The case was too strong to admit of question. Tirado, the Peruvian minister, immediately admitted the justice of the claim, and his government issued a decree throwing open to us the same ports that she had thrown open to Brazil.
Cavalcanti, the Brazilian minister in Peru, protested earnestly against this decree, but was told that Peru must perform her treaty stipulations as well with the United States and with England as with Brazil.
I supposed that Clay had completely and finally triumphed; but a remarkable change, for which I am entirely unable to account, (however much I may suspect,) suddenly and unexpectedly took place in the aspect of the affair. The wise, liberal, and enlightened Tirado retires from the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, and is succeeded in that office by Don José Gregorio Paz Soldan, who adopts an entirely different policy; declares that the treaty of navigation concluded with Brazil on the 23d of October, 1851, was a special one regarding the interior waters of the republic, and induces the President to issue a decree explanatory of that of April 15th, 1852, which virtually repeals the 2nd article of that decree, which 2nd article gives to our citizens and vessels the same rights in the Peruvian waters of the Amazon that are given to the subjects and vessels of Brazil by the treaty of 23d of October, 1851.
Clay makes a masterly reply to the reasonings of Paz Soldan upon the subject—protests against the action of the Peruvian government—and declares that "his government will not be disposed to regard such a course as a proof of the desire that Peru has manifested to preserve friendly relations between this republic and that of the United States."
Thus has Peru, at the instance of the Brazilian government, taken a step backward, and sought to again throw over herself the dark mantle of exclusiveness, thereby shutting out the improvement and advantages that would accrue to her from intercourse with the great commercial nations of the earth.
But this exclusive policy does not at all affect the question of the right of Brazil to close the Amazon.
Miguel Maria Lisboa was instructed by Brazil to make a treaty with Bolivia, similar to the one made by Da Ponte with Peru, but he entirely failed in his object. The Bolivian government issued the following decree, dated "La Paz, 27th January, 1853:"
"Whereas, 1st, the eastern and western parts of the republic, enclosing vast territories of extraordinary fertility, intersected by navigable rivers flowing to the Amazon and to the La Plata, offers the most natural channels for the commerce, population, and civilization of these districts;
"Whereas, 2d, the navigation of these rivers is the most efficacious and certain means of developing the riches of this territory, by placing it in communication with the exterior, and applying to its waters the fruitful principle of free navigation, as useful to the interests of the republic as to those of the world;
"Whereas, 3d, by the law of nature and of nations, confirmed by the conventions of modern Europe, and applied in the New World to the navigation of the Mississippi, Bolivia, as owner of the Pilcomayo, of the tributaries and the greater part of the Madeira, of the left shore of the Itenes from its junction with the Saravé to its emptying into the Mamoré, of the western bank of the Paraguay to the Marco del I——, as far as 26° 54´ of south latitude, and of the greater part and the left shore of the Bermejo, has the right to navigate these rivers from the point in her territory in which they may be susceptible of it to the sea, without any power being able to arrogate to itself the exclusive, sovereignty over the Amazon and La Plata;