Edinburgh, 6th Sept. 1825.
MOST EXCELLENT SIR,
I regret that your translator should have so far mistaken the words and meaning of my last letter as to lead your Excellency to a conclusion that I had taken the resolution to leave the service of H.I.M. the Emperor of Brazil, or, in other words, that it was I who had violated the engagements entered into with the late ministers of His Imperial Majesty in 1823. Whereas, on the contrary, the portaria published in the Rio Gazette on the 28th of February, 1824, was promulgated without my knowledge or sanction, and the limitation of my authority to the existing war was persevered in by the present ministers, notwithstanding my remonstrance in writing, both to the Minister of Marine and the Minister of the Interior.
Your Excellency ought not therefore to be surprised, if—threatened as I am with this portaria—I should provide beforehand against a contingency which might hereafter arise from an occasion happily so nigh, as seems to be the restoration of peace and amity between His Imperial Majesty and his royal father.
With regard to any communications of a pressing nature relative to the equipment of the Piranga, your Excellency may consider Captain Shepherd authorised to act, in my absence, in all ordinary cases. And that officer, having instructions to acquaint me whenever the Piranga shall have two-thirds of her complement of men on board—I can at any time be in London within two days of the receipt of such communication, and most assuredly before the complement can be procured.
I have the honour, &c.
COCHRANE AND MARANHAÕ.
To Chevalier MANOEL RODRIGUEZ GAMBIRO PESSOA.
Notwithstanding that my engagements with Brazil rested on the original patents conferred upon me by His Majesty, of which the validity had been further established by the additional documents given before my departure for Pernambuco—the latter completely setting aside the spurious portaria of Barbosa, limiting my services to the duration of the war—I nevertheless felt confident that, when my services were no longer required, no scruples as to honourable engagements would prevent the ministry from acting on the spurious documents, though promulgated without my knowledge or consent, against every principle of the conditions upon which I entered the Brazilian service. No blame could therefore attach to me, for not rejecting the offer of the Greek command, in case a trick of this kind should be played, as I had every reason to believe it would be—and as it afterwards in reality was.
On the 27th of September, the Brazilian Envoy forwarded to me an order from the Imperial Government at Rio, dated June 27th, and addressed to me at Maranham; the order directing me to proceed from that port to Rio immediately on its receipt, to give an account of my proceedings there—though despatches relating even to minute particulars of every transaction had, as the reader is well aware, been sent by every opportunity. His Majesty, when issuing the order, was ignorant that I had quitted Maranham, still more that on the day the order was issued at Rio de Janeiro, I had anchored at Spithead, so that obedience to His Majesty's commands was impossible.