I beg then to avail myself of this fine opportunity, when we are just gathered at the summit of Corcovado, at 800 metres above the level of the sea, to present the warmest demonstration of sympathy and friendship towards our brothers of the great Navy of the United States of America, as a general and sincere greeting spontaneously born from the core of the Brazilian's hearts. The real proof of this true assertion of mine you have just met during the solemn occasion of the triumphal entrance of your brilliant fleet, the most efficient naval strength, up to the present, that has ever been seen crossing this side of the Atlantic Ocean and getting into waters of the bay of Guanabara.
Indeed, it was such an important naval scene, such a splendid maritime spectacle, that the whole of the population in Rio, of all ages, chiefly belonging to the fair sex could not avoid going out their houses to crowd the neighbourhoods of the harbour, the hills and islands around it, and all other points of view from the city of Rio and the Nictheroy side, in order to greet the passage of the American fleet and to better appreciate the interesting display of her manœuvres. So, I may assure you, gentlemen, with my experience of a sea man, that the splendor of the scenery just alluded to, in combination with the singular and natural beauties of the bay of Guanabara, in which you were fraternally received with open arms, by the mild people all classes of our society, was of the sort of those fairy things impossible to be described, written or spoken about.
Yes, gentlemen, the peaceful commission of your fleet waving the star spangled banner of the great Republic of the United States of America around this continent of ours and training the crews of her men-of-war across the largest and deepest oceans, is certainly an act of very right naval policy, chiefly on the behalf of order and discipline of industry, labor and trade, of diplomacy and fraternal comity, and, at last, it means an exchange of civilisation amongst the peoples of the several countries of the young, immense and futurous continent of both Americas.
Therefore, I raise my cup for the health and prosperity of the sister Navy of the United States of America, one of the mightiest and more illustrious of the world, whose sacred emblem in command and perfect sisterhood with ours, let God grant may float side by side—ever for ever and ever—for the benefit of universal peace and general comfort of mankind.
President Penna again made the welcome plain when he said at his luncheon the day following to the Admirals and several Captains at Petropolis:
The warm and fraternal welcome which the people of the capital of the republic have given to the American fleet which is now visiting us ought to prove how deep and sincere the sympathy and friendship which the Brazilian nation feels for its great and prosperous sister of North America.
These are no fleeting or transitory sentiments, since they date from the hour of our birth as a nation and are ever growing in strength. Every day the bonds of friendship and of trade between the two nations are drawn closer.
When the South American peoples proclaimed their independence, at that moment so fraught with misgivings and uncertainty as to the future, the young American republic gave them strength by solemnly declaring the intangible unity of the peoples of the new world through the declaration of their great President Monroe, whose name figures in history with brilliance as a statesman of great perception and of rare political foresight.
The long and difficult voyage of the powerful fleet which to-day is the guest of Brazil, necessitating as it does the doubling of the American continent, is a fresh and splendid evidence of the unequalled vigor and the extraordinary energy of the great power which is a friend of Brazil.
With an expression of ardent and sincere wishes for the fortunate continuation of the voyage of the friendly fleet I drink to the glorious American navy, to the prosperity of the republic of the United States of America and to the personal happiness of its eminent chief, that great statesman, President Roosevelt.