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. History of the Empire of Brazil—Disjoined from Portugal—British Church at Rio de Janeiro—Description of Rio—Sunday in Brazil—Profligacy of the Priesthood—Description of Bahia. The Empire of Brazil extends over two-fifths of the continent of South America, having an area of three million square miles, and is consequently nearly as large as Europe. The climate is salubrious though hot, and almost every part of the soil is rich and fertile. Some of the trees, in particular in the interior, attain the wonderful height of 400 feet. It was formerly under the dominion of Portugal, but the removal of John VI. of Portugal, and the Portuguese Government in 1808, to Brazil, in order to escape the power of the Emperor Napoleon, who had taken a fancy for his dominions, formed the commencement of that great South American empire. The Brazilian Government, on the arrival of the King of Portugal, opened their ports to all friendly nations, abolished (nominally at least) the slave trade after the lapse of a certain number of years, and entered into an advantageous treaty of alliance and commerce with England. In 1821 John VI. returned to Portugal, leaving his son Don, or Dom Pedro to administer the government as Regent. The Brazilians having discovered that their King, and the Portuguese who fol- lowed him to Lisbon, had carried off every farthing that was in the treasury, asserted their independence, formed a constitution, and in 1823 elected their Regent Emperor, under the title of Pedro I. In 1825 Portugal acknowledged the independence of Brazil, which was thus lost for ever to that Crown. John VI. died in Portugal in 1826. By the constitution of Brazil, Pedro the Emperor, to whom the Crown of Portugal now belonged, could not leave the new empire, and he resigned Por...