lately maintained by the President--the public still continue
in dread of being exposed to outrages, similar to those lately committed
on their persons and property. The terror excited is
universal, and as the people must be well acquainted with the
character and conduct of persons with whom they have been bred
up, I cannot bring myself to believe--however desirous to support a
President nominated by His Imperial Majesty--that all the
respectable portion of the population, without exception, entertain
fears that are groundless. Indeed, from all that I have seen or
heard, there is but little reason to hope that his Excellency the
President has any intention to govern this province on any other
system than that of the Captains-General, under the old Portuguese
government; that is to say, rather according to his own will than
in conformity with the dictates of justice or equity.

Certain it is, that, up to the present moment, the Constitution
has never been put in practice, and even military law has not been
adhered to. Numerous persons have been banished without accuser
or declared crime--others have been thrown into gaol--and the
greater portion of the principal people who remained had--previous
to our arrival--fled to the woods, to avoid being the objects of the
like arbitrary proceedings.

The representations which I now enclose to your Excellency as a
sample of the numerous documents of a similar nature addressed to
me, will, at least, lead His Imperial Majesty to the conclusion that
such complaints could not have arisen, and continued under the
government of a person calculated to preside over the interests
of so important a province.

Your Excellency will find a memorial from the French Consul,
marked No. 7, and the other Consuls have only been restrained
from sending similar representations from the consideration that,
on the squadron quitting this port, the consequences might be
highly prejudicial to their interests and those whom they
represent.

I would further state to your Excellency the remarkable fact
that the President--after having continued a _high pay_ to the
soldiery during the existence of those disorders of which they were
the instrument--did, at the moment of my taking the command,
send me an old order respecting the diminution of the pay of the
troops, which order he himself had ne