/ 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 555 



addition to this, also, the season of 1816 was attended with extraordi- 

 nary drought, not onl}^ along the coast of Brazil and South America, 

 but in Africa, and, if I mistake not, also in Europe ; hence provisions 

 were demanded in every direction., and could not be fully supplied. The 

 people in Pernambuco suffered severely, and became discontented. 

 Poverty, therefore, and want, as it generally happens, became with 

 numbers the actual, if not tlie ostensible reasons of revolt. 



Another political malady, not less dangerous to states, affected the 

 wealthier classes. When the Court emigrated to Brazil, the connection 

 of Pernambuco with Lisbon was cut off ; but the markets of England 

 were opened, and cotton, the chief object of cultivation, rose most 

 rapidly in demand and in value. When war was declared by the United 

 States against England, this also threw a vast accession of trade into the 

 same quarter. At the close of that war, and when the markets of 

 Europe were again opened to British manufactures, and offered, at least, 

 the expectation of a wonderful increase of trade ; and the United States, 

 contrary to all previous calculation, were found destitute of cotton ready 

 for market ; the additional supplies must be sought for in Pernambuco. 

 At that period this article had attained its highest value, and paid to the 

 cultivator, I am confident, a profit not less than five hundred per cent, 

 upon the expense of cultivation, even reckoning his estate at the average 

 value of the country, and his slaves at the advanced rate which they had 

 acquired. Hence, for years, the people of this province had been 

 growing extremely rich ; it had absorbed not only its own duties, but 

 extensive monthly remittances from Rio. Our Captains of packets and 

 ships of war will recollect how much money they conveyed from Rio to 

 the Northward, and our merchants know how frequently their remit- 

 tances were made through that channel. This extraordinary influx of 

 cash, and acquisition of wealth, rendered the Pernambucanos, as it 

 generally will do, extremely self-sufficient. As a province, this part of the 

 Continent acquired importance, and, in the needy circumstances of the 

 Treasury, was flattered and indulged. The inhabitants saw other states ris- 

 ing into independence, recollected and boasted of their former services to 



4 A 2 



