Chapter 8

But the question of the independence of Brazil had now come to be publicly agitated, and out of it arose several others. Was it to be still part of the Portuguese monarchy, with a separate supreme jurisdiction civil and criminal under the Prince? or was it to return to the abject state in which it had been since its discovery, subject to all the vexatious delays occasioned by distant tribunals, by appeals beyond sea, and all that renders the state of a colony irksome or degrading? Then if independent so far, was it to form one kingdom whose capital should be at Rio, or were there to be several unconnected provinces, each with its supreme government, accountable only to the king and cortes at Lisbon? Those who had republican views, and who looked forward to a federal state, favoured the latter views, and so did those who dreaded the final separation of Brazil from the mother country; for they argued that the separate provinces might be easily controlled, but that Brazil united would overmatch any force that Portugal could send against it, should a hostile struggle between them ever take place.

The people, jealous of all, but particularly of the ministers, accused the Conde dos Arcos of treachery, and of a wish to reduce Brazil once more to the state in which it had been before 1808. They insisted on his dismissal, and on the appointment of a provisional junta, which should deliberate on the best measures of government to be adopted, until the constitution of the cortes should arrive from Lisbon, and the fifth of June, the day of his dismissal, was held as a festival.[37]

[Note 37: When he touched at Bahia on his way home, the junta of government there, prejudiced by letters from Rio, refused him permission to land; and he had the mortification of being treated as a criminal, in that very city where he had governed with honour, and where he had been beloved. On his arrival at Lisbon, he suffered a short imprisonment in the tower of Belem. Yet his misconduct, if it amounted to all he was charged with, seems to have been an error in judgment.]

Yet, distressed as the government was by an empty treasury, and by demands increasing daily on all sides, it was impossible to remove at once all causes of discontent; and the new junta was so well aware of this, that, on the 16th of June, on publishing an invitation to all persons to send in plans and projects for improvements, and statistical notices concerning the country, they also published an exhortation to tranquillity and obedience, and patient waiting till the event of the deliberation of the cortes, now to be joined by their own deputies, should be known. That same night both the Portuguese and Brazilian troops were under arms in the city, violent jealousies had arisen between them, and it required all the authority and all the popularity of the Prince to restore order. On the morning of the 17th His Royal Highness called together the officers of both nations, and in a short speech he ordered them as soldiers, and recommended to them as citizens, to preserve the subordination of the troops they commanded, and union among those troops, bidding them remember that they had sworn to support the constitution, and that they were to trust to that for the redress of their grievances.

Meanwhile the more distant provinces had acknowledged the authority of the cortes, and had sworn to support the constitution. But Maranham in its public acts took no notice whatever of the Prince, professing only to recognise the government of Lisbon. At Villa Rica, when the constitution was proclaimed, the troops refused to acknowledge the Prince, accusing him of withholding the pay promised by the King. At St. Catherine's, though the measures were less violent, yet the refusing to admit a new governor who had been sent, was decidedly an act of insubordination; but the political agitations at St. Paul's were not only of a more serious nature, but had more important results than those of any other province.

The ostensible cause of the first public ferment in that city was the discontent of the Caçadores at not receiving the promised augmentation of pay, which, indeed, it was not then in the power of the Prince to bestow on them.

The regiment, however, took up arms on the 3d of June, and declared they would not lay them down until they received the pay demanded, and were proceeding to threaten the municipal government of the city, when they were stopped by the good sense, and presence of mind of their captain, José Joaquim dos Santos. But though the ferment was soothed for the time, it continued to agitate not only the troops, but the people, to such a degree, that the magistrates and principal inhabitants thought it necessary to take some steps at once, to rule and to satisfy them. They took advantage of the occasion furnished by the assembling of the militia, on account of a festival on the 21st, and, keeping them together, they placed them on the morning of the 23d, in the square before the town-house, where the camara held its sittings. The great bell of the camara then tolled out, the people flocked to the square, with shouts of "Viva el Re, Viva o Constituiçao, Viva o Principe Regente." They then demanded a provisional junta to be appointed for the government of the province, and that José Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva, should be appointed president. This truly patriotic citizen and accomplished scholar, was a native of the country, and had now been residing in it some years, after having studied, travelled, and fought in Europe. As soon as he was named, a deputation was sent to his own dwelling, to bring him to the town-house.

Meantime the standard of the camara had been displayed at one of the windows, and there the magistrates were placed in sight of the people. José Bonifacio appeared at another window, and addressed the people in a short, but energetic speech, calculated to give them courage, and at the same time to inspire peace and all good and orderly feeling. He then named, one by one, the members proposed by the chief citizens, to form the provisional junta, beginning with Joaŏ Carlos Augusto de Oyenhausen, to continue general of arms in the province. Each name was received with cheers.[38] The troops and people then marched in an orderly manner to the house of José Bonifacio, to install him formally as president, and thence to the cathedral where a Te Deum was sung. At night the theatre was illuminated as for a gala, the national hymn was sung repeatedly; and from that moment all remained quiet in the city, and resolved to maintain the constitution, and the Prince Regent, for whom they expressed unbounded attachment.

[Note 38: _Provisional government of St. Paul's._

The Archpriest Felisberto Gomes Jardin. The Rev. Joaŏ Ferreiro da Oliviero Bueno. Antonio Lecto Perreiro da Gama Lobo. Daniel Pedro Muller. Francisco Ignacio. Manoel Rodriguez Jordaŏ. Andre da Sylva Gomez. Francisco de Paulo Oliviera. Dr. Nicolaŏ Perreira de Campos Noguerros. Antonio Maria Quertim. Martin Francisco de Andrada. Lazaro José Gonçalez. Miguel José de Oliviero Pinto.

]

Nothing could have been so important to the interest of the Prince at that time. The Paulistas are among the most hardy, generous, and enlightened of the Brazilians. Their country is in the happiest climate. The mines of St. Paul's are rich, not only in the precious, but in the useful metals. Iron, so rich as to yield 93 per cent. and coal abound. The manufactures of that province are far before any others in Brazil. Corn and cattle are plenty there, as well as every other species of Brazilian produce. Agriculture is attended to, and the city by its distance from the sea, is safe from the attacks of any foreign power, while it is totally independent of external supplies.

Unfortunately, the port of Santos presented a different scene during the first days of June. The first battalion of the Caçadores assembled before the government house, and, accusing the governor and the camara of withholding their pay, seized and imprisoned them, in order to force them to give the money they demanded. Several murders were committed during the insurrection, and various robberies, both in the houses and the ships in the harbour. Some armed vessels were, however, speedily despatched from Rio, and a detachment of militia from St. Paul's. Fifty of the insurgents were killed, and two hundred and forty taken prisoners; after which, every thing returned to a state of tranquillity; and as the most conciliatory measures were adopted towards the people, the peace continued.

The next three months were spent almost entirely in establishing provisional juntas in the different capitals. Many of the captaincies had, upon swearing to maintain the constitution, spontaneously adopted that measure. Others, such as Pernambuco, had been restrained by their governors from doing so, until the Prince's edicts of the 21st of August, to that effect, reached them. These edicts were followed by another of the 19th of September, directing the juntas to communicate directly with the cortes at Lisbon; and the whole attention of the government was now directed to preserve tranquillity until the arrival of instructions from the cortes concerning the form of government to be adopted.

It was fondly hoped, that the presence of Brazilian deputies, the importance of the country, and the consideration that it had been the asylum of the government during the stormy days of the revolutionary war, would have induced the cortes to have considered it no longer as a colony, but as an equal part of the nation, and that it might have retained its separate courts, civil and criminal, and all the consequent advantages of a prompt administration of the laws.

Such was the state of Brazil, generally speaking, on our arrival in that country, on the 21st of September, 1821. Much that might be interesting I have omitted, partly because I have not so correct a knowledge of it, as to venture to write it; much, because we are too near the time of action to know the motives and springs that guided the actors; and much, because neither my sex nor situation permitted me to inform myself more especially concerning the political events in a country where the periodical publications are few, recent, and though by law free, yet, in fact, owing to the circumstances of the times, imperfect, timorous, and uncertain. What I have ventured to write is, I trust, correct as to facts and dates; it is merely intended as an introduction, without which, the journal of what passed while I was in Brazil would be scarcely intelligible.

JOURNAL.

At about six o'clock in the evening of the 31st of July, 1821, after having saluted His Majesty, George IV., who at that moment went on board the Royal George yacht, to proceed to Dublin,--we sailed in the Doris, a 42 gun frigate, for South America. After touching at Plymouth, and revisiting all the wonders of the break-water and new watering place, we sailed afresh, but when off Ushant, were driven back to Falmouth by a heavy gale of wind. There we remained till the 11th of August, when, with colours half-mast high, on account of the death of Queen Caroline, we finally left the channel, and on the 18th about noon came in sight of Porto Santo.

We passed it on the side where the town founded by Don Henry of Portugal, on the first discovery of the island, is situated, and regretted much that it was too late in the day to go in very near it. The land is high and rocky, but near the town there is a good deal of verdure, and higher up on the land, extensive woods; a considerable quantity of wine is made there, which, being a little manufactured at Funchal, passes for true Madeira. As usual in Portuguese colonial towns, the church and convent are very conspicuous. When we passed Porto Santo, and the Desertas, and anchored in Funchal roads, I was disappointed at the calmness of my own feelings, looking at these distant islands with as little emotion as if I had passed a headland in the channel. Well do I remember, when I first saw Funchal twelve years ago, the joyous eagerness with which I feasted my eyes upon the first foreign country I had ever approached, the curiosity to see every stone and tree of the new land, which kept my spirits in a kind of happy fever.

"Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of time I turn my sail, To view the fairy haunts of long lost hours, Blest with far greener shades, far fresher flow'rs." ROGERS.

Now I look on them tamely, or at best only as parts of the lovely landscape, which, just at sunset, the time we anchored, was particularly beautiful. Surely the few years added to my age have not done this? May I not rather hope, that having seen lands whose monuments are all history, and whose associations are all poetry, I have a higher taste, and more discriminating eye? One object never palls--that ocean where the Almighty "Glasses himself in tempests," or over which the gentle wings of peace seem to brood. The feeling that there was a change, however, either in the scene or in me, was so strong, that I ran to my cabin and sought out a sketch I had made in 1809. I compared it with the town. Every point of the hill, every house was the same, and again Nossa Senhora da Monte, with her brilliant white towers shining from on high through the evening cloud, seemed to sanctify the scene, while a few rough voices from the shore and the neighbouring ships chaunted the Ave Maria.

Early in the morning of the 19th, we took a large party of the midshipmen on shore to enjoy the young pleasure of walking on a foreign land. To them it was new to see the palm, the cypress, and the yucca, together with the maize, banana, and sugar-cane, surrounded by vineyards, while the pine and chesnut clothe the hills. We mounted the boys on mules, and rode up to the little parish church, generally mistaken for a convent, called Nossa Senhora da Monte. My maid and I went in a bad sort of palankeen, though convenient for these roads, which are the worst I have seen; however, the view made up for the difficulty of getting to it. The sea with the Desertas bounded the prospect: below us lay the roadstead and shipping, the town and gardens, and the hill clothed with vineyards and trees of every climate, which deck the ashy tufa, or compact basalt of which the whole island seems to be composed. Purchas, who like Bowles, believes the story of the discovery of Madeira by the Englishman Masham and his dying mistress, says, that shortly after that event, the woods having taken fire burned so fiercely, that the inhabitants were forced out to sea to escape from the flames. The woods, however, are again pretty thick, and some inferior mahogany among it is used for furniture. The pine is too soft for most purposes. In the gardens we found a large blue hydrangea very common: the fuschia is the usual hedge. Mixed with that splendid shrub, aloes, prickly pear, euphorbia, and cactus, serve for the coarser fences; and these strange vegetables, together with innumerable lizards and insects, tell us we are nearing the tropics.

We spent a very happy day at the hospitable country house of Mr. Wardrope, and our cavalcade to the town at night was delightful. The boys, mounted as before, together with several gentlemen who had joined us at Mr. W.'s, enjoyed the novelty of riding home by torch-light; and as we wound down the hill, the voices of the muleteers answering each other, or encouraging their beasts with a kind of rude song, completed the scene. The evening was fine, and the star-light lovely: we embarked in two shore boats at the custom-house gate, and, after being duly hailed by the guard-boat, a strange machine mounting one old rusty 6 lb. carronade, we reached the ship in very good time.

20th. We walked a good deal about the town, and entered the cathedral with some feelings of reverence, for a part of it at least was built by Don Henry of Portugal, who founded and endowed the college adjoining. The interior of the church is in some parts gaudy, and there is a silver rail of some value. The ceiling is of cedar, richly carved, and reminds me of some of the old churches at Venice, which present a style half Gothic half Saracenic. Near the church a public garden has lately been formed, and some curious exotic trees placed there with great success.

In rambling about the town, we naturally enquired for the chapel of skulls, the ugliness of which had shocked us when here formerly, and were not sorry to find that that hideous monument of bad taste is falling fast to ruin. I cannot imagine how such fantastic horrors can ever have been sanctified, but so it is; and the Indian fakir who fastens a real skull round his neck, the Roman pilgrim who hangs a model of one to his rosary, and the friar who decks his oratory with a thousand of them, are one and all acted upon either by the same real superstition, or spiritual vanity, craving to distinguish itself even by disgusting peculiarities.

Of late years superstition has been used as an instrument of no small power in revolutions of every kind. Even here it has played its part. A small chapel, dedicated to St. Sebastian, had been removed by the Portuguese government in order to erect a market-place, where all articles of daily consumption were to be sold, a small tax being levied on the holders of stands. This innovation was of course disagreeable to the people, and on the night of the revolution, in November last, some of their leading orators accused the market-place of having, by rudely thrusting out St. Sebastian, occasioned the failure of the vineyards, and threatened the ruin of the island. The market-place was instantly devoted; it was down in a few seconds, and a chapel to St. Sebastian begun. Men, women, and children worked all night, and the walls were raised to at least two-thirds of the intended height; but day brought weariness, and perhaps the morning breeze chilled the fever of enthusiasm. The voluntary labourers worked no more, and no subscription adequate to the hire of workmen to complete it has yet been raised: so that the new St. Sebastian's stands roofless, and the officiating priest performs his masses with no other canopy than the heavens.

Other and better consequences have, however, arisen from the revolution of November. The grievances of the inhabitants of Madeira were severe. The sons of the best families were seized arbitrarily, and sent to serve in the armies of Europe or Brazil: scarcely any article, however necessary, or however coarse, was permitted to be manufactured; the very torches, made of twisted grass and resin, so necessary for travelling these mountain roads after sunset, were all sent from Lisbon, and every species of cultivation, but that of the grape, discountenanced. Thus situated, every class joined heart and hand in the revolution: deputies were sent to the Cortes; petitions respecting the state of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, were presented; and many, perhaps most, of the grievances were redressed, or at least much lightened.

Till the year 1821, there had never been a printing-press in Madeira; but the promoters of the revolution sent to England for one, which is now set up in Funchal; and on the 2d of July, 1821, the first newspaper, under the name of PATRIOTA FUNCHALENSE, appeared. It contained a well written patriotic preface; and the first article is a declaration of the rights of citizens, and of the pretensions of the Portuguese nation, its religion, government, and royal family, as adopted by the Cortes for the basis of the constitution to be formed for its government. The paper has continued to be published twice a week: it contains a few political addresses and discourses; all foreign intelligence; some tolerable papers on distilling, agriculture, manufactures, and similar topics; some humorous pieces in prose and verse; poems _on several occasions_; and, at the end of the month, a table of the receipts and expenditures of government. Among the advertisements I observe one informing the public where _leeches_ may be bought at about two shillings and sixpence a piece.

I thought it curious to observe this first dawning of literature and interest in politics in this little island. There are certainly enough anglicisms in the paper, to point out the probable country of some of the writers; and there are, as might be looked for, some traces of the residence of British troops in the colony; but on the whole, the paper is creditable to the editors, and likely to be useful to the island. I hear the articles on the making of wines and brandies very highly spoken of. Madeira, lying in the finest climate in the world, beautiful and fertile, and easy of access to foreigners, ought not to be a mere half civilised colony.

23d.--We sailed yesterday from Funchal, and soon lost sight of the

"Filha do oceano Do undoso campo flor, gentil MADEIRA." DINIZ.

At night, I sat a long time on the deck, listening to the sea songs with which the crew beguile the evening watch. Though the humorous songs were applauded sufficiently, yet the plaintive and pathetic seemed the favourites; and the chorus to the Death of Wolfe was swelled by many voices. Oh, who shall say that fame is not a real good! It is twice blessed--it blesses him who earns, and those who give, to parody the words of Shakspeare. Here, on the wide ocean, far from the land of Wolfe's birth, and that of his gallant death, his story was raising and swelling the hearts of rough men, and exciting love of country and of glory by the very sound of his name. Well may _he_ be called a benefactor to his country who, by increasing the list of patriotic sailors' songs, has fostered those feelings and energies which have placed Britain's "home upon the mountain wave, and her march upon the deep."

The charms of night in a southern climate have been dwelt upon by travelled poets (for I call Madame de Stael's writings poetry), and even travelled prose writers; but Lord Byron alone has sketched with knowledge and with love, the moonlight scenery of a frigate in full sail. The life of a seaman is the essence of poetry; change, new combinations, danger, situations from almost deathlike calm, to the maddest combinations of horror--every romantic feeling called forth, and every power of heart and intellect exercised. Man, weak as he is, baffling the elements, and again seeing that miracle of his invention, the tall ship he sails in, tossed to and fro, like the lightest feather from the seabird's wing--while he can do nothing but resign himself to the will of Him who alone can stay the proud waves, and on whom heart, intellect, and feeling, all depend!

25th.--Nothing can be finer than the approach to Teneriffe[39], especially on such a day as this; the peak now appearing through the floating clouds, and now entirely veiled by them. As we drew near the coast, the bay or rather roadstead of Oratava, surrounded by a singular mixture of rocks, and woods, and scattered towns, started forth at once from beneath the mists, which seemed to separate it from the peak, whose cold blue colour formed a strong contrast to the glowing red and yellow which autumn had already spread on the lower grounds.

[Note 39: The Chinerfe of the Guanches.]

We anchored in forty fathoms water with our chain-cable, as the bottom is very rocky, excepting where a pretty wide river, which, though now dry, rolls a considerable body of water to the sea in the rainy season, has deposited a bed of black mud. There are many rocks in the bay, with from one to three fathoms water, and within them from nine to ten. The swell constantly setting in is very great, and renders the anchorage uncomfortable.