Not a word of acknowledgment was ever given for having a second time saved the Empire from dismemberment, though this service was entirely extra-official, it being no part of my contract with the Brazilian Government to put down revolution, nor to take upon myself the responsibility and difficult labour of reducing half the Empire to the allegiance which it had perhaps not without cause repudiated—­at the same time, of necessity, taking the management of the whole upon myself.  This had been done at the pressing personal request of His Imperial Majesty, in face of the decree of the Court of Admiralty that no prizes should be made within a certain distance of the shore; so that no benefit, public or private—­arising from the operations of war—­could result from blockade; yet I had a right to expect even greater thanks and a more liberal amount of compensation in case of success, than from the first expedition.  Not a word of acknowledgment nor a shilling of remuneration for that service has ever been awarded to this day; though such treatment stands out in glaring inconsistency with the Imperial thanks and honours—­the thanks of the Administration—­and the vote of the General Assembly, for expelling on the first expedition enemies not half so formidable as were the revolutionary factions with which I had to contend in the Northern provinces.

Neither in Brazil nor in England had I done anything to forfeit my right to the fulfilment of the explicit stipulations set forth in the Imperial patents of March 26th, and November 25th, 1823.  His Imperial Majesty had all along marked his approbation of my zealous exertions for the interests of the empire—­designating them “altos e extraordinarios servicios.”—­and desired that I should have the most ample remuneration; having, in addition to every honour in his power to confer, granted me an estate, which grant was by the Portuguese faction strenuously and successfully opposed, and not this only, but every other recompence proposed by His Majesty as a remuneration for my services.  The object being to subvert whatever had been effected by my exertions, though, but for these the inevitable consequence would have been the establishment of insignificant local governments in perpetual turmoil and revolution, in place of an entire empire in the enjoyment of uninterrupted repose.  Had I connived at the views of the Anti-Imperial faction—­even by avoiding the performance of extra-official services—­I might, without dereliction of my duty as an officer, have amply shared in their favours; but for my adherence to the Emperor against their machinations, that influence was successfully used to deprive me even of the ordinary reward of my labours in the cause of independence.