Know all Men, that whereas His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen of Spain did
on the 9th day of October, in the year of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-three, at London, by
their respective Plenipotentiaries, negotiate a Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which said Treaty is
word for word, as follows:
Her Majesty the Queen of Spain,
on the one part, and His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands on the other part, desiring to
facilitate the establishment of commercial relations between Spain and the Hawaiian Islands and to
favor their development by a Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation suited for securing to the two
countries equal and reciprocal advantages, have nominated to this purpose for their
Plenipotentiaries, that is to say: Her Majesty the Queen of Spain, Don Juan Tomas Comyn, Knight
Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic, Knight Commander of the Royal distinguished
Order of Charles the Third, Grand Cross of the Order of Phillip the Magnanimous of Hesse, of that of
Christ of Portugal, &c., Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor of France, Commander of the Order
of Our Lady of Villaviciosa of Portugal and of the Red Eagle of Prussia, &c., Chamberlain of Her
Catholic Majesty, late Royal Councillor in extraordinary and Her actual Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Her Britannic Majesty; and His Majesty the King of the
Hawaiian Islands, Sir John Bowring, Knight Bachelor of Great Britain. Who, having mutually
communicated their powers, and found them in good and true form, have agreed on the following
Articles:
Article I. There shall be perpetual peace and
constant friendship between the
Article II. There shall be, between
Article III. The citizens of each of the contracting parties
may, like the natives in the respective territories, travel or reside, trade wholesale or retail,
let or occupy the houses, stores and shops which they may require; they may carry on the transport
of merchandise and money, and receive consignments; they may also, when they have resided more than
a year in the country, and their goods, chattels or movables which they there possess shall offer a
sufficient security, be admitted as sureties in Custom-house transactions. The citizens of both
countries shall, on a footing of perfect equality, be free both to purchase and to sell, to
establish and to fix the price of goods, merchandise and articles of every kind, whether imported or
of home manufacture, whether for home consumption or for exportation. They shall also enjoy liberty
to carry on their business themselves, to present to the Custom-house their own declarations; or to
have their places supplied by their own attorneys, factors, consignees, agents or interpreters,
whether in the purchase or sale of their goods, property or merchandise; whether for the loading or
unloading and expedition of their vessels.
They shall also have the right
to fulfill all the functions that are confided to them by their own countrymen, by strangers, or by
natives, in the position of attorneys, factors, agents, consignees, or interpreters.
For the performance of all
these acts, they shall conform to all the laws and regulations of the country, and they shall not be
subject, in any case, to any other charges, restrictions, taxes or impositions than those to which
the natives are subject; provided, always, that the police regulations employed for the protection
of the citizens of the most favored nation be respected. It is also specially provided, that all the
advantages of any kind whatever, actually granted by the laws and decrees now in force, or which in
future shall be accorded to foreign settlers, shall be guaranteed to Spaniards established, or who
establish themselves in whatever position they may deem fit in the Hawaiian territory, and the same
shall hold good for Hawaiian subjects in Spain.
Article IV. The respective citizens of the two countries shall
enjoy the most constant and complete protection for their persons and property. Consequently, they
shall have free and easy access to the courts of justice in the pursuit and defence of their rights,
in every instance and degree of jurisdiction established by the laws. They shall be at liberty,
under any circumstances, to employ lawyers, advocates or agents from any class, whom they may see
fit to authorize to act in their name. In fine, they shall in all respects enjoy the same rights and
privileges which are granted to natives, and they shall be subject to the same conditions.
Article V. The Spaniards in the Hawaiian Islands, and the
Hawaiians in Spain, shall be exempt from all service, whether in the army or navy, or in the
national guard or militia, and they cannot be subject to any other charges, restrictions, taxes or
impositions on their property, furniture or movables, than those to which the natives themselves are
subject.
Article VI. The citizens of both countries respectively shall
not be subject to any embargo, nor to be detained with their vessels, luggage, cargoes or commercial
effects for any military expedition whatever, nor for any public or private service whatever, unless
the government or local authority shall have previously agreed with the parties interested, that a
just indemnity shall be granted for such service, and for such compensation as might fairly be
required for the wrong which (not being purely fortuitous) may have grown out of the service which
they have voluntarily undertaken.
Article VII. Citizens of either of the contracting parties
shall, on the respective territories, have the right of possessing property of any sort, and
disposing of it on the same conditions as native subjects.
Spaniards shall enjoy in all
the Hawaiian territories the right of collecting and transmitting successions ab intestato or testamentary as Hawaiians, according to the
laws of the country without being subjected as strangers to any burthens or imposts which are not
paid by the natives.
Reciprocally Hawaiian subjects
shall enjoy in
The same reciprocity between
the citizens of the two countries shall exist for donations inter
vivos. On the exportation of property collected or acquired under any head by Spaniards in the
Article VIII. All Spanish or Hawaiian vessels, sailing under
their respective colors, and which shall be bearers of the ship's papers and documents required by
the laws of the respective countries shall be considered as national vessels.
Article IX. Spanish vessels which shall arrive either in
ballast or laden in Hawaiian ports, or which shall leave the same, and reciprocally, Hawaiian
vessels which, either in ballast or laden, enter or leave the ports of Spain, whether by sea, river
or canals, whatever be the place of their departure or that of their destination, shall not be
subject either at entry, or departure, to duties on tonnage, port or transit, pilotages, anchorage,
shifting, light-houses, sluices, canals, quarantines, salvage, bonding-warehouses, patents,
brokerage, navigation, passage, or to any duties or charges whatever, levied on the hulks of vessels
received or established for the benefit of the government, public functionaries, communes or
establishments of any sort other than those which are now or may hereafter be levied on national
vessels.
Article X. In all that regards the stationing, the loading and
unloading of vessels in the ports, roadsteads, harbors and docks, and generally for all the
formalities and arrangements whatever to which vessels employed in commerce, with their freights and
loading may be subject, it is agreed that no privilege shall be granted to national vessels, which
shall not be equally granted to vessels of the other country, the intention of the high contracting
parties being that in this respect also the respective vessels shall be treated on the footing of
perfect equality.
Article XI. Vessels of the subjects of the contracting
parties, compelled to seek shelter in the ports of the other, shall pay neither on the vessels nor
the cargo more duties than those levied on national vessels in the same situation; provided, that
the necessity of such shelter seeking be legally shown; that the vessels shall carry on no
commercial speculations, and that they tarry no longer in the aforesaid ports than is required by
the motives which impelled them to seek such shelter.
Article XII. Spanish ships of war, and whaling ships, shall
have free access to all the Hawaiian ports; they may there anchor, be repaired and victual their
crews; they may proceed from one harbor to another of the
At all the ports which are or
may be hereafter opened to foreign vessels, Spanish ships of war and whalers shall be subject to the
same rules which are or may be imposed, and shall enjoy in all respects the same rights, privileges
and immunities which are or may be granted to Hawaiian ships and whalers, or to those of the most
favored nation.
Article XIII. Articles of all sorts imported into the ports of
either of the contracting States, under the flag of the other, whatever be their origin, and from
whatever country imported, shall pay neither, other nor heavier duties of entry, and shall not be
subjected to any other charges than those imposed on vessels under the flag of the most favored
nation.
Article XIV. Spanish ships in the Hawaiian Islands, and
Hawaiian ships in Spain, may discharge a portion of their cargo in the port of their first arrival,
and proceed with the rest of their cargo to other ports of the same country, which may be open to
foreign trade, whether to complete their unloading or to provide their return cargo, and shall pay
in neither port other or heavier duties than those levied on national vessels in similar
circumstances.
As regards the coasting trade,
the vessels of each country shall be mutually treated on the same footing as the most favored
nation.
Article XV. During the period allowed by laws of the two
countries for the warehousing of goods, no other duties than those for custody and storage shall be
levied upon articles imported from one of the two countries into the other, until they shall be
removed for transit, re-exportation or internal consumption.
In no case shall such articles
pay higher duties or be liable to other formalities than if they had been imported under the
national flag, or from the most favored country.
Article XVI. Merchandise shipped on board Spanish or Hawaiian
ships, or belonging to their respective citizens, may be transhipped in the ports of the two
countries to a vessel bound for a national or foreign port, according to the custom house
regulations of the two countries, and the goods so transhipped for other ports shall be exempt from
all duties of customs or warehouses.
Article XVII. Articles of all sorts proceeding from
Reciprocally, the articles of
every sort proceeding from the
Article XVIII. Neither one nor the other of the contracting
parties will impose upon the goods proceeding from the soil, the manufactures or the warehouses of
the other different or greater duties on importation or re-exportation, than those which shall be
imposed on the same merchandise coming from any other foreign country.
Nor shall there be imposed on
the goods exported form one country to the other, different or higher duties than if they were
exported to any other foreign country.
No restriction or prohibition
of importation or exportation shall take place in the reciprocal commerce of the contracting parties
which shall not be equally extended to all other nations.
Article XIX. Consuls-General, Consuls, Vice-consuls and
Consular Agents may be established by each country in the other for the protection of commerce, such
agents shall not enter upon their functions or enjoyment of the rights, privileges and immunities
which belong to them until they have obtained the authorization of the territorial government, which
shall, besides, preserve the right of determining the place of residence where Consuls may be
established; it being understood that neither Government will impose any restriction which is not
common in the country to all nations.
Article XX. The Consuls-General, Consuls, Vice-Consuls and
Consular Agents of Spain, in the Hawaiian Islands, shall enjoy all the rights, privileges,
immunities and exemptions enjoyed by the agents of the most favored nation in the same
circumstances.
And the same shall be the
position in
Article XXI. The desertion of seamen embarked in the vessels
of either of the contracting parties shall be severely dealt with in their respective territories.
In consequence the Spanish consuls shall have the power to cause to be arrested and sent on board,
or to
All aid and assistance shall be
given for the discovery and arrest of such deserters, who shall be detained in the prisons of the
country, on the requirement and at the expense of the consuls, until they shall find an opportunity
of sending them away. If, however, no opportunity shall offer in the course of two months, counting
from the day of arrest, the deserters may be set at liberty.
It is understood that seamen
who are native Hawaiians shall be excepted from this arrangement, and be treated according to the
laws of their own country.
If the deserter has committed
any crime in the Hawaiian territory, his release shall not take place till the competent tribunal
shall have given judgment, and this judgment been carried into execution.
Hawaiian consuls shall possess
exactly the same rights in Spain, and it is formally agreed between the two contracting parties,
that every other favor or facility granted or to be granted by either to any other power for the
arrest of deserters shall be also granted to the present contracting parties as fully as if they had
formed part of the present treaty.
Article XXII. All operations connected with the salvage of
stranded or wrecked Spanish vessels on the Hawaiian coasts shall be superintended by the Consular
Agent of Spain, and reciprocally the Consular Hawaiian Agents shall superintend the operations
connected with the salvage of Hawaiian vessels stranded or wrecked on the Spanish coasts.
But if the parties interested
find themselves on the spot, or the captain possess adequate powers, the administration of the wreck
shall be committed to them.
The intervention of the local
authorities shall only be applied to the maintenance of order, to guarantee the rights of the
salvors if they do not belong to the ship-wrecked crew, and to insure the execution of the measures
to be taken for the entry and departure of the saved goods. In the absence and until the arrival of
the Consular Agents, the local authorities will take the needful steps for the protection of persons
and property wrecked.
The goods saved shall never be
subjected to customs or other duty, unless they are disposed of for home consumption.
Article XXIII. The ships, merchandise and effects belonging to
the respective citizens which may have been taken by pirates or conveyed to or found in the ports of
either of the contracting parties, shall be delivered to their owners on payment of the expenses
should there be such, the amount to be determined by the competent tribunals when the right of the
proprietor shall be proved before these tribunals, and the claim being made within the space of
eighteen months by the interested parties, by their attorneys, or by the agents of their respective
Governments.
Article XXIV. If, from a concurrence of unfortunate
circumstances, differences between the contracting parties should cause an interruption of the
relations of friendship between them, and that after having exhausted the means for an amicable and
conciliatory discussion, the object of their mutual desire should not have been completely attained,
the arbitration of a third power, equally the friend of both, shall by a common accord be appealed
to, in order to avoid by this means a definitive rupture.
Article XXV. Hawaiian subjects shall enjoy, in the
Ultra-marine possessions of Spain, the advantages which are conceded to the subjects of the most
favored nation, and in the same possessions, the stipulations of this treaty shall have effect when
not openly opposed to the special legislation there existing.
Article XXVI. All vessels bearing the flag of Spain, shall, in
time of war, receive every possible protection, short of active hostility, within the ports and
waters of the Hawaiian Islands, and Her Majesty the Queen of Spain engages to respect, in time of
war the neutrality of the Hawaiian Islands, and to use her good offices with all the other powers
having treaties with the same, to induce them to adopt the same policy toward the said Islands.
Article XXVII. The present treaty shall be in vigor for ten
years, to commence six months after the exchange of ratification. If a year before the expiration of
this term neither of the contracting parties shall have announced, by an official declaration, its
intention of terminating it, the treaty shall still remain in force for a year, and so continue from
year to year.
Article XXVIII. The present treaty shall be ratified and the
ratification exchanged at
In faith whereof, the respective Plenipotentiaries
have signed the same, and thereto affixed their seals.
Done in duplicate at
[ L. S. ] |
Juan T. Comyn |
[ L. S. ] |
John
Bowring |
And, Whereas, The said Treaty has been now duly ratified by His Majesty the King, and
His Highness the Regent of Spain, and ratifications exchanged, the said Treaty has become a part of
the law of this Kingdom, and all the provisions thereof are to be observed.
[ L.S. ] Chas.
C. Harris,
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Foreign
Office,
