Lastly, by a portaria of the 20th of December, 1825, it was decreed that all his muniments and rights should be suspended, and he was dismissed by a decree of the 10th April, 1827.
Justice demands that we shall acknowledge (says the Commission) that the services of Lord Cochrane in the command of the squadron, put an end to the war more speedily than had been expected; but if his services were great, it is impossible to conceal that unqualified and arbitrary acts of the most audacious daring were committed by him and by the ships under his command, occasioning to the National Treasury enormous losses, particularly by the heavy indemnification of an infinite number of bad prizes, which it was obliged to satisfy; and truth demands that we should declare that if the pretended claims are suspended, the fault was entirely his own, from having disobeyed the repeated orders of the Imperial Government, which commanded his return to this Court to give account of his commission, aggravated by the crime of having withdrawn himself from the Empire for England with the frigate Piranga, and there remaining with that frigate, notwithstanding the reiterated orders of the Imperial Government, for more than two years, pretending that he had not received the said orders, which at last were ordered to be communicated to him through the Brazilian Minister resident in London.
All this is amply proved by different official documents, some of which documents are from the claimant himself, this justifying the suspension of the payment of his claims, no less than the crime of his obstinate disobedience; and, indeed more by the indispensable obligation by which he was bound to give accounts of the sums which he received on account of prizes to distribute to the squadron under his command, which distribution he himself acknowledged in his letter of the 5th of November, 1825, wherein he says, "I shall forward to the Imperial Government an account of the money received from His Imperial Majesty for distribution to the seamen, as well as other sums to the account of the captors."
Having traced this outline relative to the services and excesses of
Lord Cochrane, the Commission now proceeds to discuss his claims.
First,—His annual pay is 11.520 milreis, which was owing to him from the 1st of August to the 10th of November 1825, when he left the service of the Empire. The claimant founds his demand on the decree of the 21st of March 1823, added to and confirmed on the 27th of July, 1824.
The second decree says,—"I deem fit, by the advice of my Council of State, to determine that the said Marquis of Maranhaõ shall receive, so long as he is in the service of the Empire, the pay of his patent (11.520 milreis), and in case of his not choosing to continue therein after the termination of the present war, the half of the said pay, as a pension, the same being extended, in case of his death, to Lady Cochrane." The said enactment being so positive that at the sight thereof, the Commission declares, that it cannot do otherwise than confirm the right of the claimant to the prompt payment of the pension due to him.
In this report there are many inaccuracies. It is stated that when in Chili I accepted "the Brazilian command during the war of Independence" only.—"Viesse occupar igual commando no Brazil emquanto durasse Guerra da Independencia." This is contrary to fact, as will be seen in the first chapter of this volume, where both the invitation to accept the command, and my conditional acceptance thereof are given. To repeat the actual words of the invitation, "Abandonnez-nous, Milord, à la reconnaissance Brésilienne—a la munificence du Prince—à la probité sans tache de l'actuel Gouvernement—on vous fera justice" &c. &c. It was neither "princely munificence"—"ministerial probity"—nor "common justice," to dismiss me from the service without my professional and stipulated emoluments, or even the arrears of my pay, the very moment tranquillity had been established as a consequence of my exertions, and so far the Commission decided; though they ought to have added, as was well known, that my command in Chili had been without limitation of time, and therefore my Brazilian command, as expressed in the Imperial patents, was not accepted under other conditions. The above opinion, expressed by the Commission, could only have been given to justify the spurious decree of Barbosa, in virtue of which, though set aside by His Imperial Majesty, I was dismissed by Gameiro, that decree—under the hypocritical pretence of conferring upon me a boon—limiting my services to the war, after the war had been terminated by my exertions; the object being to get rid of me, and thus to avoid condemning the prizes captured by the squadron. Nevertheless, the promises held out to me in Chili, were most honourably admitted by His Imperial Majesty and his first Ministry—and were moreover twice confirmed by Imperial patent, counter-signed by the Ministers, and registered in the National Archives. These patents have never been set aside by any act of mine, yet to this day their solemn stipulations remain unfulfilled.
The Commission complains that the Treasury was caused to sustain "enormous losses by the indemnification of an infinite number of bad prizes, which it was obliged to satisfy." I deny that there was one bad prize, all, without exception, being captured in violation of blockade, or having Portuguese registers, crews, and owners. But even if they had been bad—His Majesty's stipulation, in his own handwriting (see page 118), provided that they should be paid by the state. The fact was, as proved in these pages beyond contradiction, that they were given back by the Portuguese members of the Prize Tribunal to their own friends and relations—this alone constituting the illegality of the captures. Some—as in the case of the Pombinho's cargo—were given up to persons who had not the shadow of a claim upon them. The squadron never received a shilling on their account.
Again, the Commission declares that I was dismissed the service on the 10th of April, 1827; whereas I have given the letter of Gameiro, dismissing me, on the 7th of November, 1825, and the portaria of the Imperial Government, dismissing me, on the 30th of December, in the same year! This renewed dismissal was only a repetition of the former unjustifiable dismissals, adding nothing to their force, and in no way alleviating their injustice.
The imputation of "the crime of obstinate disobedience" has been so fully refuted in this volume, that it is unnecessary to offer another word of explanation.