Russias, baron count Theodore von Kostopsin, his right trusty privy councillor, member of the council principale, minister of the college of foreign affairs, director-general of the posts of the empire, grand chancellor and grand cross of the sovereign order of St. John of Jerusalem, knight of the first class of the orders of St. Andrew, St. Alexander Newsky, and St. Anne, knight of the order of St. Lazarus, de l'Annonciade, of St. Morrice and St. Lazarus, of St. Ferdinand and St. Hubert; who, after exchan ging their respective full powers, have agreed upon the following

II. In order to prevent all doubts and misunderstandings as to what shall be considered contraband, his majesty the king of Sweden, and his imperial majesty of all the Russias, declare, that they will acknowledge the following articles as contraband, namely, cannons, mortars, fire-arms, balls, flints, flintstones, matches, gunpowder, saltpetre, sulphur, helmets, pikes, swords, hangers, cartridge-boxes, saddles and bridles, with the exception of such a quantity of the above articles as may be necessary for the defence of the ships and their crew all other articles not herein enumerated shall not be considered as war or naval stores, they shall not be subject to confiscation, but shall pass free and with out restraint. It is also hereby

agreed, that the present article shall be without prejudice to the particular stipulations of former treaties with the powers at war, by virtue of which, the things above mentioned are allowed or prohi bited.

III. And whereas it is resolved, That whatever, by virtue of the foregoing article, can be deemed contraband, shall be excluded from the commerce of neutral nations; in like manner his majesty the king of Sweden, and his imperial majesty of all the Russias, will and determine that all other merchandise shall be and remain free; and in order that the general principles of the laws of nature, of which the freedom of trade and navigation, as well as the rights of neutral nations, are the immediate consequence, may be placed under a competent and sure safeguard, they have resolved no longer to delay that voluntary explanation from which they have hitherto been restrained by motives of their separate and temporary interests. With this view they have hereby determined,

1. That every ship may freely navigate from one harbour to another, and on the coasts of the belligerent nations.

2. That the effects which belong to the subjects of the belligerent powers in neutral ships, with the exception of contraband goods, shall be free.

3. That in order to determine what shall be considered as a blockaded harbour, such denomination shall be admitted to apply only where the disposition and number of the ships of the power by which it is invested, shall be such as to render it apparently hazardous to enter, and that every ship which shall go into a blockaded

harbour,

harbour, that is evidently so blockaded, violates the present convention, as much as if the commander of the blockade had previously advised it of the state of the harbour, and it had nevertheless endeavoured by force or artifice to obtain admis

sion.

4. That with regard to neutral ships, except those which, for just reasons, and upon evident grounds, shall be detained, sentence shall be pronounced without delay; the proceedings against them shall be uniform, prompt, and lawful. Over and above the indemnity to which they shall be intitled for the damage they shall have sustained, complete satisfaction shall be given for the insult committed against the flag of their majesties.

5. That the declaration of the officers who shall command the ship of war, or ships of war, of the king or emperor, which shall be convoying one or more merchant ships, that the convoy has no contraband goods on board, shall be sufficient, and that no search of his ship, or the other ships of the convoy, shall be permitted. And the better to ensure respect to those principles, and the stipulations founded upon them, which their disinterested wishes to preserve the imprescriptible rights of neutral nations have suggested, the high contracting parties, to prove their sincerity and justice, will give the strictest orders to their captains, as well of their ships of war as of their merchant ships, to load no part of their ships with, or secretly to have on board, any articles which, by virtue of this present convention, may be considered as contraband: and for the more completely carrying into execution this command, they will respectively take care to give directions to their courts of

Art. IV. In order to place the commerce of their subjects upon the most legal and permanent basis, his majesty the king of Sweden, and his majesty the emperor of all the Russias, have deemed it expedient to equip a number of ships of war and frigates, which shall be charged to see that object obtained ; and the squadrons of each power shall take those stations, and protect those convoys, which their com、 merce and their navigation may require, and which shall be conformable to the course of trade of each nation.

V. To provide against all inconveniences which may proceed from any nation abusing the privilege of their flag, it is established as a regulation not to be departed from, that every transport, be it whose it may, belonging to the country whose flag it bears, shall have on board a captain and the half of the crew composed of the subjects of that country, and the passport shall be drawn up in due and regular form. Every transport which shall not observe these regulations, or shall violate the command printed at the end of this present convention, shall forfeit all right to the protection of the contracting parties, and the government to which it may belong shall alone be responsible for all the loss, damage, or inconvenience it may

situation where the ships of war of that nation are not stationed, and where they cannot have the pro tection of their own convoys, in such case the commandant of the ship of war of the other power, if it shall be required, shall duly and faithfully afford such asistance as may be necessary. The ships of war and frigates of other nations shall afford protection and assistance to the merchant vessels of the other, provided, in the mean time, that the vessel requiring such assistance shall not have violated the principles of the neutrality, by have ing carried on any illicit commerce. VII. This convention shall have no retrospective operation, and consequently it shall have no refetence to any differences that existed previous to its conclusion. Its application shall only be to future acts of violence and aggression, and it shall form the basis of a system for the protection of all the neutral nations of Europe, whose rights may hereafter be denied or violated.

VIII. Should it, notwithstanding all the possible care of the two powers, and notwithstanding the observance of the most perfect neutrality on their sides, so happen that the merchant ships of his majesty the king of Sweden, or of his imperial majesty of all the Russias, should be insulted, plundered, or taken by the ships of war or privateers of one or other of the belligerent powers, the minister of the injured party shall forthwith represent the same to the government whose ship of war or privateer shall have committed such act of violence; he shall reclaim the captured vessel, demand due satisfaction, and by no means lose sight of the insult offered to the flag. The ministers of the other contracting

1801.

power shall also enforce the complaint in the most energetic and determined manner possible, and they shall generally and uniformly act in concert together. Should. their just complaint meet with no redress, or should it be postponed from time to time, then shall their majestics have recourse to reprisals against such power as shall have refused to do justice; and they shall endeavour, by every possible means, to give effect to such res prisals.

IX. Should it happen that one or the other of the two powers, or both, on account of, or from dislike to, the present convention, or any circumstance connected with it, should be disquieted, molested, or attacked in such case it is } agreed, that the two powers shall make it a common cause, mutually to defend each other; and they shall reciprocally employ every exertion to obtain full and complete satisfaction, as well for the insult done to their flag as for the injury sustained by their subjects.

X. The principles and regulations stipulated and settled by this present act shall apply to every maritime war by which Europe may unhappily be disquieted. These stipulations shall also be considered as perpetual, and upon all occasions shall be appealed to by the contracting powers for the regulation of their commerce and navigation, and for the maintenance of the rights of neutral nations.

XI. As the object and mai consideration of this convention is to assure the general freedom of commerce and navigation, his majesty the king of Sweden, and his imperial majesty of all the Russias, hereby agree and bind themselves to each other, to give their consent that other neutral powers may be (1)

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come parties to it, adopt its princi ples, conform to its obligations, and partake of its advantages.

XII. In order that the belligerent powers may not have to plead ignorance of the arrangements concluded between their said majesties, information shall be given to such belligerent powers of the regulations they have determined upon, which are so little of an hostile na ture, that they can be detrimental to no other country whatever; but, on the contrary, are only calculated to secure the commerce and navigation of their respective subjects.

XIII. The present convention shall be ratified by the two contracting parties, and the ratification shall be exchanged, in due and good form, within six weeks, or sooner, if possible, from the day of signing it.

In testimony of the same, we, the undersigned, furnished with full powers, have hereunto signed our names, and affixed our seals.

Given at St. Petersburg, the 4th (16th) of December, 1800. (Signed) CURT VON STEDINCK, VON KOSTOPSIN.

[Here follows the ratification of their Swedish and Imperial majesties, countersigned by Joh Christ de Toll, and count Kostopsin. There is also the regulation referred to in the convention; it consists of fifteen articles. It is dated St. Petersburgh, the 23d of December, 1800.]

Answer of Baron Ehrensward to the Notification of Lord Grenville, of the 15th of January, stating that an embargo had been laid on the Danish and Swedish Ships in England.

The undersigned, minister plenipotentiary, of his imperial Swedish

majesty, received the official notifi cation, by which his excellency lord Grenville, first minister of state, signified to the undersigned, that his Britannic majesty had ordered an embargo to be laid on all the Swedish ships that should be found in the harbours within his do minions. So unexpected an event between powers who were in relations of friendship towards each other, was received with astonishment by his imperial majesty, who was not only unconscious of having given his Britannic majesty the least cause of complaint, but on the contrary, was entitled to have demanded indemnification for repeated ag. gressions. Actuated by this reflexion, he rather expected that the notification was transmitted with the view to bury his grievances in oblivion than to give occasion for fresh ones, which should renew the remembrance of the past.

As the English court has stated, as the ground of this notification, that a maritime convention was in contemplation, it would doubtless have acted with more justice, had it waited for an official communication from the Swedish court, which it most assuredly would, in proper time, have received, of a convention, which is considered in so odious a point of view, as to urge it to an act of violence against a court, whose connexion with England nothing else could have disturbed. As the dispute between the Russian and English courts related to the island of Malta, and the declaration of the Danish court referred to the convention of 1780, the undersigned can see no just rea, son why the Swedish court, which had given no cause of complaint to the English, and from which no other declaration was required than what related to the note of the 31st

of

of December, which has but just been received, should be attacked in so hostile a manner, before any answer had been given to the insinuations contained in that note.

The undersigned, who imparted the contents of the note of his excellency lord Grenville to his court, is obliged, in conformity to the orders of his master, to protest, as far as by the present act he can formally protest, against the embargo laid on the Swedish ships, and all loss or damage that may be thereby occasioned. He demands, in the most forcible and expressive terms, that, in pursuance of the stipulations of the treaty of 1661, the embargo may be taken off, the continuance of which can no otherwise be considered than as a designed and premeditated declaration of war on the part of England.

The undersigned, whom the expression of the desire of the British court, could not escape, observes, in the hostile determinations by which it is accompanied, only a desire to give his imperial Swedish majesty cause of complaint, as well by the detention of the convoy, as in respect to the affair at Barcelona. He wishes the British court had confirmed the truth of its assurances by its actions, in which case this court would have been actuated by corresponding sentiments The under signed has the honour, &c.

Sweden must observe the following requisites:→→

I. In order that a ship be entitled to be considered as a Swede, she must be built in Sweden, or the provinces under her dominion; or shipwrecked on the Swedish coast, and there sold or bought in a foreign country by a legal and authentic contract. If such purchase is made in a country threatened with war, it shall be considered as lawful as soon as three months have elapsed before its actually breaking out. Every ship purchased must be naturalised. As, however, the naturalisation of ships bought in a foreign country, and afterwards taken by a cruiser belonging to any of the belligerent powers. may free quently produce disagreeable explanations in the sequel, it is hereby declared that in time of war ships shall not be allowed to be naturalised, which have formerly been the property of the belligerents, or their subjects; neverthe less, with the exception of all ships that were naturalised before the present regulation was adopted, which shall enjoy all the rights which are connected with the character of neutrals and Swedes,

2. The captain of the ship must be provided with all papers requisite and proper for the security of his voyage. Of this kind are (in case the ship goes through the Sound), a certificate of the place where the vessel was built, an invoice, letters showing the cargo not contraband, Turkish and Latin passports, a certificate by the magistrate of the place, a pass for the crew, a copy of the oath for the owner, a charterparty with the subscription of the freighter, the captain, and the person freighting the vessel, a mani. fest with the like subscriptions, containing a list of the different (1 2)

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