ABSTRACT
If some of the Irish from St Christophers did settle on the Amazon as naturalized subjects of the Portuguese crown, their very success in achieving their goal only underlines the fact that there were to be no more independent Irish projects to colonize the river. The mid-1640s then, marked the end of a century of English interest in the Amazon and almost fifty years of determined English and Irish effort to maintain trade and settlement there. If the Portuguese planters won the struggle for the lower Amazon, it was because of the military and diplomatic initiatives of their crown in their defence at the turn of the 1620s. The collapse of the Amazon Company in 1620, engineered by the Spanish ambassador in England, robbed the English projectors of necessary capital and support just as the Spanish crown was moving to reinforce the Maranhao and Para settlements.
