to you the introduction of Foreign arms and ammunition wherewith you might defend yourselves and support your liberty.

It presented a Project of Commercial relations, which, under the false and chimerical appearance of reciprocity and equality, monopolized your riches, and shut your Ports to Foreigners; thus destroying your agriculture and industry, and again reducing the Inhabitants of Brazil to the condition of Dependants and Colonists.

It treated from the beginning, and still continues to treat, with unworthy degradation and contempt, the Representatives of Brazil, when they have the courage to insist upon their Rights, and even (who would believe it) threatened you with giving liberty to the Blacks, and arming them against their Masters.

To complete this long narrative of appalling injustice;—when, for the first time, the sound of your just indignation was heard in the Congress, they doubly increased their mockery; endeavouring to exculpate themselves, under the plea of your desire and concurrence.

The delegation of the Executive Power, which the Congress rejected as Anti-Constitutional, is now offered to us by a Commission from that Congress, and with such liberality, that, instead of one centre of power, which we alone wanted, they wish to give you two or more. What unheard of generosity! But who does not see that its object is to destroy your strength and integrity, to arm Province against Province-Brothers against Brothers?

Let us awake, therefore, generous Inhabitants of this vast and powerful Empire; the great step of your Independence and happiness, so many times foretold by the great Politicians of Europe, has been taken. You are already a Sovereign People; you have already entered into the great Society of Independent Nations, to which you had every right. Honour and National dignity, the desire to be prosperous, the voice of Nature itself, require, that Colonies cease to be Colonies, when they arrive at a state of maturity, and although treated as Colonies, you really were not so; but, in fact, a Kingdom. Moreover, the same right which Portugal had, to overthrow its ancient Institutions and reconstitute itself, you possess, with much greater reason, who inhabit a vast and extensive Country, with a Population (although more scattered) already greater than that of Portugal, and which will go on increasing with the rapidity that distinguishes the fall of heavy bodies through the air. If Portugal deny you this right, let it renounce the right which it advances itself, to have its new Constitution acknowledged by Foreign Nations, who thereupon might allege just motives for interfering in its domestick concerns, and for violating the attributes of the Sovereignty and Independence of Nations.

What then remains for you to do, Brazilians? It remains for you to be all united, in interest, in love, and in hope; to cause the August Assembly of Brazil to enter upon the exercise of its functions, in order that, guided by reason and prudence, you may avoid the shoals which,

during the sea of Revolution, France, Spain, and even Portugal, unfortunately encountered; that you may with a sure and wise hand, arrange the division of the powers; found the Code of your Legislation in sound philosophy, and apply it to your peculiar circumstances.

Do not doubt, Brazilians, that your Representatives, when occupied, not in overcoming contentions, but in settling rights, will support yours, which have been trodden underfoot and disregarded for 3 Centuries; they will consecrate the true principles of the Brazilian Representative Monarchy; they will declare Lord Don John the VIth, my August Father, of whose love you are in the highest degree possessed, King of this fine Country; they will sever all the heads of the hydra of anarchy and despotism; they will impose the necessary responsibility upon all Publick Functionaries; and the legitimate and just will of the Nation will never more see its majestick flight constantly impeded.

Firm in the invariable principle of not sanctioning abuses, from which at each step others arise, your Representatives will spread light and new order through the impenetrable chaos which now conceals the Publick Revenue, the Administrative Economy, and the Civil and Criminal Laws. They will have the courage to believe that ideas, which are useful and necessary for the welfare of our species, are not destined solely to ornament the pages of books; and that the perfectibility, granted to Man by the Creator and Supreme Being, should not meet with impediments, but should contribute towards the social order, and the happiness of Nations.

They will give you a Code of Laws suitable to the nature of your local circumstances, of your population, interests, and relations, the execution of which will be entrusted to Judges of integrity, who will administer gratuitous justice, and expunge from your Books the litigious proceedings, founded upon ancient, obscure, inept, complicated, and contradictory Laws. They will give you a Penal Code dictated by reason and humanity, in the place of those absurd and sanguinary Laws, of which you have hitherto been the suffering victims. You will have a system of taxation which will give encouragement to the toils of agriculture, the labours of industry, the dangers of navigation, and the freedom of commerce: a clear and harmonious system, which will facilitate the employment and circulation of capital, and remove the hundred mysterious keys that locked the dark labyrinth of the Finances, and which did not allow the Citizens to distinguish a trace of the use which was made of the National Income.

Brave Soldiers, you will also have a Military Code, which, by forming an Army of disciplined Citizens, will unite the valour that defends the Country, with the civic virtues which are its protection and security.

Cultivators of literature and the sciences, who are almost always disliked, or contemned, by despotism, you will have the path open and clear for the acquisition of glory and honour: virtue and merit will be

found united, to adorn the sanctuary of the Country, without finding the avenues to the Throne, which have hitherto been open only to hyprocrisy, and to imposture, shut against them by intrigue.

Citizens of all classes, Brazilian Youth, you will have a Code of Publick National Instruction, which will cause the talents of this blessed Climate to germinate, and to vegetate vigorously, and will place our Constitution under the safeguard of future generations; which exist in spreading throughout the Country a liberal education, and communicating thereby to its Members the instruction necessary to promote the felicity of the Great Brazilian Nation.

Behold, Inhabitants of Brazil, the perspective of glory and of greatness which is before you be not alarmed at the imperfections of your actual situation. The torrent of civilization has already begun to pour impetuously from the Deserts of California, to the Streights of Magellan. A Constitution, with lawful liberty, are the inexhaustible sources of wonders; they will form the bridge over which all that is good, in old and convulsed Europe, will pass to our Continent. Fear not Foreign Nations. Europe, which acknowledged the Independence of the United States of America, and remained neutral during the struggle of the Spanish Colonies, cannot fail to acknowledge that of Brazil, which, with so much justice, and so many means and resources at hand, has determined also to enter into the great Family of Nations. We will never involve ourselves in their internal affairs, and they, on their part, will not seek to disturb the Peace and free Commerce we shall offer to them, guaranteed by the Representative Government we are about to establish.

Let no cry be heard amongst you but that of Union. From the Amazons to the Plata, let no other echo resound but Independence. Let all our Provinces combine to form the mysterious faggot which no force can break. Let all old prejudices disappear for ever, and let the love of the general good be substituted for that of any one Province, or of any one City. Regard not injuries, calumnies, and invectives, which obscure Libellers send forth against you, against me, and against our liberal system. Recollect that, had they praised you, Brazil would have been lost. Let them say that our attempts are against Portugal, against the Mother Country, against our Benefactors: by preserving our Rights, by punishing by our Laws, by consolidating our Liberty, we wish to save Portugal from a new class of Tyrants.

Regard not their cry that we are rebelling against our King. He knows that we love him, as a Citizen King, and wish to rescue him from the insulting state of captivity to which they have reduced him, by tearing the mask of hypocrisy from infamous Demagogues, and marking with true Liberalism the just limits of Political Powers. They may still endeavour to persuade the World, that we are breaking all the ties of Union with our European Brethren. It is not so. We wish to establish them upon a solid basis, free from the influence of

a Party, which has shamefully disregarded our Rights, and has openly betrayed itself, by so many acts that can no longer be concealed, which are tyrannical and domineering, to our dishonour and prejudice, and weaken and destroy irremediably that moral power so necessary in a Congress, which depends for its support upon Publick opinion and justice.

Illustrious Men of Bahia! the generous but unfortunate portion of Brazil, on whose soil those famished and pestiferous Harpies have taken the fastest hold! How deeply your lot grieves me! How much do I lament that I could not long since contribute to the drying up of your tears, and assuaging your despair! Bahians, whose emblem is bravery; drive from your bosom those Monsters who live upon your blood; fear them not: your delay is their strength. They are no longer Portuguese. Expel them, and unite yourselves with us whose arms are open to receive you.

Brave Miners, intrepid Pernambucans, Defenders of Brazilian Liberty, fly to the succour of your neighbouring Brethren. It is not

the Cause of a Province, but the Cause of Brazil, that is defended in the first-born of Cabral. Destroy this nest of Wolves in disguise, who still support the sanguinary caprices of the factious Party. Pernambucans! call to mind the burning piles of Bonito and the scenes of the Recife! Spare, however, and love as Brethren, all pacifick Portuguese, who respect our Rights, and are anxious for our and their own happiness.

Inhabitants of Ceará, of Maranham, of the rich Pará, and of the fertile and beautiful Provinces of the North; come to form and sign the Act of our Emancipation, that we may immediately assume our rank in the great Political Association. Brazilians in general! Friends! Let us all unite-I am your Compatriot-I am your Defender-Let us regard as the only reward of our toils, the honour, the glory, the prosperity of Brazil. Pursuing this path you will always find me in your front, and in the place of the greatest danger. Be assured that my happiness depends upon your happiness. It is my glory to rule over brave and a free People. Shew me the example of your virtues and of your union.-I will be worthy of you.

Palace of Rio de Janeiro, 1st of August, 1822.

THE PRINCE REGENT.

DECREE of the Prince Regent and Perpetual Defender of Brazil, respecting the Measures to be taken, in the event of the arrival of Troops from Portugal.-1st August, 1822. (Translation.)

HAVING been confirmed, by the unanimous consent and free-will of the People of Brazil, in the dignity and power of Regent of this vast Empire, with which the King, my August Father has charged me; a

dignity whereof the Cortes of Lisbon, without hearing all the Deputies of Brazil, have attempted to despoil me, as is notorious; and having, moreover, accepted the title and charge of Perpetual Defender of this Kingdom, which the same People have so generously and loyally conferred upon me: It behoves me, therefore, in the discharge of my sacred duties, and in acknowledgment of so much love and fidelity, to take all the Measures which are indispensable for the salvation of this the greatest part of the Portuguese Monarchy, which has been entrusted to me, and whose Rights I have sworn to preserve inviolate, against all attack. And, as the Cortes of Lisbon continue to pursue the erroneous, and in every light unjust, system, of recolonizing Brazil, even by force of arms, notwithstanding that it has already declared its Political Independence, and that a General Constituent and Legislative Assembly has been already legally convoked, by my Royal Decree of the 3d June last, at the general request of all the Magistracies, thus proceeding with a formality which was not observed in Portugal, where the Convocation of the Congress was in its origin the act solely of secret and factious Clubs: And considering, also, that His Majesty the King, Lord Don John the VIth, whose name and authority the Cortes employ for their sinister ends, is a Prisoner in that Kingdom, without his own proper will, and without that liberty of action which is given to the Executive Power in Constitutional Monarchies I order, after having heard my Council of State, to all the Provisional Juntas of Government, the Governors at Arms, Military Commandants, and all the Constituted Authorities, to whom the execution of this Decree belongs, as follows:

I. That all Troops shall be considered as Enemies who may be sent to Brazil from Portugal, or any other Quarter, without my previous consent, under whatever pretext it may be; as well as all the Crews and Persons on board of the Ships in which the said Troops may be transported, if they attempt to land: the commercial and amicable relations between the two Kingdoms remaining free, for the preservation of the Political Union which I so much desire to maintain.

II. That if they arrive with peaceful intentions, they shall immediately return, remaining however on board, without communication, until they shall be furnished with all the supplies and assistance necessary for that purpose.

III. That in case the said Troops should not obey these Orders, and should attempt to land, they shall be driven back, by force of arms, by all the Military Corps of the first and second Line, and even by the People en masse; putting into execution every possible means, if it be necessary, to burn the Ships, and to sink the Boats for disembarkation.

IV. That if, notwithstanding these efforts, it shall happen that such Troops succeed in effecting a disembarkation, in any Port, or Place of Brazil, all the Inhabitants shall retire into the interior, car