University of Virginia Library

953. BRAZIL, Empire of.—

Having
learned the safe arrival of your Royal Highness
at the city of Rio Janeiro I perform with
pleasure the duty of offering you my sincere
congratulations * * *. I trust that this
event will be as propitious to the prosperity
of your faithful subjects as to the happiness
of your Royal Highness in which the United

States of America have ever taken a lively
interest. Inhabitants now of the same land,
of that great continent which the genius of
Columbus has given to the world, the United
States feel sensibly that they stand in new
and closer relations with your Royal Highness,
and that the motives which heretofore
nourished the friendly relations which have so
happily prevailed, have acquired increased
strength on the transfer of your residence to
their shores. They see in prospect, a system
of intercourse between the different regions
of this hemisphere of which the peace and
happiness of mankind may be the essential
principle. To this principle your long tried
adherence, for the benefit of those you governed,
in the midst of warring powers, is a
pledge to the new world that its peace, its
free and friendly intercourse, will be your
chief concern. On the part of the United
States I assure you, that these which have
hitherto been their ruling objects, will be most
particularly cultivated with your Royal Highness
and your subjects at Brazil, and they
hope that that country so favored by the gifts
of nature, now advanced to a station under
your immediate auspices, will find, in the interchange
of mutual wants and supplies, the
true aliment of an unchanging friendship
with the United States of America.—
To The Emperor of Brazil. Washington ed. v, 285.
(May. 1808)