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century, the establishment of la Colonia de San Sacramento, 

 near the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, gave rise to disputes 

 respecting the Brazilian limits. The Spaniards destroyed 

 this settlement, and a new congress of cosmographers as- 

 sembled at Puente de Caya, which lasted from the 4th of 

 November [1681], to the 22d of January, 1682. It had been 

 stipulated at the beginning of the negociations, that if they 

 were not settled in the space of three months, they should be 

 submitted to the decision of the Sovereign Pontiff. When we 

 consider the state of the world an hundred years before the 

 declaration of independence of the United States, we are 

 tempted to doubt what is proved by the most authentic do- 

 cuments preserved in the archives. It was uselessly dis- 

 cussed, whether the 370 leagues mentioned in the treaty of 

 Tordesillas, formed 22° 14', or a less number of degrees, and 

 whether that distance ought to be reckoned in the archipe- 

 lago of Cape Vert, from the centre of the island of Saint 

 Nicolas, or (as the Portugueze insisted), from the western 

 extremity of the island of Saint Anthony. According to these 

 detached arguments, the cosmographers of Lisbon sought to 

 carry the meridiano de demarcacion 13 leagues west of the re- 

 constructed settlement of San Sacramento. The congress of 

 la Puente de Cay a separated without having decided any 

 thing, and the points in litigation were not submitted to the 

 sovereign Pontiff as had been agreed. During the feeble 

 reign of Charles 2d, the Portuguese gained every where 

 upon their neighbours in America, on the side of Paraguay, 

 on the banks of the Amazon, and on the Rio Negro. By the 

 peace of Utrecht, Spain renounced the possession of San 

 Sacramento. Nearly forty years passed in the most com- 

 plete inactivity on the part of the ministry of Madrid, when 

 Queen Barbara, daughter of John 5th of Portugal, sought to 

 avail herself of the extreme weakness of her husband Ferdi- 

 nand 6th, king of Spain, in order to be useful to her country, 

 and terminate the struggle respecting the limits in South 



