I asked him, if his Court permitted the English, or any other nation, to go to the Brazils? In the last century, said he, between 1660 and 1670, we did agree with Charles the Second, who married a daughter of Portugal, that the English should go to the Brazils, and after that, the Dutch sued for permission to go there too, and we granted it. But we found it inconvenient, and in 1714 or 1715, at the treaty of Utrecht, we agreed upon an article with Spain, to exclude all nations from the Brazils, and as the English Ambassadors were there, we have since held that nation bound, and have confiscated their vessels as well as the Dutch which venture there. The English have sometimes made strong remonstrances, but we have always told them, if we admit you, we must admit the Dutch too, and such has been their jealousy of the Dutch, and dread of their rivalry, that this has always quieted them, choosing rather to be excluded themselves, than that the Dutch should be admitted. So that this commerce has been a long time carried on in Portuguese ships only, and directly between the Brazils and Lisbon. I asked him, whether we might not have free communication with all their Western Islands, and whether one or all of them might not be made a depot for the produce of the Brazils, so that Portuguese ships might stop and deposit cargoes there, and American vessels take them? He said, he would write about it to his Court by the next post. At present, Brazil communicated only with Lisbon, and, perhaps, it might be difficult for government to secure the duties at the Western Islands. I asked, if there were any refineries of sugar at Lisbon? He said, none. Their sugars had all been brought here by the Dutch for refining; that all their carrying-trade with other parts of Europe had been carried on by the English and Dutch; that their mercantile navigation (_marine marchand_) before this war, had been upon a very poor footing, but it was now much changed, and they began to carry on their trade in their own vessels. I observed, if their trade should continue to be carried on by others, it must be indifferent to them whether it were done in English, Dutch, or American vessels, provided it was done to their equal advantage. But if they should persist in the desire to conduct it in their own vessels, they might purchase ships ready built in America cheaper than they could build them or buy them elsewhere. All this, he said, was true. That they could supply us with sugars, coffee, cocoa, Brazil wood, and even with tea, for they had an island, called Macao, near China, which was a flourishing establishment, and sent them annually a good deal of tea, which the Dutch usually bought very cheap at Lisbon to sell again.