Light vessels.Art. XIX. In order to insure the execution of the regulations which shall have been established by common agreement, in conformity with the principles above declared, each of the Contracting Powers shall have the right to station, at all times, two light vessels at the mouths of the Danube[1].
Bessarabia, 20, 21.
Cession by Russia. Art. XX. In exchange for the towns, ports, and territories enumerated in Article IV of the present Treaty, and in order more fully to secure the freedom of the navigation of the Danube, His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias consents to the rectification of his frontier in Bessarabia.
The new frontier shall begin from the Black Sea, one kilometre to the east of the Lake Bourna Sola, shall run perpendicularly to the Akerman road, shall follow that road to the Val de Trajan, pass to the south of Bolgrad, ascend the course of the River Yalpuck to the Height of Saratsiki, and terminate at Katamori on the Pruth. Above that point the old frontier between the two Empires shall not undergo any modification.
Delegates of the Contractifig Powers shall fix, in its details, the line of the new frontier[2].- ↑ This right was reserved when the Black Sea was neutralized by Art. 11.
- ↑ Some controversy having arisen as to these two Articles, it was provided by a Protocol signed at Paris, 6th January, 1857, to have the force of a convention, that the boundary should be traced in detail by a Delimitation Commission by 30th March, at which date the Austrian troops were to have evacuated the Principalities, the British squadron to have left the Black Sea, and the Straits Convention to come into operation; also that the Delta of the Danube and the Isle of Serpents should be under the direct sovereignty of the Porte. (Parl. Papers, 1857; N. R. G. xv, 793.) The Delimitation Commissioners signed their Definitive Act at Kischeneff, 30th March, 1857 (N. R. G xx, 4), drawing the frontier line north of Bolgrad, and a Treaty was signed at Paris, 19th June, 1857, by the representatives of the Powers there, superseding the Protocol by embodying its provisions, and adopting the Act of the Delimitation Commission. (Parl. Papers, 1858; N. R. G. xvi, 2 P., II, Texts, No. III.) By Art. 45 of the Treaty of Berlin the portion of the Bessarabian territory detached from Russia by the Treaty of Paris, bounded on the west by the mid-channel of the Pruth, and on the south
to which the Powers refused their sanction, and, so far from permanently taking the place of the European Commission, thereupon ceased to exist. The European Commission, on the other hand, instead of being dissolved, after completing its task, in 1858, has been prolonged from time to time, and is now to continue at least to the year 1904. Vid. supra, p. 233.
