From 1840 to 1850 her total imports from Brazil made no increase. In
1853, they had advanced one hundred and fifty per cent. on 1848; and,
in 1855, they had advanced over 1848--or the average of the ten years
noticed--about three hundred per cent. This, however, it must be
recollected, was in coffee, for reexportation; a trade which was lost
to our merchants and to our shipping. Her total exports to Brazil from
1840 to 1850 were stationary at about two and a half million pounds
sterling annually. In 1851--the first year after steam by the Royal
Mail Company--they advanced forty per cent.; and, in 1854, they had
advanced one hundred and two per cent. on 1850. Thus, her exports have
doubled in five years, from a stationary point before the
establishment of steam mail facilities; whereas ours have been
thirteen years in making the same increase. The total trade between
Brazil and Great Britain has increased in an unprecedented ratio. The
combined British imports and exports, up to 1850, averaged L3,645,833
annually; but, in 1855, these had reached L8,162,455. Thus, _the
British trade increased two hundred and twenty-five per cent. in five
years after the first line of steamers was established to Brazil_."

In the analysis of the tables presenting these facts I had occasion to
make the following deductions, page 619:

"We see, from a generalization and combination of these tables and
analyses, that our greatest advance in the Brazilian trade has arisen
from imports instead of exports; whereas the trade of Great Britain
has advanced in both; and particularly in her exports, which were
already large; the tendency being to enrich Great Britain and to
impoverish us: that until 1850 her exports were stationary, while ours
were increasing; due, doubtless, to the superiority of our clipper
ships at that period, which placed us much nearer than England to
Brazil: that she is now taking the coffee-trade away from us, and
giving it to her own and other European merchants and shipping: that
she is rivalling us in the rubber-trade; wholly distancing us in that
of manufactures: and that from 1850 to 1855 she has doubled a large
trade of profitable exports, and increased her aggregate imports and
exports two hundred and twenty-five per cent.; whereas it has taken us
thirteen years to double a small trade, composed mostly of imports: it
being evident that, with equal facilities, we could outstrip Great
Britain in nearly all the elements