96 TREATY WITH PRUSSIA. 1785. In case ofwar, nine months to collect their debts and settle their affairs, and may depart nine months ¢<> freely, carrying off all their effects, without molestation or hindrance; gxgfsfggftte And all women and children, scholars of every faculty, cultryators pf their affairs. the earth, artizaus, manufacturers and fishermen unarmed and mhab1t— ing unfortified towns, villages or places, and in general all others whose occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective employments, and shall not be molested in their persons, nor shall their houses or goods be burnt, or otherwise destroyed, nor their fields wasted by the armed force of principles of the enemy, into whose pF1W8T, by the events of Wm', they may happen conduetingwar. to fall; but if any thing is necessary to be taken from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at a reasonable price. And all merchant and trading vessels employed in exchanging the products of different places, and thereby rendering the necessaries, conveniences and comforts of human life more easy to be obtained, and No ,,0,,,,,,;,,, more general, shall be allowed to pass free:-md unmolested; and neither sions to be _ of the contracting powers shall grant or issue any commission to any !"m'°d‘°j’“‘ private armed vessels, empowering them to take or destroy such trading
- 5; mm vw vessels or interrupt such commerce.
ARTICLE XXIV. Treatment of I And to prevent the destruction of prisoners of war, by sending them prisoners ofwar into distant and inclement countr1es,or by crouding them into close and
- '°¤“l°*°d· noxious places, the two contracting parties solemnly pledge themselves
to each other, and to the world, that they will not adopt any such practice ; that neither will send the prisoners whom they may take from the other into the Eastdndies, or any other parts of Asia or Africa, but that they shall be placed in some part of their dominions in Europe or America, in wholesome situations; that they shall not be confined in dungeons, prison-ships, nor prisons, nor be put into irons, nor bound, nor otherwise restrained in the use of their limbs; that the officers shall be enlarged on their paroles within convenient districts, and have comfortable quarters, and the common men be disposed in cantonments open and extensive enough for air and exercise, and lodged in barracks as roomly and good as are provided by the party in whose power they are for their own troops; that the officers shall also be daily furnished by the party in whose power they are, with as many rations, and of the same articles and quality as are allowed by them, either in kind or by commutation, to officers of equal rank in their own army; and all others shall be daily furnished by them with such ration as they allow to a common soldier in their own service; the value whereof shall be paid by the other party on a mutual adjustment of accounts for the subsistence of prisoners at the close of the war; and the said accounts shall not be mingled with, or set off against any others, nor the ballances due on them, be witheld as at satisfaction or reprisal for any other article, or for any other cause, real or pretended, whatever; that each party shall be allowed to keep a commissary of prisoners of their own appointment, with every separate cantonment of prisoners in possession of the other, which commissary shall see the prisoners as often as he pleases, shall be allowed to receive and distribute whatever comforts may be sent to them by their friends, and shall be free to make his reports in open letters to those who employ him; but if any officer shall break his parole, or any other prisoner shall escape from the limits of his cantonment, alter they shall have been designated to him, such individual officer or other prisoner, shall forfeit so much of tho benefit of this article as provides for his enlargement on parole or cantonment. And it is declared, that neither the pretence that war dissolves all treaties, nor any other whatever, shall be considered
