Without, however, giving me time to do this, I received another letter from the same authority, dated Dec. 30, containing my formal dismission from the service—this shewing that Gameiro had previous instructions to act in the way narrated in the last chapter.
The following is the official letter dismissing me from the command of the Navy, and from the post of First Admiral:—
His Majesty the Emperor, informed of that which your Excellency has set forth in your letter No. 300, dated the 5th of November last, has been pleased to determine that your Excellency shall fulfil the orders already several times transmitted to you, and further in compliance with the order of the 20th inst., a copy of which I inclose, you are to return to this Court, where it is necessary you shall give an account of the Commission with which you were entrusted. His Majesty is much surprised that, after having taken the frigate Piranga to a foreign port, and having there remained in despite of the Baron Itabayana, you should have adopted the extraordinary resolution, not only to abandon that frigate, but also to retire from the service of the Emperor, without having returned to give an account of your proceedings previous to your dismissal from the command of the naval forces, and from the post of First Admiral of the National and Imperial Armada. All which I communicate for the information and execution of your Excellency.
God preserve your Excellency.
Palace of Rio de Janeiro, Dec. 30th, 1825.
(Signed) VISCONDE DE PARANAGUA.
To the Marquis of Maranhaõ.
From this extraordinary document it is plain that Gameiro had written to the Imperial Government the same falsehood, as he had used when endeavouring to seduce Lieut. Shepherd from his duty to me as his Commander-in-Chief; viz. that I had voluntarily retired from the service, because the Admiralty Court having condemned me in £.60,000 damages, I durst not return to Rio de Janeiro! though I announced to him my readiness to sail in the frigate. The Jesuitical nature of the preceding letter amply proves its object and motive. It does not dismiss me—but it calls on me to come and be dismissed! carefully addressing me, however, as "Marquis of Maranhaõ," and not as First Admiral, thereby intimating that I was already dismissed! As there can be no mistake about the meaning of the document, it is not worth while to discuss it—the reason why it is adduced being to shew that I was not only dismissed by the Envoy Gameiro, but in a little more than a month afterwards by the Imperial Government itself; which for thirty years reiterated in reply to my often pressed claims—that I dismissed myself by abandoning the service of my own accord!
Not a word of acknowledgment was ever given for having a second time saved the Empire from dismemberment, though this service was entirely extra-official, it being no part of my contract with the Brazilian Government to put down revolution, nor to take upon myself the responsibility and difficult labour of reducing half the Empire to the allegiance which it had perhaps not without cause repudiated—at the same time, of necessity, taking the management of the whole upon myself. This had been done at the pressing personal request of His Imperial Majesty, in face of the decree of the Court of Admiralty that no prizes should be made within a certain distance of the shore; so that no benefit, public or private—arising from the operations of war—could result from blockade; yet I had a right to expect even greater thanks and a more liberal amount of compensation in case of success, than from the first expedition. Not a word of acknowledgment nor a shilling of remuneration for that service has ever been awarded to this day; though such treatment stands out in glaring inconsistency with the Imperial thanks and honours—the thanks of the Administration—and the vote of the General Assembly, for expelling on the first expedition enemies not half so formidable as were the revolutionary factions with which I had to contend in the Northern provinces.
Neither in Brazil nor in England had I done anything to forfeit my right to the fulfilment of the explicit stipulations set forth in the Imperial patents of March 26th, and November 25th, 1823. His Imperial Majesty had all along marked his approbation of my zealous exertions for the interests of the empire—designating them "altos e extraordinarios servicios."—and desired that I should have the most ample remuneration; having, in addition to every honour in his power to confer, granted me an estate, which grant was by the Portuguese faction strenuously and successfully opposed, and not this only, but every other recompence proposed by His Majesty as a remuneration for my services. The object being to subvert whatever had been effected by my exertions, though, but for these the inevitable consequence would have been the establishment of insignificant local governments in perpetual turmoil and revolution, in place of an entire empire in the enjoyment of uninterrupted repose. Had I connived at the views of the Anti-Imperial faction—even by avoiding the performance of extra-official services—I might, without dereliction of my duty as an officer, have amply shared in their favours; but for my adherence to the Emperor against their machinations, that influence was successfully used to deprive me even of the ordinary reward of my labours in the cause of independence.