cy, I should feel it my duty to avoid troubling you farther
on those subjects, were it not that you at the same time have freely
expressed such opinions with respect to my conduct and motives as
justice to myself requires me to controvert and refute.

With regard to your excellency's assurance that it has ever been
the intention of his Imperial Majesty and Council to act favourably
towards me, I can in return assure your excellency that I have never
doubted the just and benign intention of his Imperial Majesty himself,
neither have I doubted that a part of his Privy Council has thought
well of my services; and if I have imagined that a majority has been
prejudiced against me, I have formed that conclusion merely from the
effects which I have seen and experienced, and not from any undue
prepossession against particular individuals, whether Brazilian or
Portuguese. But when your excellency adds that those transactions
between the late minister and myself, which, owing to their having
been conducted verbally, have been ill-understood, have invariably
been decided in a manner favourable to me, I confess myself at a loss
to understand your excellency's meaning, not having any recollection
of such favourable decisions, and therefore not feeling myself
competent either to admit or deny unless in the first place your
excellency shall be pleased to descend to particulars. I do indeed
recollect that the late ministers, professing to have the authority of
his Imperial Majesty, and which, from the personal countenance I
have experienced from that august personage, I am sure they did not
clandestinely assume, proffered to me the command of the imperial
squadron, with every privilege, emolument, and advantage which
I possessed in the command of the navy of Chili; and this, your
excellency is desired to observe, was not a verbal transaction, but
a written one, and therefore not liable to any of those
misunderstandings to which verbal transactions, as your excellency
observes, are naturally subject. Now, in Chili my commission was that
of commander-in-chief of the squadron, without limitation as to time
or any other restriction. My command, of course, was only to cease by
my own voluntary resignation, or by sentence of court-martial, or by
death, or other uncontrollable event. And accordingly the appointment
which I accepted in the service of his Imperial Majesty, and in virtue
of which I sailed in command of the expedition to Bahia, w