passions and unfortunate anti-national prejudices, has yielded to the force of public opinion thus boldly declared, and has acknowledged that he could no longer be the Emperor of the Brazilians. The audacity of a party which availed itself of his name, the insults that we have suffered from a faction always adverse to Brazil, the treason with which individuals unpopular and regarded as hostile to liberty, were suddenly elevated to the Ministry, placed arms in our hands. The tutelar genius of Brazil, the spontaneous feeling with which the armed force and the people assembled on hearing the voice of the oppressed country, caused our enemies to lose their presence of mind; they trembled, and the struggle was decided without its being necessary to stain our arms with human blood. Don1 Pedro I. abdicated in favour of his son, to-day, Don Pedro II., Constitutional Emperor of Brazil. Deprived for some hours of a Government which should put in regular action the springs of the public administration, the first care of your representatives, the members of both Chambers united, was to nominate a Provisional Regency, with the attributes designated by the Constitution. This Regency, whose authority will only remain in force until the meeting of the General Assembly, for the installation of which there are not yet a sufficient number of members, was required immediately by the force of circumstances, and could not be subject to the conditions of Article 124 of the fundamental law of the State, since there was no ministry, and it was impossible, therefore, to satisfy the conditions required in this article. The persons nominated for this important charge have your confidence, patriots without a stain; they are ardent friends of our liberty; they have not consented that it should suffer the slightest infraction, nor will they make any compacts with the factions which have injured the country.- Fellow citizens! Confide in their care and zeal, but do not on this account slacken your vigilance and efforts. Patriotism and energy can be easily allied with moderation when a people possess the virtue which you have evinced in this formidable enterprise. Courageous in repelling tyranny, in throwing off the yoke which the blackest treason sought to throw upon you, you have shown 1 Armitage prefers to use this word, although the correct word is Dom. 2 It was composed of Campos Vergueiro, the Marquis of Caravelas, and General Francisco de Lima e Silva. וד yourselves generous after victory, and your adversaries have shrunk before you with fear and shame. Brazilians! Your conduct has been above all praise; let that detestable faction, which dared to insult us in our homes, behold in our moderation after victory, a further proof of our force. Let the adopted Brazilians who have been seduced by perfidious suggestions, acknowledge that it was the love of liberty and not the thirst after vengeance which armed us. Let them be convinced that their tranquillity, persons, and property will alike be respected, while they obey the laws of the magnanimous nation to which they belong. The Brazilians abominate tyranny, they regard the foreign yoke with horror, but it is not their intention to rule the conquered with an iron hand, nor to avail themselves of their triumph to satisfy feelings of rancour. They have too much nobility of soul for this. As to the traitors who may appear amongst us, Justice and the Law, and these alone, must punish them according to their crimes. The number of representatives of the nation requisite for the formation of a General Assembly is nearly complete. It is from the Assembly that you must expect the energetic measures which the country calls for instantaneously. Your Delegates will not forget your interests; the country is as dear to them as to you. Brazil, until to-day, oppressed and humiliated by ungrateful individuals, is alike the object of your and their enthusiasm. Those whom Brazil elected by her free choice will not suffer that her glory or her lustre be dimmed. From the 7th of April, 1831, our political existence began, Brazil will henceforward appertain only to the Brazilians, and will be free. Fellow Citizens! We have now a country, we have now a monarch the symbol of your union and the integrity of the Empire, one who educated among us, can receive almost in the cradle the first lessons of American liberty, and learn to love Brazil, where he first drew breath; the fatal prospect of anarchy and of the dissolution of the provinces has disappeared, and been substituted by a more cheerful scene. All this has been owing to our resolution and patriotism, and to the invincible courage of the Brazilian army, which has belied the insensate dreams of tyranny. It behoves us then, that this great victory be sustained, that you continue to show that you are worthy of yourselves, worthy of that Liberty which rejects all excesses, and to which elevated and noble passions alone are acceptable. Brazilians! we have no longer to blush in owning this appellation. The independence of our country and its laws will henceforth be a reality. The greatest obstacle which has hitherto been opposed to this, retires from amongst us; he will depart from a country where he has left us civil war, as a return for the throne which we conferred upon him. Everything now depends on ourselves, on our prudence, moderation, and energy. Let us continue as we have begun, and we shall be regarded with admiration among the most enlightened nations. Viva a Nação Brasileira! Viva a Constitutição! Viva o Imperador Constitucional o Senhor Don Pedro II.! BISPO CAPELLÃO MOR, Presidente LUIS FRANCISCO DE PAULA CAVALCANTI D'ALBUQUERQUE, Secretario 113. IMPRESSIONS OF DOM PEDRO II AND HIS COURT [1833? William S. W. Ruschenberger, Three Years in the Pacific; including Notices of Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru; by an Officer of the United States Navy (1834), 50-51. Published by Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, Philadelphia.] William S. W. Ruschenberger was a careful observer and an intelligent writer of the countries and peoples which he visited. The following description of the boy emperor of Brazil and his court was taken from the Notices of Brazil. The story of the painting was just concluded, when the right hand door opened, and the ladies and gentlemen of the Brazilian Household entered. Dom Pedro II. was accompanied by his sisters and the regency. The dresses of the members of the court were splendid; that of the young emperor was neat and simple. As they passed through the rooms, every head was bowed in salutation. Presently a flourish of trumpets, followed by a grand march by a full band, proclaimed the opening of the Court. We had all followed into the anteroom. In a few moments the chamberlain informed the corps diplomatique that his Imperial Highness was ready to receive them. Those who had resided longest near this court, took precedence, and followed the chamberlain through the left hand door. The American Legation was last. Our Chargé preceded, and the officers followed according to rank, at about three yards from each other. On entering the presence, we all bowed; and again, when half way up to the dais, and repeated the reverence immediately before his Highness. Then retreating, with our faces towards the throne, and making three bows, we made our exit through the right hand door. This movement in a large room, is far from being graceful; and from the impediment experienced by the clergy, in consequence of wearing long robes, they have been excused from this retrograde step. We halted in the room where the chamberlain had met us, to observe those who were still entering to pay their court to the infant emperor. The throne room was richly hung with green velvet, sprinkled with gold and silver stars, and the floor was covered with a bright colored carpet, with a centre medallion figure. Dom Pedro II., who bears a striking resemblance to his father, stood upon the dais an elevation of one step, on which the throne is usually placed with the regency on his right, and his two younger sisters on his left hand. His large, liquid eyes, wandered from one person to another with an expression of half indifference. His salutations were stiff, and the princesses, who are his seniors 1 (he is not six years old), seemed to suffer a kind of mauvaise honte. Ladies and lords, and officers bearing their respective insignia, stood along the walls on either hand. Many of the courtiers were arrayed in rich suits of velvet of antiquated fashion, and wore those decorations of honor which it may have pleased royalty to bestow upon them. The crowd soon began to move out of the palace towards their carriages. The music continued; conversation was gay; every body wore a holy-day face, and self approbation might be read in every countenance! 114. DARWIN ON NEGRO SLAVERY IN BRAZIL [1836. Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle round the World, under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy, R. N. (1896), 499–500. Reprinted by permission of the publishers, D. Appleton and Company, New York.] The voyage which Charles Darwin, the famous English scientist, made round the world in the Beagle, began at Devonport, 1 The late empress left five children. Dona Maria de Gloria, Queen of Portugal, born April 4th, 1819. England, on December 27, 1831. "The object of the expedition," he declared, "was to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, commenced under Captain King in 1826 to 1830- to survey the shores of Chile, Peru, and some islands of the Pacific - and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements round the world." The voyage came to an end with the return of the Beagle to England on October 2, 1836. The route traveled enabled Darwin to visit Brazil, which he did both at the beginning and at the end of the voyage. The following excerpts contain his impressions of negro slavery in the Brazilian empire. On the 19th of August (1836) we finally left the shores of Brazil. I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. In Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's eye. These latter cruelties were witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in which it has always been said, that slaves are better treated than by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations. I have seen at Rio de Janeiro a powerful negro afraid to ward off a blow directed, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a kind-hearted man was on the point of separating for ever the men, women, and little children of a large number of families who had long lived together. I will not even allude to the many heart-sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of; nor would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met with several people, so blinded by the constitutional gaiety |