"Art. x. As the end and the principal motive of this Convention is, to assure the general liberty of commerce and of navigation, her Majesty, the Empress of Russia, and his Majesty, the King of Denmark and of Norway, agree and engage beforehand, to permit that other neutral powers accede to this convention, and by taking cognizance of these principles, to partake also of the obligations and advantages of the said convention.
"Art. xi. To the end that the belligerent powers may not pretend a cause of ignorance of these said engagements between the said Courts, the high contracting parties will communicate in a manner the most friendly to all the belligerent powers these maxims, in which they have united, which measures are so much the less hostile, as they are not hurtful to any other power; but have solely for their object the safety of the commerce and of the navigation of their respective subjects.
"Art. xii. The present Convention shall be ratified by the two contracting parties, and the ratifications shall be exchanged in good form in the term of six weeks, to be computed from the signatures, or even sooner; if it may be. In faith of which we have, in virtue of our full powers, signed the present, and, sealed it with our seals. Done at Copenhagen, the nineteenth of July, 1780.
CHARLES VAN OSTEN, named SAKEN,
O. THOTT,
I. SCHACK REVENTLAW,
A. P. COMTE DE BERNSTORFF,
H. EICHSTEDT."
The ratifications of this Convention were exchanged at Copenhagen the 16th of September, 1780, by the same Ministers Plenipotentiary who signed it, and as to this end, the Ministers Plenipotentiary named to this purpose, viz. on the part of her Imperial Majesty, the Count Nikia Panin, actually Privy Counsellor, Senator, Chamberlain in Exercise, and Knight of the Orders of St Andrew, St Alexander Newsky, and St Anne, and the Count John Osterman, Vice Chancellor, Privy Counsellor, and Knight of the Orders of St Alexander Newsky and St Anne; and on the part of his Majesty the King of Sweden, the Baron Frederick Van Nalken, Envoy Extraordinary of his Swedish Majesty at the Court of her Imperial Majesty, Chamberlain, Commandant of the Order of the Polar Star, Knight of the Orders of the Sword and of St John, have signed, the 21st of July, 1780, at St Petersburg, a similar Convention, conceived in the same form, and word for word, of the same tenor with that signed at Copenhagen, except the second article, in which the stipulations of contraband being resolved and ratified, to which they are to adhere, in consequence of treaties subsisting between the Crown of Sweden and the other powers, we have to this purpose, to avoid the repetition of what has been already said, added here, literally, the said second article.
We ought further to recollect, that the two Kings, who have joined in this affair to her Imperial Majesty, have acceded as principal contracting parties to the treaties concluded between her Imperial Majesty and the said Courts, and have signed with their own hands upon this subject on one part and the other, an act, which has been exchanged at St Petersburg by the Ministry of her Imperial Russian Majesty.
Here follows the second article of the treaty concluded and signed at Petersburg, the 21st of July, 1780, between her Imperial Majesty and his Majesty the King of Sweden.
"Art ii. To avoid all error and misunderstanding on the subject of the name of contraband, her Imperial Majesty of Russia and his Majesty the King of Sweden declare, that they acknowledge only as effects of contraband those which are contained in the treaties subsisting between the said courts and one or other of the belligerent powers."
Her Majesty the Empress of Russia conforms herself in this entirely to the tenth and eleventh articles of her Treaty of Commerce with Great Britain, and extends also the engagements of this treaty, which are entirely founded upon the law of nature, to the Crowns of France and Spain, which at the date of the present Convention have no Treaty of Commerce with her empire. His Majesty the King of Sweden refers himself principally on his part to the eleventh article of his Treaty of Commerce with Great Britain, and to the tenor of the preliminary Treaty of Commerce concluded in the year 1741, between the Crowns of Sweden and France, although, in this last, the contents of contraband are not expressly determined, but as the two Powers have therein understood to consider one another as Gens amicissima, and that as Sweden has therein reserved the same advantages, which the Hanseatic cities enjoy in France, from the most remote times to the present. The advantages, which are comprehended in the Treaty of Utrecht, being confirmed, the King has not found anything necessary to be added. With regard to Spain, the King finds himself in the same case as the Empress, and after her example he extends to this Crown the engagements of the said treaties, wholly founded on natural law.
Their High Mightinesses, the States-General of the United Provinces of the Low Countries, have acceded the 20th of November, 1780, upon the same footing to the said Convention, and it has been signed the 5th of January, 1781, at St Petersburg, only with the addition of a thirteenth article, which with relation to command, in case of rencounter or combination of the squadrons and the vessels of war of the two parties, there shall be observed what has been the usage between crowned heads and the Republic.