Note 105 — SECOND VISIT TO BRAZIL.

Various ordinances of the 3d and 19th June and the 3d of August, 1822, and of the 20th and 22d February, 1823, had been published for the assembling or regulating the election of deputies from the provinces of Brazil, to form a constituent assembly. Early in April, 1823, the greater number of those who could be collected in the present state of the country had arrived in the capital. On the 14th of that month, the Emperor fixed their first meeting for the 17th. Accordingly on the 17th of April, 1823, the deputies, in number 52, entered their house of assembly at nine o'clock in the morning, and proceeded to elect a temporary president and secretary, when the Right Reverend Don Jose Caetano da Silva Coutinho, bishop and grand chaplain, was elected president, and Manoel Jose de Sousa França secretary.

The first act was to name two committees; one of five members, to hold a scrutiny on the election of the deputies generally; and the other of three, to examine those of the five. This necessary business, and some consequent discussion, occupied the whole of the first and greater part of the second session; towards the end of the latter, the form of the oath to be administered to the members, was decided:—

"I swear to fulfil, faithfully and truly, the obligations of deputy to the General Constituent and Legislative Assembly of Brazil, convoked in order to frame a political constitution for the empire of Brazil, and to make indispensable and urgent reforms. Maintaining always the Roman Catholic and Apostolic religion, and the integrity and independence of the empire; without admitting any other nation whatever to any bond of union or federation which might oppose that independence. Maintaining also the constitutional empire, and the dynasty of the Lord Don Peter, our first Emperor, and his issue."

The third session was occupied in regulating the forms of the assembly. The throne to be placed at one end of the hall; on the first step on the right-hand side, the President shall have his chair when the Emperor presides, otherwise the chair to be in front of the throne, with a small table, separate from the table of the members, and on it the Gospel, a copy of the constitution, and a list of the members. When the Emperor opens the assembly, his great officers may accompany him, and the ministers may sit on his right; proper places are appointed for ambassadors, and a gallery is open to strangers. Some other forms as to the reception of the Emperor, or a regent, or a minister commissioned by him, were also settled; and then the 1st of May was fixed on for the whole body of the members to go to the chapel royal, and after hearing the mass of the Holy Ghost, to take their oaths. The 2d was appointed for a deputation to wait on the Emperor, and inform him that they were ready to proceed on the 3d, and with his assistance to open the important business on which they had met.