from Portugal or any other quarter, whatever be the pretext for sending them, shall be considered enemies; as shall also all the crews or marines belonging to ships in which the said troops may be transported, if they attempt to land: the commercial and friendly relations being, however, left open between the two kingdoms, for the preservation of that political union which it is so desirable to maintain.

2. That if they should arrive with peaceful intentions, they must nevertheless return, and besides must remain on board without communication, until they receive the supplies necessary for their voyage back.

3. That in case the said troops should be unwilling to obey these orders, and should attempt to land, they are to be repulsed by force of arms, by all the military corps of the first and second line, and even by the people in mass. For this purpose all practicable means are to be resorted to. If necessary, the vessels are to be burnt, and the boats used for disembarkation burnt.

4. That if, notwithstanding all such efforts, troops should succeed in effecting a disembarkation in any port, or on any part of the coast of Brazil, the inhabitants, on finding that they cannot prevent the landing, shall retire into the heart of the country, carrying to the woods and mountains all the cattle and provisions, and whatever might be useful to the invaders; and the troops of the

country, avoiding, on all occasions, general actions, shall carry on against them a sharp war of posts and guerillas, until they succeed in freeing themselves from such enemies.

5. That all civil and military authorities, to whom the duty belongs, are from this time forward bound, on their most rigid responsibility, to fortify all the ports of Brazil in which disembarkations may possibly be effected.

6. That if in any of the pro vinces of Brazil there should happen to be a deficiency of the ammunition and arms required for the fortifications, the authorities above referred to shall immediately make a representation to this government of what may be wanting, in order that the same shall be supplied; or shall give notice to the adjoining province, which shall be held bound to afford aid towards the fulfilment of such important duties.

The civil and military authorities whose jurisdictions extend to the provisions of this decree, shall execute, and cause the same to be executed, with the greatest zeal, energy, and expedition, under the responsibility of rendering themselves guilty of high treason if they neglect so to fulfil it.

THE PRINCE REGENT.

Palace of Rio de Janeiro,
Aug. 1, 1822.
(Countersigned) LUIZ PEREIRA

DA NOBREGA DE SOUZA
COUTINHO.

ing with the governments and nations in friendship with this kingdom, and to secure the continuance of that approbation and esteem which is due to the Brazilian character, it behoves me to state succinctly, but truly, the series of facts and motives which have induced me to accede to the general will of the people of Brazil, who have proclaimed in the face of the universe their political independence; and who desire, as forming a sister kingdom, and a great and powerful nation, to maintain, unimpaired and in vigour, their imprescriptible rights, which Portugal has always sought to infringe, and which she now more than ever, since the celebrated political regeneration of the monarchy by the Cortes of Lisbon, endeavours to assail.

Soon after the rich and vast regions of Brazil first presented themselves by accident to the eye of the adventurous Cabral, avarice and religious proselytism, the great motives to modern discoveries and colonization, took possession of them by means of conquest; and laws of blood, dictated by furious passions and sordid interests, confirmed the tyranny of Portugal. The uncivilized native and the European colonist were compelled to drag out a like existence of misery and servitude. The mountains were excavated and gold extracted, but absurd laws, and the Quinto, impeded labours which were but just commenced. While the Portuguese government, with insatiable voracity, devoured the treasures which beneficent nature so liberally supplied, it oppressed the unfortunate provinces whence the wealth was drawn by the most odious of all imposts-the capitation tax. It was wished to make

the Brazilians pay for the air they breathed, and for liberty to tread the soil of their native land. If the industry of some active man was directed to the giving a new form to certain native productions, in order that Brazil might clothe the nakedness of her own children, tyrannical laws soon prohibited and punished these praiseworthy efforts. The object of the Europeans has constantly been, to retain this fine country in the most rigid and abject dependence on the mother country, because they judged it necessary to the security of their dominion that the perennial sources of our riches should be obstructed or impoverished. If an enterprising colonist held out to his fellow-citizens the flattering prospect of the cultivation of some new branch of rural economy by the introduction of useful and valuable exotics, burthensome imposts soon put an end to commencements made under the most favourable auspices. If men boldly attempted to turn the course of rivers, in order to rescue from the waters the diamonds deposited in their beds, they were quickly stopped by the agents of monopoly and punished by inexorable laws. If the superfluity of her productions invited and demanded their barter for other foreign productions, Brazil was shut out from the general market of nations, and consequently from all commercial competition; thus no other course was left than to confine her trade to the ports of the mother-country, and thereby to stimulate more powerfully the cupidity, and add to the undue preponderance of her tyrants. Finally, when the Brazilian on whom bountiful nature had bestowed talents, wished, for the better knowledge of his rights

and duties, to obtain instruction in science or in arts, or to improve the excellent qualities with which Providence has endowed his native land, he was obliged to go to Portugal to beg what little scraps of information were to be found there, and from that country he was often not permitted to return.

Such has been the fate of Brazil for about three centuries-such the wretched policy by which Portugal, always unjust in her views, always greedy and tyrannical, endeavoured to confirm her dominion and her factitious splendour. The colonists and the Indians, the conquerors and the conquered, their their childre children and their children's children, have all, without distinction, been made subject to one general anathema. And, forasmuch as the ambition of power and the thirst of gold are always insatiable and unbridled, Portugal never ceased to send hither merciless bashaws, corrupt magistrates, and swarms of fiscal agents of every description, who, in the delirium of their passion and avarice, tore asunder all moral ties, both public and private; thus did they lacerate the bowels of Brazil, which supported and enriched them, in order that its people, reduced to the last state of desperation, might, like submissive Mussulmans, make pilgrimage to the new Mecca, to purchase, with rich gifts and offerings, an existence which was only supportable in proportion as it was obscure and languid. If Brazil resisted this torrent of evils-if she improved under such shameful oppression, she was indebted for her success to her animated and vigorous sons, whom nature has formed gigantic. She owes it to that kind mother who has always given them renoVOL. LXIV.

vating strength to overcome the physical and moral obstacles which her ungrateful parents and brothers have spitefully opposed to her growth and prosperity.

Brazil being naturally good and generous, though still filled with anguish at the recollection of her past misfortunes, did not fail to receive the august person of Don Joam VI, and all the royal family, with the greatest joy. She did more she opened her hospitable arms to the nobles and people who emigrated in consequence of the invasion of Portugal by the despot of Europe, She contentedly took on her shoulders all the weight of the throne of my august fathershe preserved in splendour the diadem which encircled his forehead-she generously and profusely supplied the expenses of a prodigal court; and what is still more, without any particular interest, but merely on account of the simple ties of fraternity. Sho also contributed to the expenses of the war which Portugal so gloriously maintained against her invaders. What has Brazil gained for all those sacrifices? The continuation of old abuses and the addition of new ones, introduced partly by weakness, partly by immorality and crimes. Such a state of things loudly called for a prompt reform of the government-a reform fully authorized by the increase of knowledge, the violated rights of a country which forms the greater and the richer portion of the Portuguese nation; which nature has peculiarly favoured by its geographical and centrical position in the midst of the globe, by its vast ports and maritime stations, and by the natural riches of its soil. But sentiments of excessive loyalty, and an extreme love for Portugal stifled

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the complaints of Brazil, made her suppress her anxious wish, and yield the glorious palm to her brethren of Europe.

When the cry of the political regeneration arose in Portugal, the people of Brazil, confident in the inviolability of their rights, and incapable of suspecting different sentiments and less generosity in their brethren, they abandoned to those ungrateful brethren the defence of their most sacred interests, and the care of their complete reconstitution. In the most perfect good faith, they slumbered tranquilly on the brink of a dreadful precipice. Trusting entirely to the wisdom and justice of the Lisbon congress, Brazil expected to receive from it all that was by right her due. How far was she then from presuming that that very congress would be capable of basely betraying her hopes and her interests interests closely entwined with the general interest of the nation!

Brazil now knows the error into which she had fallen; and had not the Brazilians partaken of that generous enthusiasm which often confounds transient phosphorous sparks with the true lights of reason, they would have seen, in the first manifesto which Portugal addressed to the powers of Europe, that one of the concealed objects of the proclaimed regeneration consisted in artfully re-establishing the old colonial system, without which Portugal always believed, and still believes, that she cannot be rich and powerful. Brazil did not perceive that her deputies, in passing to a foreign and remote country, would have to struggle against inveterate prejudices and caprices, and, destitute of the support of friends and re

latives, would inevitably sink into the state of nullity in which we have seen them. But these severe lessons of experience were necessary to make Brazil recognize the delusive nature of her ill-founded hopes.

But the Brazilians deserve to be excused: for it would have been extremely difficult for candid and generous minds to conceive that the boasted regeneration of the monarchy was to commence by the re-establishment of the odious colonial system. No less difficult, and indeed almost impossible, was it, to reconcile this absurd and tyrannical plan, with the philosophy and liberalism so loudly proclaimed by the Portuguese Cortes! And. still more incredible was it that there should be men sufficiently insolent and insane to dare to attribute to the wish and orders of my august father, Don Joam VI., to whom Brazil owes her rank of kingdom, the wish to demolish at one blow the finest monument which the history of the universe has to record. It is, doubtless, incredible that so great a delusion should have been attempted: but facts speak for themselves; and sophisms cannot prevail against obvious truth.

While my august father still remained on the plains of the river Janeiro, from which he has been unfortunately drawn by secret and perfidious manœuvres, to inhabit again the banks of the Old Tagus, the congress of Lisbon affected to entertain sentiments of fraternal equality and enlightened principles of reciprocal justice towards Brazil; declaring formerly, by article 21 of the basis of the constitution, that the fundamental law which was about to be made and promulgated, should only have application in this kingdom in the case of its assembled deputies declaring such to be the will of the people whom they represented. But how shocked were those people when they found, in contradiction of this article, and in contempt of their inalienable rights, a fractional portion of the general congress deciding on their dearest interests! When they saw the dominant party in that incomplete and imperfect congress legislating on subjects which were of transcendant importance, and peculiarly referable to Brazil, in the absence of about two-thirds of her representatives.

That dominant party, which still shamelessly insults the knowledge and probity of the worthy and judicious men who have seats in the Cortes, has tried all the means of a dark and infernal policy to deceive Brazil by an apparent fraternity which never resided in their hearts; and secretly took advantage of the errors of the governing junta of Bahia (which they secretly promoted) to break the sacred bonds which unite all the provinces of Brazil under my legitimate and paternal regency. How could the congress recognize in that factious junta a legitimate authority capable of undoing the political ties of the province, and separating it from the centre of the system to which it was bound? and this, too, after the oath of my august father to the constitution promised to the whole monarchy! What right had that congress, whose national representation was then solely limited to Portugal, to sanction acts so illegal, criminal, and fatal in their consequences to the whole united kingdom? What were the advantages which Bahia

was to obtain? The vain and ridiculous name of a province of Portugal, and, what is worse, the evils of civil war and anarchy in which that province is now plunged in consequence of the guilt of its former government, sold as it was to the demagogues of Lisbon, and of some other men, misled by anarchical and republican ideas. Were it possible for Bahia to be preserved as a province of the poor and broken-down kingdom of Portugal, would it be better so than by being one of the first provinces of the vast and powerful empire of Brazil? But the congress had little other views Brazil was to be no longer a kingdom; it was to be deprived of its throne, to be stripped of the royal mantle of its majesty, to be compelled to lay down its crown and sceptre, and retrograde in the political order of the universe to receive new fetters, and humble itself like a slave at the feet of Portugal.

But we must not stop here. Let us examine the progressive march of the Cortes. They authorised and established anarchical provincial governments, independent of each other, but subject to Portugal. They destroyed the responsibility and the mutual harmony of the civil, military, and financial powers, leaving to the people no resource for their inevitable evils, unless they sought it across the vast ocean-a vain and delusive resource. A happy idea, indeed, it was of the congress to break to pieces the majestic architecture, to separate its parts and place them in a state of continual contest, to annihilate the strength of the provinces, and to convert them into so many hostile republics. But little do the Cortes