said agents
otherwise participating in the immunities, rights, and privileges
attributed to Consuls and Vice-Consuls, and without power, under any
pretext whatever, to exact from the said merchants any duty or emolument
whatsoever.

Article IV. The Consuls and Vice-Consuls respectively, may establish a
chancery, where shall be deposited the consular determinations, acts,
and proceedings, as also testaments, obligations, contracts, and other
acts done by or between persons of their nation, and effects left by
decedents, or saved from shipwreck.

They may, consequently, appoint fit persons to act in the said chancery,
qualify and swear them in, commit to them the custody of the seal, and
authority to seal commissions, sentences, and other consular acts,
and also to discharge the functions of notaries and registers of the
consulate.

Article V. The Consuls and Vice-Consuls respectively, shall have the
exclusive right of receiving in their chancery, or on board their
vessels, the declarations and all other the acts which the captains,
masters, crews, passengers, and merchants of their nation may choose to
make there, even their testaments and other disposals by last will: and
the copies of the said acts, duly authenticated by the said Consuls or
Vice-Consuls, under the seal of their consulate, shall receive faith
in law, equally as their originals would, in all the tribunals of the
dominions of the M. C. King and of the United States.

They shall also have, and exclusively, in case of the absence of the
testamentary executor, guardian, or lawful representative, the right
to inventory, liquidate, and proceed to the sale of the personal estate
left by subjects or citizens of their nation, who shall die within
the extent of their consulate; they shall proceed therein with the
assistance of two merchants of their said nation, or, for want of them,
of any other at their choice, and shall cause to be deposited in their
chancery, the effects and papers of the said estates; and no officer,
military, judiciary, or of the police of the country, shall disturb them
or interfere therein, in any manner whatsoever: but the said Consuls
and Vice-Consuls shall not deliver up the said effects, nor the proceeds
thereof, to the lawful representatives or to their order, till they
shall have caused to be paid all debts which the deceased shall have
contracted in the country; for which purpose the creditor shall have a
right to attach the s