After having pointed out the privileges, which the subjects of his Danish Majesty enjoy in the islands of St Croix, St Thomas, and St John, it will not be useless to observe, that it is only the commerce and navigation between the said islands and Europe, which Denmark has appropriated to itself in any manner; but the commerce, which is conducted between those islands and North America, although always subject to the same interior regulations on both sides, has been for a long while authorised by his Danish Majesty's commercial laws, and his said Majesty has, moreover, granted to the islands of St Thomas and St John privileges, which will give the commerce of these islands, with America in particular, a freer course, and very different from that of the commerce of the colony. The advantages, which the United States may derive from a more close commercial connexion with the said privileged islands, and whose ports, distinguished by the security they insure to vessels, appear to invite the commercial subjects of America, are too evident to need any circumstantial detail. There shall only be added, therefore, to what has been said, this single observation, that his Danish Majesty, having it very much at heart to open every possible road to industry and commerce, finds himself much disposed to favor the connexion in question, and that, if for this purpose the United States, after the conclusion of the present treaty, which shall fix the general commercial points between the contracting parties, should desire a particular convention to agree upon the reciprocal and local advantages proper to accomplish this object, his said Majesty would willingly come into it, provided that the United States were equally disposed on their part to facilitate the affair. The fourth and fifth articles have only been modified in order to remove the doubts, which might arise with respect to the defence and protection due to the vessels belonging to the respective subjects. It is only in cases of attack from the common enemy, against whom it was conceived possible to confine each other by these articles; for in case that one of the parties was at war and the other at peace, the vessels belonging to the neutral party could not protect the vessels belonging to the belligerent party, without taking a part and quitting its neutrality.