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national movement, and constructed a Jacobin theory, which it called a constitution. On the arrival of the intelligence in Rio, two parties were formed -a party for change, at the head of which was the Prince; and a party for keeping things in their old position, at the head of which were the ministers and the King. The Prince was speedily ejected from the Council of State; but this affront he was not disposed to bear meekly. He rushed into the Council Chamber, attacked the ministers in an indignant harangue, and having threatened them with the vengeance of a deceived people, and an angry posterity, rushed out again. The old King was an honest and harmless man, but he was not born a hero. This explosion of his son's politics terrified him, and the next act of his Council was to promise the Brazilians a constitution, accompanied by the wiser expedient of sending his too energetic son to talk over the subject with the philosophers of Oporto.

The man of the south always lives in a state of conspiracy; and it is next to impossible to discover how far the most striking catastrophes are due to the course of things, or to private treason. The Brazilian is the genuine descendant of the Portuguese. While the Council were trembling at the prospect of being called on to perform their promise, and the Prince was probably contemplating with equal dislike a voyage across the Atlantic, which was palpably but a contrivance to expel him from the seat of government for the time, on the 25th of February 1821, the capital was thrown into sudden alarm by an insurrection of the troops. A brigade of Portuguese infantry, and guns, which had been brought to the Brazils four years before, for the purpose of suppressing the insurrectionary movements at Pernambuco, and had since been suffered to idle away its time in the capital, had taken up arms, and was proceeding to take the law into its own hands. Robbery and the new constitution were the stimulants, and these legislators proceeded to define the rights of liberty and property bayonet in hand. All soldiers, but the British, consider themselves as the supreme race of the nation; and the Portuguese brig

ade were in the habit of treating the Brazilians with consummate scorn. The native troops shared the contumely; and it was even carried so far, that they demanded that every Brazilian above the rank of captain should be dismissed, and his commission given to a Portuguese! As they now spread through the streets, with arms in their hands, and ready for any excess, the populace were rapidly wrought into equal irritation; and to avoid a general massacre, the Council hurried together.

The decisions of men in a hurry are always foolish, and the Council established the maxim. They offered to concede every thing to any body, public or private, that would ask any thing. The Prince left them no opportunity to retrace their steps. Riding to the square where the insurgent troops were drawn up, he first informed them of the King's submission, and then arranged a deputation of the soldiers and populace to wait upon himself, and demand the dismissal of the ministers, and the proclamation of the new form of government. Armed with the will of the populace, he returned to the King, and, having obtained all that was requisite there, appeared at a balcony in the square, with the list of the new ministry in his hand. He then swore as follows to the insurgents :-" I swear, in the name of the King, my father and lord, veneration and respect for our holy religion, and to observe, keep, and support for ever, the constitution, as it is established by the Cortes in Portugal." This triumph of liberty by the pike and musket was, of course, hailed with prodigious acclamations. The next demand was, that the old King should appear before his loving people. The King dared not refuse, and he got into his carriage to visit the square where the troops were still drawn up. But another specimen of popular ardour was still to teach him the spirit of the time. The mob stopped the carriage, and, whether for the purpose of doing him peculiar honour, or of simply indulging their newly-discovered faculty of doing what they pleased, they insisted on drawing the vehicle. The old King, in the midst of the contention, was evidently alarmed for his personal

safety, and probably with no slight reason; he fell back in the carriage, and nearly fainted. In the language of the writer who has furnished those details," the horrors of the French Revolution were before his eyes, and he expected that the fate of the unfortunate monarch, who resembled himself in irresolution and goodness of heart, would be his own." This grand revolution was rounded with an opera! Such are the weighty movements of foreign freedom. The birth of the new constitution would have been nothing without a ballet. At this opera the populace commanded the King to make his appearance. But even the popular command cannot make the sick well. The old Monarch was in his bed, sick with his late alarm, sick with disgust, and probably to the full as sick of the liberty which, beginning by popular insurrection, threatened to close in royal massacre. From that bed we may date the resolution which so soon led him, by an extraordinary effort of decision, to abandon the Brazils to their orators and philosophers. On the 7th of March following, a proclamation appeared, announcing the royal determination to embark immediately for Portugal, there to hold the Cortes.

It is difficult to ascertain who was the chief director in those popular movements; but it seems a striking circumstance that the King's announcement of his thus leaving the Brazils to struggle for themselves, produced no tumult of any kind. Yet no measure was more likely to have roused the people to violence, or would have more unquestionably roused them a few months before. By the return of the royal family to Lisbon, the Brazils must become again a subordinate government,their deputies must attend the Portuguese Cortes,-their country must lose the rank of the seat of the monarchy, and their capital the advantage of the large expenditure of the court and nobles. But the populace, hitherto so turbulent, were perfectly tranquil on the occasion. It was perfectly clear, that whoever had pulled the strings of the puppets before, now pulled them no longer, or were pleased to let the puppets remain in a state of quiescence. However, the

natural feeling began at last to make its way. A meeting of the electors of the deputies to the Cortes had been summoned to the Exchange, to take cognisance of a plan of the constitution proposed for the future direction of the Brazils, in the absence of the King. This assembly rapidly proceeded from the dull routine of discussing principles of government to the business that came home to men's hearts and bosoms, the departure of the Royal Family. It became at length a matter of discussion whether the money which the King was about to take with him should be suffered to go out of the country. One orator stated that the King was about to carry off the funds of some of the charitable institutions; another moved that measures should be instantly adopted to prevent the sailing of the squadron until they were searched; and orders were actually sent to the forts commanding the bay to fire on any ship of the squadron which attempted to sail. It was clear that, if this spirit of oratory were allowed to spread its wings even so far as the next street, a rising of the populace would be the next thing, and the King and his ships would have put off their voyage together sine die. But though the national feeling was strong for detaining the King, there was a private and personal feeling, equally strong, for getting rid of him as fast as possible. And the distinction was, that the national feeling waited for a leader, and was therefore ineffective; while the personal feeling waited for nothing but the first opportunity of gaining its point. The debates of the assembly at the Exchange had awakened its jealousy, and a determination was adopted to give those embarrassing debaters an early lesson, which should teach them the hazard of impeding the will of their superiors. The sitting had been prolonged on this occasion till midnight, and the hall was still crowded, when the tramp of soldiery was heard, and a whole Portuguese regiment, without farther question or explanation, poured into the hall. To the astonishment and horror of every body, those miscreants instantly levelled their muskets, and began a regular fire upon the unarmed electors. A scene of

horrid carnage followed. Those who were not killed by the fire, were charged with the bayonet. As resistance was impossible, and the doors were blocked up, there was a general attempt to escape by the windows. The firing was mercilessly and wickedly continued while this desperate attempt was made, for few could even thus escape, as the windows were high; and some who leaped down were mutilated or killed by the fall, and some who reached the ground comparatively unhurt, were so much under the impression of being still pursued, that they ran into the sea and were drowned. When all were either driven out or dead, the murderers proceeded at their ease to plunder the corpses. They carried off their watches, money, and every thing else worth carrying, then stripped the room of its plate and rich ornaments, and having done their work completely, they left the spot. Thus closed the session of an assembly lawfully constituted, called together by the King's authority, and convened by the Ouvidor, or High Sheriff. As the details of this most atrocious affair transpired, they produced additional horror. Individuals were slain who had no share in the deliberations of the assembly, be those wise or foolish. One was a clerk in an English mercantile house. He happened to be near the door, and standing up on hearing the bustle, saw the muzzle of a musket pushed close to his breast. In the next moment the musket was discharged through his heart. Another was a young man, who, tired with the length of the sitting, had fallen asleep. As he was stretched upon one of the benches, he was fearfully awoke by the thrust of a bayonet, which was driven through his back into the bench on which he lay, and which pinned the unfortunate man to it. About thirty persons of a certain respectability were found dying or dead within the hall; others disappeared and were heard of no more, probably being drowned; and many others were hurt in various ways.

The massacre had its intended effect. It completely frightened the people. There was now no further debating on the royal departure; that point, at least, was fully secured.

The fleet was now ordered to be in instant readiness, and the King embarked on the 24th of May, with many of the nobles and moneyed men. They were wearied of the perpetual fluctuations of their revolutionary fellow-subjects; still more fearful of the insecurity of property, which is involved in all experiments on constitutions; and probably still more reluctant to exchange the old quiet government of their peaceable King, for the irregular activity of his successor. Dom Pedro was left behind as Prince Regent, with a council of three ministers, and, in case of his death, succession in the Regency to the Princess Leopoldina. There was now no farther question of the money carried on board, though it was accounted at fifty millions of crusadoes, (the crusado is about halfa-crown,) a formidable deduction from the circulating coin of the new state. The massacre had settled all.

To whom the ultimate guilt of this spurious exhibition of power was to be attributed, has never been ascertained; it was charged on the mere spontaneous wickedness of a pampered soldiery, glad to take the opportunity of safe robbery and murder. The popular feeling denounced the Conde de Arios, the late Governor of Pernambuco. Others charged the Prince Regent. But no satisfactory evidence was offered, and all that can be now said of it is, that it precipitated the King's departure. Yet though the popular voice was frightened into silence, the national disgust and abhorrence have never subsided. The hall was never entered afterwards by the merchants, for whom it had been built, by whom voluntarily furnished, and with whom this new Exchange had been a most favourite resort. The smell of murder and treachery was in it, and they could not be prevailed upon to enter its polluted walls. For some time it had remained in the same condition as on the night of the massacre, the walls and floors marked with bullets and blood. At length, to remove the palpable evidence of a fact which was equally a disgrace to the government, and an insult to the people, the hall was repaired and put into the same order as on its opening. Still the merchants would not

enter it; and after being left in this state of contemptuous desertion and disgust for some years, it was finally converted into a store-house for lumber. The building was suffered to go to decay, and the vaults and offices were tenanted by beggars and negroes. The departure of the King was the signal for a total change of measures. The popular outcry which had been so summarily extinguished, was again as summarily raised, and a demand was made of total independence. The Cortes of the mother country felt this demand as an act of rebellion, and orders were haughtily is sued to break up the government, put the country into the hands of a provisional government more amenable to the will of Portugal, and, as an essential measure, to send the Prince Regent, without delay, to Europe, "to travel for his improvement," the well understood phrase for royal disgrace and exile.

The Prince's situation had now become one of delicacy. Open resistance to the decree must have been followed by his denouncement as a revolter. Acquiescence must have closed his career as the sovereign of a great empire. But he was soon extricated from the dilemma. The frigate was scarcely ordered to be ready for sea, and the Prince had scarcely announced his " dutiful submission to the will of his illustrious father," when an uproar arose from one end of the Brazils to the other. Newspapers, now for the first time called into activity, popular meetings, provincial riots, the general convulsion of men and things, commanded the refusal of the ordinance of the Cortes, the creation of a sovereignty, and the stay of the Prince in the country. The newspapers led the way. The Déspértador Brazilieuse (Brazilian Awakener) was filled with eloquent diatribes on the subject. It pronounced the measures of the Cortes, "illegal, impious, and impolitic. Illegal-because decreed without the co-operation of the Brazilian representatives, and consequently without any manifestation of the national will. Impious-as shewing the contemptuous indifference with which the Cortes disposed of their existence, as if they were a band of miserable slaves, erected to

be subject to the caprice, and abandoned to the will of their masters; and not a coequal kingdom as they were, more powerful, and possessing more resources, than Portugal herself. Impolitic-because it was precisely at the moment when their union was likely to be most advantageous to the mother country, that she chose to fill them with disgust, and to render in the eyes of the world their separation a matter of both justice and necessity." This strong language was echoed by all voices. A still more direct denial of the authority of the Cortes was couched in the address of one of the Andrada family, men distinguished for their abilities, and their successive high employments under the crown. "How dare those Deputies of Portugal," says this bold manifesto, "without waiting for the concurrence of the Deputies of Brazil, legislate on a matter, involving the most sacred interests of the entire kingdom? How dare they deprive Brazil of her Privy Council, her Court of Conscience, her Board of Commerce, her Court of Requests, and so many other institutions, just established among us, and which promised us such future benefits? Where now must the people apply for justice in their civil and judicial concerns? Must they once more, after enjoying for twelve years the advantages of speedy justice, seek it in a foreign land, across two thousand leagues of ocean, among the procrastinations and corruptions of Lisbon tribunals, where the oppressed suitor is abandoned by hope and life ?" But the more pungent part of the address was an appeal to the Prince, to know whether he would allow himself" to be led about like a schoolboy, surrounded by masters and spies." The Camera presented an address expressed in the same terms, which was readily answered, "that since the Prince's remaining seemed to be the general wish and for the general good, he would remain." The declaration was received with great popular triumph. The usual exhibition of an opera commemorated the day, the Prince and Princess appeared in their box, to receive the homage of the audience; and the national hymn, written and composed by the Prince

himself, was sung with extravagant applause.

But this determination was in immediate hazard of being roughly changed. The Portuguese battalions, which felt themselves still strangers in the land, murmured loudly against what they termed rebellion to the authority of their country, and threatened to seize the Prince's person, and carry him on board. They assembled round the theatre for the purpose of their seizure, but the Prince escaped. They next took post upon a hill, with their guns pointed down on the city. A civil war was all but begun. Yet the discipline of the Portuguese was baffled by the rude zeal of the people. The popular force continued to pour in during the entire night,-arms and ammunition were brought from considerable distances on mules and horses, and by daybreak the Portuguese battalions were astonished to find themselves besieged by five thousand suddenly armed soldiers, hourly increased by the population from the neighbouring districts. The battalions soon made another and not less formidable discovery, that in their preparations for war, they had forgot the essential of provisions, and that if they remained but a little longer in their position, they must be starved. They had now no resource but to surrender, which they did, with the Prince's stipulation that they should be sent to Europe. But the transports not being ready, the troops were suffered to encamp on the opposite side of the bay, until preparation was made for them to put to sea. But yet when the time arrived, the troops again refused to move. Dom Pedro now acted with the necessary promptitude. He ordered a division of Brazilians into their rear, to prevent their march on the city, and at the same time moored two frigates in their front. Going on board one of them, he declared to the commander of the Portuguese, that he gave him but till the next day to make up his mind on the subject; and that if he was not ready to embark at that time, he would order a general assault by sea and land. Suiting the action to the word, he displayed himself on the quarterdeck, with a lighted match in his

hand, declaring that if it were necessary, he would fire the first gun. Within the stated time, the Portuguese were all embarked, and sailing out of the harbour. In the entire of those anxious transactions, Dom Pedro had continued to raise his estimation among the people. No excellence in a King will compensate for the want of energy. The public instinctively connect decision with power; and the monarch who exhibits himself fluctuating, or fearful, unequal to casualties, or apprehensive of results, instantly falls from his high estate in the general mind. By the mere fact of his being a monarch, he is prohibited from the irresolution which might be pardonable in an inferior grade; he is placed on the throne, for the express purpose of command. Dom John, with all the qualities of a paternal sovereign, had rapidly forfeited the public respect by his indolence, timidity, and indecision. Dom Pedro threw a veil over all his unpopular qualities, or rather eclipsed them, by the new lustre of his one great quality for a troubled throne-decision. During the struggle with the turbulent troops he was every where, he hazarded his ease, his throne, and his life, hourly; and by his conduct in this trying time, he shewed the peo. ple that he possessed all the title to their obedience that could be deserved by personal intrepidity.

But when he had thus gained the steps of Empire, he was soon compelled to learn, that even the most successful ambition has its penalties. The new spirit of independence which had lifted him to supreme power, suddenly began to spread through the provinces, and Maranhao, the Minas Geraes, and several other of the chief divisions of this enormous empire, each equal to an European kingdom, began to claim the right of separate legislation. The policy of the Portuguese Cortes promoted those divisions, with the idea of keeping the revolted government in check. The standard of independence was actually hoisted in the great province of Minas Geraes, and a provisional government appointed. As this was the province of the principal gold mines, and one of the most powerful, populous, and

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