594 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



Monopolies of ivory, snuff, and orchilla weed, with a great deal of red 

 wood. It employs a large quantity of Shipping, and trains the best body 

 of Seamen which Brazil possesses. 



The Colonial Trade to Portugal and the Isles, or the old intercourse 

 between Brazil and Portugal, has greatly declined ; the wealth of the 

 Nation now centres in Rio, and a great variety of circumstances conspire 

 to render that place, in preference to Lisbon, the theatre of commercial 

 speculation and activity. Reflecting Merchants will find in this topic, 

 matter for diligent remark. 



Perhaps it was not strictly correct to include in one Table, the whole 

 trade of Rio de Janeiro to the Plata because the Eastern side of the 

 river may now be considered as an integral part of Brazil. But at the 

 period to which the Table relates this branch of commerce had been very 

 much disturbed, and, indeed, was not a perfectly open and allowed one. 

 But so long as Merchants had confidence in each other, and were worthy 

 of it, the Government, if it had been so disposed, had no means of 

 detecting the real ownership of vessels, much less of preventing the 

 trade. There was, indeed, one period, when the Merchants had lost so 

 much of their confidence, or found it so difficult to maintain a direct 

 intercourse, that commodities between the ports of the river itself, Buenos 

 Ayres, and Monte Video, were interchanged through Rio de Janeiro. 

 The other branches of the Foreign Trade, carried on direct by Por- 

 tuguese vessels, will be seen, by the tables, to be, at present, little more 

 than skeletons. 



That to Asia, which is indeed a part of the old one formerly 

 existing between Lisbon and India, merits the most particular atten- 

 tion. The situation of Brazil, in what may be justly called the Narrows 

 of the Atlantic, and the particular circumstances of the country, are 

 highly favourable to this branch of commerce. It is conducted partly 

 upon the credit of a sort of India Bonds, payable at the return of the vessel, 

 whose voyage is calculated at ten months to India, and fourteen to China, 

 which, as the legal interest in Brazil is six per cent, per annum, may 

 be estimated, respectively, at five and seven per cent. A vessel, indeed, 



