of captures made.

By way of reply, I produced a letter from the Chilian Minister of
Marine, counter-signed by the Supreme Director, acknowledging the
receipt of an offer subsequently made to the Chilian Government
voluntarily to give up to public exigencies a portion of my pay greater
than the amount now tendered--at the same time telling the Minister,
that by accepting such an arrangement I should lose more annually by
entering the Brazilian service than the whole sum offered to me. Without
condescending to chaffer on such a subject, I added that His Imperial
Majesty had invited me to Brazil on specific promises, which, if my
services were required, must be strictly fulfilled; if not, it would be
candid in him to say so, as it was not the amount of pay for which I
contended; but the reflection, that if the first stipulations of the
Brazilian Government were violated, no future confidence could be placed
in its good faith. If the State were poor, I had no objection,
conditionally, to surrender an equal or even a greater proportion of pay
than I had tendered to the Chilian Government; but that it was no part
of my intention to be placed on the footing of a Portuguese admiral,
especially after the terms, which, without application on my part, had
been voluntarily offered to induce me to accept service in Brazil.

The Minister of Marine seemed hurt at this, and said the State was not
poor, and that the terms originally offered should be complied with, by
granting me the amount I had enjoyed in Chili; a decision the more
speedily arrived at, from an intimation on my part, of referring to the
Prime Minister, as requested in cases of difficulty. This the Minister
of Marine begged me not to do, saying that there was no occasion for it.

He next proposed that, as my Brazilian pay was to be equivalent to that