The Maranham memorial reached me on the 14th of December, and had scarcely been placed in my hands, when a letter arrived from President Bruce, deprecating its reception, thus shewing that he had previously been made aware of the contents, and—­as I had afterwards reason to believe—­had attempted to intercept the memorial, but had failed in so doing.  After glancing at the contents, I made him the following reply:—­

   SIR,

I have this moment been honoured with the receipt of your Excellency’s letter, and have to state that the document to which you allude had not been delivered to me five minutes previous to your Excellency’s communication, and that I have not yet had time to read it.

Your Excellency may, however, rest assured that if the said paper contains any thing injurious to the interests or dignity of his Imperial Majesty, I shall not fail to take such steps as the occasion may require.  All papers that have been presented to me, it is my intention to transmit to Rio de Janeiro, where the Imperial government will judge of the motives of the writers, and of the contents of their communications.

   (Signed) COCHRANE AND MARANHAO.

   Dec. 14, 1824.

My reply to the memorialists was as follows:—­

   Maranham, Dec. 18,1834.

   GENTLEMEN,

I have read your memorial with attention, and regret that you should have occasion to detail complaints of so painful a nature, the more so as I do not know whether I am authorised to remedy the evils otherwise than by such measures as have been already adopted.

According to the Constitution, you ought to find a remedy in the laws; but if any authority, commissioned by His Imperial Majesty, has improperly placed obstacles in the way of law, to His Majesty only can an appeal against such conduct be made, for they who attempt to redress evils arising from a breach of the Constitution, by violating that very Constitution place themselves in an equally disadvantageous position with the object of their accusation.

As regards the deposition of the President, which you request, I frankly confess to you, Gentlemen, that whatever may be my private opinion as to the course most advantageous to you and the province in general—­and even to the President himself—­I should feel extremely reluctant, except in a case of manifest and extreme necessity, to take upon myself a responsibility which might possibly subject me to the displeasure of His Imperial Majesty, and would most certainly expose me to be continually harassed by prejudicial reports and false accusations, supported by artful intrigues, against which neither prudence nor rectitude could effectually avail.

To mention an instance of this, within your own knowledge, you all know that, last year, when this province was annexed to the empire, the property of Brazilians under the flag of Portugal,