mely prevented by the wisdom and energy of Your Imperial
Majesty.

The declaration that you will give to your people a practical
constitution, more free than even that which the late assembly
professed an intention to establish, cannot--considering the spirit
which now pervades South America--have the effect of averting
impending evils, unless Your Imperial Majesty shall be pleased to
dissipate all doubts by _at once declaring_--before news of the recent
events can be dispersed throughout the provinces, and before the
discontented members of the late congress can return to their
constituents--what is the precise nature of that constitution which
Your Imperial Majesty intends to bestow.

Permit me, then, humbly and respectfully to suggest to Your
Imperial Majesty, as a means of tranquillising the public mind--of
averting evils at home, and preventing injurious representations
abroad--that, _even before the sailing of the next packet for Europe_,
Your Majesty should specifically declare the nature of the government
you are graciously pleased should be adopted. As no monarch
is more happy, or more truly powerful than the limited monarch of
England, surrounded by a free people, enriched by that industry
which the security of property by means of just laws never fails to
create--if Your Majesty were to decree that the English constitution,
in its most perfect practical form (which, with slight
alteration, and, chiefly in name, is also the constitution of the
United States of North America), shall be the model for the
Government of Brazil under Your Imperial Majesty, with power to
the constituent assembly so to alter particular parts as local
circumstances may render advisable--it would excite the sympathy
of powerful states abroad, and the firm allegiance of the Brazilian
people to Your Majesty's throne.

Were Your Majesty, by a few brief lines in the Gazette, to
announce your intention so to do, and were you to banish all
distrust from the public mind by removing from your person for a
time, and finding employment on honourable missions abroad, for
those Portuguese individuals of whom the Brazilians are jealous--the
purity of Your Majesty's motives would be secured from the
possibility of misrepresentation--the factions which disturb the
country would be silenced or converted--and the feelings of the
world,