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Du Clerc's expedition, who yet survived, broke forth from prison and the victors entered tumultuously, and sacked the city. Threefourths of the buildings, it is said, were broken open, and their con tents thrown into the streets, and Trouin, endeavouring to stay the work of rapine, caused numbers of his men to be executed, but in vain. A great ransom was paid to save the town from conflagration; and besides the enormous loss from pillage, five ships of war and more than thirty merchantmen were taken or burned by the French. On the 4th of November, Trouin sailed from Rio, intending to attack Bahia, but was prevented by adverse winds, and finally returned to France. Two of his ships, with twelve hundred men, and a great treasure, foundered at sea; yet the proceeds of what remained, repaid the fitters-out of the enterprise with a profit nearly equal to their capital. No hostile expedition has since entered the harbour of Rio Janeiro, which, in 1763, was made the seat of government for Brazil in place of Bahia.

After the emancipation of Portugal from the control of Spain, frequent disputes occurred between the two nations as to the boundaries of their respective provinces in South America. In 1750, the Portuguese settlement of San Sacramento was exchanged by treaty for a number of Jesuit missionary stations on the Uraguay, and about thirty thousand converts of the Guarany tribe, with their families, were ordered to abandon their homes and remove to a strange territory.

The oppressed natives resisted this arbitrary decree, but after great slaughter, were compelled to submit; though eleven years afterwards the treaty was annulled, and the Guaranies were permitted to return. During the enactment of this piece of oppression, the Jesuits had stood their friends, and had endeavoured to obtain reparation for their wrongs, and thus increased the odium into which their order, for some time, had been lapsing. Moreover, Pombal, the minister of Charles III. of Portugal, a man of great energy and eagerness for reform, but equally short-sighted and wrong-headed in the means he adopted, considering this extensive institution as standing in the way of his schemes of colonial aggrandizement, took the rash, unjust, and impolitic resolution of expelling from Brazil a class of men to whom, more than to any other, it was indebted for safety in the time of its weakness, for friendly intercourse with vast tribes of the aborigines, and for the extension of civilization and Christianity among them. (1760.) His brother Fiutado, a man of similar stamp, accomplished the

work with much severity and cruelty. All the churches, colleges, nouses, and other property of the proscribed order, were confiscated to the use of the crown, and great harshness was used in the enforcement of this violent measure. The unfortunate ecclesiastics, seized and transported to Europe, almost like victims in the hold of a slaveship, were thrown into prison at Lisbon (where the survivors languished for eighteen years, till the death of the king and the fall of Pombal) or were landed in Italy without means of support. This cruel and impolitic mearure, it is said, tended greatly to the barbarism both of the natives and the Portuguese colonists. The other schemes of this arbitrary minister, including oppressive monopolies, inflicted on the colonies, resulted in similar evil and decadence.

During the latter part of the eighteenth century, no events of material importance occurred in Brazil, except the transfer of the capital to Rio Janeiro, the extension of the mining settlements, some expeditions against the Indians, and an unsuccessful attempt at revolution. In 1801, Brazil attacked the Spaniards who had possession of the country of the Guaranies; those tribes, weary of the tyranny and cruelty of their new masters, welcomed their former oppressors, the Portuguese, as liberators; and the disputed territory was again acquired by the latter.

CHAPTER IV.

FLIGHT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY FROM PORTUGAL TO BRAZIL.-
THE "CARTA REGIA."—BRAZIL OPENED TO FOREIGN TRADE
AND CIVILIZATION.-BRAZIL ERECTED INTO A KINGDOM.
-DOM JOHN VI.-CORRUPTION AND DISCONTENT.-
INSURRECTIONS.-RETURN OF THE KING TO PORTU-
GAL. TYRANNY OF THE PORTUGUESE CORTES.--
IRRITATION OF THE BRAZILIANS.-RESISTANCE
OF DOM PEDRO AND HIS CAPITAL.

THE extraordinary events which, at the beginning of the present century, convulsed the European world, and which operated indirectly, but with still greater eventual effect, on the most ancient provinces of America, were not without their influence on the vast

colony of Brazil-a colony which, by consequence of those events, was destined finally to erection into an independent empire, vying, in its extent and natural resources, with the greatest and most pow erful states on the globe. When, on the 29th of November, 1807, the van of the French army, under the headlong Junot, appeared on the heights above Lisbon, the prince-regent, with the rest of the royal family, hurriedly embarked on board a British and Portuguese fleet, taking all the valuables they could hastily seize; and with a great crowd of nobles and other adherents, put to sea, and steered for their distant province of Brazil. On the 28th of January, 1808, they landed amid enthusiastic rejoicing, at Bahia, where the prince granted the celebrated "Carta Regia," by which the ports of Brazil were opened to foreign commerce; and thus, in the language of the official historian of Brazil, "by that immortal diploma conferred an inestimable inheritance on this terrestrial paradise, where flourish the crowned heads of the vegetable world; trees that blossom from the trunk to the vertex; health-giving plants, that banish death to a remote old age; and, besides a thousand other equivalents for the riches of the globe, those princely fruits which the poets and enthusiasts of natural history have named ambrosia-food for the gods," &c., &c. In the March following, he proceeded to Rio Janeiro.

This famous edict was the signal for an eager revival of commerce, and no less than ninety foreign ships, chiefly British, in the following year, came into the last-named port, entrance to which (as to all others) had heretofore been interdicted in the severest manner. Civilization and improvement followed in the train of free intercourse, and Brazil, so long noted, even among South American colonies, for the slavish ignorance of its people, began to take some steps in a forward direction. In 1815, it was erected into a kingdom by the royal family who had there found refuge, and on the 5th of February, 1818, Dom John VI. was crowned as king of the united kingdom of Portugal, Algarves, and Brazil. This event, though considered by the people as an extraordinary honour and advantage, was injurious to the national character by exciting an insane desire for titles and honours, (which soon, by excessive multiplication, lost their value,) and by introducing all the corruptions of a European court. The inhabitants, at first so enthusiastically loyal as to have placed their lands, houses, and money at the disposal of the royal suite, gradually lapsed into discontent at the gross misgovernment of the favoured officials. About this time, the warfare already mentioned in the last

article was carried on against Artigas of the Banda Oriental and against the republicans of La Plata. In 1809, Portuguese Guiana, which in 1802, by the treaty of Amiens, had been ceded to France, was recovered, by the assistance of the English.

Insurrections broke out, in 1817, in Pernambuco and Bahia, and after much bloodshed, the whole country appearing on the verge of revolution, the king, in 1821, appointed a commission to inquire into the expediency of extending the Portuguese constitution to the Brazilian government; and soon after, the prince, Dom Pedro, read to the people of the capital a royal proclamation, assuring them of the grant of such a constitution as should be formed by the Cortes of Lisbon. In the same year, the king, by invitation from that body, to preserve the integrity of his dominions, leaving his eldest son, Dom Pedro, as regent of Brazil, visited the mother-country, where the people were impatient at his protracted absence. Brazilian deputies were also summoned to attend the Cortes; but before they arrived, that assembly, with insane tyranny, had resolved on the revival of the ancient colonial system in its worst form of dependence, monopoly, and exclusion of foreign traffic.

The prince, who, on assuming the regency, was only twenty-three years of age, in despite of his earnest attempts to reform the government, and the rigid self-denial which he practised, soon found his authority set at naught by the provinces, and was reduced to a condition little better than that of governor of Rio Janeiro. Thwarted on every side, and despairing of success, he had entreated to be rẽcalled to Europe, when, "at length," it is said, "the Brazilians were disarmed by this noble conduct; they recognized his activity, his beneficence, his assiduity in the affairs of government; and the habitual feelings of affection and respect for the House of Braganza, which for a moment had been laid asleep by distrust, were reawakened with increased strength. To these was joined an almost idolatrous sentiment of attachment for the virtues and the splendid as well as amiable qualities of the young archduchess, Leopoldina, the daughter of the emperor of Austria, and the beloved wife of the regent."

The king, on his arrival in Portugal, was in a manner compelled to sanction the illiberal views of the Cortes concerning Brazil. The consequence was renewed disaffection to the parent-country, and in 1821, an attempt was made at Rio to proclaim the regent emperor; but this was promptly suppressed, the country in general being un

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prepared for a step so decided. Two months afterwards (December 10th) arrived a rash and oppressive decree of the Cortes, reinstating the old abuses, denationalizing Brazil, and recalling the prince, with orders to travel incognito in Europe. The utmost irritation was excited by the receipt of these tidings, and several provinces presented strong remonstrances to the prince against obedience, the municipality of Rio declaring, in their address, "The departure of your Royal Highness from the states of Brazil will be the decree that will seal for ever the independence of this kingdom," implying the determination, in that event, to throw off the yoke of Portugal. The prince, seeing the condition of affairs, and consulting his own interests, as well as those of the kingdom, decided to remain-a decision which filled the people with enthusiastic joy. (January 9th, 1822.) A battle between the Portuguese troops and the citizens was only prevented by the retreat of the former, who, however, waiting for reinforcements from home, took up a hostile position on the opposite side of the bay. Surrounded by the forces of the prince, who managed the affair in person, they were presently compelled to embark for Europe; and a force of eighteen hundred men, which immediately afterwards appeared on the coast, dispatched to bring back Dom Pedro, was forthwith ordered home again, without even being permitted to land.

CHAPTER V.

IMPOTENT DEMONSTRATION OF THE PORTUGUESE GOVERNMENT.-
DOM PEDRO PROCLAIMED PROTECTOR.-INDEPENDENCE OF
BRAZIL DECLARED. PEDRO PROCLAIMED EMPEROR.
RETREAT OF THE PORTUGUESE TROOPS.-DIFFICULTIES
WITH THE DEMOCRACY.-INSURRECTION UNDER CAR-
VALHO SUPPRESSED.-POPULAR REVOLUTION AT
RIO. ABDICATION OF DOM PEDRO, AND HIS
RETREAT TO PORTUGAL.

ALARMED too late by the determined attitude of the injured prov ince, the Portuguese government began to withdraw its offensive measures, but in vain. Many of the captaincies gave in their adhe sion to the revolutionary cause, and all the southern departments,

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