represented to have been "adult and public support. It appears, from a re able-bodied paupers," amounted to more than 477,000; and it is, on British authority, asserted that in 1848 more than 2,000,000 persons in England and Wales were kept from starvation by relief from public and private sources. The total public expenditure for the poor in England and Ireland in 1848, amounted to $42,750,000. Within the past seventeen years, the poor-law fund expended in England and Wales amounted to $426,This enormous expenditure, 600,000. accompanied as it is by immense private contributions, falls far short of relieving the wants of the poor of Great Britain. While her population embraces a large number of persons of princely estates, and other classes composed of individuals of every variety of income, combining with it ease, comfort, and elegance, the statistics of the nation prove that the substratum of pauperism or want is of a magnitude alarming to the English moralist and thinker, as well as the statesman, and of an extent and nature harrowing to all. The expenses of the organized benevolent institutions of France amounted, in 1847, to 52,000,000 francs. The number of distressed persons relieved amounted to about 450,000 annually. We have no means of arriving approximately at the number of paupers in France, as the institutions above referred to are confined to the cities and large towns, while among the rural communes, which contain several millions of landed proprietors, there are large numbers of persons in the receipt of port of Mr. Duchatel, Minister of Commerce, that 695,932 persons received public alms at their own houses. The Netherlands, in 1827, with a population of 6,167,000, contained 11,400 charitable institutions, which contributed to the support of 1,214,055 persons, about one fifth of the entire population. ART. V.-SHALL THE VALLEYS OF THE AMAZON AND THE MISSISSIPPI RECIPROCATE TRADE? THE subject of South American trade, and especially that of the great empire of the Amazon, has been pressed by us in the Review, through the able pen of Lieut. Maury and others, with zeal and earnestness for many months past, and now that Congress is in session, we cannot allow the matter to flag. The following contribution presents many additional views which are new and striking, and deserving of serious consideration: this great Amazonian water-shed are to be developed, and the measures and steps which the policy of commerce suggests for securing to the world the free navigation of the Amazon. The triumphs of commerce are peaceful; its achievements are seen in the spreading of civilization, in the march of civil and religious freedom, and in the dispensation of thrift, prosperity, and wealth among nations, as well as to individuals. We now come to consider the means From the statements which I have aland modes by which the resources of ready made, all must admit that the Free Navigation of La Plata-Fertility of Upper Amazon. 137 valley of the Amazon is not only a great Amazon and La Plata, be considered country, but it is a glorious wilderness rapid traveling. Here, therefore, is the and waste which, under the improve- commencement of a new era in the ment and progress of the age, would business and the commerce of those two soon be made to "blossom as the rose. " river-basins; and the first merchantWe have, therefore, but to let loose upon it the engines of commerce-the steamer, the emigrant, the printing-press, the axe and the plow-and it will teem with life. zon. There is a line of steamers from England to Rio. The French are getting up a line, and the stock has been taken in it, from Marseilles to Rio. Brazil has a line from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, via Rio, to the mouth of the AmaThe mouth of the Amazon is half way between Norfolk and Rio. I petitioned Congress, at its last session, for the establishment of a line of mailsteamers from some one of our southern ports to connect with the Brazilian line at Para, and thus put our merchants in direct steamship communication with Rio, Buenos Ayres and Montevideo, and so draw us closer to the Amazon. The committee to whom the subject was referred reported in favor of it, and brought in a bill for its accomplishment. It was, however, not acted upon. But since that, events have occurred which make this line from the south still more important and necessary. The tyrant Rosas has been expelled from the continent; the navigation of the Rio de la Plata and some of its noblest tributaries have been opened and made free to the world. This government, with a most praiseworthy zeal, is fitting out a naval expedition to explore those streams, and to make known their navigability and the commercial resources of the countries drained by them, that our merchants may know how to send, what to sell, and what to buy there. Brazil has contracted for two lines of steamers on the Amazon, from its mouth almost up to its sources. These Amazonian lines are to run-one monthly between Para and Barra, at the mouth of the Rio Negro, a distance of nine hundred miles; the other, connecting with this at Barra, is to ply between that city and Nauta, in Peru, a distance of near three thousand miles from the sea. "Poling up the Mississippi" would, in comparison to the means at present employed for navigating the waters of the steamer, as she plows up those majestic streams with her rich cargo of foreign merchandise, will be the signal for a revolution in the trade and traffic which has been carried on there. Three millions of dollars' worth of produce now comes down the Amazon to Para. Amazon" where this line of steamers is of one man is worth but two and a half earth, so scarce the fabrics of the shop been removed from the influences of and loom, and so far has that country commerce. It is now just about to be brought within them. But what are the opportunities which Americans will have for getting a fair share of this new business to which the free navigation of the La Plata and the introduction of steam upon the Amazon will give rise? I reply, very small, unless this southern line of steamers to the Amazon be established; otherwise all the intelligence from Brazil and the La Plata, all the advices concerning the markets, will go direct to England and to France by their steamers; and then, after the merchants there shall have had some ten days or two weeks the start of their American competitors in taking advantage of that intelligence, it will arrive here in the United States by the Cunard or Collins line of steamers from Liverpool. Now and then an American clipper, happening at the mouth of the river, or in the offing at Rio, at the night time, may chance to bring intelligence to the United States sooner than it can go to Europe and then come over by steamer. But that is uncertain. The free navigation of the Rio de la Plata is an achievement, and commerce is chiefly indebted to Brazil for it. Honor to Brazil, therefore. It is a gem in the crown of the emperor, which, if it be tarnished not, will make his reign illustrious. Rosas held the mouth of the river La Plata; Brazil, Banda-Oriental, Paraguay, and Bolivia, (all independent sovereignties, owned navigable water-courses which emptied into it; but Rosas would not allow any of these powers to follow those waters through his part of the river to the sea. Brazil made war with him, drove him out of the country, and the first-fruits of the victory the commercial world is about to receive, is the free navigation of those noble streams. With a quarrel more just than that wicked one about opium, Brazil, in her triumph, followed the generous example of England in opening the ports of China, without any claim to exclusive privileges. Brazil has not opened the ports of so populous a country as China, but she has opened the water-courses of one with which commerce will in a few years be more valuable than it is with China. These arrangements about the La Plata navigation are not completed. They are thought to be in a fair way of adjustment; and, therefore, in giving honor to whom honor is due, I give it to the Emperor of Brazil, upon the supposition that no untoward thing will occur to thwart the measure. But the commercial world has been sparing of its commendations of Brazil for her seeming liberality with regard to the free navigation of the La Plata. They say-and have, alas! but too much reason for saying-that there was no generosity, no liberality, no sign of any fairness whatever, in the course of Brazil with regard to the navigation of the La Plata. Bolivia, Paraguay, and Banda-Oriental, they say, had each as much right as Brazil to claim the free use of the La Plata for getting to sea with their merchandise; and if, upon the fall of Rosas, Brazil had then attempted to extort from Buenos Ayres any exclusive privilege in the use of those waters, she knew that not only would these republics-her next-door neighbors-all have turned against her, but that the three great commercial nations of the north would have stepped in to prevent any such exclusive and selfish appropriation of Nature's highway. As a proof that Brazil was not actuated by any of those really enlarged and liberal views which it is the policy of commerce to carry out, I point to the Amazon. There Don Pedro is the Rosas. He holds the mouth of the Amazon; he shuts it up. Five sovereign and independent nations own its headwaters, and all of them have provinces and people upon the banks of its navigable tributaries; but not one of them is allowed to follow the course of these navigable streams through Brazilian waters to the sea. Justice, the policy of commerce, the sentiment of the age, all the principles of national law and the rights of people, are in favor of the free use of that river by those five Spanish republics: and it cannot be said that Brazil acted from principle in the case of the La Plata until she makes, of her own accord, the navigation of the Amazon free. Formerly there was a Rosas who threatened to stand at the mouth of our Mississippi, and we, who then owned the headwaters only, claimed, and were ready to assert with the sword, our right to follow them, and to use them for commerce and navigation, until they mingled with and were lost in the sea. It has now not been quite four years ago since this subject of the free navi. gation of the La Plata and the Amazon was brought to the attention of this gov ernment. The proposition was, that we should offer to Brazil our friendly mediation with Rosas, and use our kind offices to induce him to make free the navigation of the La Plata, and so end the war. It was proposed, also, that we should treat with Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, New Grenada, and Venezuela, for ports of entry to foreign vessels and commerce up their navigable tributaries of the Amazon, and thus turn upon Brazil with the same arguments for the free navigation of the Amazon that Brazil stood ready to urge in favor of her right to navigate the La Plata. Brazil got wind of this. She found out that such a thing as the free navigation of the Amazon began to form the subject of conversation in commercial and political circles here, and she immediately took the most active steps to render of no avail any attempt on our part having for its object the free navigation of the Amazon. Navigation of the Amazon-Treaty between Peru and Brazil. 139 She redoubled her energies in the to Venezuela, New Grenada, and Ecuawar against Rosas, and she dispatched dor, are clearly set forth. in hot haste Ministers Extraordinary They were to frustrate any attempts and Plenipotentiary to Peru, to Bolivia, at treaty the commercial nations might to Ecuador, and New Grenada, and be disposed to make with these repubVenezuela, to treat with each of those lics touching river navigation, and to five Spanish-American Republics for seal up tighter than ever the great arthe exclusive right to navigate their teries of those countries, and thus perAmazonian tributaries. petuate the stagnation and death that have for three hundred years reigned in the great Amazonian water-shed. For the Portuguese, who had owned the Amazon for ages, who had not had the power to make an impression upon its forests, nor to launch a steamer upon its bosom, to go and talk to the Bolivians and others about sending steamers away up the main trunk of the Amazon, to paddle up and down the republican spring-branches of the Spanish Americans, was truly a diplomatic phenomenon! "You have an Athens, embellish that," should have been their reply to Brazil. I quote from the Rio correspondent of the "Observator"-a Brazilian newspaper-of May last. This correspondent appears to be in the secrets of the government, and no doubt spoke the sentiments of that jealous cabinet: "The navigation of the Amazon goes on swimmingly the government of Peru, by the convention of the 23d of last October, made with our new minister, Duarte da Ponte Ribeiro, obliges itself to assist the first enterprise established upon the Amazon with a sum never less than $20,000. Brazil seemed already to have forgotten that what was right on the south side of the Tropic of Capricorn must be right also under the Equator; for the same arguments that apply to the free navigation of the La Plata apply also to the free navigation of the Amazon. Peru fell into the trap, and made the required treaty; but the more sagacious statesmen of Bolivia got wind of the design, and not only refused to treat with Brazil upon the subject, but the enlightened President of that republic proposes to establish upon the Amazonian tributaries of Bolivia free ports to all the world. man of Bolivia, writing as to this pre"Como los Brazileros," says a gentletension of Brazil to steamboat navigation upon the rivers of Bolivia, pretenden el privilejio, y el Presidente Belzu, conviene a Bolivia, el se ha negado a dar es bastante capas para conocer lo que le dicha concesion, y espera qui los Estados Unidos sevan los primeros en descubrier aquellos rejiones." "The government has named in quality of resident minister, and for an exMoreover, as the good genius of Amatraordinary mission near the govern- zonia and free navigation would have it, ments of the republics of Venezuela, neither the Brazilian nor the Peruvian Ecuador, and New Grenada, our minis- Plenipotentiary appeared to have a suffiter to Bolivia, Miguel Maria Lisboa. cient knowledge of the subject of which The object of this mission is a treaty the two were treating. They evidently with those republics for the navigation knew very little of the navigability of of the Amazon, because, as I think, it is those waters, the monopoly of which feared that the United States will hasten to arrange one for the navigation of some of the tributaries of the Amazon, and thus judge themselves authorized to enter the Amazon from without, as the journals of New-York and New-Orleans already propose. We have been careless in this matter, and must now hurry about it. "This nation of pirates, like those of their race, wish to displace all the people of America who are not AngloSaxons." Thus the objects of Da Ponte's mission to Peru and Bolivia, and of Lisboa's they aimed to secure. in Lima, last October twelve months, This treaty was secretly negotiated and was ratified in Rio two or three months ago only. I have a manuscript copy of it before me. Its title is, "A treaty of fluvial commerce and navigation and of boundary between the republics of Peru and the Empire of Bra zil." "As the Brazilians claim the privilege, and as President Belzu understands the interests of Bolivia, in the matter, he has refused to make any such concessions, and hopes the United States will be the first to explore those regions." The question of boundary was settled in two words: "Uti possidetis." I quote with regard to the river steamboat navigation: "ARTICLE FIRST.-The republic of Peru and his Majesty the Emperor of Brazil, desiring to encourage, respectively, the navigation of the river Amazon and its confluents by steamboats, which, by ensuring the exportation of the immense products of those vast regions, may contribute to increase the number of the inhabitants and civilize the savage tribes, agree that the merchandise, produce, and craft passing from Peru to Brazil, or from Brazil to Peru, across the frontier of both states, shall be exempt from all duty, imposts, or sale duty (alcabala) whatsoever, to which the same products are not subject in the territory where produced; to which they shall be wholly assimilated. "ARTICLE SECOND.-The high contracting parties being aware of the great expense attending the establishment of steam navigation, and that it will not yield a profit during the first years to the shareholders of the company destined to navigate the Amazon from its source to the banks (litoral) in Peru -which should belong exclusively to the respective states-agree to give to the first company which shall be formed a sum of money during five years in aid of its operations; which sum shall not be less than twenty thousand dollars annually for each of the high contracting parties, either of whom may increase the said amount, if it suits its particular interests, without the other party being thereby obliged to contribute in the same ratio. "The conditions to which the shareholders are to be subject, in consideration of the advantages conceded to them, shall be declared in separate articles. "The other conterminous states, which, adopting the same principles, may desire to take part in the enter prise upon the same conditions, shall likewise contribute a certain pecuniary quota to it.” "ARTICLE FIRST.-The shareholders of the steam navigation mentioned in the second article of the convention concluded on this date, shall be bound to the following conditions: "1st. That steamboats shall make three voyages the first year, four in the second, and at least six voyages in the third, fourth and fifth. "When, owing to circumstances arising from the great distance, obstruction of the river, making experiments connected with its navigation, want of combustibles, or other weighty reasons, it may be impossible to make that number of voyages, the shareholders shall receive only five thousand dollars for every voyage that the boats make during the two first years, and three thousand dollars for every one made during the third, fourth and fifth. "2d. They shall convey, free of charge, the mail-bags of the government and of the post-office, and deliver them at the places on the banks as they pass along, until the end of the voyage. "3d. They shall also convey every voyage, passage free, four civil, military, or ecclesiastical officers in the service of each government; the luggage of these persons in quantity equal to that of other passengers, and the packages that each government may in particular wish to send, provided they do not exceed two tons. "4th. They shall be obliged to take on board or in tow the troops, ammunition and effects, that the two governments may wish to send, receiving therefor an equitable remuneration-the amount of which shall be fixed as soon as it shall be ascertained what is the necessary cost of performing said service. "5th. The company shall arrange with both governments touching the respective points on the river Amazon or Maranon to which the steamboats shall navigate, and concerning the ports at which they are to touch; and it shall be subject to the fiscal and police regulations, notwithstanding their being li berated from imposts of every kind. "ARTICLE SECOND.-Each government shall grant to the company the propriety of one-fourth part of a league square, at the places in which it may be necessary to establish a depot for combustibles, at any point not belonging to private persons; but the title to the same |