ite equal to
my merits, and the greatest personal favour he can bestow is to urge
on the speedy adjudication of the prizes, so that the officers and
seamen may reap the reward decreed by the Emperor's own authority."

A hardship to the fleet even greater than the withholding of its
prize-money was the withholding of the arrears of pay, which had been
accumulating ever since the departure from Rio de Janeiro in April. On
the 27th of November, three months' wages were offered to men to whom
more than twice the amount was due. This they indignantly refused, and
all Lord Cochrane's tact was needed to restrain them from open mutiny.

In spite of the Emperor's friendship towards Lord Cochrane, or rather
in consequence of it, he was in all sorts of ways insulted by the
ministry, the head of which was now Severiano da Costa. A new ship,
the _Atulanta_, was on the 27th of December, without reference to him,
ordered for service at Monte Video. He was on the same day publicly
described as "Commander of the Naval Forces in the Port of Rio de
Janeiro," being thus placed on a level with other officers in the
service of which, by the Emperor's patent, he was First Admiral, and
no notice was taken of his protest against that insult. On the 24th
of February he was gazetted as "Commander-in-Chief of all the Naval
Forces of the Empire during the present war," by which his functions,
though not now limited in extent, were limited in time. At length,
reasonably indignant at these and other violations of the contract
made with him, he offered to resign his command altogether. "If
I thought that the course pursued towards me was dictated by his
Imperial Majesty," he wrote to the Minister of Marine on the 20th of
March, "it would be impossible for me to remain an hour longer in
his service, and I should feel it my duty, at the earliest possible
moment, to lay my commission at his feet. If I have not done so
before, from the treatment which, in common with the navy. I have
experienced, it has been solely from an anxious desire to promote his
Majesty's real interests. Indeed, to struggle against prejudices, and
at the same time against those in power whose prepossessions are at
variance with the interests of his Majesty and the tranquillity and
independence of Brazil, is a task to which I am by no means equal.
I am, therefore, perfectly willing to resign the situation I
hold, rather than contend against difficulties which appear to me
insurmou