"Article 15. If the freedman of his own free will shall leave the control of his former master, the latter shall no longer be under the obligations mentioned in the foregoing article.
"Article 16. The Government shall provide the means necessary for the indemnifications made necessary by the present law, by means of a tax upon those who shall remain in slavery, ranging from eleven to sixty years of age.
"Article 17. Any act of cruelty, duly justified as having been indicted by the tribunals of justice, will bring with it as a consequence the freedom of the slave suffering such excess of chastisement.
"Article 18. Any concealment impeding the application of the benefits of this law shall be punished according to title 13 of the penal code.
"Article 19. All those shall be considered free who do not appear enrolled in the census drawn up in the Island of Porto Rico the 31st of December, 1869, and in that which will have been drawn up in the Island of Cuba on the 31st of December of the present year, 1870.
"Article 20. The Government shall make a special regulation for the execution of this law.
"Article 21. The Government will report to the Cortes when the Cuban deputies shall have been admitted, a bill for the compensated emancipation of those who remain in slavery after the establishment of this law. Meantime this emancipation is carried into effect; the penalty of the whip, authorized by chapter 13 of the regulations for Porto Rico and Cuba, shall be abolished; neither can there be sold separately from their mothers children younger than fourteen years, nor slaves who are united in matrimony.
"By a resolution of the Congressional Cortes the foregoing is reported to the Regent of the Kingdom for its promulgation as a law.
"MANUEL DE LIANOS Y PERSI, Deputy Secretary.
"FRANCISCO XAVIER CARRATALA, Deputy Secretary.
"Therefore I order all tribunals, justices, officers, governors and other authorities of whatsoever class or position, to obey the same and cause it to be obeyed, complied with and executed in all its parts.
"FRANCISCO SERRANO, Minister of Ultramar.
"And, having opportunely omitted the publication of the same for the want of the regulation referred to in Article 20, and having received the sense in which said document is to be drawn up, I have ordered the exact compliance of said law, in virtue of which it is inserted in the Official Gazette for future guidance.