of
time, to write on the part of their High Mightinesses to M. de Swart,
their Resident at the Court of Russia, and charge him to enter into a
conference, the sooner the better, with the Commissioners of her
Imperial Majesty of Russia, and of other neutral powers in the place
of his residence and elsewhere, where it shall be judged suitable, in
order to conclude together a convention for the mutual protection of
the commerce and navigation of neutral powers, on the basis of the
declaration made by her Majesty to the belligerent powers, and of the
resolution adopted on this subject by their High Mightinesses, on the
24th of April last, adding to it only, that said M. de Swart shall
take for the rule of his conduct the simplicity which her Imperial
Majesty of Russia herself has proposed in the explanations which she
made on five points at the request of his Swedish Majesty, and which
M. de Swart has communicated to their High Mightinesses, to the end,
that with such a provisional convention, they would be well pleased to
decree together the reciprocal protection of the merchant ships of
each other, which, fortified with the requisite papers shall be
nevertheless insulted on the sea; so that these merchant vessels being
in reach of one or more vessels of war of one of the allied powers,
wherever it may be, they may receive, in virtue of such an alliance,
any assistance; and that at the same time the contracting powers
engage to put to sea, provisionally, all the vessels of war they can,
and to give to the officers who shall command them necessary orders
and instructions that they may be able to fulfil these general,
salutary and simple views.

And that, further, as to arrangements to be made for the future, which
may require more particular detail, and which cannot be adjusted with
the expedition which the present perilous state of the navigation of
the neutral powers in general, and of this Province in particular
demands, M. de Swart will reserve all this for a separate article, of
which her Imperial Majesty of Russia made mention in the above named
explanations, and that he will declare in regard to this that their
High Mightinesses have given thereon their final and precise orders,
in which they will constitute one or more Plenipotentiaries who will
be able to treat of the necessary arrangements on this subject with
the neutral powers.

That said constituents, to give greater weight to their present
advice, add furt