atives of your Majesty, even presuming to require you to divest
yourself of your crown in their presence--which deprived you of your
Council of State and denied you a voice in the enactment of laws and
the formation of the constitution--and which dared to object to your
exercising the only remaining function of royalty, that of rewarding
services and conferring honours--could no longer be tolerated; and
the justice and wisdom of your Imperial Majesty in dissolving such
an assembly will be duly appreciated by discerning men, and by those
whose love of good order and their country supersedes their ambition
or personal interests. There are, however, individuals who will
wickedly take advantage of the late proceedings to kindle the flames
of discord, and throw the empire into anarchy and confusion, unless
timely prevented by the wisdom and energy of your Imperial Majesty.
The declaration that you will give to your people a practical
constitution, more free even than that which the late Assembly
professed an intention to establish, cannot--considering the spirit
which now pervades South America--have the effect of averting
impending evils, unless your Imperial Majesty shall be pleased to
dissipate all doubts by at once declaring--before the news of the
recent events can be dispersed throughout the provinces, and before
the discontented members of the late congress can return to their
constituents--what is the precise nature of that constitution which
your Imperial Majesty intends to bestow. As no monarch is more happy
or more truly powerful than the limited monarch of England, surrounded
by a free people, enriched by that industry which the security of
property by means of just laws never fails to create, permit me humbly
and respectfully to suggest, that if your Majesty were to decree that
the English constitution, in its most perfect practical form--which,
with slight alteration, and chiefly in name, is also the constitution
of the United States of North America--shall be the model for the
government of Brazil under your Imperial Majesty, with power to the
Constituent Assembly to alter particular parts as local circumstances
may render advisable, it would excite the sympathy of powerful states
abroad, and the firm allegiance of the Brazilian people to your
Majesty's throne. Were your Majesty, by a few brief lines in the
'Gazette,' to announce your intention so to do, and were you to banish
all distrust from the public mind