duty to defend themselves against the contagion of such near and dangerous examples, would constrain them, even at the hazard of losing the friendship, greatly as they value it, of Mexico and Colombia, to employ all the means necessary to their security.

If you should be unable to prevail on those Republics to renounce all the designs of invasion and conquest of Cuba and Porto Rico you will then exert your endeavors to induce them to suspend the execution of them until the result is known of the interposition which we are authorized to believe the late Emperor of Russia, and his allies, at the instance of the United States, have made to put an end to the war, and that which is herein stated to have been recently made at the instance of the Republic of Colombia. Such a suspension is due to Russia. It would be a deference to that great power which the reigning Emperor would not fail to appreciate and the value of which the new Republics might hereafter experience if, in this instance, the counsels which we have reason to believe have been given to Spain should not be followed. But there is much reason to hope that Spain will pause before she rejects them, and will see her true interest, as all the world sees it, on the side of peace; and the late events, the fall of the castles of St. Juan d'Ulloa and of Callao, especially, must have a powerful effect in urging her to terminate the war.

A cut or canal for purposes of navigation somewhere through the isthmus that connects the two Americas, to unite the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, will form a proper subject of consideration at the congress. That vast object, if it should be ever accomplished, will be interesting, in a greater or less degree, to all parts of the world. But to this continent will probably accrue the largest amount of benefit from its execution: and to Colombia, Mexico, the Central Republic, Peru, and the United States, more than to any other of the American nations. What is to redound to the advantage of all America should be effected by common means and united exertions, and should not be left to the separate and unassisted efforts of any one power.

In the present limited state of our information as to the practicability and the probable expense of the object, it would not be wise to do more than to make some preliminary arrangements. The best routes will be most likely found in the territory of Mexico or that of the Central Republic. The latter Republic made to this Government, on the 8th day of February of last year, in a note to which Mr. Canaz,

its minister here, addressed to this Department (a copy of which is now furnished), a liberal offer, manifesting high and honorable confidence in the United States. The answer which the President instructed me to give (of which a copy is also now placed in your hands) could go no farther than to make suitable acknowledgments for the friendly overture and to assure the Central Republic that measures would be adopted to place the United States in the possession of the information necessary to enlighten their judgment. If the work should ever be executed so as to admit of the passage of sea vessels from ocean to ocean, the benefits of it ought not to be exclusively appropriated to any one nation, but should be extended to all parts of the globe upon the payment of a just compensation or reasonable tolls. What is most desirable at present is to possess the data necessary to form a correct judgment of the practicability and the probable expense of the undertaking on the routes which offer the greatest facilities.

Measures may have been already executed or be in progress to acquire the requisite knowledge. You will inquire particularly as to what has been done or may have been designed by Spain or by either of the new States, and obtain all other information that may be within your reach, to solve this interesting problem. You will state to the ministers of the other American powers that the Government of the United States takes a lively interest in the execution of the work, and will see, with peculiar satisfaction, that it lies within the compass of reasonable human efforts. Their proximity and local information render them more competent than the United States are at this time to estimate the difficulties to be overcome. You will receive and transmit to this Government any proposals that may be made or plans that may be suggested for its joint execution, with assurances that they will be attentively examined, with an earnest desire to reconcile the interests and views of all the American nations.

It will probably be proposed as a fit subject of consideration for the powers represented at Panama, whether Hayti ought to be recognized by them as an independent State, and whether any decision taken in that respect should be joint or each power be left to pursue the dictates of its own policy.

The President is not prepared now to say that Hayti ought to be recognized as an independent sovereign power. Considering the nature and the manner of the establishment of the governing power in

that island and the little respect which is there shown to other races than the African, the question of acknowledging its independence was far from being unattended with difficulty prior to the late arrangement which, it is understood, has been made between France and Hayti. According to that arrangement, if we possess correct information of its terms, the parent country acknowledges a nominal independence in the colony, and, as a part of the price of this acknowledgment, Hayti agrees to receive forever the produce of France at a rate of duty one-half below that which is exacted in the ports of Hayti from all other nations. This is a restriction upon its freedom of action to which no sovereign power, really independent, would ever subscribe. There is no equivalent, on the side of France, in the favorable terms on which the produce of Hayti is received in the ports of France. If the colonial relation may be correctly described to be the monopoly of the commerce of the colony, enjoyed by the parent State, it can not be affirmed that Hayti has not voluntarily, by that arrangement, consented to its revival. There was no necessity urging her to agree to it, however she may have been called upon, by just and equitable considerations, to indemnify the former individual proprietors for the loss of their property in St. Domingo. Prior to the conclusion of that arrangement Hayti enjoyed, no matter how established, a sort of independence in fact. By that arrangement she has voluntarily, and in a most essential particular, in respect to all foreign nations, changed her character, and has become, to say the least, not an independent State. Under the actual circumstances of Hayti, the President does not think that it would be proper, at this time, to recognize it as a new State. The acknowledgment, or declining to acknowledge, the independence of Hayti is not a measure of sufficient magnitude to require that in either of the alternatives, it should be the result of a concert between the American powers.

Finally, I have it in charge to direct your attention to the subject of the forms of government and to the cause of free institutions on this continent. The United States never have been, and are not now, animated by any spirit of propagandism. They prefer to all other forms of government, and are perfectly contented with, their own confederacy. Allowing no foreign interference either in the formation or in the conduct of their government, they are equally scrupulous in

refraining from all interference in the original structure or subsequent interior movement of the governments of other independent nations. Indifferent they are not, because they can not be indifferent to the happiness of any nation. But the interest which they are accustomed to cherish in the wisdom or the folly which may mark the course of other powers in the adoption and execution of their political systems is rather a feeling of sympathy than a principle of action. In the present instance they would conform to their general habit of cautiously avoiding to touch on a subject so delicate; but that there is reason to believe that one European power, if not more, has been active both in Colombia and Mexico, if not elsewhere, with a view to subvert, if possible, the existing forms of free government there established, to substitute the monarchical in place of them, and to plant on the newly-created thrones European princes.

H. CLAY

NAVIGATION OF THE AMAZON RIVER

122. MEMORIAL PRESENTED BY MAURY TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES ON THE FREE NAVIGATION OF THE AMAZON TO ALL THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD

[March 3, 1854. William Lewis Herndon and Gardner Gibbon, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon made under Direction of the Navy Department (1854). House Executive Documents, 33d Congress, 1st Session, No. 53, 408-417. Published by the United States Government.]

Toward the end of the first half of the last century the United States became officially interested in the effort to induce Brazil to abandon her policy of exclusive control of the Amazon River. Secretary of State Clayton, in an official note of May 8, 1850, to the Secretary of the Navy, stated that the government had for some time past considered means toward that end. He requested him to send a ship of war to explore the river and its most important tributaries. It was not until a year later, however, that the Navy Department sent an expedition to carry out the wishes of the State Department. On February 15, 1851, Lieutenants Herndon and Gibbon received instructions to take charge of the expedition. During the year they carried on the work of exploration with scientific thoroughness. Lieutenant Herndon submitted his report to Congress on January 26, 1853.1 It was soon given large circulation. The report was of special interest to Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, also an officer of the United States navy and, in addition, superintendent of the Hydrographic Office and astronomer of the Naval Observatory at Washington. Maury was instrumental in calling together the Commercial Convention at Memphis, Tennessee, on June 7, 1853. It was on behalf of this body of men 1 House Documents, 32d Congress, 2d Session, No. 43.