1831.] Don Pedro, and the Brazilian Revolution. 139 



habits of venality and corruption no adequate idea can be formed but 

 by those who have long resided in the country, and have had access to 

 the best sources of information. The revolution had wrought rather a 

 change of men than of measures. Under the new order of things, every 

 species of corruption continued to pollute both the course of public and 

 private life. Another " Arte de furtar" might be written to illustrate 

 the state of manners in Brazil, and of the degenerate spirit which sacri- 

 ficed every thing to the base consideration of personal interest. 



To cleanse out this Augean stable of corruption, was the undeviating 

 study of Don Pedro ; but, less fortunate than his fabulous prototype, 

 the attempt cost him his crown. His ministry, the object of so much 

 popular clamour, ably seconded the views of the emperor. The aboli- 

 tion of the slave trade — a source of immense profit to those engaged in it, 

 though acknowledged to be detrimental to the best interests of the coun- 

 try — produced general dissatisfaction ; but when the reforming spirit of 

 the ministry began to attack the flagrant abuses that pervaded every 

 branch of the public administration, then it was that the revolutionary 

 torrent burst forth. The emperor was abandoned to a man; for even 

 his own adherents, fearful of the public expose in active preparation, 

 threw themselves into the ai-ms of the republican party. A certain 

 marquis, well known in the diplomatic circles of London, is reported to 

 have powerfully influenced the late events by his largesses to the troops, 

 and to have been, in the back-grouxid, the main-spring of the revolu- 

 tion. 



What may be the future career of the emperor — whether, like another 

 Sylla, disgusted with the " lust of sway," he will retire into the bosom 

 of private life — whether he will actively attempt to place his daughter 

 on the throne of Portugal — or whether, in the course of a few months, 

 a counter-revolution in Brazil may again induce him to recross the 

 Atlantic — for such an event among a people whose political acts have 

 resembled the playful fantasies of monkeys, rather than the acts of 

 beings who dignify themselves with the appellation of rational, does not 

 pass the bounds of probability — these are questions which we will not 

 venture to answer. Don Pedro has been the victim of untoward circum- 

 stances, the operation of which was uncontrollable. So far from com- 

 mitting any overt act against the liberties of his subjects, he granted them 

 a measure of freedom for which they were totally imfited ; while his 

 frank and generous character, and his unceasing exertions for the wel- 

 fare of his empire, deserved him a better fate than that he has expe- 

 rienced from Brazil, for the crown of which he abdicated that of his 

 own hereditary dominions. 



Over the future destinies of Brazil there hangs a thick cloud of fearful 

 uncertainty. We have already remarked that the Brazilian people, at 

 the period of their revolution, were totally incapable of adapting their 

 previous habits to the institutions of fi'eedom. All the phases of their 

 revolutionary career have been marked more by a servile spirit of imita- 

 tion than by an abstract love of liberty. In 1821, in imitation of the 

 mother country, they proclaimed a constitution ; a few months after- 

 wards, dazzled by the example of Spanish America, they declared 

 themselves independent ; in their late political alerte, they appear to have 

 been led away by a blind admiration of the Parisians in July last — at 

 least if their cry of " Viva a liberdode franceza !" be taken as a cri- 

 terion. In the next revolutionary specttxcle which they will offer to the 



