d
before the government house, and, accusing the governor and the camara
of withholding their pay, seized and imprisoned them, in order to force
them to give the money they demanded. Several murders were committed
during the insurrection, and various robberies, both in the houses and
the ships in the harbour. Some armed vessels were, however, speedily
despatched from Rio, and a detachment of militia from St. Paul's. Fifty
of the insurgents were killed, and two hundred and forty taken
prisoners; after which, every thing returned to a state of tranquillity;
and as the most conciliatory measures were adopted towards the people,
the peace continued.

The next three months were spent almost entirely in establishing
provisional juntas in the different capitals. Many of the captaincies
had, upon swearing to maintain the constitution, spontaneously adopted
that measure. Others, such as Pernambuco, had been restrained by their
governors from doing so, until the Prince's edicts of the 21st of
August, to that effect, reached them. These edicts were followed by
another of the 19th of September, directing the juntas to communicate
directly with the cortes at Lisbon; and the whole attention of the
government was now directed to preserve tranquillity until the arrival
of instructions from the cortes concerning the form of government to be
adopted.

It was fondly hoped, that the presence of Brazilian deputies, the
importance of the country, and the consideration that it had been the
asylum of the government during the stormy days of the revolutionary
war, would have induced the cortes to have considered it no longer as a
colony, but as an equal part of the nation, and that it might have
retained its separate courts, civil and criminal, and all the consequent
advantages of a prompt administration of the laws.

Such was the state of Brazil, generally speaking, on our arrival in that
country, on the 21st of September, 1821. Much that might be interesting
I have omitted, partly because I have not so correct a knowledge of it,
as to venture to write it; much, because we are too near the time of
action to know the motives and springs that guided the actors; and much,
because neither my sex nor situation permitted me to inform myself more
especially concerning the political events in a country where the
periodical publications are few, recent, and though by law free, yet, in
fact, owing to the circumstances of the times, imperfect, timorou