Belligerents may appeal to the charity of the commanders of neutral merchant-ships, yachts, or boats to take the sick and wounded on board and tend them.
Vessels responding to this appeal, and also vessels which may have of their own accord rescued sick, wounded, or shipwrecked men, shall enjoy special protection and certain immunities. In no case may they be captured for the sole reason of having such persons on board; but, subject to any undertaking that may have been given to them, they remain liable to capture for any violations of neutrality they may have committed.
Article 10
The religious, medical, and hospital staff of any captured ship is inviolable, and its members may not be made prisoners of war. On leaving the ship they are entitled to remove their own private belongings and surgical instruments.
They shall continue to discharge their duties so far as necessary, and can afterwards leave, when the Commander-in-Chief considers it permissible.
Belligerents must guarantee to the said staff, while in their hands, the same allowances and pay as are given to the staff of corresponding rank in their own navy.
Article 11
Sick or wounded sailors, soldiers on board, or other persons officially attached to fleets or armies, whatever their nationality, shall be respected and tended by the captors.
Article 12
Any war-ship belonging to a belligerent may demand the surrender of sick, wounded, or shipwrecked men on board military hospital-ships, hospital-ships belonging to relief societies or to private individuals, merchant-ships, yachts, or boats, whatever the nationality of such vessels.