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Rh nevertheless, directly responsible for the engagements which they contract by the present act, and guarantee the execution thereof. The powers promise to encourage, aid and protect such national associations and enterprises due to private initiative as may wish to co-operate in their possessions in the repression of the slave-trade, subject to their receiving previous authorization, such authorization being revocable at any time, subject also to their being directed and controlled, and to the exclusion of the exercise of rights of sovereignty.

The contracting powers pledge themselves, unless this has already been provided for by laws in accordance with the spirit of the present article, to enact or propose to their respective legislative bodies, in the course of one year at the latest from the date of the signing of the present general act, a law rendering applicable, on the one hand, the provisions of their penal laws concerning grave offenses against the person, to the organizers and abettors of slave-hunting, to those guilty of mutilating male adults and children, and to all persons taking part in the capture of slaves by violence; and, on the other hand, the provisions relating to offenses against individual liberty, to carriers and transporters of, and to dealers in, slaves.

The accessories and accomplices of the different categories of slave captors and dealers above specified shall be punished with penalties proportionate to those incurred by the principals.

Guilty persons who may have escaped from the jurisdiction of the authorities of the country where the crimes or offenses have been committed shall be arrested either on communication of the incriminating evidence by the authorities who have ascertained the violation of the law, or on production of any other proof of guilt by the power in whose territory they may have been discovered, and shall be kept, without other formality, at the disposal of the tribunals competent to try them.

The powers shall communicate to one another, with the least possible delay, the laws or decrees existing or promulgated in execution of the present Article.

Slaves liberated in consequence of the stoppage or dispersion of a convoy in the interior of the continent, shall be sent back, if circumstances permit, to their country of origin; if not, the local authorities shall facilitate, as much as possible, their means of living, and if they desire it, help them to settle on the spot.

Any fugitive slave claiming, on the continent, the protection of the signatory powers, shall receive it, and shall be received in the camps and stations officially established by said powers, or on board of the vessels of the State