No. 261.
Mr. Moran
to Mr. Evarts.
Lisbon, May 24, 1877. (Received June 21.)
Sir: I have the honor to forward herewith a copy of the Portuguese White Book, containing documents presented to the Cortes in its legislative session of 1877, by the secretary of state for foreign affairs. The most interesting of these papers consist of copies of a correspondence between the British and Portuguese Governments on the slave trade on the east coast of Africa, the late blockade of the coast of Dahomey, and the navigation of the Zambezi and Chiri rivers as far as Lake Nyassa, an inland sea, over a portion of which, at least, Great Britain claims jurisdiction on the ground of priority of discovery by British explorers. The note of Mr. H. Clarke Jervoise to Mr. Corvo of the 4th of June, 1876, on this subject merits attention. In consequence of a then recent concession made by the Portuguese Government to two merchants of Lisbon, whereby the exclusive right had been conceded to them of the steam navigation of the rivers Zambezi and Chiri, and the delta of the Zambezi for thirty years, Mr. Jervoise raised the question of the right of a state to the unobstructed navigation, to and from the sea, of a river flowing from its own territory through that, of a neighboring nation; and asserted the jurisdiction of Great Britain over a portion of Lake Nyassa, a point which Mr. Corvo tacitly yielded; whereas he declares that the right of states on the upper part of a river to use its lower waters “is always a matter of special treaty, so as to assert the sovereignty of a state over its own waters.”
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The volume contains copies of treaties concluded between Portugal and other nations since the issue of the White Book of last year; the most interesting of which would seem to be that which regulates the transit between Portugal and Spain, concluded at Lisbon on the 16th of January, 1877. In this there is a stipulation touching the navigation by both nations of the River Douro, which expresses the very principle on that point which is laid down by Mr. Corvo in his note of the 3d of October last to Mr. Morier in regard to the Zambezi and Chiri Rivers.
I have, &c.,