but
insultingly sent an order to the officers of the Piranga to "disengage
themselves from all obedience to my command." (Se desligao de toda
subordinacao a o Ex'mo S'r Marquez do Maranhao), thus unjustifiably
terminating my services--as I was on the point of returning, in
obedience to the order of the Emperor. The subjoined is the order
alluded to:--

_To_ Captain SHEPHERD, _commanding the Piranga, still refusing
supplies whilst I held the command._

Having received the two letters which you addressed to me on the
4th of this month, enclosing three demands for various articles for
the use of the frigate, I have to reply that I persist in my resolution
not to furnish anything to the frigate unless she is placed under the
immediate orders of this Legation, which I shall only consider
accomplished when I shall receive a reply signed by yourself, and
by all the other officers, declaring that--in compliance with the
orders of His Imperial Majesty, contained in the two portarias of
37th of June and 20th of August last--_you all place yourselves under
the orders of this Legation, and cast off all subordination to the
Marquis of Maranhao!_

Dated London, 7th November, 1825.

(Signed) GAMEIRO.

As this was done without the slightest motive existing or assigned,
there was no doubt in my mind but that Barbosa and his colleagues in the
ministry had instructed Gameiro to dismiss me from the service whenever
peace was effected; indeed, he had so informed Lieutenant Shepherd by
the letter before quoted. To resist a measure--though thus insultingly
resorted to--in the face of the Imperial order to return, was out of the
question, as the instant consequence would have been a disgraceful
outbreak between the Brazilian and Portuguese seamen of the _Piranga,_
in the principal war port of England, to my own scandal, no less than to
that of the Imperial government. I had, therefore, no alternative to
avert this outrage but by submitting to the forcible deposition from my
authority as Commander-in-Chief.

This act of the Envoy--_based upon the deliberate falsehood that His
Imperial Majesty had ordered the officers not to obey me, no such order
existing_ in either of the Portarias mentioned--precluded my obedience
to the Imperial command to return to Rio de Janeiro, for being no longer
acknowledged as "First Admiral of Brazil, and Commander-in-Chief of the
National Armada," I could only hav