Article the Eighth
The several Boards of two Commissioners mentioned in the four
preceding Articles shall respectively have power to appoint a
Secretary, and to employ such Surveyors or other persons as they shall
judge necessary. Duplicates of all their respective reports,
declarations, statements, and decisions, and of their accounts, and of
the Journal of their proceedings shall be delivered by them to the
Agents of His Britannic Majesty and to the Agents of the United
States, who may be respectively appointed and authorized to manage the
business on behalf of their respective Governments. The said
Commissioners shall be respectively paid in such manner as shall be
agreed between the two contracting parties, such agreement being to be
settled at the time of the Exchange of the Ratifications of this
Treaty. And all other expenses attending the said Commissions shall be
defrayed equally by the two parties. And in the case of death,
sickness, resignation, or necessary absence, the place of every such
Commissioner respectively shall be supplied in the same manner as such
Commissioner was first appointed; and the new Commissioner shall take
the same oath or affirmation and do the same duties. It is further
agreed between the two contracting parties that in case any of the
Islands mentioned in any of the preceding Articles, which were in the
possession of one of the parties prior to the commencement of the
present war between the two Countries, should by the decision of any
of the Boards of Commissioners aforesaid, or of the Sovereign or State
so referred to, as in the four next preceding Articles contained, fall
within the dominions of the other party, all grants of land made
previous to the commencement of the war by the party having had such
possession, shall be as valid as if such Island or Islands had by such
decision or decisions been adjudged to be within the dominions of the
party having had such possession.
