BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DOM PEDRO II. 179 



a certain satisfaction that he exhibited his attainments, nnusually varied 

 and solid for a youth of fourteen. We shall see later how this love of 

 study was turned to the great advantage of his country. 



III. 



In 1840 Dom Pedro was in his fifteenth year. Civil war had for five 

 years desolated the province of the Southern Rio Grande, the most im- 

 portant and the strongest portion of the empire, as far as regarded means 

 of defense from the neighboring countries of the Plata. This condition 

 of political disturbance in one portion of the empire, with the ebullition of 

 a rebellious spirit under forms more or less violent in various parts of 

 the country, ended by producing a general feeling of discontent, which 

 in the capital assumed more and more of a threatening character. 



This state of things exactly suited idle mischief-makers and ambitious, 

 unscrupulous politicians. The public good, the ivelfare of the country^ 

 state reasons, and other high-sounding phrases of the same character, 

 not without their effect when skillfully used, especially in a country 

 whose organization is still imperfect, were the order of the day both 

 with the press and in places of public business. At this period two 

 political parties appeared to predominate over the various factions which 

 divided the country. Their tendencies were in general the same as the 

 two opposing parties in a constitutional government — the liberal and 

 the conservative. The former, which was in the minority in the cham- 

 bers, whether eager to obtain power, or wishing to recommend itself to* 

 the supreme head of the nation, perhaps because really convinced that 

 the good of the country required a radical change in the personnel of 

 the administration, proposed, through its representatives in the session 

 of parliament, that the young jjrince should be declared of age. This 

 project was lost in the senate, and when presented a month later to the 

 house of deputies, excited the most stormy discussions ever known in 

 Brazil. Finally, the regent (Senator Pedro de Aranjo Lima, after- 

 ward Marquis of Olinda) determined to order an adjournment of the 

 chambers. In the state of public feeling this act was certainly im- 

 politic; and the communication of the decree to the chamber of depu- 

 ties (July 22, 1840) was like setting fire to a powder-mine ready for an 

 explosion. It produced immediately violent excitement. The authors 

 of the project for declaring the Emperor of age and its principal sup- 

 porters quitted the hall immediately, and collecting adherents in the 

 streets proceeded to the senate, where they joined the few members of 

 that body in favor of the proposition. They then sent to Dom Pedro a 

 deputation, with a communication signed by five senators and three 

 members of the house of deputies, in which it was declared that " the 

 adjournment of the legislative chambers at the moment when the ma- 

 jority of the Emperor was proposed was an insult to his august person, 

 as well as treason to the nation ; and in view of the great evils which 

 must accrue to the tranquillity of the capital from such an adjournment, 



