Page images
PDF
EPUB

Secondly. For all freight due and payable;

Thirdly. For the value of the cargo of merchandise, if any; Fourthly. For the slaves on board at the time of detention, according to the computed value of such slaves at the place of destination; deducting therefrom the usual fair average mortality for the unexpired period of the regular voyage; deducting also for all charges and expenses payable upon the sale of such cargoes, including commission of sale when payable at such port; and,

Fifthly. For all other regular charges in such cases of total loss; And in all other cases not of total loss, the claimant or claimants shall be indemnified:

First, for all special damages and expenses occasioned to the ship by the detention, and for loss of freight when due or payable; Secondly, a demurrage when due, according to the schedule annexed to the present Article;

Thirdly, a daily allowance for the subsistence of slaves, of one shilling, or one hundred and eighty reis for each person, without distinction of sex or age, for so many days as it shall appear to the Commission that the voyage has been, or may be, delayed by reason of such detention, as likewise;

Fourthly, for any deterioration of cargo or slaves;

Fifthly, for any diminution in the value of the cargo of slaves, proceeding from an increased mortality beyond the average amount of the voyage, or from sickness occasioned by detention; this value to be ascertained by their computed price at the place of destination, as in the above case of total loss;

Sixthly, an allowance of five per cent. on the amount of capital employed in the purchase and maintenance of cargo for the period of delay occasioned by the detention; and

Seventhly, for ail premium of insurance on additional risks. The claimant or claimants shall likewise be entitled to interest, at the rate of five per cent., per annum, on the sum awarded until paid by the Government to which the capturing ship belongs; the whole amount of such indemnifications being calculated in the money of the country to which the captured ship belongs, and to be liquidated at exchange current at the time of award

excepting the sum for the subsistence of slaves, which shall be paid at par, as above stipulated.

The two High Contracting Parties, wishing to avoid, as much as possible, every species of fraud in the execution of the Additional Convention of this date, have agreed, that if it should be proved, in a manner evident to the conviction of the Judges of the two nations, and without having recourse to the decision of a Commissioner of Arbitration, that the captor has been led into error by a voluntary and reprehensible fault, on the part of the captain of the detained ship, in that case only, the detained ship shall not have the right of receiving, during the days of her detention, the demurrage stipulated by the present Article. Schedule of demurrage or daily allowance for a vessel of 100 tons to 120 inclusive £ 5

121 do. 150 do. £6

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

ART. IX. When the proprietor of a ship suspected of carrying on an illicit trade in slaves, released in consequence of a sentence of one of the Mixed Commissions (or in the case, as abovementioned, of total loss) shall claim indemnification for the loss of slaves which he may have suffered, he shall in no case be entitled to claim for more than the number of slaves which his vessel was, by the Portuguese laws, authorised to carry, which number shall always be declared in his passport.

ART. X.-The Mixed Commission established in London by Article IX. of the Convention of this date, shall hear and determine all claims for Portuguese ships and cargoes, captured by British cruisers on account of the unlawful trading in slaves, since the 1st of June, 1814, till the period when the Convention of this date is to be in complete execution; awarding to them, conform

ably to Article IV. of the Additional Convention of this date a just and complete compensation, upon the basis laid down in the preceding Articles, either for total loss, or for losses and damages sustained by the owners and proprietors of the said ships and cargoes. The said Commission established in London shall be composed, and shall proceed, exactly upon the basis determined in Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the present regulation for the Commissions established on the Coast of Africa and the Brazils.

ART. XI.-It shall not be permitted to any of the Commissary Judges, nor to the Arbitrators, nor to the Secretary of any of the Mixed Commissions, to demand or receive, from any one of the parties concerned in the sentences which they shall pronounce, any emolument, under any pretext whatsoever, for the performance of the duties which are imposed upon them by the present regulation.

ART. XII.-When the parties interested shall imagine they have cause to complain of any evident injustice on the part of the mixed Commissions, they may represent it to their respective Governments, who reserve to themselves the right of mutual correspondence for removing, when they think fit, the individuals who may compose these Commissions.

ART. XIII.-In the case of a vessel detained unjustly, under pretence of the stipulations of the Additional Convention of this date, and in which the captor should neither be authorised by the tenor of the above-mentioned Convention nor of the instructions annexed to it, the Government to which the detained vessel may belong shall be entitled to demand reparation; and in such case, the Government to which the captor may belong binds itself to cause the subject of complaint to be fully examined, and to inflict upon the captor, if he be found to have deserved it, a punishment proportioned to the transgression which may have been committed.

ART. XIV. The two High Contracting Parties have agreed, that, in the event of the death of one or more of the Commissioners, Judges and Arbitrators composing the above-mentioned mixed Commissions, their post shall be supplied, ad interim, in

the following manner; on the part of the British Government, the vacancies shall be filled successively in the Commission which shall sit within the possessions of His Britannic Majesty, by the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor resident in that colony, by the principal Magistrate of the place, and by the secretary; and in the Brazils, by the British Consul and Vice-Consul resident in the city in which the Mixed Commission may be established. On the part of Portugal, the vacancies shall be supplied, in the Brazils, by such persons as the Captain-General of the Province shall name for that purpose; and, considering the difficulty which the Portuguese Government would feel in naming fit persons to fill the posts which might become vacant in the Commission established in the British possessions, it is agreed that in case of the death of the Portuguese Commissioners, Judge or Arbitrator, in those possessions, the remaining individuals of the above-mentioned Commission shall be equally authorised to proceed to the judgment of such slave-ships as may be brought before them, and to the execution of their sentence. In this case alone, however, the parties interested shall have the right of appealing from the sentence if they think fit, to the Commission resident in the Brazils; and the Government to which the captor shall belong shall be bound fully to defray the indemnification which shall be due to them, if the appeal be judged in favour of the claimants: it being well understood that the ship and cargo shall remain, during this appeal, in the place of residence of the first Commission before whom they may have been conducted. The High Contracting Parties have agreed to supply, as soon as possible, every vacancy that may arise in the above-mentioned Commissions, from death or any other contingency. And in case that the vacancy of each of the Portuguese Commissioners residing in the British possessions, be not supplied at the end of six months, the vessels which are taken there to be judged, after the expiration of that time, shall no longer have the right to appeal hereinbefore stipulated.

Done at London, the 28th of July, 1817.*

⚫ Hertslet, A Complete Collection of the Treaties and Conventions Vol. II., p. 105-121.

FEDERAL TRIBUNAL OF ARBITRATORS IN THE GERMANIC CONFEDERATION.

1834.

Modifications of the Federal Constitution of the Germanic Confederation, established by the Federal Act of 1815, were introduced by the Act of the Diet of Frankfort, of the 30th October, 1834, in consequence of the diplomatic Conferences held at Vienna in the same year, by the representatives of the different States of Germany.

ART. 1.-By the first Article of this Act it is provided that, in case of differences arising between the Government of any State and the Legislative Chambers, either respecting the interpretation of the local constitution, or upon the limits of the co-operation allowed to the Chambers, in carrying into effect certain determinate rights of the Sovereign, and especially in case of the refusal of the necessary supplies for the support of government, conformably to the constitution and the federal obligations of the State, after every legal and constitutional means of conciliation have been exhausted, the differences shall be decided by a Federal Tribunal of Arbitrators, appointed in the following manner :—

ART. 2.—The representatives, each holding one of the seventeen votes in the ordinary Assembly of the Diet, shall nominate, once in every three years, within the States represented by them, two persons distinguished by their reputation and length of service in the judicial and administrative service. The vacancies which may occur, during the said term of three years, in the Tribunal of Arbitrators thus constituted, shall be in like manner supplied as often as they may occur.

ART. 3. Whenever the case mentioned in the first Article arises, and it becomes necessary to resort to a decision by this

« PreviousContinue »