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on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, and on behalf of His Highness the Emperor of Japan, within 12 months from the present date."

"VII. When this Convention shall be ratified, no high officer coming to Japan shall alter it."

ARRANGEMENT REGARDING STAMPS.

An arrangement made subsequently to the Convention requires that British ships intending to visit Japan, shall be provided with a document in proof of their nationality, and as a check upon the conduct of vessels in Japanese ports; and Her Majesty's Government has directed a form of certificate of registration to be adopted,* which has been accepted as satisfactory by the Japanese authorities; and merchant ships arriving in Japanese ports are to submit their certificate of registration to the officers to be appointed by the Japanese authorities, and to permit them to make such extracts from it as may seem good to them, before such ships can be admitted to obtain repairs and supplies. Her Majesty's ships of war will not be provided with such documents; but the officers in command, upon proper application, will afford all reasonable information regarding their ships.

REGULATIONS for the Port of Nagasaki, communicated to RearAdmiral Sir James Stirling by the Governor of Nagasaki, October,

1854.

STANDING PORT REGULATIONS.

ART. I. Ships shall anchor within Two-sima, and there await the directions of the Governor.

II. No fire-arms to be discharged.

III. No person to land on any of the islands.

IV. No soundings to be taken, nor boats to be pulling about. V. Should any communication be desired, a boat of the upper officers shall be called; but no communication shall be held with merchant-boats, and no exchange of articles take place, or trading of any sort.

The above being according to the law of Great Japan, all commanders and other officers shall obey the same, and orders shall be given to the crew that the aforesaid law shall not be broken.

No regulations for the port of Hakodadi have yet been communicated.

The Form of Register issued to British vessels at the Custom-House.

ADDITIONAL POSTAL CONVENTION between Great Britain and the Netherlands.-Signed at London, September 20. 1854.

The Hague, October 10,

THE General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the General Post Office of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, having taken into consideration that it is expedient to adopt measures for a reduction of the charge to which the correspondence exchanged between the 2 offices is subject by virtue of the Convention of 14th October, 1843,* and that some modification is necessary in respect to other stipulations of the same Convention, in order to adapt them to present circumstances and the requirements of the service:

For the purpose of carrying the same into effect, the undersigned Rowland Hill, Esq., Secretary of the General Post Office, furnished with full powers from the Postmaster-General of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and M. Jaques Pols, Chief Director of the Post Office of the Netherlands, &c., furnished with full powers from his Excellency the Minister of Finance of His Majesty the King of the Netherlands, having the general administration of the Post Office under his department:

Have agreed upon the following Articles:

Art. I. The direct and regular exchange of mails between the General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the General Post Office of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, by means of steam-boats carrying on the packet service between London and Rotterdam, which was provisionally suspended on the 15th December, 1853, is altogether abolished.

The mails shall be exchanged daily (Sunday excepted), by the route of Belgium, by means of the mail packets established by the Governments of Great Britain and of Belgium between Dover and Ostend.

II. The correspondence shall be forwarded from one country to the other in closed mails, which shall be made up on every day in the week, except Sunday, in London and at Dover, on the side of the United Kingdom, and at Breda, Maastricht, and L'Ecluse on the side of the Netherlands. The office of London shall exchange mails with the offices of Breda, Maastricht, and L'Ecluse; but the office of Dover shall exchange mails with the office of Breda only. Nevertheless, the 2 offices reserve to themselves the right by mutual agreement to nominate hereafter other offices of exchange, if it shall be found necessary.

III. Independently of the regular exchange referred to in the * Vol. XXXI. Page 89.

preceding Articles, mails containing letters to be forwarded by private ships shall continue to be exchanged between the offices in the respective ports according to the existing arrangement, as often as opportunities shall offer, but the letters thus exchanged shall consist exclusively of those which the writers may address to be forwarded by private ship.

IV. Letters originating in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and addressed to any place in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and reciprocally, letters sent from any place in the Netherlands to any place in the said United Kingdom, shall be charged, in the 2 countries, with an uniform postage of 8d., or 40 cents per single letter, of which 4d., or 20 cents, shall represent the postage due to the British Office, and 20 cents, or 4d., that due to the Netherland Office. This rate shall be applicable to letters not prepaid, as well as to those which are prepaid.

V. With respect to letters above the weight of a single letter (which is fixed at an ounce in England and at 15 grammes inclusive in the Netherlands), each office shall apply on its part the following scale of progression, viz.:

On the part of the British Office: From to 1 ounce, 2 rates; 1 to 2 ounces, 4 rates; 2 to 3 ounces, 6 rates; and so on for each ounce, or fraction of an ounce, 2 rates of postage additional.

On the part of the Netherland Office: From 15 to 30 grammes inclusive, 2 rates; 30 to 45, 3 rates; 45 to 60, 4 rates; 60 to 75, 5 rates; 75 to 90, 6 rates; and so on for every 15 grammes, or fraction of 15 grammes, 1 rate of postage additional.

The British Office, however, shall be at liberty to apply the scale here authorized for the Netherland Office, should it deem such a course hereafter desirable.

VI. The same rate of 8d., or 40 cents, per single letter, shall be charged upon letters transmitted between the 2 countries direct by private ships.

VII. The 2 offices shall mutually account to each other for the portion which is due to each of the postage of the international correspondence forwarded to them, both for that of the letters not prepaid, and for that of the letters which are prepaid. In order, however, to simplify this operation, all letters contained in one and the same mail, and belonging to the same class, shall be weighed in bulk, and payment for them shall be made as follows:

By the Netherland Office to that of Great Britain, 8d. per ounce, British money and weight,

By the British Office to that of the Netherlands, 40 cents per 30 grammes, Netherland money and weight.

VIII. The Netherland Office shall continue to receive, without charge to the British Office, all letters which the said office shall

forward to it for other States on the Continent, in transit through the Netherlands, and also those originating in the said States and intended for Great Britain that may be sent by the same route. These letters shall be forwarded by the British Office to that of the Netherlands, and by the latter Office to that of Great Britain, without any charge or expense. The Netherland Office reserving to itself, however, the power to levy upon the other offices concerned a transit rate, the amount of which shall not exceed the Netherland share of the rate for the international correspondence, as fixed above; that is, 20 cents for a single letter, whether forwarded in the regular mail, or direct by private ships.

IX. The reduction authorized by Article IV on the amount representing the postage due to the British Office upon international correspondence, shall be also applied to all letters sent from the Netherlands, in transit through the United Kingdom, to British colonies and foreign countries, and vice versâ.

For each single letter of this class, the postage of which is collected in the Netherlands, the Netherland Office shall account to the British Office at the rates stated in the Table A, annexed to the present Articles.

The same rates shall be charged upon letters in transit through both countries, and the Netherland Office shall receive from the States of the Continent the postage to which the letters are liable in either direction, and shall account to the British Office for the portion due to the latter, according to the Table above referred to.

X. There shall be excepted from the stipulations of Article XXIII of the Convention of 14th October, 1843, those letters originating in the British West Indies (including Bermuda) or in the British Colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in North America, and addressed to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the postage of which the senders may desire to pay in advance at the time of posting.

Upon such prepaid letters the entire postage, as well that due to the British Office as that due to the Office of the Netherlands, shall be collected by the British Office, which shall account to the Office of the Netherlands for the postage due to the latter upon such letters, in the same manner as the postage upon international letters is agreed to be accounted for in Article VII of the present Articles.

XI. On the other hand, the pre-payment, at the rate established by Table A, annexed to the present Articles, shall be considered as optional for the letters originating in the Netherlands, and destined for the British Colonies and Possessions, in which the Office of the United Kingdom maintains Post Offices. Those colonies and pos sessions are shown in a special column of the said Table.