ADDENDUM. 



417 



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, there- 

 fore, which teaches the well-being of the whole human family. 



" Having thus endeavored to set forth the state of this important ques- 

 tion, and to explain the views of your memorialists, and the grounds of 

 their prayer with regard to it, the opinion is ventured that these en- 

 lightened 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 agree- 

 ment, 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 memo- 

 rialists would have her reminded that ' mutual intercourse and a recip- 

 rocal 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 V 



"And, as in duty bound, your memorialists will ever pray, &c. 



"M. F. MAURY, 

 "Lieut. U. S. N. y in behalf of the Memphis Convention. 



"February, 1854." 



