On February 25, 1885, the powers of Europe and America gave their cordial recognition to the Congo Free State, and sanctioned the employment of all civilized means for the preservation of order, the introduction of civilization and lawful commerce, for the guarantees of the safety of its people and efficient administration. It was markedly stipulated that the new state should watch over the preservation of the native races and the moral and material conditions of their existence, should suppress slavery, and, above all, the slave trade, and punish those engaged in it; that it should protect and encourage without distinction of nationality or creed all institutions and enterprises, religious, scientific, or charitable, organized for this object. In time to come the regenerated peoples of central Africa will point to the acts of the Berlin Conference as their charters of freedom from the civilized world. For not only did this world-wide recognition hearten the sovereign of the new state and founder of the association which fathered it to continue his benevolent work, but the principles formulated during the sitting of the Conference suggested to ambitious powers the possibilities of immediate expansion of territory, after the example of King Leopold II. The exigencies of diplomacy, even during the Conference, had forced the powers to recognize immense concessions of territory to France and Portugal, so that without the expenditure of a copper French Gaboon was extended to the Congo, and Portuguese Angola was amplified northward until its shores faced the only sea-port of the young state. These political distributions disposed of over one million and a half square miles of African territory.