GENTLEMEN,

I have read your memorial with attention, and regret that you should have occasion to detail complaints of so painful a nature, the more so as I do not know whether I am authorised to remedy the evils otherwise than by such measures as have been already adopted.

According to the Constitution, you ought to find a remedy in the laws; but if any authority, commissioned by His Imperial Majesty, has improperly placed obstacles in the way of law, to His Majesty only can an appeal against such conduct be made, for they who attempt to redress evils arising from a breach of the Constitution, by violating that very Constitution place themselves in an equally disadvantageous position with the object of their accusation.

As regards the deposition of the President, which you request, I frankly confess to you, Gentlemen, that whatever may be my private opinion as to the course most advantageous to you and the province in general—and even to the President himself—I should feel extremely reluctant, except in a case of manifest and extreme necessity, to take upon myself a responsibility which might possibly subject me to the displeasure of His Imperial Majesty, and would most certainly expose me to be continually harassed by prejudicial reports and false accusations, supported by artful intrigues, against which neither prudence nor rectitude could effectually avail.

To mention an instance of this, within your own knowledge, you all know that, last year, when this province was annexed to the empire, the property of Brazilians under the flag of Portugal, and of all resident Portuguese, was by me respected and unmolested. You know, too, that all the public property of the Portuguese Government in the arsenals and magazines was left untouched, and it is equally true that upwards of sixty contos of reis (60,000 dollars) in specie, and one hundred and forty contos (140,000 dollars) in bills taken in the Portuguese treasury and custom house, were left by me in the hands of the Government of Maranham, for the payment of the army. Yet, notwithstanding these notorious facts, it has been audaciously declared by the Portuguese authorities composing the prize tribunal at Rio de Janeiro, that that very army—which I had thus left the means to pay—had served disinterestedly at their own expense, and that I was a mercenary and a robber! I may add, too, that the Junta of Maranham contributed in no small degree to this calumny, for, after they had secured the money, they refused to give me a receipt, though the sum I had so lent for the use of the army was, and still is, the indisputable property of the officers and men of the ships of war who were instrumental in freeing this province from a colonial yoke.

In short, great as is my desire to render you every service in my power, I am not willing to interfere in matters over which I have no express authority—because I do not like to risk the displeasure of His Imperial Majesty, attended, as it might be, not only with sudden dismissal from my official situation, but even with heavy fines and imprisonment; not to mention the sacrifice of all those pecuniary interests which I possess at Rio de Janeiro, where I have enemies eagerly watching for a pretence to deprive me of all to which I have a claim. Neither am I disposed to afford to those persons any opportunity of giving plausibility to those calumnies which they are ever so ready to utter, nor to be under the necessity of placing myself on my defence before the world against their false accusations.

I have the honour, GENTLEMEN, &c. &c.

(Signed) COCHRANE AND MARANHAÕ.

The memorial of the inhabitants of Maranham was, together with other complaints, forwarded by me to the Imperial Government, accompanied by the following letter to the Minister of Marine:—

December 16th, 1824.