Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 8.djvu/58

 46 TREATY WITH THE NETHERLANDS. 1782. CONTRABAND. ARTICLE XXIV. wml S’¤<>d¤ The liberty of navigation and commerce shall extend to all sorts of
 * jl“£,g§,£,‘;‘§l‘ merchandizes, excepting only those which are distinguished_ under the

° name of contraband, or merchandizes prohibited: and under this denomination of contraband and merchandizes prohibited, shall be comprehended only warlike stores and arms, as mortars, artillery, with their artifices and appurtenances, fusils, pistols, bombs, grenades, gun-powder, saltpetre, sulphur, match, bullets and balls, pikes, sabres, lances, halberts, casques, cuirasses, and other sorts of arms; as also soldiers, horses, saddles, and furniture for horses; all other effects and merchandizes, not before specified expressly, and even all sorts of naval matters, however proper they may be for the construction and equipment of vessels of war, or for the manufacture of one or another sort of machines of war_by land or sea, shall not be judged contraband, neither by the letter, nor according to any pretended interpretation whatever, ought they, or can they be comprehended under the notion of effects prohibited or contraband. So that all effects and merchandizes, which are not expressly before named, may, without any exception, and in perfect liberty, be transported by the subjects and inhabitants of both allies, from and to places belonging to the enemy; excepting only the places which at the same time shall be besieged, blocked or invested ; and those places only shall be held for such, which are surrounded nearly by some of the belligerent powers. ARTICLE XXV. Regulations To the end that all dissention and quarrel may be avoided and pre- ¤‘6¤P¤¤¤¤8 l>¤¤¤· vented, it has been agreed, that in case that one of the two parties hap- °°"°‘ pens to be at war, the vessells belonging to the subjects or inhabitants 0f the other ally, shall be provided with sea-letters or passports, expressing the name, the property and the burthen of the vessell, as also the name and the place of abode of the master, or commander of the said vessell, to the end, that thereby it may appear, that the vessell really and truly belongs to subjects or inhabitants of one of the parties; which passports shall be drawn and distributed, according to the form annexed to this treaty; each time that the vessell shall return, she should have such her passport renewed, or at least, they ought not to be of more antient date than two years, before the vessell has been returned to her own country. It has been also agreed, that such vessells, being loaded, ought to be provided not only with the said passports or sea-letters, but algo with a general pasport, or with particular passports or manifests, or other publick documents, which are ordinarily given to vessells outward bound in the ports from whence the vessells have set sail in the last place containing a specification of the cargo, of the place from whence the vessell departed, and of that of her destination; or, instead of all these with certificates from the magistrates or governors of cities places and colonies, from whence the vessell came, given in the usual form, to the end that it may be known, whether there are any effects prohibited or contraband, on board the vessells, and whether they are destined to be carried to an enemy’s country or not; and in case any one judges proper to express in the said documents, the persons to whom the effects on board belong, he may do it freely, without, however, being bound to do