Exterior events were of little importance during the first years of Pedro’s reign.  The chief happenings were a certain amount of civil war in the Rio Grande, and the partaking of the Brazilian forces in the battles between Uruguay and Rosas, the tyrant of Argentina, varied with occasional fights with Uruguay itself.  In 1842 revolts broke out in the provinces of Sao Paulo and Minas Geraes, but these, together with similar insurrections in Rio Grande in 1845, and in Pernambuco in 1849, were suppressed.  In 1851 Brazil espoused the cause of Urquiza, the Governor of Entre Rios, against that of Rosas, and the aid of the Brazilian troops was largely instrumental in bringing about the fall of the tyrant.

Dom Pedro’s administration, moreover, was conducted with tact and good judgment.  His presence acted as a check upon the experimental tendencies of the more effervescent of his subjects.  He believed in slow and sure progress, and undoubtedly during his reign Brazil responded to the care and thought expended on her.  Indeed, the policy of the Emperor was liberal to a degree, and as such very welcome to a populace whose ideas, if not instincts, had grown more or less democratic.

In 1865 the Five Years’ War with Paraguay was commenced, a struggle in which, under the tyrant Lopez, the tiny Republic held at bay the armies of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, to the utter ruin of Paraguay itself, and the virtual destruction of its male population.  The struggle terminated with the death of Lopez at the Battle of Cerro Cora in 1870, after exhausting the resources of Brazilian finance.  Meanwhile, in 1867, Dom Pedro opened the Amazon to the commerce of all nations, and in 1871 passed a law for the gradual abolition of slavery.

Had Pedro been gifted with a child of a character resembling his own, it is reasonable to suppose that the Empire would have continued for far longer than was the case.  Unfortunately, however, neither his daughter, the Princess Isabel, nor her husband, the Conde d’Eu, had succeeded in winning the sympathies of the Brazilians.  Princess Isabel was markedly cold and restrained in manner, and these unfortunate traits appear to have been fully shared by her husband.  The latter was somewhat deaf, which added to the apparent reserve of his manner; he was, moreover, credited with the possession of a miserly disposition.

These qualities, when viewed by an impetuous and mercurial people, whose lightning sympathies demanded as rapid a response, inevitably threw their supposed possessors into disfavour.  The situation was doubly to be regretted, in that both the Princess and her husband were in reality devoted to Brazil and to the best interests of the Brazilians.  It may truly be said that nothing beyond the lack of demonstrative power cost them their throne.