Before I begin the Journal of my Second Visit to Brazil, from which I was absent a year and three days, it will be necessary to give a short account of the principal events which took place during that year, and which changed the government of the country.
The Prince Regent had in vain sent the most pressing representations in favour of Brazil to the Cortes. No notice whatever was taken of his despatches; and the government at Lisbon continued to legislate for Brazil as if it were a settlement on the coast of savage Africa. The ministers who had served Don John had seen enough of the country, during their residence in it, to be persuaded that Brazil, united, was at any time competent to throw off all subjection to the mother country; the object, therefore, became to divide it. Accordingly a scheme for the government of Brazil was framed, by which each captaincy should be ruled by a junta, whose acts were to be totally independent on each other, and only recognisable by the authorities in Portugal; and the Prince was ordered home in a peremptory and indecent manner. I have mentioned in my Journal the reception those orders had met with, and the resolution His Royal Highness had adopted of staying in Brazil. As soon as this resolution became known to the provinces, addresses and deputations poured in on all sides from every town and captaincy, excepting the city of Bahia and the province of Maranliam, which had always had a government independent of the rest of Brazil.
In December, 1821, the King had appointed General Madeira governor of Bahia and commander of the troops. He entered on his office in February; and shortly afterwards the first actual warfare between the Portuguese and Brazilians began in the city of St. Salvador, on the 6th of the month, when the Brazilians were defeated with some loss.[95] Meantime, the province of St. Paul's had made every exertion to raise and arm troops; and early in February 1100 men marched towards Rio, to put themselves at the disposal of the Prince. Some recruits for the seamen and marine corps were raised, and a naval academy established, the object of all which was to prevent the carrying away the Prince by force. It was now thought advisable that the Prince should visit the two most important provinces, St. Paul's and the Mines; and on the 26th or 27th of March he left Rio for that purpose, leaving the executive government in the hands of the minister José Bonifacio. His Royal Highness was received every where with enthusiasm, until he arrived at the last stage, on his way to Villa Rica, the capital of the province of Minas Geraes; there he received intelligence of a party raised to oppose his entrance by the Juiz de Fora, supported by a captain of one of the regiments of Caçadores. He immediately caused some troops to be assembled and joined with those which accompanied him, and then remained where he was, and sent to the camara of the town, to say he was able to enter by force, but had rather come among them as a friend and protector. Several messages passed; the conspirators discovered that the Prince was, indeed, sufficiently strong to overpower them; and besides, they met with no support, as they had hoped, from the magistrates or people. His Royal Highness, therefore, entered Villa Rica on the 9th of April, and on the magistrates and people attending to compliment him, he addressed them thus:—
"Brave Mineros! The shackles of despotism, which began to be loosened on the 24th of August in Porto, are now bursting in this province. Be free,—be constitutional! Unite with me, and proceed constitutionally. I rely entirely on you. Do you depend on me. Let not yourselves be deluded by those who seek the ruin of your province, and of the whole nation.
Viva, The Constitutional King!
Viva, Our Religion!
Viva, All honest men!
Viva, The Mineros!"
The next day the Prince held a general court, and remained eleven days at Villa Rica. The only punishment inflicted on the conspirators, was suspension from their offices; and this royal visit attached this province to him, as firmly as those of St. Paul's and Rio.
He returned to Rio de Janeiro on the 25th, where he was received in the most flattering manner, and where he became daily more popular; and on the 13th of May, King John's birth-day, the senate and people bestowed on him the title of Perpetual Defender of Brazil, and thenceforward his style was, Constitutional Prince Regent, and Perpetual Defender of the Kingdom of Brazil.
The impossibility of continuing united to Portugal had become daily more apparent. All the southern provinces were eager to declare their independence. Pernambuco and its dependencies had long manifested a similar feeling, and the province of Bahia was equally inclined to freedom although the city was full of Portuguese troops under Madeira, and receiving constant reinforcements and supplies from Lisbon.
The Cortes seemed resolved on bringing matters to extremities; the language used in their sessions, with respect to the Prince, was highly indecent. Such commanders either by sea or land as obeyed him, unless by force, were declared traitors, and he was ordered home anew within four months, under pain of submitting to the future disposition of the Cortes; and they decreed that the whole means of government should be employed to enforce obedience. The Brazilian members did indeed remonstrate and protest formally against these proceedings; but they were over-ruled; and the spectators in the galleries, on one occasion, went so far as to cry, "Down with the Brazilian!"
In the months of June and July, Madeira began to make sallies into the country around Bahia, as if it had been possessed by an enemy; and, indeed, he quickly found one most formidable. The town of Cachoeira, large and populous, and intimately connected with the hardy inhabitants of the Certam, soon became the head-quarters of crowds of patriots, who assembled there, and resolved to expel the Portuguese from their capital.