The consuls and vice consuls respectively may establish a chancery, where shall be deposited the consular acts and deliberations, all effects left by deceased persons, or saved from shipwreck, as well as testaments, obligations, contracts, and, in general, all the acts and proceedings done between, or by, persons of their nations. They may, in consequence, appoint for the _business_ of the said chancery capable persons, receive them, administer an oath to them, give to them the keeping of the seal, and the right of seal, commissions, judgments, and other acts of the consulate, as well as there to discharge the functions of notaries and registers. ARTICLE VII. The consuls and vice consuls respectively shall have the exclusive right of receiving in their chancery, or on board of vessels, the declarations and all other acts, which the captains, masters, seamen, passengers, and merchants of their nation would make there, even their testaments and other dispositions of last will, and the copies of the said acts duly authenticated by the said consuls, or vice consuls, and under the seal of their consulate shall receive faith in law in all the tribunals of France and the United States. They shall have also, and exclusively, the right to inventory, liquidate, and proceed to the sale of the moveable effects of the estates left by subjects of their nation who shall die within the extent of the consulate. They shall proceed therein with the assistance of two merchants of their said nation, of their own choosing, and shall deposit in their chancery the effects and papers of the said estates, and no officer, military or civil, or of the police of the country, shall trouble them or interfere therein, in any manner whatsoever; but the said consuls and vice consuls shall not deliver up the same and their product to the lawful heirs, or _their attornies_, until they shall have discharged all the debts, which the deceased shall have contracted in the country, by judgment, by acts, or by notes, the writing and signing of which shall be known and certified by two principal merchants of the nation of the said deceased, and in all other cases the payment of debts cannot be ordered but on the creditor's giving sufficient and local security to repay the sums unduly received, principal, interest, and costs, which securities, however, shall remain duly discharged after a year in time of peace, and two years in time of war, if the demand in discharge cannot be formed before these delays, against the heirs who shall present themselves. ARTICLE VIII.