In saying thus much, you may consider me of a mercenary disposition; but I have received from Brazil _no recompence whatever_, beyond the honours conferred by His Imperial Majesty. If you will peruse the accompanying papers, you will find that when I left Chili I had disbursed of my own monies, 66,000 dollars, to keep the Chilian squadron from starving, which sum, in consequence of my leaving Chili, and accepting the offers of His Imperial Majesty, has not been repaid. This amount His Majesty and his ministers agreed to repay on my acceptance of the command; but I declined to seek reimbursement at the expense of Brazil, "unless I should perform greater services to the Empire than I had rendered to Chili; but in the event of such services being rendered to Brazil, and of Chili continuing its refusal to pay me, then--and not otherwise--I should hope for indemnification." To this stipulation the late ministers gave their assent.
It is no proof of an avaricious disposition that I at once acquiesced in the proposition of His Imperial Majesty, that 40,000 dollars only for the _Imperatrice_, which is not one-third of her value, should be apportioned to her captors.
I might have added that the squadron had received _no emoluments of any kind whatever_, notwithstanding the spontaneous stipulations of His Imperial Majesty to pay everything, there not being even an indication of handing over to them the 40,000 dollars awarded by His Majesty for the frigate captured at Parà. On the contrary, I had been condemned in costs and damages to a great amount for having captured Portuguese vessels in pursuance of His Majesty's orders; so that had the Court of Admiralty been in a position to enforce these, I should not only be unpaid but be mulcted of a very large sum, as the price of having accepted the command of the Brazilian navy!
So far from the 40,000 dollars awarded by His Majesty for the capture of the frigate _Imperatrice_ having been paid according to the Imperial directions, I received from the Minister of Marine a letter dated February 27th, implying that the above sum--one third the value of the vessel--was when paid, to be considered as the _sole_ reward of the squadron. This violation of His Majesty's agreement was at once repudiated, and an explanatory letter from the Minister of Marine--almost as ambiguous as the former--assured me that I had misconstrued his intention, which, however, was not the case, for the 40,000 dollars were never paid.