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This they indignantly refused, and all Lord Cochrane's tact was needed to restrain them from open mutiny. In spite of the Emperor's friendship towards Lord Cochrane, or rather in consequence of it, he was in all sorts of ways insulted by the ministry, the head of which was now Severiano da Costa.
Without imputing to such ministers as Severiano, Gomez, and Barboza disaffection to the person of your Imperial Majesty, it is sufficient to know that they are men bigoted to the unenlightened opinions of their ancestors of four centuries ago, that they are men who, from their limited intercourse with the world, from the paucity of the literature of their native language, and from their want of all rational instruction in the service of government and political economy, have no conception of governing Brazil by any other than the same wretched and crooked policy to which the nation had been so long subjected in its condition as a colony.
Rio de Janeiro, July 23, 1824. The anxiety of His Majesty on account of the revolt at Pernambuco was meanwhile utterly set at nought, neither Severiano, nor his colleague Barbosa though now beginning to be alarmed shewing the slightest disposition to carry out His Majesty's orders for the compromise with the officers and seamen, in order that the squadron might be manned.
His Excellency Joao Severiano Maciel de Costa, Chief Minister of State, &c. &c. One effect of the preceding letter was that the Court of Admiralty requested my consent to give up certain prize property, the object being to construe my acquiescence as regarded a small portion into a precedent for giving up the remainder. This was firmly refused on the ground of its being a fraud on the captors.
On the 19th of March, a direct insult was offered me by Severiano da Costa, now first minister, by an intimation to attend in the Imperial chapel for the purpose of assisting at the ceremony of swearing to the Constitution, but I was distinctly told that I should not be permitted to swear; the reason no doubt being, that, by a clause therein contained, military officers who swore to it, could not be dismissed without trial, and sentence of court martial; so that the not permitting me to swear coupled with Barbosa's portaria limiting my command to the duration of the war indirectly gave power to the Administration to dismiss me at their option, whenever they might deem it expedient so to do.
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