Part 24

The campaign is ended for this year, and nothing material has passed. There are some politicians who think the winter negotiations will produce peace, and if they do, I think the king of Prussia will not then hesitate to enter into a treaty with us. As to the Court of Vienna, you know my commission only authorised me to treat with the Emperor, who has been since the beginning of April with his armies in Bohemia; however, while I was at that Court our affairs could not be advanced there, because both the Emperor and the King of Prussia stand in the same predicament with respect to Hanover, which has now increased its army to near thirty thousand men. The Emperor wishes to keep Hanover neuter, and the King is exerting all his political abilities to have the Hanoverian army active on his side. This winter will, it is generally believed, decide the part that Hanover will take if the war continues in Germany, in which case the opposite party will soon join issue with us; in the meantime, we must have patience, as at present neither side can in prudence enter into any measures with us, unless France makes a point of it.

With the advice of the French Ambassador at Vienna I shall remain here, as being a central place for Germany, until we can see with more precision how to direct our future operations. I understood from his Excellency Count de Vergennes, when I saw him at Versailles last month, that he thought our business by and by would go forward at Vienna. As the Court of Versailles can at any time influence that of Vienna with respect to us, I presume some plan of that sort is now in agitation, of which I expect due information from his Excellency the Baron de Breteuil at Vienna; but I must remind you, that under my present commission, I have no authority to conclude, or even to treat of any thing with this Court. This I explained fully to you in my letters last winter, which you must have received.

I am, Gentlemen, with the highest esteem and regard, &c.

WILLIAM LEE.

[55] For letters from M. Van Berckel and M. Dumas on this subject, see the Correspondence of the Commissioners in France. Vol. I. pp. 456, 457, 476, 480, 488.

PLAN OF A TREATY WITH HOLLAND.

_Plan of a Treaty of Commerce, to be entered into between their High Mightinesses the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland, and the Thirteen United States of North America_.

The parties being willing to fix in an equitable and permanent manner the rules, which ought to be followed relative to the correspondence and commerce, which they desire to establish between their respective countries, states, subjects, and people, have judged, that the said end could not be better attained, than by taking for the basis of their agreement the most perfect equality and reciprocity, and by carefully 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 interior regulations as it shall find most convenient to itself, and by founding the advantage 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.

On these principles the parties above mentioned have, after mature deliberation, agreed to the following articles.

ARTICLE I.

There shall be firm, inviolable and universal peace and sincere friendship between their High Mightinesses, the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland, and the United States of North America, and the subjects and people of the said parties; and between the countries, islands, cities, and towns situated under the jurisdiction of the said United States of Holland, and the said United States of America, and the people and inhabitants thereof, of every degree, without exception of persons or places.

ARTICLE II.

The subjects of the United States of Holland shall pay no other duties or imposts in the ports, havens, roads, countries, islands, cities, and towns of the said United States of America, or any of them, than the natives and inhabitants thereof shall pay, but shall enjoy all the other rights, liberties, privileges, immunities, and exceptions in trade, navigation, and commerce, in passing from one part thereof to another, and in going to and from the same, from and to any part of the world, which the said natives or inhabitants enjoy.

ARTICLE III.

The subjects, people, and inhabitants of the said United States of America, or any of them, shall not pay any other duties or imposts in the ports, havens, roads, countries, islands, cities, or towns, subject to their said High Mightinesses, the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland, than the natives and inhabitants of those countries, islands, cities, or towns shall pay; but shall enjoy all the other rights, liberties, privileges, immunities, and exemptions in trade, navigation, and commerce, in passing from one part thereof to another, and in going to and from the same, and to and from any part of the world, which the said natives or inhabitants enjoy.

ARTICLE IV.

The subjects and people of each of the aforesaid confederates, and the inhabitants of countries, islands, cities, or towns belonging to either of the parties, shall have liberty freely and securely, without license or passport, general or special, by land or by water, or in any other way, to go into the kingdoms, countries, provinces, lands, islands, cities, villages, towns, walled or unwalled, or fortified ports, dominions, or territories whatsoever, of the other confederate, there to enter, and return from thence, to abide there or pass through the same, and in the meantime to buy and purchase as they please all things necessary for their subsistence and use, and they shall be treated with all mutual kindness and favor; provided, however, that in all matters they behave and comport themselves conformably to the public laws, statutes, and ordinances of such kingdom, country, province, island, city, or town, in which they may be and live, and converse with each other friendly and peaceably, and keep up reciprocal concord by all manner of good understanding.

ARTICLE V.

The subjects and people of each of the parties, and the inhabitants of the countries, islands, cities, or towns, subject or belonging to either of them, shall have leave and license to come with their ships or vessels, as also with the goods and merchandise on board the same, (the trade or importation whereof is not prohibited by the laws or ordinances of either country) to the lands, countries, cities, ports, places, and rivers of either side, to enter into the same, to resort thereto, to remain and reside there without any limitation of time; also to hire houses, or to lodge with other people, and to buy all kinds of lawful merchandise and goods where they think fit, from the first workman or seller, or in any other manner, whether in the public market for the sale of things, in mart towns, fairs, or wheresoever those goods or merchandise are manufactured or sold. They may also lay up, and keep in their magazines or warehouses, and from thence expose to sale, merchandise or goods brought from other ports; neither shall they in any wise be obliged, unless willingly and of their own accord, to bring their said goods or merchandise to the marts or fairs; on this condition, however, that they shall not sell the same by retail or in shops, or anywhere else. But they are not to be loaded with any impositions or taxes on account of the said freedom, or for any other cause whatsoever, except what are to be paid for their ships, vessels, or goods, according to the laws and customs received in each country, agreeable to the stipulations in this treaty. And, moreover, they shall have free leave and permission, without any kind of hinderance or molestation, to remove themselves, also if they shall happen to be married, their wives and children, if they have any, and their servants, if they are willing to go with their masters, together with their merchandise, wares, goods, and effects, either bought or imported, whatsoever or whithersoever they shall think fit, out of the bounds of each country, by land or by sea, on the rivers and fresh waters, notwithstanding any law, privilege, grant, immunity, or custom, in any wise importing the contrary.

ARTICLE VI.

In the business of religion, there shall be entire liberty allowed to the subjects of each of the confederates, as also if they are married, to their wives and children; neither shall they be compelled to go to the churches, or to be present at the religious worship in any other place. On the contrary, they may, without any kind of molestation, perform their religious exercises after their own way, in churches, chapels, or houses, with open doors; moreover, liberty shall be granted to bury the subjects of either party, who die in the territories of the other, in convenient and decent places to be appointed for that purpose, as occasion shall require; neither shall the dead bodies of those that are buried be any ways molested.

ARTICLE VII.

Furthermore, it is agreed and concluded as a general rule, that all and singular the subjects of their said High Mightinesses, the Seven United Provinces of Holland, and of the said United States of America in all countries and places subject to their power on either side as to all duties, impositions, or customs whatsoever, concerning goods, merchandise, persons, ships, vessels, freights, seamen, navigation, and commerce, shall use and enjoy the same privileges, liberties, and immunities at least, and have the like favor in all things, as well in the courts of justice as in all such things as relate either to commerce, or to any other right whatever, which any foreign nation the most favored has, uses, and enjoys, or may hereafter have, use, and enjoy.

ARTICLE VIII.

Their High Mightinesses, the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland, shall endeavor, by all means in their power, to protect and defend all vessels and the effects belonging to the subjects, people, or inhabitants of the said United States of America, or any of them, being in their ports, havens, or roads, or on the seas near to their countries, islands, cities, or towns, and to recover and cause to be restored to the right owners, their agents, or attornies, all such vessels and effects, which shall be taken within their jurisdiction, and their ships of war, or any convoys sailing under their authority shall, upon all occasions, take under their protection all vessels belonging to the subjects, people, or inhabitants of the said United States of America, or any of them, or holding the same course, or going the same way, and shall defend such vessels as long as they hold the same course, or go the same way, against all attacks, force, and violence, in the same manner as they ought to protect and defend vessels belonging to the subjects of their said High Mightinesses, the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland.

ARTICLE IX.

In like manner, the said United States of America, and their ships of war sailing under their authority, shall protect and defend, conformable to the tenor of the preceding article, all the vessels and effects belonging to the subjects of the said Seven United Provinces of Holland, and use all their endeavors to recover and cause to be restored to their right owners, the said vessels and effects, that shall have been taken within the jurisdiction of the said United States of America, or any of them.

ARTICLE X.

Their High Mightinesses, the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland, will employ their good offices and interposition with the King or Emperor of Morocco or Fez, the Regency of Algiers, Tunis, or Tripoli, or with any of them, and also with every other Prince, State, or Power on the coast of Barbary in Africa, and the subjects of the said King, Emperor, States, and Powers, and each of them, in order to provide as fully as possible for the benefit, conveniency, and safety of the said United States and each of them, their subjects, people, and inhabitants, and their vessels and effects, against all violence, insult, attacks, or depredations on the part of the said Princes or States of Barbary, or their subjects.

ARTICLE XI.

It shall be lawful and free for merchants and others, being subjects either of the said Seven United Provinces of Holland, or of the said United States of America, by will or any other disposition made either during the time of sickness, or at any other time before, or at the point of death, to devise or give away to such person or persons as to them shall seem good, their effects, merchandise, money, debts, or goods, movable or immovable, which they have, or ought to have, at the time of their death, or at any time before, within the countries, islands, cities, towns, or dominions belonging to either of the said contracting parties; moreover, whether they die, having made their will, or intestate, their lawful heirs, executors, or administrators, residing in the dominions of either of the contracting parties, or coming from any other part, although they be not naturalised, and without having the effect of this concession contested or impeded, under pretext of any rights or prerogatives of provinces, cities, or private persons, shall freely and quietly receive and take possession of all the said goods and effects whatsoever, according to the laws of each country respectively; the wills and rights of entering upon the inheritances of persons dying intestate must be proved according to law, in those places where each person may happen to die, as well by the subjects of one as of the other contracting party, any law, statute, edict, custom, ordinance, _droit d’aubaine_, or any other right whatsoever notwithstanding.

ARTICLE XII.

The goods and estates of the people and subjects of the one contracting party, that shall die in the countries, islands, lands, cities, or towns of the other, shall be preserved for the lawful heirs and successors of the deceased, the right of any third person always reserved, and such goods and effects, together with the papers, writings, and books of accounts of such deceased persons, shall be put into an inventory by the Consul or other public Minister of such party, whose subject has so died, and put into the hands of two or three reputable merchants, that shall be named by such Consul or public Minister, to be kept for the heirs, executors, administrators, or creditors of the deceased, nor shall any judiciary whatever inter-meddle therein, until applied to according to the forms of law by such heir, executor, administrator, or creditor.

ARTICLE XIII.

It shall be lawful and free for the subjects of each party to employ such advocates, attornies, notaries, solicitors, or factors, as they shall think fit; to which end, the said advocates and others above mentioned may be appointed by the ordinary judges if it be needful, and the judges be thereunto required.

ARTICLE XIV.

Merchants, masters of ships, owners, mariners, men of all kinds, ships and vessels, and all merchandise and goods in general, and effects of one of the confederates or of the subjects thereof, shall not on any public or private account, by virtue of any general or special edict be seized or detained in any of the countries, lands, islands, cities, towns, ports, havens, shores, or dominions whatsoever of the other confederate for public use, for warlike expeditions, or for any other cause, and much less for the private use of any one shall they be detained by arrests, compelled by violence or under any color thereof, or in anywise molested or injured. Moreover, it shall be unlawful for the subjects of either party to take anything, or to extort it by force from the subjects of the other party, without the consent of the person to whom it belongs, and it be paid for with ready money; which, however, is not to be understood of that detention and seizure, which shall be made by the command and authority of justice, and by the ordinary methods of account of debt or crimes, in respect whereof, the proceedings must be by way of law, according to the forms of justice.

ARTICLE XV.

It is further agreed and concluded, that it shall be wholly free for all merchants, commanders of ships, and other subjects of their High Mightinesses, the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland, in all places subject to the dominion and jurisdiction of the said United States of America, to manage their own business themselves, or to employ whomsoever they please to manage it for them; nor shall they be obliged to make use of any interpreter or broker, nor to pay them any salary or fees unless they choose to make use of them; moreover, masters of ships shall not be obliged, in loading or unloading their ships, to make use of those workmen that may be appointed by public authority for that purpose; but it shall be entirely free for them to load or unload their ships by themselves, or to make use of such persons in loading or unloading the same as they shall think fit, without paying any fees or salary to any other whomsoever; neither shall they be forced to unload any sort of merchandise, either into other ships, or to receive them into their own, or to wait for their being loaded longer than they please, and all and every the subjects, people, and inhabitants of the said United States of America, shall reciprocally have and enjoy the same privileges and liberties in all places whatsoever, subject to the dominion and jurisdiction of their High Mightinesses, the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland.

ARTICLE XVI.

A dispute arising between any commander of the ships on either side and his seamen, in any port of the other party, concerning wages due to the said seamen or other civil causes, the magistrate of the place shall require no more from the person accused, than that he give to the accuser a declaration in writing, witnessed by the magistrate, whereby he shall be bound to answer that matter before a competent judge in his own country, which being done, it shall not be lawful for the seamen to desert the ship, or to hinder the commander from prosecuting his voyage. It moreover shall be lawful for the merchants on both sides, in the places of their abode or elsewhere, to keep books of their accounts and affairs in any language or manner, and on any paper they shall think fit, and to have an intercourse of letters in such language or idiom as they shall please, without any search or molestation whatever; but if it should happen to be necessary for them to produce their books of accounts for deciding any dispute or controversy, in such case they shall bring into Court the entire books or writings, but so as that the judge, or any other person may not have liberty to inspect any other articles in the said books, than such as shall be necessary to verify and authenticate the matter in question, or such as shall be necessary to give credit to the said books; neither shall it be lawful under any pretence, to take the said books or writings forcibly out of the hands of the owners, or to retain them, the case of bankruptcy only excepted.

ARTICLE XVII.

The merchant ships of either of the parties, which shall be making into a port of the other party, and concerning whose voyage and the species of goods on board her there shall be any just grounds of suspicion, shall be obliged to exhibit, as well upon the high seas as in the ports and havens, not only her passports, but likewise certificates expressly showing that her goods are not of the number of those, which have been prohibited as contraband.

ARTICLE XVIII.

If, by exhibiting the abovesaid certificates, mentioning the particulars of the things on board, the other party should discover there are any of those sorts of goods, which are prohibited and declared contraband by this treaty, and consigned for a port under the obedience of his enemies, it shall not be lawful to break up the hatches of such ship, or to open any chest, coffer, pack, cask, or any other vessel or package found therein, or to remove the smallest particle of the goods, whether such ship belongs to the subjects of their High Mightinesses, the States of the Seven United Provinces of Holland, or to the subjects or inhabitants of the said United States of America, unless the loading be brought on shore in presence of the officers of the Court of Admiralty, and an inventory thereof made; but there shall be no allowance to sell, exchange, or alienate the same in any manner, until after that due and lawful process shall have been had against such prohibited goods, and the Court of Admiralty respectively shall, by a sentence pronounced, have confiscated the same; saving always as well the ship itself, as any other goods found therein, which by this treaty are to be esteemed free; neither may they be detained on pretence of their being, as it were, infected by the prohibited goods, much less shall they be confiscated as lawful prize; but if not the whole cargo, but only part thereof shall consist of prohibited or contraband goods, and the commander of the ship shall be ready and willing to deliver them to the captor who has discovered them, in such case, the captor having received those goods shall forthwith discharge the ship, and not hinder her by any means from freely prosecuting the voyage on which she was bound; but, in case the contraband merchandise cannot be all received on board the vessel of the captor, then the captor may, notwithstanding the offer of delivering him the contraband goods, carry the vessel into the nearest port, agreeable to what is above directed.

ARTICLE XIX.

On the contrary, it is agreed that whatever shall be found to be laden by the subjects, people, or inhabitants of either party on any ship belonging to the enemy of the other, or to their subjects, the whole, although it be not of the sort of prohibited goods, may be confiscated in the same manner as if it belonged to the enemy himself, except such goods and merchandise as were put on board the ships before the declaration of war, or even after such declaration, if it so be that it was done without the knowledge of such declaration, so that the goods of the subjects and people of either party, whether they be of the nature of such as are prohibited or otherwise, which as aforesaid were put on board any ship belonging to an enemy before the war, or after the declaration of the same, without knowledge of it, shall no ways be liable to confiscation, but shall well and truly be restored without delay to the proprietors demanding the same; but so as that if the said merchandise be contraband, it shall not be any ways lawful to carry them afterwards to any ports belonging to the enemy. The two contracting parties, that the terms of six months being elapsed after the declaration of war, their respective subjects, people, and inhabitants, from whatever part of the world they come, shall not plead the ignorance mentioned in this article.

ARTICLE XX.

And that more effectual care may be taken for the security of the subjects and people of either party, that they do not suffer any injury by the men of war or privateers of the other party, all the commanders of the ships of war and the armed vessels of the said States, of the Seven United Provinces of Holland, and of the said United States of America, and all their subjects and people shall be forbid doing any injury or damage to the other side, and if they act to the contrary, they shall be punished, and shall moreover be bound to make satisfaction for all matter of damage, and the interest thereof by reparation, under the pain and obligation of their persons and goods.

ARTICLE XXI.