182 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL 



revenue, especially since many duties of forty-eight 

 per cent, have been reduced to twenty-four, and 

 fifteen. The mercantile system previously sub- 

 sisting between Portugal and Brazil, was particu- 

 larly shaken by the treaty concluded with England*, 

 which gave to the English flag equal, nay even 

 greater privileges in the ports of Portugal and its 

 possessions, than the Portuguese. An additional 

 convention extended the freedom of the British 

 commerce, t English merchants obtained in the 

 Juiz Conservador a distinct tribunal for their com- 

 mercial connections with the Portuguese subjects. 

 It was likewise intended, on occasion of the mar- 

 riage of Her Imperial Highness the Archduchess 

 Leopoldina, to establish a commercial intercourse 

 with Austria, in which the two states were reci- 

 procally to favour each other ; this plan was, how- 

 ever, never brought to maturity. Perhaps too, it 

 might be difficult for the Austrian articles, some 

 few excepted, to equal in cheapness the English, 

 with which they would have to contend, and the 

 more so as all articles, except the Portuguese and 

 English, pay a duty of twenty-five per cent. 



The importation of European productions and 

 manufactures into Rio de Janeiro, extends to all 

 imaginable human wants. Portugal and the islands 

 send wine, oil, flour, biscuit, salt, butter, vinegar, 

 st€)ckfish, hams, sausages, olives, and preserved or 



* In February 1810, at Rio de Janeiro, by Lord Strangford, 

 on the part of England, 

 f See Note 3. page 200. 



