SEC. 2. The limits of the navigation and trade of the Company on the shore of the continent and on the islands of Northwestern America, are within the following line of demarcation between Russia, England, and America: Commencing with the southernmost point of the Island of Prince of Wales, which point is situated at 54° 40′ north latitude and between 131° and 133° west longitude (reckoning from the meridian of Greenwich), the above line runs northward along the straits named Portland Channel to that point of the mainland where it touches the 56th degree of north latitude. Hence the line of demarcation follows the crest of the mountains which stretch in a direction parallel with the coast to the crossing at the 141st degree of west longitude (from the same meridian), and finally, from this point of intersection, the same meridian of the 141st degree constitutes in its extension to the Arctic Sea the boundary of the Russian Possessions on the continent of Northwestern America. SEC. 3. In all places annexed to Russia by the above-mentioned delimitation there is granted to the Company the right to carry on the fur and fishing industries to the exclusion of all Russian subjects. SEC. 4. The Company is permitted to hold and use all things heretofore found and hereafter to be found in those places, as well on the surface as in the bowels of the earth, without regard for any claim thereto on the part of others. SEC. 5. The Company is allowed in future according to necessity and its best judgment within the limits designated in Sec. 2, wherever it may be found necessary to establish new settlements and fortifications for safe habitation; and those formerly established may be extended and improved, the Company being allowed to send to those regions vessels carrying merchandise and laborers without any let or hindrance. SEC. 6. The Company is authorized to send its vessels to all neighboring nations and to trade with them with the consent of their respective Governments. The Company is also authorized, if it so desires, to send its vessels for commercial intercourse to the Chinese ports of Canton, Amoy, Fouchow fou, Nynpofou, and Shanghai, on condition, however, that these vessels, in view of Section 2393 of the Customs Laws (Code of Laws, Volume 6, edition 1842), will in no case carry opium to China for sale. SEC. 7. All Government institutions shall recognize the board of administration of the Russian American Company as an institution established for the management of the Company's affairs, and any demands of Government institutions relating to matters within the jurisdiction of the Company shall be addressed, not to any person or member of the Company, but to the said board. SEC. 8. With a view of affording to the Company the greatest possible assistance in carrying out the aims of the Government which intrusted to the Company so vast an extent of territory with a considerable population, the employés of the Company, of the ranks specified in the table hereto annexed, are most graciously granted the following privileges: 1. Those of the employés who belong to the States having the right of entering into Goverment service while employed exclusively in the service of the Company, are considered as being actually in the Government service, and enjoy the right of being promoted to ranks and wearing the uniform of the Ministry of Finance. The order of promotion for them is the general civil order according to the rank and right of each of the employés: The promotion in rank is made on the recommendation of the board of administration to the Minister of Finance, who in the case of medical employés of the civil branch must confer with the Minister of Interior Affairs. 2. As the Company enjoys the right to invite and receive into its service from other branches of the Government officers, noncommissioned officers, sailors, cannoneers, medical employés, and assistant surgeons for employment on board the vessels sailing from Russia to the Colonies, as well as in the Colonies themselves, and at Okhotsk, therefore these persons while in the temporary service of the Company are considered to be in active service with regard to all recompenses, except ranks to which promotion is made according to seniority upon recommendations from their actual superiors. The officers preserve one-half of their salary and the right to the services of an orderly. The medical employés of the civil branch are confirmed in the Company's service by the Ministry of Interior Affairs. 3. Retired employés of the Government, when entering into the employ of the Company, preserve their rank, as a general rule, and are consid ered to be in actual service, enjoying all the privileges above enumerated in paragraph 1. 4. The employés of the Company from classes not having the right to enter into Government service enjoy the privileges of the classes pertaining to their offices; but in retiring from the service of the Company before ten years return to their original status. 5. Those of the employés who shall have served ten years with special benefit to the Company are granted, upon recommendation of the board on being relieved from the service of the Company, personal honorable citizenship, upon transfer from the original class, and in case of particular deserts the board of administration of the Company is authorized to solicit the granting of hereditary honorable citizenship. SEC. 9. Government employés while in the service of the Company preserve the right, if they afterwards continue in the service of the Government, to have their service in the Company counted with regard to pensions and orders of distinction for unimpeachable service.1 SEC. 16. The vessels sent by the Company from Cronstadt around the world, from Okhotsk and other Russian ports to the Russian colonies may be loaded with Russian products as well as with foreign goods, having once paid customs duty, and the vessels returning from such colonies with cargoes of furs and other merchandise and products may be discharged without detention upon declarations made by the board of administration at the custom-houses, and at the port of Okhotsk upon declarations from the Company's local office to the customs authorities of that place. Inasmuch as all said merchandise is being carried from one Russian port to another, it is not subject to customs duties or any other duties unless the furs are subjected by special law to an internal-revenue tax. SEC. 17. In consideration of the remoteness of the province of Ochotsk, where the necessity arises for the repair and sometimes for the building of vessels, the Company is permitted to take in said province the necessary timber from convenient places, provided, however, that the Company's office at Okhotsk shall immediately inform the local forestry authorities of the place selected for the cutting of timber and of the quantity and quality of the timber cut. SEC. 18. For the shooting of animals, for maritime signals, for the Sections 10-15 contain regulations relating only to internal management, and have therefore been omitted in this translation. arming of vessels, ports, and redoubts, and for other uses on the continent and islands of America, the Company may receive for cash from the stores of the port of Cronstadt, gunpowder, cannon, ammunition, and other artillery munitions which can not be acquired by purchase in the colonies. All these articles will be furnished to the Company at the prices paid by the Navy Department with the addition of 10 per cent for the maintenance of magazines. At times when there is no communication by sea between St. Petersburg and the Colonies, the Company may receive annually on the above-stated terms from 40 to 80 pounds of gunpowder from the Government artillery store situated at Irkutsk, and about 200 pounds of lead from the smelting establishment at Nerchinsk. SEC. 19. In order to secure freedom of action and safety in the operations of the Company, all the premises occupied by its offices are exempted from military occupation. SEC. 20. As the capital of the Company affords ample security for private claims against its board of administration, the security required by law in case of litigation is waived on behalf of the board. SEC. 21. It shall be the duty of all civil and military authorities and institutions not only to abstain from interfering with the Company in the enjoyment of the privileges granted, but also to warn the Company in case of necessity against any probable loss and injury, and upon requests of the board of administration and its subordinate counting and commission houses to afford all assistance and protection. SEC. 22. The rights and privileges granted to the Company shall be in force for twenty years, reckoning from the 1st of January of the year 1842. SEC. 23. Upon the taking effect of this charter all previous provisions relating to the Company are repealed, and will preserve their force only as to matters arising before the promulgation of the constitution. TREATIES. CONVENTION BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND SPAIN. SIGNED AT THE ESCURIAL, OCTOBER 28, 1790. [Translation, as laid before Parliament.] Their Britannic and Catholic Majesties, being desirous of terminating, by a speedy and solid agreement, the differences which have lately arisen between the two Crowns, have judged that the best way of attaining this salutary object would be that of an amicable arrangement, which, setting aside all retrospective discussion of the rights and pretensions of the two parties, should fix their respective situation for the future on a basis conformable to their true interests, as well as to the mutual desire with which their said Majesties are animated, of estab lishing with each other, in everything and in all places, the most perfect friendship, harmony and good correspondence. In this view they have named and constituted for their Plenipotentiaries; to wit, on the part of His Britannic Majesty, Alleyne Fitzherbert, Esq., one of His said Majesty's Privy Council, in Great Britain and Ireland, and His Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to His Catholic Majesty; and, on the part of His Catholic Majesty, Don Joseph Monimo, Count of Floridablanca, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Spanish Order of Charles III., Councillor of State to His said Majesty, and His Principal Secretary of State, and of the Dispatches: who, after having communicated to each other their respective full Powers, have agreed upon the following articles: I. It is agreed that the buildings and tracts of land, situated on the north-west coast of the continent of North America, or on Islands adjacent to that continent, of which the subjects of His Britannic Majesty were dispossessed, about the month of April, 1789, by a Spanish officer, shall be restored to the said British subjects. II. And further, that a just reparation shall be made, according to the nature of the case, for all acts of violence or hostility, which may have been committed, subsequent to the month of April, 1789, by the subjects of either of the Contracting Parties against the subjects of the other; and that, in case any of the said respective subjects shall, since the same period, have been forcibly dispossed of their lands, buildings, vessels, merchandize, or other property, whatever, on the said continent, or on the seas or islands adjacent, they shall be re-established in the possession thereof, or a just compensation shall be made to them for the losses which they shall have sustained. III. And, in order to strengthen the bonds of friendship, and to preserve in future a perfect harmony and good understanding between the two Contracting Parties, it is agreed that their respective subjects shall not be disturbed or molested, either in navigating or carrying on their fisheries in the Pacific Ocean, or in the South Seas, or in landing on the coasts of those seas, in places not already occupied, for the purpose of carrying on their commerce with the natives of the country, or of making settlements there; the whole subject, nevertheless to the restrictions and provisions specified in the three following Articles. IV. His Britannic Majesty engages to take the most effectual measures to prevent the navigation and fishery of His subjects in the Pacific Ocean, or in the South Seas, from being made a pretext for illicit trade with the Spanish settlements; and, with this view, it is moreover expressly stipulated, that British subjects shall not navigate, or carry on their fishery in the said seas, within the space of ten sea leagues from any part of the coasts already occupied by Spain. V. It is agreed, that as well in the places which are to be restored to the British subjects, by virtue of the 1st Article, as in all other parts of the north-western coasts of North America, or of the islands adjacent, situated to the north of the parts of the said coast already occupied by Spain, wherever the subjects of either of the two Powers shall have made settlements since the month of April, 1789, or shall hereafter make any, the subjects of the other shall have free access, and shall carry on their trade, without any disturbance or molestation. VI. It is further agreed, with respect to the eastern and western coasts of South America, and to the islands adjacent, that no settlement shall be formed hereafter, by the respective subjects, in such parts of those coasts as are situated to the south of those parts of the same coasts, and of the islands adjacent, which are already occupied by Spain: provided that the said respective subjects shall retain the liberty of landing on the coasts and islands so situated, for the purposes of their fishery, and of erecting thereon huts, and other temporary buildings, serving only for those purposes. VII. In all cases of complaint or infraction of the Articles of the present Convention, the officers of either Party, without permitting themselves previously to commit any violence or act of force, shall be bound to make an exact report of the affair and of its circumstances, to their respective Courts, who will terminate such differences in an amicable manner. VIII. The present Convention shall be ratified and confirmed in the space of six weeks, to be computed from the day of its signature, or sooner if it can be done. In witness whereof, we, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries of Their Britannic and Catholic Majesties, have, in their names, and in virtue of our respective full Powers, signed the present Convention, and set thereto the seals of our arms. Done at the Palace of St. Laurence, the 28th of October, 1790. 5 ALLEYNE FITZ-HERBERT, |