120 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



chant ships of all nations, as far as the frontier of 

 Brazil. 



Later even the Brazilians themselves conceded the 

 beneficial influence of Maury in bringing this about. 

 "After the publication in the Correio Mercantil of his 

 (Maury's) memoriar', wrote the Brazilian historian, 

 Joaquim Nabuco,^ ''and his description of the Amazon 

 region, locked up from the world by a policy more ex- 

 clusive than Japan's or Dr. Francia's, the cause of the 

 freedom of navigation was triumphant. Tavares Bastos 

 himself received from the book by Maury the patriotic 

 impulse which converted him into a champion of this 

 great cause". Events moved too swiftly, however, in 

 the United States for the development of the Amazon 

 Valley to play any part in the settling of the slavery 

 question. 



Although Maury was, to a certain degree, pro-slavery 

 and a strong States' rights man, yet he was by no means 

 dis-unionist. In fact, during those critical months just 

 preceding the outbreak of the War between the States 

 he used all the power and influence at his command to 

 keep the country united. As early as 1845 he referred 

 in one of his letters to the "tendencies toward disunion 

 in the nation", and as the years went by there was a 

 constantly increasing number of references in his cor- 

 respondence to the drifting of the ship of state toward 

 the breakers. In his opinions regarding the great 

 question at issue, he occupied a position in the middle 

 ground and refused to permit himself to be carried away 

 by either the extremists at the North or those of the 

 South. He condemned with equal vigor the effort to 



1 Urn Estadista do Imperio (Paris, 1897), III, 12. 



