The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald Thomas Barnes Cochrane [ebook reader 8 inch .txt] 📗

That was the state of affairs when Lord Cochrane entered the port. Only five days afterwards, on the 14th of November, 1823, he wrote a bold letter to the Emperor. "My sense of the impropriety of intruding myself on the attention of your Imperial Majesty on any subject unconnected with the official position with which your Majesty has been pleased to honour me," he said, "could only have been overcome by an irresistible desire, under existing circumstances, to contribute to the service of your Majesty, and the empire. The conduct of the late Legislative Assembly, which sought to derogate from the dignity and prerogatives of your Majesty, even presuming to require you to divest yourself of your crown in their presence—which deprived you of your Council of State and denied you a voice in the enactment of laws and the formation of the constitution—and which dared to object to your exercising the only remaining function of royalty, that of rewarding services and conferring honours—could no longer be tolerated; and the justice and wisdom of your Imperial Majesty in dissolving such an assembly will be duly appreciated by discerning men, and by those whose love of good order and their country supersedes their ambition or personal interests. There are, however, individuals who will wickedly take advantage of the late proceedings to kindle the flames of discord, and throw the empire into anarchy and confusion, unless timely prevented by the wisdom and energy of your Imperial Majesty. The declaration that you will give to your people a practical constitution, more free even than that which the late Assembly professed an intention to establish, cannot—considering the spirit which now pervades South America—have the effect of averting impending evils, unless your Imperial Majesty shall be pleased to dissipate all doubts by at once declaring—before the news of the recent events can be dispersed throughout the provinces, and before the discontented members of the late congress can return to their constituents—what is the precise nature of that constitution which your Imperial Majesty intends to bestow. As no monarch is more happy or more truly powerful than the limited monarch of England, surrounded by a free people, enriched by that industry which the security of property by means of just laws never fails to create, permit me humbly and respectfully to suggest, that if your Majesty were to decree that the English constitution, in its most perfect practical form—which, with slight alteration, and chiefly in name, is also the constitution of the United States of North America—shall be the model for the government of Brazil under your Imperial Majesty, with power to the Constituent Assembly to alter particular parts as local circumstances may render advisable, it would excite the sympathy of powerful states abroad, and the firm allegiance of the Brazilian people to your Majesty's throne. Were your Majesty, by a few brief lines in the 'Gazette,' to announce your intention so to do, and were you to banish all distrust from the public mind by removing from your person for a time, and finding employment on honourable missions abroad for, those Portuguese individuals of whom the Brazilians are jealous, the purity of your Majesty's motives would be secured from the possibility of misrepresentation, the factions which disturb the country would be silenced or converted, and the feelings of the world, especially those of England and North America, would be interested in promoting the glory, happiness, and prosperity of your Imperial Majesty."

That advice, in the main adopted by the Emperor, led to a reconstruction of the Brazilian Constitution in its present shape, and so added another to the many great benefits which Brazil owes to Lord Cochrane. But the whole, and especially the last part of it, being directly at variance with the plans and interests of the Portuguese faction, it won for him much hatred and many personal troubles.

"That I, a foreigner, having nothing to do with national politics," he said, "should have counselled his Majesty to banish those who opposed him, was not to be borne, and the resentment caused by my recent services was increased to bitter enmity for meddling in affairs which, it was considered, did not concern me; though I could have had no other object than the good of the empire by the establishment of a constitution which should give it stability in the estimation of European states."

Consequently, in return for the great services he had conferred to Brazil, he received, as had been the case in Chili, little but insult and injury, the course of insult and injury being hardly stayed even during the period in which he was needed to engage in further services. The Emperor honestly tried to be generous; but he could not rid himself of the Portuguese faction, generally dominant in Brazil, and his worthy intentions were thwarted in every possible way. With difficulty could he secure for Lord Cochrane the confirmation of his patent as First Admiral, which has been already referred to. No great resistance was made to his conferment of the empty title of Marquis of Maranham, but he was not allowed to make the grant of land which was intended to go with the title and enable it to be borne with dignity. Prevented from being generous, he was even hindered from exercising the barest justice.

The injustice was shown not only to Lord Cochrane, but also to all the officers and crews who, serving under him, had enabled Brazil to maintain its resistance to the tyranny of Portugal, though not to shake off the tyranny of the faction which still had the interests of Portugal at heart. It is not necessary to describe in detail the long course of ill-usage to which he and his subordinates were exposed. Part of that ill-usage will be best and most briefly indicated by citing a portion of an eloquent memorial which Lord Cochrane addressed to the Imperial Government on the 30th of January, 1825.

The memorial began by enumerating the achievements of the fleet at Bahia, Maranham, Parà, and elsewhere. "The imperial squadron," it proceeds, "made sail for Rio de Janeiro, in the full expectation of reaping a reward for their labours; not only because they had been mainly instrumental in rescuing from the hands of the Portuguese, and adding to the imperial dominion, one half of the empire; but also because their hopes seemed to be firmly grounded, independently of such services, on the capture of upwards of one hundred transports and merchant vessels, exclusive of ships of war, all of which, they had a just right to expect, would, under the existing laws, be adjudged to the captors. The whole of them were seized under Portuguese colours, with Portuguese registers, manned by Portuguese seamen, having on board Portuguese troops and ammunition or Portuguese produce and manufacture. On arriving at Rio de Janeiro, there was no feeling but one of satisfaction among the officers and seamen, and the Brazilian marine might from that moment, without the expense of one milrei to the nation, have been rapidly raised to a state of efficiency and discipline which had not yet been attained in any marine in South America, and which the navies of Portugal and Spain do not possess. It could not, however, be long concealed from the knowledge of the squadron that political or other reasons had prevented any proceedings being had in the adjudication of their prizes; and the extraordinary declaration that was made by the Tribunal of Prizes,—'that they were not aware that hostilities existed between Brazil and Portugal'—led to an inquiry of whom that tribunal was composed. All surprise at so extraordinary a declaration then ceased; but other sentiments injurious to the imperial service, arose,—those of indignation and disgust that the power of withholding their rights should be placed in the hands of persons who were natives of that very nation against which they were employed in war. His Imperial Majesty, however, having signified to this tribunal his pleasure that they should delay no longer in proceeding to the adjudication of the captured vessels, the result was that, in almost every instance, at the commencement of their proceedings, the vessels were condemned, not as lawful prizes to the captors, but as droits to the Crown. His Majesty was then pleased to desire that the said droits should be granted to the squadron, and about one-fifth part of the value of the prizes taken was eventually paid under the denomination of a 'grant of the droits of the Crown.' But when this decree of his Imperial Majesty was promulgated, the tribunal altered their course of proceeding, and, instead of condemning to the Crown, did, in almost every remaining instance, pronounce the acquittal of the vessels captured, and adjudged them to be given up to pretended Brazilian owners, notwithstanding that Brazilian property embarked in enemy's vessels was, by the law, declared to be forfeited; and that, too, with such indecent precipitancy that, in cases where the hull only had been claimed, the cargo also was decreed to be given up to the claimants of the hull, without any part of it having, at any time, been even pretended to be their property. Other ships and cargoes were given up without any form of trial, and without any intimation whatever to the captors and their agents; and, in most cases, costs and quadruple damages were unjustly decreed against the captors, to the amount of 300,000 milreis. That the prizes of which the captors were thus fraudulently deprived, chiefly under the unlawful and false pretence of their belonging to Brazilians, were really the property of Portuguese and well known so to be by the said tribunal, has since been fully demonstrated, by the arrival in Lisbon of the whole of the vessels liberated by their decisions. Thus the charge of a system of wilful injustice, brought by the squadron against the Portuguese Tribunal of Prizes at Rio de Janeiro, is established beyond the possibility of contradiction."

It was only an aggravation of that injustice that, when Lord Cochrane claimed the prompt and equitable adjudication of the prizes, an attempt was made to silence him on the 24th of November by a message from the Minister of Marine, to the effect that the Emperor would do everything in his power for him personally. "His Majesty," answered Lord Cochrane, "has already conferred honours upon me quite equal to my merits, and the greatest personal favour he can bestow is to urge on the speedy adjudication of the prizes, so that the officers and seamen may reap the reward decreed by the Emperor's own authority."

A hardship to the fleet even greater than the withholding of its prize-money was the withholding of the arrears of pay, which had been accumulating ever since the departure from Rio de Janeiro in April. On the 27th of November, three months' wages were offered to men to whom more than twice the amount was due. 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. A new ship, the Atulanta, was on the 27th of December, without reference to him, ordered for service at Monte Video. He was on the same day publicly described as "Commander of the Naval Forces in the Port of Rio de Janeiro," being thus placed on a level with other officers in the service of which, by the Emperor's patent, he was First Admiral, and no notice was taken of his protest against that insult. On the 24th of February he was gazetted as "Commander-in-Chief of all the Naval Forces of the Empire during the present war," by which his functions, though not now limited in extent, were limited in time. At length, reasonably indignant at these and other violations of the contract made with him, he offered to resign his command altogether. "If I thought that the course pursued towards me was dictated by his Imperial Majesty," he wrote to the Minister of Marine on the 20th of March, "it would be impossible for me to remain an hour longer in his service, and I should feel it my duty, at the earliest possible moment, to lay my commission at his feet. If I have not done so before, from the treatment which, in common with the navy. I have experienced, it has been solely from an anxious desire to promote his Majesty's real interests. Indeed, to struggle against prejudices, and at the same time against those in power whose prepossessions are at variance with the interests of his Majesty and the tranquillity and independence of Brazil, is a task to which I am by no means equal. I am, therefore, perfectly willing to resign the situation I hold, rather than contend against difficulties which appear to me insurmountable."[A]

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