Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 18 Part 2c.djvu/654

PRUSSIA, 1785. 64:7 able price. And all merchant and trading vessels employed in ex- No ¤¤¤¤mi¤¤i¤¤¤ ehanging the products of different places, and thereby rendering the t° p'i‘""t° "“‘“d pecessaries, conveniences, and comforts of human lite more easy to be v°°°°l°` obtained, and and more general, shall be allowed to pass free and unmolested; and neither of the contracting Powers shall grant or issue any `commissions to any private armed vessels, empowering them to take or destroy such trading vessels or interrupt such commerce. Anmcrn XXIV. And to prevent the destruction of prisoners of war, by sending them Treatment of into distant and inclement countries, or by croudin g them into cldse and P’l“°”°” °f “"’·'· 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 East Indies, 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 ownarmy; 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 od` against any others, nor the ballances due on them be witheld as a 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 breack his parole, or any other prisoner shall escape from the limits of his cantonment, after they shall have been designated to him, such individual officer or other prisoner shall forfeit so much of the benefit of this article as provides for his enlargement on parole or cantonment. And it is declared, that neither the pretence that Articles not to war dissolves all treaties, nor any other whatever, shall be considered be ¤·¤¤¤U¤d- as annulling or suspending this and the next preceding article; but, on the contrary, that the state of war is precisely that for which they are provided, and during which they are to be as sacredlypbserved as the most acknowledged articles in the law of nature or nations. Anrrcrn XXV., The two contracting parties grant to each other the liberty of having, C¤¤¤¤l¤* °m°°*'¤· each in the ports of the other, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, Agents, and Commissaries of their own appointment, whose functions shall be regulated by particular agreement whenever either party shall chuse to make such appointment; but if any such Consuls shall exercise commerce, they shall be submitted to the same laws and_usages to which the private individuals of their nation are submitted in the same place.