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on the position in which a community is placed 

 suddenly detached from a world more antiently 

 civilized, free from every external tie, and com- 

 posed of individuals who recognize no political 

 preponderance in the same caste. The titles 

 conferred by the mother country on a small 

 number of families in America, had not formed 

 what is called in Europe an aristocracy of no- 

 bility. Liberty may expire in anarchy, or by 

 the transitory usurpation of a daring chief ; but 

 the true elements of monarchy are no where 

 found in modern colonies : those elements were 

 imparted to Brazil at the moment when that 

 vast country enjoyed profound peace, while the 

 metropolis had fallen under a foreign yoke. 



In reflecting on the chain of human affairs, 

 we may conceive how the existence of modern 

 colonies, or rather how the discovery of a half- 

 peopled continent, in which alone so extraordi- 

 nary a development of the colonial system was 

 possible, must have led to the revival on a great 

 scale, of the forms of republican government. 

 The changes which social order has undergone 

 in our days in a considerable part of Europe, 

 have been regarded by some celebrated writers 

 as the tardy effect of the religious reformation 

 at the beginning of the 16th century. We 

 must not forget that the memorable epocha 

 when ardent passions, and a taste for absolute 

 dogmas, were the rocks on which European poli- 



