Southern standard. [volume] (Columbus, Miss.) 1851-1856, 1852-03-06
NUMBER 6.


carry along with them npeace, and make their pre-
sence sa greatly to be desired along the Atlantic
borders.
You have assembled TO plan foundations for your
future commerce. To provide means for defending
that commerce appears to me to be intimately and
necessarily connected with the subject of your de-
liberationr Hence the reason for calling your at
tenton TO suitable Naval establishment at Mem
phs, and for pressing it upon your considerations
with all the earnestness that is admissible
! 9. The free navigation of the Amazon is the
greatest commercial boon that the people of the
South aud West, indeed that the people of the
United States can crave.
! That river basin is but a continuation of the
/ Mississippi Valley
The Mississippi takes It's rise near the parallel
of 500 N Latitude, where the climates are suited
to the growth Of barley, wheat and the hardy ee-
real grains. The river runs south, crossing the
parallels of Ia itude, and changing every mile It's
climate and the character or quality of the agri-
cultural staples which are produced on its borders.
Having left behind it the region for peltries,
wheat and corn, for hemp and tobacco, for pulse,
apples, Whiskey, wine, oil and cotton, and having
crossed the pastoral lands for hogs horses and cat
tle it reaches the latitude Of 800 the north
ern verge of the sugar cane. Hence, expanding
out into the Gulf with all these staples upon its
bosom, to be exchanged for the produce Of other
climes and lattudes, It passes on TO Key West and
the ToTtugas; and then, at that great commercial
gateway to the ocean, which opens out upon the
Tropic of Cancer, it delivers up to the winds and
the of the seas, for the distant markets. the
fruits of its teemng soil and multinudnous climes.
Then comes Ginning in the great valley of the
Amazon. Taking up cmes produce and staples,
which the Mississippi had just reached, and push
ing the variety upon the Equator, far down into
the other hemisphere it increases and diversifes
/ the great assortment 10 a wonderful extent adding
drug after drug, spice after spice, and staple after
staple, until sugar and coffee rice and indigo an
manner of nuts, balsam and spice, bacon and cot
ton, cochineal and tobacco, ndiarubber, dye wood,
peltries, flax and wool, ornamental woods, mines
of gold and silver and precious stones many of
them ofnew varieties, kinds and virtues, have been
reached and added to the countless, treasures,
boundess commercial capacities and dazzling re-
sources of these two magnificent water speeds.
Saving and excepting tea, which midway be-
tween the two valleys, is ndiginuous to the noun
tains of Casta Kra and which is the only article
of commerce that is gathered from the field the
forest the mine that is to be found in one or
The other of these two river basins everything that
is grown or cultivated upon the face of the earth,
is to be found in equal, if not in greater proper
ton and abundance in the other of these
valleys than in any other part of the world. One
of them is in the rear of New Orleans the other
is in its front. 1t is for the Convention to say
whether these two rivers shall be united in the
bonds Of commerce Or not.
The Amazon with its tributaries, is said to af-
ford inland navigation, up and down, of no less
than 1000 miles. The country drained by that
river, and the water courses connected with It. is
more than half as large Europe, and ii is thought
to contain nearly as much arabic land within it,
as is to be found that continent Ii has resour-
ces enough to maintain population of hundreds
ofmillons of souls.
The navigation of that river is at present such
al #
one trip in the year. They have there, in their
delightful climate Of everlasting spring, the
calm season and the trade wind season. The trade
winds flow up the river. In the calm season. the
natives in their rude bongoas, loaded with the pro-
duce of the upper country, drift down with the
current arrive with their stuff at Para. They sell
almost for dollars what they procured for cents at
the place of production.
Having completed the business of the season,
they wait for the S. E. trade winds to set in with
them they return and complete the business and
trading for the year.
A friend who has crossed the And S, and is now
on his way home down the Amazon, informs me
that parts of the puma country of Peru and Bell
via, and in which the watels of the Amazon take
their rise, already over populated That por-
f tions of the Amazonian water shed over which he
passed, rich in llocks Of sheep and all that is
wanted is close market (Which the free naviga-
ton Of the Amazon would @ive) to induce the
shepherds TO raise millions. No other part OF the
| world grows wool like this 1t is peculiar.
He reports fine sugar and cotton plantations there
with cotton growing wild also, there are CHINA
mon groves and forests of the tree from which all
\ the Peruvian which affords quinine to the world
a is taken and bting put upon the backs of these
k sheep and asses transported from the head navi-
: gable waters of the Amazon GEO miles among the
); clouds and snowcapped mountains ranges to the
t Pacific.
This drug now goes west, and when it arrives
r at the sea port-town of Africa is worth annu-
o ally a half million. With the right to send an
;. American steamboat up the Amazon, all this stuff
e would come east and flow down that river.
If With the free navigation of the Amazon, a
;. steamer might load at St. Louis with the products
of those high ATTITUDES, and deliver its cargo right
at the foot of the Andes, where the Amazon leaps
: down from the mountains into the plains below
Y with a portage easy TO overcome by the hand of
9 Improvement she could then ascend the steepes of
+ che Andes stream several hundred miles further
Of up, and deliver her cargo within hail of Cuzco
II and he mines of Peru. Nay, the country about
: Lake Pitcaca would look to her for supplies.
e The navigation of that river is included con-
ceive, among the subjects with regard to which
OF the committee has invited me to express my views
I'd to the convention and | hope the convention
will deem it not unworthy of their careful consid-
a Grafton.
st Considering the sofness of its climate, the fer
ct tilitv of its SOIL and the lavish hand with which
II ell