assistance from Rio.

Meantime, news of these transactions arrived at Rio, as well as notice
of the decrees of the Cortes at Lisbon. The Prince and people no longer
hesitated. His Royal Highness, together with the senate, issued
proclamations on the _3d_ of June, calling together a representative and
legislative assembly, to be composed of members from every province and
town, to meet in the city of Rio; and on the first of August he
published that noble manifesto, by which the independence of Brazil was
openly asserted, the grounds of its claims clearly stated, and the
people exhorted to let no voice but that of honour be heard among them,
and to let the shores, from the Amazons to the Plata, resound with no
cry but that of independence. On the same day, a decree was put forth to
resist the hostilities of Portugal, containing the following
articles:--1st, All troops sent by any country whatever, without leave
obtained from the Prince, shall be accounted enemies: 2d, If they come
in peace, they shall remain on board their ships, and shall not
communicate with the shore; but, having received supplies, shall depart:
3d, That in case of disobedience, they shall be repulsed by force: 4th,
If they force a landing in any weak point, the inhabitants shall retire
to the interior, with all their moveables, and the militia shall make
war as guerillas against the strangers: 5th, That all governors, &c.
shall fortify their ports, &c.: 6th, Reports to be forthwith made of the
state of the ports in Brazil, for that end.

This last decree had been anticipated by the Pernambucans, who had
marched a body of troops to the assistance of the patriots of Cachoeira,
and a most harassing warfare was commenced against the Portuguese in St.
Salvador: these last had received a reinforcement of seven hundred men
on the 8th of August; but they had hardly had time to exult in their
arrival, when a squadron from Rio Janeiro disembarked at Alagoas 5000
guns, six field-pieces, 270,000 cartridges, 2000 pikes, 500 carbines,
500 pistols, 500 cutlasses, and 260 men, chiefly officers, under
Brigadier-general Lebatu[96], who soon joined the patriots, and fixed
his head-quarters at Cachoeira, having stretched a line of troops across
the peninsula on which the town is placed, and thus cut it off from
provisions on that side; but the sea being still open, supplies were
abundant, not only from abroad, but from the opposite island of
Itaparica. That fertile dis