authority of his Imperial Majesty.

It is not my intention for a moment to impute malicious motives to the
Portuguese faction in Brazil. The King of Portugal, Don John VI. had,
within twelve months, quitted their shores to resume the throne of his
ancestors, so that they had a right to the praise of loyalty, and the
more so, as at that time few calculated on separation from the mother
country. The Empire itself was not six months old, and therefore they
were not to be blamed for doubting its stability. The Cortes at Lisbon
had sent a large force for the protection of the more remote provinces,
and in an attack upon these at Bahia, the Brazilian troops had been
unsuccessful, so that no great confidence was to be reposed on any
future _military_ efforts to eject the Portuguese troops.

Where the Portuguese party was really to blame, consisted in
this,--that seeing disorder everywhere more or less prevalent, they
strained every nerve to increase it, hoping thereby to paralyse further
attempts at independence, by exposing whole provinces to the evils of
anarchy and confusion. Their loyalty also partook more of self-interest
than of attachment to the supremacy of Portugal, for the commercial
classes, which formed the real strength of the Portuguese faction,
hoped, by preserving the authority of the mother country in her distant
provinces, thereby to obtain as their reward the revival of old trade
monopolies, which twelve years before had been thrown open, enabling the
English traders--whom they cordially hated--to supersede them in their
own markets. Being a citizen of the rival nation, their aversion to me
personally was undisguised; the more so perhaps, that they believed me
capable of achieving at Bahia--whither the squadron was destined--that
irreparable injury to their own cause, which the Imperial troops had
been unable to effect. Had I, at the time, been aware of the influence