lin, Minister and Plenipotentiary of the United States of North America, likewise invested with full powers by the Congress of said States, for the same purpose of these presents, after having compared and duly communicated to each other our respective powers, have agreed on the following articles : ARTICLE I. The payment of the six millions livres, French money, above mentioned, shall be made from the funds of the royal treasury in proportions of five hundred thousand livres during each of the twelve months of the present year, under the acknowledgments of the Minister of the said United States, promising in the name of Congress and in behalf of the thirteen United States, to reimburse and refund the said six millions livres, in ready money, at His Majesty's royal treasury, at the house of the sieur grand banker at Paris, with interest at five per cent. per annum at periods hereafter stipulated in the third and fourth articles. The advances which His Majesty has been pleased to allow to be made on account of the six millions in question shall be deducted in the payments of the first month of this year. ARTICLE II. For better understanding the fixing of periods for the reimbursement of the six millions at the royal treasury, and to prevent all ambiguity on this head, it has been found proper to recapitulate here the amount of the preceding aids granted by the King to the United States, and to distinguish them according to their different classes. The first is composed of funds lent successively by His Majesty, amounting in the whole to the sum of eighteen millions livres, reimbursable in specie at the royal treasury in twelve equal portions of a million five hundred. thousand livres each, besides the interest, and in twelve years, to commence from the third year after the date of the peace, the interest, beginning to reckon at the date of the peace, to be discharged annually, shall diminish in proportion to the reimbursement of the capital, the last payment of which shall expire in the year 1798. The second class comprehends the loan of five millions Dutch florins, amounting, by a moderate valuation, to ten millions livres tournois, the said loan made in Holland in 1781, for the service of the United States of North America, under the engagement of the King to refund the capital, with interest at four per cent. per annum, at the general counter of the States General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, in ten equal portions, reckoning from the sixth year of the date of the said loan, and under the like engagement on the part of the Minister of Congress, and in behalf of the thirteen United States, to reimburse the ten millions of said loan in ready money at the royal treasury, with interest at four per cent. per annum, in ten equal portions of a million each, and in ten periods from year to year; the first of which shall take place in the month of November, 1787, and the last in the same month, 1796. The whole conformable to the conditions expressed in the contract of the 16th July, 1782. In the third class are comprehended the aids and subsidies furnished to the Congress of the United States, under the title of gratuitous assistance, from the pure generosity of the King, three millions of which were granted before the treaty of February, 1778, and six millions in 1781; which aids and subsidies amount in the whole to nine millions livres tournois. His Majesty here confirms, in case of need, the gratuitous gift to the Congress of the said thirteen United States. ARTICLE III. The new loan of six millions livres tournois, the subject of the present contract, shall be refunded and reimbursed in ready money at His Majesty's royal treasury, in six equal portions of a million each, with interest at five per cent. per annum, and in six periods, the first of which shall take place in the year 1797, and so on from year to year, until 1802, when the last reimbursement shall be completed. ARTICLE IV. The interest of five per cent. per annum of the capital of the six millions, mentioned in the preceding article, shall begin to be reckoned from the first of January of the year 1784, and shall be paid in ready money at His Majesty's royal treasury, at Paris, on the same day of each year, the first of which shall take place the first of January, 1785, and so on from year to year, until the definitive reimbursement of the capital; His Majesty being pleased, by a new act of generosity, to present and remit to the thirteen United States the partial interest of the present year, which the underwritten Minister of Congress has declared to accept with acknowledgment in the name of the said United States. ARTICLE V. The interest of the capital of the six millions shall diminish in pro portion to the reimbursements at the periods fixed in the preceding article; Congress and the United States reserving, however, the liberty of freeing themselves, by anticipated payments, should the state of their finances admit. ARTICLE VI. The contracting parties will reciprocally guaranty the faithful observation of the foregoing articles; the ratifications of which shall be exchanged in the space of nine months from the date of this present contract, or sooner if possible. In faith whereof we, the Ministers Plenipotentiaries of His Majesty and the Congress of the thirteen United States of North America, in virtue of our respective full powers, have signed the present contract, and thereunto affixed the seal of our arms. Done at Versailles the twenty-fifth day of February, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three. GRAVIER DE VERGENNES. L. S. [L. S.] FRANCE, 1788. CONVENTION BETWEEN HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. CONCLUDED NOVEMBER 14, 1788. Convention between His Most Christian Majesty and the United States of America, for the purpose of defining and establishing the functions and privileges of their respective Consuls and Vice-Consuls.* His Majesty the Most Christian King, and the United States of America, having, by the twenty-ninth article of the treaty of amity and * An act to declare the treaties heretofore concluded with France no longer obligatory on the United States. July 7, 1798; Laws U. S. vol. 1, 578. commerce concluded between them, mutually granted the liberty of having in their respective States and ports, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, agents, and commissaries, and being willing, in consequence thereof, to define and establish, in a reciprocal and permanent manner, the functions and privileges of Consuls and Vice-Consuls, which they have judged it convenient to establish of preference, His Most Christian Majesty has nominated the Sieur Count of Montmorin, of St. Herent, Marechal of his Camps and Armies, Knight of his Orders and of the Golden Fleece, his Counsellor in all his Councils, Minister and Secretary of State, and of his Commandments and Finances, having the Department of Foreign Affairs; and the United States have nominated the Sieur Thomas Jefferson, citizen of the United States of America, and their Minister Plenipotentiary near the King; who, after having communicated to each other their respective full powers, have agreed on what follows: ARTICLE I. Consuls to present butitled to an The Consuls and Vice-Consuls named by the Most Christian King and the United States shall be bound to present their commissions according to the forms which shall be established emissions, and to respectively by the Most Christian King within his domin. exequatur. ions, and by the Congress within the United States. There shall be delivered to them, without any charges, the exequatur necessary for the exercise of their functions; and on exhibiting the said exequatur, the Governors, Commanders, Heads of Justice, Bodies Corporate, Tribunals, and other officers having authority in the ports and places of their consulates, shall cause them to enjoy immediately, and without difficulty, the pre-eminences, authority, and privileges reciprocally granted, without exacting from the said Consuls and Vice-Consuls any fee, under any pretext whatever. ARTICLE II. Privileges of Consuls. The Consuls and Vice-Consuls, and persons attached to their functions; that is to say, their Chancellors and Secretaries, shall enjoy a full and entire immunity for their chancery, and the papers which shall be therein contained. They shall be exempt from all personal service, from soldiers' billets, militia, watch, guard, guardianship, trusteeship, as well as from all duties, taxes, impositions, and charges whatsoever, except on the estate real and personal of which they may be the proprietors or possessors, which shall be subject to the taxes imposed on the estates of all other individuals: And in all other instances they shall be subject to the laws of the land as the natives are. Those of the said Consuls and Vice-Consuls who shall exercise commerce, shall be respectively subject to all taxes, charges, and impositions established on other merchants. They shall place over the outward door of their house the arms of their sovereign; but this mark of indication shall not give to the said house any privilege of asylum for any person or property whatsoever. ARTICLE III. Consuls may ap The respective Consuls and Vice-Consuls may establish agents in the different ports and places of their departments where necessity shall require. These agents may be chosen among the point agents. merchants, either national or foreign, and furnished with a commission from one of the said consuls: They shall confine themselves respectively to the rendering to their respective merchants, navigators, and vessels, all possible service, and to inform the nearest Consul of the wants of the said merchants, navigators, and vessels, without the said agents otherwise participating in the immunities, rights, and privileges attributed to Consuls and Vice-Consuls, and without power, under any pretext whatever, to exact from the said merchants any duty or emolument whatsoever. Consuls may estab ARTICLE IV. The Consuls and Vice-Consuls respectively may establish a chancery, where shall be deposited the consular determinations, acts, lish a chancery. and proceedings, as also testaments, obligations, contracts, and other acts done by or between persons of their nation, and effects left by deceased persons, or saved from shipwreck. They may conse quently appoint fit persons to act in the said chancery, receive and swear them in, commit to them the custody of the seal, and authority to seal commissions, sentences, and other consular acts, and also to discharge the functions of notary and register of the consulate. Consuls. ARTICLE V. The Consuls and Vice-Consuls respectively shall have the exclusive Power and daty of right of receiving in their chancery, or on board of vessels, the declarations and all other the acts which the captains, masters, crews, passengers, and merchants of their nation may chuse to make there, even their testaments and other disposals by last will: And the copies of the said acts, duly authenticated by the said Consuls or Vice-Consuls, under the seal of their consulate, shall receive faith in law, equally as their originals would, in all the tribunals of the dominions of the Most Christian King and of the United States. They shall also have, and exclusively, in case of the absence of the testamentary executor, administrator, or legal heir, the right to inventory, liquidate, and proceed to the sale of the personal estate left by subjects or citizens of their nation who shall die within the extent of their consulate; they shall proceed therein with the assistance of two merchants of their said nation, or, for want of them, of any other at their choice, and shall cause to be deposited in their chancers the effects and papers of the said estates; and no officer, military, judiciary, or of the police of the country, shall disturb them or interfere therein, in any manner whatsoever: But the said Consuls and Vice-Consuls shall not deliver up the said effects, nor the proceeds thereof, to the lawful heirs, or to their order, till they shall have caused to be paid all debts which the deceased shall have contracted in the country; for which purpose the creditors shall have a right to attach the said effects in their hands, as they might in those of any other individual whatever, and proceed to obtain sale of them till payment of what shall be lawfully due to them. When the debts shall not have been contracted by judgment, deed, or note, the signature whereof shall be known, payment shall not be ordered but on the creditor's giving sufficient surety, resident in the country, to refund the sums he shall have unduly received, principal, interest, and cost; which surety nevertheless shall stand duly discharged, after the term of one year in time of peace, and of two in time of war, if the demand in discharge cannot be formed before the end of this term against the heirs who shall present themselves. And in order that the heirs may not be unjustly kept out of the effects of the deceased, the Consuls and Vice-Consuls shall notify his death in some one of the gazettes published within their consulate, and that they shall retain the said effects in their hands four months to answer all demands which shall be presented; and they shall be bound after this delay to deliver to the persons succeeding thereto, what shall be more than sufficient for the demands which shall have been formed. ARTICLE VI. Consuls to receive declarations, &c.. from captains, of losses at sea. The Consuls and Vice-Consuls respectively shall receive the declarations, protests, and reports of all captains and masters of their respective nation on account of average losses sustained at sea; and these captains and masters shall lodge in the chancery of the said Consuls and Vice-Consuls the acts which they may have made in other ports on account of the accidents which may have happened to them on their voyage. If a subject of the Most Christian King and a citizen of the United States, or a foreigner, are interested in the said cargo, the average shall be settled by the tribunals of the country, and not by the Consuls or Vice-Consuls; but when only the subjects or citizens of their own nation shall be interested, the respective Consuls or Vice-Consuls shall appoint skilful persons to settle the damages and average. ARTICLE VII. in Power of consuls જી of ship wreck. In cases where, by tempest or other accident, French ships or vessels shall be stranded on the coasts of the United States, and ships or vessels of the United States shall be stranded on the coasts of the dominions of the Most Christian King, the Consul or Vice-Consul nearest to the place of shipwreck shall do whatever he may judge proper, as well for the purpose of saving the said ship or vessel, its cargo and appurtenances, as for the storing and the security of the effects and merchandize saved. He may take an inventory of them, without the intermeddling of any officers of the military, of the customs, of justice, or of the police of the country, otherwise than to give to the Consuls, Vice-Consuls, captain and crew of the vessel shipwrecked or stranded, all the succour and favour which they shall ask of them, either for the expedition and security of the saving, and of the effects saved, or to prevent all disturbance. And in order to prevent all kinds of dispute and discussion in the said cases of shipwreck, it is agreed that when there shall be no Consul or Vice-Consul to attend to the saving of the wreck, or that the residence of the said Consul or Vice-Consul (he not being at the place of the wreck) shall be more distant from the said place than that of the competent judge of the country, the latter shall immediately proceed therein, with all the dispatch, certainty, and precautions prescribed by the respective laws; but the said territorial judge shall retire on the arrival of the Consul or Vice-Consul, and shall deliver over to him the report of his proceedings, the expenses of which the Consul or Vice-Consul shall cause to be reimbursed to him, as well as those of saving the wreck. The merchandize and effects saved shall be deposited in the nearest custom-house, or other place of safety, with the inventory thereof, which shall have been made by the Consul or ViceConsul, or by the judge who shall have proceeded in their absence, that the said effects and merchandize may be afterwards delivered, (after levying therefrom the costs,) and without form of process to the owners, who, being furnished with an order for their delivery from the nearest Consul or Vice-Consul, shall reclaim them by themselves or by their order, either for the purpose of re-exporting such merchandize, in which |