It seems impossible to ascertain any fact accurately about Brazil
and its insurrection. The accounts of Admiral de Mello's progress are utterly conflicting, though it would seem clear that Marshal Peixoto is fortifying Rio, and that the foreign commanders have therefore permitted a bombardment ; and as to the insurgents' ultimate object, one side or the other must be guilty of the hardest lying. According to one account, the Admiral has proclaimed Dom Pedro de Aleantara, eldest grandson of the Emperor Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, and this Prince, with a suite of twenty-four personages, has started for Rio. According to the other, the Admiral has made no proclamation, and will make none until he can take a plebiscite ; and Dom Pedro, who is only eighteen, is still pursuing his studies at Vienna. This group of reporters farther intimate that the Admiral is only accused of Monarchism, in order to excite feeling in the United States in favour of Marshal Peixoto and the Republican Party in his country. We shall hear the truth, we presume, before long ; but, meanwhile, it is cer- tain that Republicanism in Rio means nothing but military rule, and that military rule is destroying the prosperity of Brazil.
