the decision with "thanks and satisfaction;"
but I am willing to resign it rather than it should add an
overwhelming weight to that "enormous responsibility" which your
excellency complains has already been incurred with a view to
my contentment. I repeat that I have never asked for more than I
possessed in Chili, or than any officer of the same rank is entitled
to in England; though British officers have heretofore received in the
service of Portugal double the amount of their English pay; and though
the burning climate of Brazil is injurious to health, while those
of Chili and Portugal are salubrious. Your excellency, therefore, is
perfectly welcome to publish the whole of my official correspondence,
because instead of proving, as your excellency asserts, the great
difficulty of contenting me, it would go far to prove the much greater
difficulty of inducing those with whom I have to do to take any one
step for that purpose.

[Footnote A: As the Brazilian Government had obtained possession of a
new corvette, named the _Maria de Gloria_, which cost the Government
of Chili 90,000 dollars, without reimbursing to that State one single
farthing; and by the said act had deprived Lord Cochrane of the
benefit he would have derived, as commander-in-chief, from the
services of that ship in the Pacific, the non-fulfilment of this
engagement seems the more unjust.]

I confess, however, that in order to content me effectually it is
necessary to fulfil not only all written engagements with myself
individually, but generally with all the officers and seamen with
whom, while I hold the command, I consider myself identified; and the
more particularly because, in my own firm reliance on the good faith
of the Government, I did in some sort become responsible for that good
faith to my brother officers and seamen. But with whom, I put it to
your excellency, has good faith been kept? Is it not notorious that
previous to the departure of the expedition to Bahia, declarations
were made to the seamen in writing by the late Minister of Marine,
through my medium, and in printed proclamations, that their dues
should be paid with all possible regularity, and all their arrears
discharged immediately on their return? And is not your excellency
aware that specific contracts were entered into by the accredited
agent of his Imperial Majesty in England, with a number of officers
and seamen, who, in consequence, were induced to quit their native
count