"If it be urged, in the case put by the United States, the waters contemplated were in the shape of great lakes, whereas, in the case of the Amazon, they are in the shape of rivers only, and that, therefore, the comparison cannot be fairly drawn: if it be urged that neither can comparison be drawn with regard to the Dardanelles and Black sea, because, in that case, it is a real strait and salt water that are concerned,—whereas, in this, it is really a river, and fresh water only: if it be urged that this government, not having dominion over any of these South American waters and their littorals, has, therefore, no right to interfere with Brazil in any policy she may choose to adopt with regard to the Amazon, its navigation, and riparian States,—the reply is both ready and plain.
"Neither shape of water-way, nor the sweetness of its fountains, has anything to do with its free use by man. Lake Titicaca is salt. Lake Titicaca, its waters, and its shores, lay within the dominions of both Peru and Bolivia. Now, suppose it were connected with the headwaters of the Amazon through navigable channels, and that Peru and Bolivia were to proclaim the freedom of the seas for Lake Titicaca, as they have done for the water-courses of the Amazon, should we not have the case of the Black sea and the Baltic, with the sound and the Dardanelles, and their bitter waters, all repeated here upon the Amazon over again; and would not the great powers of the earth have the same right to interfere, with regard to the passage of their citizens and vessels through the Amazon, in Brazil, to Titicaca, in Peru, that they have had in the case of the sound and the Dardanelles; or that they would have in case Turkey or Denmark should attempt, arbitrarily, to close either the one or the other?
"The Amazon presents a case in which the commercial nations have as much right to interfere as the riparian States themselves. It is a question of navigation which is as broad as the sea; it is a question of commerce, of civilization, of human progress, advancement, and improvement, and never before did the free navigation of any river or strait present questions of such momentous concern to the whole human family.
"Apply the principles of international law to this case, is the prayer of the memorialists. If, in obedience to these principles, the Amazon be opened to free navigation, then the capacity of the earth to sustain population becomes two-fold greater than it now is, or than, with that river closed, it can ever well be. It is a question and a prayer, therefore, which teaches the well-being of the whole human family.
"Having thus endeavored to set forth the state of this important question, and to explain the views of your memorialists, and the grounds of their prayer with regard to it, the opinion is ventured that these enlightened decrees of the Amazonian republics have, to all intents and purposes, converted the Amazon itself, as it flows through Brazil, into a mere strait, and its upper waters also, to all intents and purposes, into arms of the sea. Those States have given to American citizens the same right to sail and steam up and down that river, from the sea to the riparian shores of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, that they have to pass the sound in their commerce with the Baltic powers of Europe.
"As to the mode of exercising this right upon the "king of rivers," the conditions upon which it is to be enjoyed, your memorialists desire that Brazil should be consulted, and that deference should be paid to her wishes, in so far that reasonable restrictions may, by mutual agreement, be placed upon it, as, without necessarily trammeling the exercise of it, may, nevertheless, secure her from any inconvenience or injury with regard to it.
"But if Brazil should prove contumacious; if she should deny our rights, refuse to treat, and persist in her attempts to keep the waters of the Amazon shut up against man's free use, then, in the language of one of the most distinguished of America's jurisconsults, your memorialists would have her reminded that 'mutual intercourse and a reciprocal interchange of benefits between the different nations which compose the great family of mankind, are ordained by Providence as essential to the moral well-being of the whole human race. Who, then, shall dare to oppose his will to the accomplishment of this divine law?'
"And, as in duty bound, your memorialists will ever pray, &c.
"M. F. MAURY,
"Lieut. U. S. N., in behalf of the Memphis Convention.
"February, 1854."