by the “Pedestres,” and other irregular troops lately maintained by the President—­the public still continue in dread of being exposed to outrages, similar to those lately committed on their persons and property.  The terror excited is universal, and as the people must be well acquainted with the character and conduct of persons with whom they have been bred up, I cannot bring myself to believe—­however desirous to support a President nominated by His Imperial Majesty—­that all the respectable portion of the population, without exception, entertain fears that are groundless.  Indeed, from all that I have seen or heard, there is but little reason to hope that his Excellency the President has any intention to govern this province on any other system than that of the Captains-General, under the old Portuguese government; that is to say, rather according to his own will than in conformity with the dictates of justice or equity.

Certain it is, that, up to the present moment, the Constitution has never been put in practice, and even military law has not been adhered to.  Numerous persons have been banished without accuser or declared crime—­others have been thrown into gaol—­and the greater portion of the principal people who remained had—­previous to our arrival—­fled to the woods, to avoid being the objects of the like arbitrary proceedings.

The representations which I now enclose to your Excellency as a sample of the numerous documents of a similar nature addressed to me, will, at least, lead His Imperial Majesty to the conclusion that such complaints could not have arisen, and continued under the government of a person calculated to preside over the interests of so important a province.

Your Excellency will find a memorial from the French Consul, marked No. 7, and the other Consuls have only been restrained from sending similar representations from the consideration that, on the squadron quitting this port, the consequences might be highly prejudicial to their interests and those whom they represent.

I would further state to your Excellency the remarkable fact that the President—­after having continued a high pay to the soldiery during the existence of those disorders of which they were the instrument—­did, at the moment of my taking the command, send me an old order respecting the diminution of the pay of the troops, which order he himself had never put in execution.  And it is still more extraordinary, that he since refused any pay whatever, to the small number of troops of the line, who are continued in service for the preservation of the tranquillity of the city.

Since my last letters, I have been using all possible diligence to get the remainder of the firearms out of the hands of the lower classes of the population.  Many, however, have been withheld—­a circumstance which gives additional importance to