352 



RESUME. 



CHAPTER XIX, 



RESUME. 



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 govern- 

 ment, thus awakened to its own (more apparent, however, than real) 

 interests, immediately cast about for means to secure for itself any ad- 

 vantages 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 advan- 

 tageous 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 : 



