us opposition, but disgrace to those by whom
they were so imperfectly and improperly equipped?

If this communication were not already too long, or if, after the
letter I have received from your excellency, it were possible for me
to continue my representations in the hope of redress, I could add to
the list of those causes of complaint which I have already pointed out
many particulars which none but those who are blindly attached to that
wretched system which has been so injurious to the marine and kingdom
of Portugal could consider either trifling or imaginary. But as my
present object has been chiefly to repel those imputations in which
your excellency has so freely indulged, and believing that I have
fully succeeded in that object, and have shown clearly that your
excellency has unjustly and untruly accused me of encouraging
talebearers, making unfounded complaints, and of being of a nature so
avaricious as never to be satisfied--which latter, by-the-by, is
an extraordinary accusation to prefer against me--a man whom your
excellency must know has not hitherto been benefited, after being
more than a year in the service, to the amount of one shilling for the
important services he has rendered, but who, on the contrary, as
he can show by his accounts, has necessarily expended more in his
official situation than he has received in the service; so that the
"remercimens" and the "satisfaction," which your excellency accuses
him of being deficient in, can scarcely yet be due, unless it is
proper to be satisfied and grateful too for less than nothing--having,
I say, fully repelled and refuted these unjust accusations, I shall
avoid troubling your excellency with any further detail. But I repeat
that your excellency has my free consent to cause the whole of my
official correspondence to be published; for in all that I have
advanced with respect to the violations of contracts, and on the
subject of the unsatisfied claims of the squadron, and relative to
the ill-usage of officers under arrest, and to the misconduct of the
judges of prizes, and of those who have the management of the civil
department of the marine,[A] and in all matters whatever in question
between the Government of Brazil and myself, I am confident I may
safely rely on the decision of the public. And if, at the same time,
your excellency can give a satisfactory explanation of the motives of
that line of conduct on the part of the ministers and council, which,