"In the grant of the West India Company, renewed, or more properly newly erected, in the year 1700, continued in 1730, prolonged afterwards in the year 1760 for two years, and in the year 1762, from the first of January to the thirtyfirst of December, 1791, are found the limits fixed, only for the inhabitants of these Seven United Provinces, under the name of the United Company of these Provinces, upon the coasts and country of Africa, computing from the Tropic of Cancer to the southern latitude of the Equinoctial Line, with all the Islands in this district, situated upon the said coast, and particularly the Islands of St Thomas, Annebon, Islands of Principia and Fernando Po, as also the places of Essequibo and Baumenora, situated upon the Continental Coasts of America, as also the Islands of Curaçoa, Amaba and Buen Aire. All the other limits of the ancient grant being open for the commerce of all the inhabitants of the Republic, without exception, upon condition, however, that if the Company, oriental and occidental, should judge proper to navigate to the Islands situated between the coasts of Africa and America, beginning at the Ascension and further south, or any of them, and should occupy it before any other should have a private grant, with exclusion of all others for so long time as it shall occupy its places, and in case they should desist, these places should return under the second class, open for the navigation of every individual of the Republic, paying an acknowledgment, &c. That the said particulars, trading in the said districts, shall be obliged to acknowledge the Western Company, and to pay them for the right of convoy, and consequently in form of acknowledgment, viz. for the productions and merchandises for the West Indies, two per cent, and returning from thence into these Provinces, two per cent more for the commodities in return. And further, the ships navigating to places farther distant in America, contained in the ancient grant, both in going and returning, should pay five florins per last, or more or less as their High Mightinesses shall judge proper to determine hereafter; observing, nevertheless, that these five florins per last shall not be demanded of ships navigating to the Caribee Islands, which shall pay the ordinary duty for convoy to the Colleges of the Admiralty from which they sail, and the said private navigators shall be held, moreover, for the satisfaction of the Western Company, to give sufficient caution, that they will not navigate, nor cause to be navigated, the places contained in the first class, ceded to the Company with exclusion of all others. And if any one is found to act contrary, and to navigate to any place situated in the prescribed limits, and granted to the Company, his