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250 Lectures on Brazilian Affairs

IV. THE BRAZILIAN KINGDOM

The European entanglement in which Portugal was help-
ing England provoked the Napoleonic invasion and the
flight of the Portuguese Court to Brazil in 1807.

A great date in the history of Brazilian commerce is 1808:
soon after landing, King John, then Regent of the Kingdom,
opened our ports to international trade. The monopoly
system was over, and a Royal decree established also in-
dustrial liberty, of which Brazil had been deprived since
1785 in order not to compete with Portuguese industry.

Great Britain derived great benefit from this act, for she
was the only power with a large commercial merchant fleet.
The next year import duties were removed for raw material
and machinery: another advantage for the British.

Rio de Janeiro, replacing Lisbon politically, became also
economically the center of the Dual Monarchy. “Portuguese
trade with India and China,” says Oliveira Lima, “was
localized in Rio, where re-exportation to Lisbon and other
European ports was organized. Exports to other parts of
America were also, for some time, managed in Rio. On ac-
count of the difficulties that had arisen in the River Plate,
all the traffic to Buenos Aires and Montevideo passed by
the Brazilian capital.”

At that time commerce with Asia was rather important:
20 to 40 per cent of the imports of Bahia were from Asia
and especially China around the Cape of Good Hope. Brazil
exported cloth, sugar, tobacco, and wines to African colonies.
Our direct contact with Asia, especially by way of Macao,
has left many vestiges among us: even today Oriental arti-
cles, china for instance, are much appreciated.

But the great event in commercial policy of the Kingdom
was the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 1810. A general tax of

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