insurgents, of deposing the Governor acting under the
authority of His Imperial Majesty--to whom this new attempt at
revolution was as yet unknown. In short, the order to depose the
General-at-Arms at Para had unexpectedly resolved itself into the
necessity of tranquillizing the whole of the Northern provinces, which
were only waiting the result of Carvalho's measures at Pernambuco,
openly to declare against the Imperial authority.

The dissatisfaction in the Northern provinces originated solely in the
anti-Brazilian system of Government pursued at Rio de Janeiro, which in
the estimation of all at a distance was Portuguese rather than
Brazilian. As they were either ignorant, or did not believe, that the
patriotic intentions of the Emperor were overruled or thwarted by the
Portuguese faction in the administration, which, holding in reality the
reins of power, left to His Majesty little more than nominal authority.

It was not, then, to be wondered at, that the inhabitants of these
distant provinces, who, only a year before, had welcomed me as their
liberator from Portuguese oppression, and as the representative of
constitutional authority, should now be dissatisfied with what they
rightly considered an unnational system of government--preferring to
submit to a bad government of their own choosing rather than to one thus
arbitrarily imposed upon them.

To avert revolution required able presidents, well skilled in the
management of public affairs; but, in place of these, men of an opposite
character had, for the most part, been chosen by the administration.

It was no less essential that the Generals-at-Arms, or military
commandants, should be temperate and unprejudiced; but those placed in
this responsible position used their authority in the most obnoxious and
arbitrary manner. It was, no doubt, difficult to find proper men; or, if
they existed amongst the Brazilians, the jealousy of the Portuguese
party in the administration prevented their elevation to power; the aim
of that faction being disorder, as auxiliary to their anti-imperial
views. This had been strikingly evinced by the instructions given to
disembark General Lima's force at Alagoas, instead of near the seat of
disturbance; thus entailing loss of time and a difficult and tedious
march, which might have ended in failure, had it not been for the
distraction caused by the threatened bombardment of Pernambuco by water,
and the demonstration made to shew how e