is Imperial Majesty, however, having
signified to this tribunal his pleasure that they should delay no
longer in proceeding to the adjudication of the captured vessels,
the result was that, in almost every instance, at the commencement of
their proceedings, the vessels were condemned, not as lawful prizes to
the captors, but as droits to the Crown. His Majesty was then pleased
to desire that the said droits should be granted to the squadron, and
about one-fifth part of the value of the prizes taken was eventually
paid under the denomination of a 'grant of the droits of the Crown.'
But when this decree of his Imperial Majesty was promulgated,
the tribunal altered their course of proceeding, and, instead of
condemning to the Crown, did, in almost every remaining instance,
pronounce the acquittal of the vessels captured, and adjudged them
to be given up to pretended Brazilian owners, notwithstanding that
Brazilian property embarked in enemy's vessels was, by the law,
declared to be forfeited; and that, too, with such indecent
precipitancy that, in cases where the hull only had been claimed, the
cargo also was decreed to be given up to the claimants of the hull,
without any part of it having, at any time, been even pretended to be
their property. Other ships and cargoes were given up without any form
of trial, and without any intimation whatever to the captors and their
agents; and, in most cases, costs and quadruple damages were unjustly
decreed against the captors, to the amount of 300,000 milreis. That
the prizes of which the captors were thus fraudulently deprived,
chiefly under the unlawful and false pretence of their belonging to
Brazilians, were really the property of Portuguese and well known so
to be by the said tribunal, has since been fully demonstrated, by
the arrival in Lisbon of the whole of the vessels liberated by their
decisions. Thus the charge of a system of wilful injustice, brought
by the squadron against the Portuguese Tribunal of Prizes at Rio de
Janeiro, is established beyond the possibility of contradiction."

It was only an aggravation of that injustice that, when Lord Cochrane
claimed the prompt and equitable adjudication of the prizes, an
attempt was made to silence him on the 24th of November by a message
from the Minister of Marine, to the effect that the Emperor would do
everything in his power for him personally. "His Majesty," answered
Lord Cochrane, "has already conferred honours upon me qu