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248 Lectures on Brazilian Affairs

The Methuen Treaty of 1703 was another step in English
ascendancy over Portugal. It did not affect us directly, but
the great increase in Anglo-Portuguese commercial relations
which followed was chiefly due to the development of Brazil.

A few years before, Brazil had entered the gold cycle of
her economic history. The Peninsular trade of England
increased rapidly, but the balance was largely made by
profits from Brazil. On the other hand, the proportion of
English goods sent to Brazil was considerable, and con-
stituted the bulk of the trade between Portugal and her
great colony. “It was calculated,” says Wallis Chapman,
“that on every £100 worth of goods passing from England
to Brazil, 68 were paid to the Portuguese government before
the returns were made to England, as the imports to Portugal
were twice the amount of Portuguese exports to England.”

References are made by English authors to the concession
by which four English families might reside in Bahia, Pernam-
buco, and Rio. It was a privilege and a great help for
merchants, though never fully applied. The English Prot-
estants were not subject to the authority of the Inquisition
as the Portuguese Jews were at the time. After the discovery
of minerals in their colony, the Portuguese grew still more
jealous. Direct trade was absolutely forbidden; transport of
bullion was severely punished; the privilege of residence was
difficult to obtain from Portuguese authorities; the mining
district of Tejuco was forbidden to foreigners. Negotiations
were started to persuade the English merchant to give up the
residence privilege already granted to him, and force the
French and the Dutch out of the country in order to stop
the contraband traffic they were carrying on.

The mines and the plantations of Brazil required workers,
and the degrading slave traffic between English merchants of
the African coast and Brazilian landowners went on for years.

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