Meanwhile your Excellency—being no less a politician than a warrior, and enjoying to the utmost the confidence of His Imperial Majesty—is fully empowered to adopt whatever means your judgment may suggest to facilitate the important objects of your commission. On this subject, I also refer to the Imperial authority and other documents addressed to you in reply to your communications.
I beg to add my personal thanks for the interesting communications with which you have favoured me, of which I shall avail myself in order to accomplish the objects desired to be effected.
Be assured of the particular esteem and high consideration
with which I am,
De V. Exa.
Attento venerador e criado,
JOZE BONIFACIO DE ANDRADA E SILVA.
The Junta continuing its unreasonable demand, the moveable property captured was embarked on board the Pombinho, and another vessel—both prizes—for the purpose of being sent to Rio de Janeiro for adjudication. I then directed the Provisional Government to furnish me with an account of all money found in the treasury, customs, military chest, and other departments; also of all military stores in the various forts and magazines and of government property of every description, such property having been wholly awarded to the captors by Imperial decree of the 11th of December, 1822, issued to induce foreign seamen to enter the service.
On the 20th of August the Portuguese troops were ordered to depart for Lisbon—Maranham being thus entirely freed from the presence of the armaments upon which the mother country had relied for the maintenance of her Northern provinces; this result, wholly unexpected by the Imperial Government or the nation, having been accomplished within the space of a few months, by measures adopted on my own responsibility.
Still numerous vessels and much perishable property taken from the enemy, remained on hand—with which it was difficult to deal. From having manned the captured brig-of-war, Don Miguel—as well as the prize vessel, Pombinho, from the crew of the flagship, it was not expedient further to reduce her efficiency; so that there were no means of forwarding the other prizes and property to Rio de Janeiro for adjudication. I therefore apprised the Minister of Marine, that the only course circumstances would permit me to pursue—though not perfectly regular—would be to dispose of them and remit to the Government in specie the amount realised; as, in case of my departure from Maranham, they were certain to be improperly appropriated. Accordingly, an offer was again made to the merchants, to accept two-thirds of their value in specie, and to submit the amount to the further decision of the Court of Admiralty, I little anticipating at the time the anti-Imperial predilections of the members composing the prize tribunal at Rio de Janeiro.
The amount of the seizures effected by the squadron was very considerable, comprising upwards of a hundred and twenty vessels, some of which contained important cargoes. The aggregate amount of these—together with merchandise found in the Custom-house—Government and other public property and stores—was several millions of dollars, and this by His Imperial Majesty's decree of the 11th of December, 1822—promulgated to attract foreign seamen into the Brazilian service—was, as before mentioned, the property of the captors; the Imperial Government, by that decree, disclaiming all share in it,—a stipulation afterwards remorselessly violated.
On the 25th of August, the province of Turi Assu sent in its adhesion to the Empire, this favourable circumstance being however counteracted by the arrival of deputies from the troops of Cearà and Piahuy, reporting their revolutionary tendency, and demanding payment for their previous service; the Piahuy troops—consisting for the most part of Indians recruited in the interior—even threatened to march upon Maranham and enforce their demand, although they had rendered no assistance. The Junta, alarmed at this demonstration, now forwarded to me a request that I would appropriate some portion of the captured property to satisfy the importunity of the mutinous troops.
Considering that the tranquillity of the province in a great measure depended upon silencing these troops—who were not only clamorous and menacing, but in a state of nakedness and destitution—which rendered it probable that they might help themselves at the expense of the inhabitants—I consented to the application of the Junta, placing at their disposal the monies taken in the Portuguese treasury, amounting in cash to Rs.62.560 $423 (60,560 dollars); that found in the custom-house, to the amount of Rs.54.167 $877 (54,167 dollars); and outstanding bills to the amount of Rs.147.316 $656 (147,316 dollars); making in the whole Rs.264.044 $776 (264,044 dollars): accounts of these sums, and the urgency of their appropriation to the necessities of the public service, being duly forwarded to the Minister of Marine at Rio de Janeiro.