until lawfully deprived by sentence of
court-martial; I say that I respectfully ask your excellency whether
these proceedings were not well adapted for the purpose of casting me
off with the utmost facility at the earliest moment that convenience
might dictate; either with or without the admission of those claims
for the future to which past services are usually considered entitled,
as might best suit the inclination of those with whom my dismissal
might originate. And is it not most probable that their inclination
would run counter to those claims, especially when it is considered
that my letter of the 6th of March to the Minister of Marine, in which
I made the inquiry whether my right to half-pay would be recognized
on the termination of the war, has never been answered, although my
application for a reply has been repeated?[B] If then the explicit
engagements in writing between the late minister of his Imperial
Majesty and myself have, as I have shown, been set aside by the
present ministry and council, and other arrangements far less
favourable to me, and destructive of the lawful security of my present
and future rights, have without my consent been substituted in their
stead, where, I entreat your excellency, am I to look for those
favourable constructions of "ill-understood verbal transactions,"
which your excellency requires me to accept as a proof that the
intentions of the present ministry and council, in respect to me, have
ever been of the most favourable and obliging nature?

[Footnote A: This was resorted to, in order to prevent Lord Cochrane
from stationing the cruisers to annoy the enemy, to deprive him of
any interest in future captures, and prevent his opposition to the
unlawful restoration of enemy's property.]

[Footnote B: An answer was at last given, a few days before Lord
Cochrane's assistance was called for to put down the revolution
at Pernambuco; and _half_ of the originally-granted _half-pay_ was
decreed when he should return, after the termination of hostilities,
to his native country.]

I would beg permission, too, to inquire how it happened that
portarias[A] from the Minister of Marine, charging me unjustly from
time to time with neglecting to obey the command of his Imperial
Majesty, were constantly made public, while my answers in refutation
were always suppressed. And why, when I remonstrated against this
injustice, was I answered that the same course should be persisted
in, and tha