598 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



industry and prosperity. When applied with this view, they exhibit the 

 most flattering prospects, founded on an increase from 1813, as much as 

 four-fold, and, from 1808, more than ten-fold. 



During the period under review the Foreign Relations of Brazil had 

 been greatly strengthened. Buenos Ayres, the nearest Independent 

 State, and the most important in respect to moral and political influence, 

 being deeply engaged with the Royalists in Tucuman, was glad to accept 

 of a suspicious sort of countenance from the Court of Rio ; and the 

 latter greatly alarmed for the security and even loyalty of her Southern 

 -frontier, was equally anxious to repel the storm which raged in the 

 Spanish Provinces, while she carefully abstained from acknowledging 

 their independence. Indeed Buenos Ayres, Paraguay, and the Banda 

 Oriental, though by no means agreeing among themselves, observed with 

 a jealous eye the growth of Brazilian influence in the Plata. Artigas, 

 the avowed and active enemy of Brazil, had been so far checked as 

 to remain, in 1820, wholly on the Western side of the Uruguay, and 

 the slow patience, which is characteristic of the Portuguese policy, will 

 finally drive him beyond the Paraguay, unless he receive, what is by no 

 means likely to be afforded to him, prompt and efficient aid. Doubtless 

 the power of Brazil is, in this part of the Continent, decidedly predominant, 

 and what she wishes she can easily execute. What her ultimate views 

 are I presume not to guess, yet nothing is more evident than that, to 

 her, a mere extension of territory cannot be desirable 



With Spain the Political Relations had been guarantied by a new 

 Treaty, respecting Friendship, Alliance, and Territory, and the obli- 

 gation was rendered more sacred, more mutually binding, by a double 

 marriage. In this quarter, therefore, things seemed to possess something 

 like their old stability, until the unfortunate difference about Olivenga 

 and Monte Video, and the still more unfortunate demise of the young, 

 amiable, and benevolent Queen. The late Revolution in the Peninsula 

 has again relieved Brazil from serious alarms, and placed her in a station 



