NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



101 



withdrew from the city to their farms, which hitherto had been left to the 

 manag-ement of bailiffs. Others followed their example, because the 

 expenses of living- were so much increased by the influx of new inhabi- 

 tants, and the manners of the times altered, as they thought, for the 

 worse. A few, foreseeing that the display of wealth would render them, 

 in one shape or other, objects of continued peculation, became prudently 

 poor, and passed into voluntary seclusion. 



Others, who remained in Rio, and continued to pay their court at 

 the Palace, amidst disappointments, jealousies, and broils, seemed to 

 have adopted a different set of feeling-s. Like the Brazilians in general, 

 they were by nature violent, had been little accustomed to practical 

 restraint, and were little disposed to endure it. They were ill educated, 

 unused to political deduction, and therefore liable to misconstrue public 

 measures. Notwithstanding the sort of government under which they 

 lived, they, in fact, held the purse strings of the state, controuled the 

 finances of the Royal house, and could, at an early period, arrange its 

 daily dinner. They were conscious of their own importance, kept their 

 ground, and continued to demand the distinctions to which they held 

 themselves entitled. In so doing former valued associations were neg- 

 lected, the ambitious being too busy to attend to them, and the politic 

 finding it convenient, in many cases, to discard old and less fortunate 

 acquaintance ; good-will towards each other, and a mutual reliance, 

 were lost, and none possessed an easy security. As to the members of 

 the government, their spirit and behaviour, operating together with 

 suspicions and alarms arising from different causes, occasioned many 

 apprehensions for its safety. Accidental circumstances produced a con- 

 siderable effect on minds little fitted for the influence of reason and 

 reflection. In firing a salute from our vessels a heavy shot came over the 

 city, and was distinctly heard by many ; and, in exercising with 

 Congreve's rockets, one of them came on shore among the crowd, and did 

 some mischief. Probably the best safeguard, at this season, was a British 

 fleet, then riding within a few cables' length of the shore. 



