by retail; and they shall not be charged with any taxes or
impositions whatever on account of their enjoying this privilege, or
with any other than the most favored nations shall pay.

ARTICLE XII.

To prevent fraud, which might otherwise take place, and to establish a
mutual confidence in matters of commerce, it is agreed, that all the
citizens and subjects of the contracting parties, whether residents in
their own or in the territories of the other party, who shall have
arrived to the full age of twentyone years, (being of sound mind,
excepting always the Russian peasants) shall be judged capable of
making contracts in their own names, and shall, accordingly, be held
and obliged to fulfil and perform all contracts and engagements, which
they shall so make and enter into, agreeably to the rules of good
faith; and this, whether their fathers, or mothers, or both, shall be
living or dead at the time of making the contract, or whether they
have been portioned or not by them, or either of them. And all the
Russian clerks or servants employed in the shops shall be registered
in some tribunal, and their masters shall be responsible for them in
affairs of trade and commerce, bargains or contracts, which they shall
make in their names.

ARTICLE XIII.

When the Russian merchants shall cause to be enregistered at the
custom house their contracts or bargains for the sale or purchase of
merchandises, by their clerks or factors, or others employed by them,
the officers of the customs where these contracts shall be
enregistered, shall carefully examine if those who contract for the
account of their principals, are authorised by them with orders or
full powers made in good and due form, in which case, the said
principals shall be responsible as if they had contracted themselves
in person. But if the said clerks, factors, or other persons employed
for the said merchants, are not provided with sufficient orders or
full powers in writing, they shall not be believed upon their word,
and although the officers of the customs are charged to watch in this
respect, the contractors shall, nevertheless, take care for themselves
that the agreements or contracts that they make together exceed not
the procurations or full powers, which have been confided to them by
their employers, since these last are not held to answer but for the
objects and amount for which the full powers have b