94 



PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



at the same time that a great variety of quahties exist in the same commodity, 

 which gradations of value are yearly increasing, by the introduction of mechani- 

 cal povv^er and other improvements into our manufactures. Some printed 

 cottons are worth upwards of two shillings per yard, others nine-pence or one 

 shilling, with intermediate qualities. Cambric muslins bear greater dispropor- 

 tions of quality, yet the duties are exacted upon goods of this kind, worth one 

 shilling per yard, at the same rate as those bearing twice the value. At Rio, 

 where more fine goods are used, they pay the same duty as the merchants of 

 Bahia and Pernambuco, where more of the lower quality of the same articles 

 are imported ; and, in consequence, the merchants of the latter place have been 

 entirely precluded, during the last eighteen months, from despatching through 

 the custom-house printed cottons and muslins of a low price, as the valuation 

 they hold in the pauta would have made the duty forty per cent, upon their real 

 worth in lieu of fifteen per cent. Mr. Lempriere, the consul of Pernambuco, 

 did not conceive it his duty to interfere in the matter ; but it would appear 

 that the captain-general and the judge of the custom-house, were either in- 

 fluenced by the diminution of customs collected, or by the representations of 

 the merchants themselves, to accede to an arbitration. Messrs. Cockshott, 

 Mitchel, and Todd, three very competent and highly-respectable merchants^ 

 were selected, on the part of the English, to meet three Portuguese merchants ; 

 and, in the month of January, 1 820, during my stay at Pernambuco, the mat- 

 ter was, for the time being, amicably adjusted ; but the nature of the pauta 

 will ever present great difficulties, and can never embrace the intended 

 equitable duty upon the imports. The same objections have been raised at 

 Bahia and other places. The arrangement above alluded to did not long 

 continue in operation, in consequence of not receiving the sanction of the 

 Bi azilian government. The difficulty is now greatly augmented by the con- 

 tinued depression in British manufactures. Printed cottons, rated in the pauta 

 at seven milreas four hundred reas each piece, and upon which valuation the 

 duty of fifteen per cent, must be paid, were not worth more than from three 

 milreas two hundred reas to three milreas six hundred reas, in the Pernambuco 

 market at the close of 1820. This produces a result so manifestly against the 

 British merchant, that it must ultimately prove ruinous to him. Memorials have 

 been presented to the Hon. Mr. Thornton, relative to these injurious conse- 

 quences of the pauta, and the British merchants connected with the Brazil 

 are in expectation that the attention of their government will be drawn to this 



