550 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



Soldiers, and various means were adopted for rendering their profession 

 respectable. Within the next twelve months, followed measures to 

 suppress what had become a most glaring abuse ; Military Officers, who 

 had been appointed to stations out of the City, were required, within 

 eight days, to proceed to them ; for hitherto they had continued to reside 

 near the Court, considering their distant appointments as benefices, and 

 leaving the duties of the country to be performed by subalterns. In 

 1816, the system of drawing troops from Portugal began to take con- 

 siderable effect, and was really advantageous to both parts of the Empire. 

 It strengthened Brazil, and prevented, in all probability, an insurrection 

 in Portugal, which must have ended in defeat and bloodshed. They 

 came, however, as volunteers, had their own appointments, their own 

 military chest, and were wholly independent of the Army or Treasury 

 of Brazil, and were to return to Portugal at the end of three years. 

 The whole number amounted to about ten thousand men; the main 

 body of them, under General Lecor, a few days after their arrival, was 

 reviewed by the King, who not only complimented them upon their 

 appearance, but increased their pay, and gave them privileges ; choos- 

 ing also those days of high Military Gala, as the proper period to 

 announce his closer connection with Spain, by the espousals of his 

 second and third daughters to persons of the first distinction in that 

 country. These troops arrived with such equipments, discipline, feelings, 

 and habits as they had acquired under the Duke of Wellington ; and 

 the appearance they made, conspired with the distinctions which 

 they received, to create a great degree of jealousy in the Brazi- 

 lian Army. 



About five thousand of these men, with one regiment of the line 

 of native Brazilians, and another composed entirely of free blacks, were 

 sent down a few days afterwards to Maldonado, in order to threaten 

 Monte Video, and create a diversion in the war, which was now carrying 

 on against Artigas, on the frontiers of Rio Grande do Sul, and rendered 

 insecure the most important Province of Brazil. In the mean time 

 General Beresford, with his staff, had been detained in Rio, in order to 



