, masters, and owners of fhips, mariners, men of all kinds, fhips, and veffels, and all merchandifes, and goods in general, and effects of one of the confederates, or of the fubjects thereof, fhall not be feized or detained in any of the countries, lands, islands, cities, places, ports, fhores, or denominations whatsoever of the other confederate for any military expedition, publick or private use of any one, by arrefts, violence, or any colour hereof; much lefs fhall it be permitted to the fubjects of either party to take or extort, by force, any thing from the fubjects of the other party without the confent of the owner: which, however, is not to be understood of seizures, descentions, and arrests, which fhall 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.

IX. It is farther agreed and concluded, that it shall be wholly free for all merchants, commanders of ships, and other fubjects and inhabitants of the contracting parties, in every place fubjected to the jurifdiction of the two powers refpectively, to manage themselves their own bufinefs and, moreover, as to the ufe of interpreters or brokers, as alfo in relation to the loading or unloading of their veffels, and every thing which has relation thereto, they fhall be, on one fide and on the other, confidered and treated upon the footing of natural fubjects, or, at least, upon an equality with the most favoured nation.

X. The merchant fhips 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 fhall be, nevertheless, held, whenever it fhall be required, to exhibit, as well upon the high feas as in the ports, their fea letters and other documents defcribed in the twenty-fifth article, ftating expreffly, 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

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may

may freely, and without handrance, pursue their voyage towards the port of an enemy. Nevertheless, it fhall not be required to examine the papers of veffels convoyed by veffels of war, but credence fhall be given to the word of the officer who fhall conduct the convoy.

XI. If, by exhibiting the fea letters and other documents described more particularly in the twenty-fifth article of this treaty, the other party fhall discover there are any of thofe forts of goods which are declared prohibited and contraband, and that they are configned for a port under the obedience of his enemy, it fhall not be lawful to break up the hatches of fuch fhip, nor to open any cheft, coffer, packs, cafks, or other veffels found therein, or to remove the smallest parcel of her goods, whether the faid veffel belongs to the fubjects of their High Mightineffes the States General of the United Netherlands, or to the fubjects or inhabitants of the faid United States of America, unlefs the lading be brought on fhore in presence of the officers of the Court of Admiralty, and an inventory thereof made, but there shall be no allowance to fell, exchange, or alienate the fame until after that due and lawful procefs fhall have been had against fuch prohibited goods of contraband, and the Court of Admiralty, by a fentence pronounced, fhall have confifcated the fame, faving always as well the ship itself as any other goods found therein, which are to be efteemed free, and may not be detained on pretence of their being infected by the prohibited goods, much less fhall they be confifcated as lawful prizes: but, on the contrary, when by the vifitation at land it shall be found that there are no contraband goods in the veffel, and it fhall not appear by the papers that he who has taken and carried in the veffel has been able to discover any there, he ought to be condemned in all the charges, damages, and interefts of them, which he fhall have caufed both to the owner of veffels and to the owners and freighters of cargoes with which they fhall be loaded, by his temerity in taking and carrying them in, declaring moft expreffly, the free veffels fhall affure the liberty of the effects with which they fhall be loaded, and that this liberty fhall extend itself equally to the perfons who fhall be found in a

free

free veffel, who may not be taken out of her, unless they are military men actually in the fervice of an enemy.

XII. On the contrary, it is agreed, that whatever fhall be found to be laden by the fubjects and inhabitants of either party on any fhip belonging to the enemies of the other, or to their fubjects, although it be not comprehended under the fort of prohibited goods, the whole may be confiscated in the fame manner as if it belonged to the enemy, except, nevertheless, fuch effects and merchandifes as were put on board fuch veffel before the declara tion of war, or within fix months after it, which effects fhall not be, in any manner, fubject to confifcation, but fhall be faithfully, and without delay, restored in nature to the owners who fhall claim them, or caufe them to be claimed, before the confifcation and fale, as alfo their proceeds, if the claim could not be made but in the space of eight months after the fale, which ought to be publick: provided, nevertheless, that if the said merchandises are contraband, it shall, by no means, be lawful to transport them afterwards to any port belonging to enemies.

XIII. And that more effectual care may be taken for the security of subjects and people of either party, that they do not fuffer any moleftation from the veffels of war or privateers of the other party, it fhall be forbidden to all the commanders of veffels of war and other armed veffels of the faid States General of the United Netherlands, and the faid United States of America, as well as to all their officers, fubjects, and people, to give any offence, or do any damage to thofe of the other party: and if they act to the contrary, they fhall be, upon the first complaint which shall be made of it, being found guilty after a juft examination, punished by their proper judges, and, moreover, obliged to make fatisfaction for all damages and interests thereof by reparation, under pain and obligation of their perfons and goods.

XIV. For farther determining of what has been faid, all Captains of privateers, or fitters out of veffels armed for war, under commiffion and on account of private perfons, fhall be held before their departure, to give fufficient caution before competent judges, either to be entirely responsible for the malverfations which they may