or Spanish party in the Chilian state, four years elapsed before the mischiefs could be accomplished, which, by the machinations of the Portuguese faction, have been here effected in the short space of four months.

Truths are often disagreeable to those who are not in the habit of hearing them, and doubly offensive after long experience of the homage of blind obedience and subserviency.  I have, nevertheless, always felt it my duty to the Governments under which I have served, not to abstain from uttering truths under any dread of offence, because I have ever been impressed with the conviction that speaking truth is not only the most honourable mode of proceeding, but that the time seldom fails to arrive when those who are warned of a wrong line of conduct feel grateful to the man—­who at the risk of personal inconvenience, or even punishment—­dared to apprise them of their danger.

In England—­where mischiefs were heaped upon me for opposing a ministerial vote of parliamentary thanks to an undeserving officer—­the people at once saw the propriety of my conduct, and the Government has since virtually admitted its justice.  In Chili, the ministers who hated me, because they knew me to be aware of their deceitful and dishonest acts, were succeeded by others who have solicited my return.  And the worthy and excellent Supreme Director (O’Higgins, whom those ministers, by their wickedness and folly, brought to ruin) found at last, and acknowledged—­but too late to attend to my warnings—­that I had acted towards him, in all cases, with honour and fidelity.

The error and fate of the excellent and eminent person whom I have just named—­affords a proof of the folly and danger of the notion—­that ministers who have forfeited the confidence of the public by breach of faith and evil acts, can be upheld by military force against public opinion, especially in Governments recently constituted.  The people respected their Supreme Director; but when he marshalled his troops to uphold his evil ministers, he fell with them.  Had he adopted the policy of Cromwell, and delivered to justice those who merited punishment, he would have saved himself.

Permit me to say, in conclusion, that the Ministers of His Imperial Majesty are identified with the Court of Admiralty, and with the officers whom they maintain in the different departments.  Let them—­I repeat—­take heed that the operation of similar causes does not produce like effects; for if the conduct of these individuals shall cause the naval service to be abandoned, and shall thereby—­as a necessary consequence—­occasion great disasters to the Empire, I am convinced that in a short period, all the troops in Rio de Janeiro will not be able to repress the storm that will be raised against the factious Portuguese.

It is my fervent hope—­that His Imperial Majesty, by gloriously adhering to the cause of independence and to Brazil, will save and unite the largest portion of his royal patrimony in defiance of the blind efforts of Portugal, and in spite of the cunning intrigues of the Portuguese faction here, to prolong civil war, and create dismemberment and disunion.

   I have the honour to be,