ANTONIO JOSE DA SILVA,
   Contador da Marinha.

   JOSE BAPTISTA LISBOA,
   Auditor e Secretario.

This document, so recently promulgated, after the decision of the Seccoes in 1854, and the expression of opinion given by the most eminent men of Brazil (see page 282), that I ought to have the whole of my claims—­is really wonderful.  But the false assertions it contains must be met.

And first—­the receipt of the 40,000 dollars for the Imperatrice, I altogether deny, and can be easily convicted of untruth if my receipt for that sum can be produced.  It is worthy of note, that the date of the decree for the payment of this sum is carefully given in the preceding document, but the data of my acknowledgment of having received is annulled for the sufficient reason that no acknowledgment was ever given.  The 200,000 dollars, I trust that I have sufficiently accounted for, as well as for the vouchers sent to Rio by Captain Shepherd, whose receipt I took for the chest containing them.  But the 200,000 dollars with which the Government charges me—­even supposing the accounts to be lost—­destroyed—­or purposely made away with—­was not the property of the Brazilian Government, but of the squadron, who received it only as part payment of ten times the amount due to them!  This sum though the property of the squadron, was made to serve as an advance of wages, no less than as prize-money; and does the Brazilian Government imagine that any squadron could be sent to sea without money?  Or that any reader of common sense will acquiesce in the assertion that under such circumstances it was not properly disbursed, even though I had not shewn its precise disbursement?  The Brazilian Government well knows that the men composing the squadron were of so mutinous a character, that the slightest deviation from their rights would have been met with instant insubordination.  Did this ever occur, even in the slightest possible degree?  It is no fault of mine, if the accounts were destroyed, as I have no doubt they were, from pure malice towards myself, in order to bring me into an amount of disrepute, which might justify the withholding of my claims according to the stipulations of the Imperial patents.  By whom this infamy was perpetrated, it is impossible for me to say—­but that it was perpetrated—­there cannot be the smallest possible doubt.

It is altogether unnecessary to say another word about the 40,000 dollars for the Imperatrice, or the 200,000 dollars for distribution—­as the evidence adduced is sufficient to satisfy any man not determined to be unconvinced.