Therefore, I raise my cup for the health and prosperity of the sister Navy of the United States of America, one of the mightiest and more illustrious of the world, whose sacred emblem in command and perfect sisterhood with ours, let God grant may float side by side--ever for ever and ever--for the benefit of universal peace and general comfort of mankind. President Penna again made the welcome plain when he said at his luncheon the day following to the Admirals and several Captains at Petropolis: The warm and fraternal welcome which the people of the capital of the republic have given to the American fleet which is now visiting us ought to prove how deep and sincere the sympathy and friendship which the Brazilian nation feels for its great and prosperous sister of North America. These are no fleeting or transitory sentiments, since they date from the hour of our birth as a nation and are ever growing in strength. Every day the bonds of friendship and of trade between the two nations are drawn closer. When the South American peoples proclaimed their independence, at that moment so fraught with misgivings and uncertainty as to the future, the young American republic gave them strength by solemnly declaring the intangible unity of the peoples of the new world through the declaration of their great President Monroe, whose name figures in history with brilliance as a statesman of great perception and of rare political foresight. The long and difficult voyage of the powerful fleet which to-day is the guest of Brazil, necessitating as it does the doubling of the American continent, is a fresh and splendid evidence of the unequalled vigor and the extraordinary energy of the great power which is a friend of Brazil. With an expression of ardent and sincere wishes for the fortunate continuation of the voyage of the friendly fleet I drink to the glorious American navy, to the prosperity of the republic of the United States of America and to the personal happiness of its eminent chief, that great statesman, President Roosevelt. The Minister of Foreign Affairs added to all this in the great banquet given to the officers later in the Monroe Palace when, after offering a toast to President Roosevelt, he said: