do now, with a view to such calamity, solemnly pledge themselves to each other and to the world, to observe the following rules: absolutely, where the nature of the subject permits, and as closely as possible in all cases where such absolute observance shall be impossible: 1. The merchants of either Republic then residing in the other shall be allowed to remain twelve months (for those residing in the interior) and six months (for those dwelling at the seaports), to collect their debts and settle their affairs; during which periods, they shall enjoy the same protection, and be on the same footing in all respects, as the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations; and, at the expiration thereof, or at any time before, they shall have full liberty to depart, carrying off all their effects without molestation or hindrance: conforming therein to the same laws which the cit. izens or subjects of the most friendly nations are required to conform to. Upon the entrance of the armies of either nation into the Territories of the other, women and children, ecclesiastics, scholars of every faculty, cultivators of the earth, merchants, artisans, manufacturers, and fishermen, unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages, or places, and in general all persons whose occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective employments unmolested in their persons. Nor shall their houses or goods be burnt or otherwise destroyed, nor their cattle taken, nor their fields wasted, by the armed force into whose power, by the events of war, they may happen to fall; but if the necessity arise to take any thing from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at an equitable price. All churches, hospitals, schools, colleges, libraries, and other establishments for charitable and beneficent purposes, shall be respected, and all persons connected with the same protected in the discharge of their duties and the pursuit of their vocations. 2. In order that the fate of prisoners of war may be alleviated, all such practices as those of sending them into distant, inclement, or unwholesome districts, or crowding them into close and noxious places, shall be studiously avoided. They shall not be confined in dungeons, prison-ships, or prisons; nor be put in irons, nor bound, nor otherwise restrained in the use of their limbs. The officers shall enjoy liberty on their paroles, within convenient districts, and have comfortable quarters; and the common soldiers shall be disposed in cantonments, open and extensive enough for air and exercise, and lodged in barracks as roomy and as good as are provided by the party in whose power they are, for his own troops. But if any officer shall break his parole by leaving the district so assigned him, 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 liberty on parole or cantonment. And if any officer so breaking his parole, or any common soldier so escaping from the limits assigned him, shall afterwards be found in arms, previously to his being regularly exchanged, the person so offending shall be dealt with according to the established laws of war. The officers shall be daily furnished by the party in whose power they are, with as many rations, and of the same articles, as are allowed, either in kind or by commutation, to officers of equal rank in its own army; and all others shall be daily furnished with such rations as is allowed to a common soldier in its own service; the value of all which supplies shall, at the close of the war, or at periods to be agreed upon between the respective commanders, be paid by the other party on a mutual adjustment of accounts for the subsistence of prisoners; and such accounts shall not be mingled with or set off against any others, nor the balance due on them be withheld, as a compensation or reprisal for any cause whatever, real or pretended. Each party shall be allowed to keep a commissary of prisoners appointed by itself, with every cantonment of prisoners in possession of the other; which commissary shall see the prisoners as often as he pleases; shall be allowed to receive, exempt from all duties or taxes, and to distribute, whatever comforts may be sent to them by their friends; and shall be free to transmit his report in open letters to the party by whom he is employed. And it is declared that neither the pretense that war dissolves all treaties, nor any other whatever, shall be considered as annulling or suspending the solemn covenant contained in this article. On the contrary, the state of war is precisely that for which it is provided; and during which its stipulations are to be as sacredly observed as the most acknowledged obligations under the law of nature or nations. ARTICLE XXIII. This treaty shall be ratified by the President of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof; and by the President of the Mexican Republic, with the previous approbation of its General Congress; and the ratifications shall be exchanged in the City of Washington, or at the seat of Government of Mexico, in four months from the date of signature hereof, or sooner if practicable. IN FAITH WHEREOF, we, the respective pleniopentiaries, have signed this treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and settlement; and have hereunto affixed our seals, respectively. Done in quintuplicate, at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the second day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. N. P. TRIST, LUIS G. CUEVAS, [L. S.] AND WHEREAS the said treaty, as amended, has been duly ratified on both parts, and the respective ratifications of the same were exchanged at Queretaro on the thirtieth day of May last, by Ambrose H. Sevier and Nathan Clifford, Commissioners on the part of the Government of the United States, and by Señor Don Louis de la Rosa, Minister of Relations of the Mexican Republic, on the part of that Gov ernment: Now, therefore, be it known that I, James K. Polk, President of the United States of America, have caused the said treaty to be made public, to the end that the same and every clause and article thereof may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the United States and the citizens thereof. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed." Done at the city of Washington, this fourth day of July, one thousand eight hundred [L. s.] and forty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States the seventythird. By the President: JAMES K. POLK. JAMES BUCHANAN, Secretary of State. 26 ARTICLES REFERRED TO IN THE FIFTEENTH ARTICLE OF THE PRECEDING TREATY. First and Fifth Articles of the unratified Convention between the United States and the Mexican Republic of the 20th November, 1843. ARTICLE I. All claims of citizens of the Mexican Republic against the Government of the United States, which shall be presented in the manner and time hereinafter expressed, and all claims of citizens of the United States against the Government of the Mexican Republic, which, for whatever cause, were not submitted to, nor considered nor finally decided by, the Commission, nor by the arbiter appointed by the Convention of 1839, and which shall be presented in the manner and time hereinafter specified, shall be referred to four Commissioners, who shall form a board, and shall be appointed in the following manner, that is to say: Two Commissioners shall be appointed by the President of the Mexican Republic, and the other two by the President of the United States, with the approbation and consent of the Senate. The said Commissioners, thus appointed, shall, in presence of each other, take an oath to examine and decide impartially the claims submitted to them, and which may lawfully be considered, according to the proofs which shall be presented, the principles of right and justice, the law of nations, and the treaties between the two Republics. ARTICLE V. All claims of citizens of the United States against the Government of the Mexican Republic, which were considered by the Commissioners, and referred to the umpire appointed under the Convention of the 11th April, 1839, and which were not decided by him, shall be referred to, and decided by, the umpire to be appointed, as provided by this Convention, on the points submitted to the umpire under the late Convention, and his decision shall be final and conclusive. It is also agreed, that, if the respective Commissioners shall deem it expedient, they may submit to the said arbiter new arguments upon the said claims. THE GADSDEN TREATY. Dated at the City of Mexico, 30th December, 1853. Ratified by the President of the United States, 29th June, 1854. Exchanged at Washington, 30th June, 1854. Proclaimed by the President of the United States, 30th June, 1854. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - A PROCLAMATION. WHEREAS, A treaty between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic was concluded and signed at the city of Mexico, on the thirtieth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three; which treaty, as amended by the Senate of the United States, and being in the English and Spanish languages, is word for word as follows: In the name of Almighty God:--The Republic of Mexico and the United States of America, desiring to remove every cause of disagreement which might interfere in any manner with the better friendship and intercourse between the two countries, and especially in respect to the true limits which should be established, when, notwithstanding what was covenanted in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in the year 1848, opposite interpretations have been urged, which might give occasion to questions of serious moment; to avoid these, and to strengthen and more firmly maintain the peace which happily prevails between the two Republics, the President of the United States has, for this purpose, appointed James Gadsden, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the same, near the Mexican Government, and the President of Mexico has appointed as Plenipotentiary "ad hoc" his Excellency Don Manuel Diez de Bonilla, Cavalier Grand Cross of the National and distinguished Order of Guadalupe, and Secretary of State, and of the office of Foreign Relations, and Don José Salazar Ylarregui and General Mariano Monterde, as Scientific Commissioners, invested with full powers for this negotiation, who, having communicated their respective full powers, and finding them in due and proper form, have agreed upon the articles following: ARTICLE I. The Mexican Republic agrees to designate the following as her true limits with the United States for the future: retaining the same dividing line between the two Californias as already defined and established, according to the fifth article of the |