CHAPTER XIX.
RESUMÉ.
My report would be incomplete were I to fail to bring to the notice of the department circumstances concerning the free navigation of the river that have occurred since my return from the valley of the Amazon.
These circumstances are clearly the result of my mission, which appears to have opened the eyes of the nations who dwell upon the banks of the Amazon, and to have stirred into vigorous action interests which have hitherto laid dormant. They have an important and direct bearing upon the question, whether the United States may or may not enter into commercial relations, by the way of the Amazon, with the Spanish American republics, who own the headwaters of that noble stream.
The government of the United States had scarcely begun to entertain the idea of sending a commission to explore the valley of the Amazon, with a view to ascertain what benefits might accrue to its citizens by the establishment of commercial relations with the people who dwell upon its banks, when the fact became known to Brazil. That government, thus awakened to its own (more apparent, however, than real) interests, immediately cast about for means to secure for itself any advantages that might arise from a monopoly of the trade of the river.
She accordingly despatched to Lima an able envoy, Duarte da Ponte Ribeiro, with instructions to make a treaty with Peru concerning the navigation of the Amazon; and, this done, to proceed to Bolivia for the same purpose, while the Brazilian Resident Minister in Bolivia, Miguel Maria Lisboa, was sent to the republics of Ecuador, Venezuela, and New Granada, so as to secure for Brazil the navigation of all the confluents of the Amazon belonging to Spanish South America.
Da Ponte succeeded in making with Peru a treaty highly advantageous to his own government. It is styled "A treaty of fluvial commerce and navigation, and of boundary," and has the following articles relating to steamboat navigation:
"Article 1.
"The republic of Peru, and his Majesty, the Emperor of Brazil, desiring to encourage, respectively, the navigation of the river Amazon and its confluents by steamboat, which by ensuring the exportation of the immense products of those vast regions, may contribute to increase the number of the inhabitants and civilize the savage tribes, agree, that the merchandise, produce, and craft, passing from Peru to Brazil, or from Brazil to Peru, across the frontier of both States, shall be exempt from all duty, imposts, or sale duty, (alcabala,) whatsoever, to which the same products are not subject in the territory where produced, to which they shall be wholly assimilated.
"Article 2.