Notes on Brazilian Questions (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF THE FREE AFRICANS. RECENT EMANCIPATIONS OF FREE AFRICANS?INATTENTION OF BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT TO BRITISH REPRESENTATIONS?EFFECT OF THE REPRISALS ?BRAZILIAN DECREES?COMPLAINTS BY BRAZILIAN SENATORS AND DEPUTIES?MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD?" REVUE DBS DEUX MONDES." Appeal was made, in a letter in the Daily News of July 29th,from "quotations fromEnglish diplomatic despatches," to "Brazilian documents quite as authentic," which, the writer said, show that the Brazilian government " is doing its duty" about the emancipados. The writer stated from these Brazilian documents that in the last four years four hundred emancipados had received freedom, and that Senhor Zacarias, the present Minister of Justice, has said that he is completing arrangements begun by his predecessor, and "hopes to have the information ready by the next session of the Legislature." The information as to the emancipados freed in the three years from April 30, 1859, to April 30, 1862, is all faithfully given, and I think with no unfairness to the Brazilian government, in my despatches to Lord Russell, published in the Slave-trade Correspondence, Class B. On February 4, 1861, I reported to Lord Russell that Senhor Zacarias, having become President of the Council and Minister of Justice in January, 1864, resigned, with all his colleagues, in the beginning of September. A new Ministry has been formed. the provisions of a decree of December, 1853, for giving freedom, on their petition, to privately employed emanci- pados after fourteen years' service, had been extended to emancipados employed in government-establishments. I wrote as follows :? "Your lordship will see that the Minister of Justice announces that the Council of State had, on his application, interpreted the decre...