valuators should be appointed to estimate the
amount, is it not true that nothing whatever, up to the date of my
former letter to your excellency, had been done by his ministers
and council in furtherance of such his gracious intentions? On the
contrary, is it not notorious that, since the announcement of the
imperial intention, numerous vessels and cargoes have been arbitrarily
disposed of by authority of the auditors of marine, by being delivered
to pretended owners and others without legal adjudication, and even
without the decency of acquainting the captors or their agents that
the property had been so transferred? And has not the whole cost
of litigation, watching and guarding the vessels and cargoes, been
entirely at the expense of the captors, notwithstanding the disposal
of the property and the receipt of the proceeds by the agents of
Government and others?

So little hope of justice has been presented by the proceedings of the
Prize Tribunal, that it has appeared quite useless to label the stores
found in the naval and military arsenals of Maranhao, or the 66,000
dollars in the chests of the Treasury and Custom House, with double
that sum in bills, all of which was left for the use of the province,
or permitted to be disbursed to satisfy the clamorous troops of Ceara
and Pianhy. Has any remuneration been offered to the navy for these
sacrifices, of which ministers were duly informed by my official
despatches? or has any recompense been awarded for the Portuguese brig
and schooner of war, both completely stored and equipped, which were
surrendered at Maranhao, and which have ever since been employed in
the naval service? To a proportion of all this I should have been
entitled in Chili, as well as in the English service; and why, I ask,
must I here be contented to be deprived of every hope of these the
fruits of my labours? In addition to the prize vessels delivered to
claimants without trial, have not the ministers appropriated others
_to the uses of the state without valuation or recompense_?[A]

[Footnote A: This conduct was afterwards more flagrantly exemplified
on the arrival of the new and noble prize frigate _Imperatrice_, the
equipment whereof had cost the captors 12,000 milreas, which sum has
never been returned.]

In short, is it not true that though more than a year has elapsed
since the sailing of the imperial squadron under my command, and
nearly half a year since its return, after succeeding in e