No. 40.
Mr. Partridge to Mr. Fish.
Bio de Janeiro, August 31, 1876. (Received October 2.)
Sir: In the complete absence of any occurrence here of anything having any political bearing, the journals are occupied again with the still recurring religious question, and the fear that this ministry may yield to reported demands of the Roman Curia in that matter.
The ultramontane party has been very quiet, and awaits the result of [Page 47] the negotiations now said to be prepared and brought with him by Monsignor Roncetti, the new Papal internuncio, who has not yet been formally received by the regent.
The anti-ecclesiastical party, on the contrary, has been very active and even noisy. Inflammatory articles have appeared, and still appear, denouncing especially the minister of the interior, who is in these articles declared to be at variance with his colleagues. The Duke de Caxias, minister of war and president of the council, is appealed to not to surrender the sovereignty of Brazil, and the action of some of the South American republics, which have refused to submit to the exactions of Rome, is held up as an example for this empire. The Duke de Caxias is, or has been, a member of the Masonic fraternity, against which the move of the ultramontane party is now directed.
There are so many elements of discontent just now, in the depressed condition of trade, in the yearly deficits in receipts in the imperial treasury, as well as in each of the provinces, and in the wide-spread want, of confidence in financial matters, that this ministry must exercise the greatest caution and forbearance in regard to many measures which it is said they expect to lay before the new Chambers.
I have, &c.,