The Brazilian Imperial navy consists of one ship of the line, which wasn’t able to depart towards the sea, 3 frigates, 5 corvettes and 6 brigs, included the barques, cutters and small vessels, was the total strength 76 ships and vessels. Total personal strength was 3860 sailors with a staff of 300 and more officers. Dealing with the number of officers, there to much considered that hardly a quarter of the ships on the Admiralty lists mentioned, were fitted out or could be manned. When it was necessary to sent a squadron for the future Empress of Naples, the Admiralty experienced extreme difficulties to fit out just 1 frigate and 1 corvette to bring the empress to the Brazilian capital city. The arsenals were empty, there were no natives available as labourers, so that she has to wait for a long time if independent on the Brazilian sources. The natives were as bad sailors as soldiers, so it wasn’t possible to maintain a navy without Portuguese sailors. The budget of the Navy was fl. 3.600.000. One frigate, of which the building begun in 1834, was still on stocks at Paramaribo. Her timbers so long exposed to the sun torn in all directions, and is she was ever to be launched, the only thing to do was to replace everything. There is much said dealing with the improvement and repairs of the sea ports, but little done. The same dealing with the lighthouses. The money which was available, was used for other purposes, leaving seaports and lighthouses in a declining condition. There was a commission appointed to investigate all the problems and to write a report for the needed improvements of the ports, military discipline and management of the navy. However the writer of the original article, published in January 1846 in the United Service Journal, didn’t expect anything from this commission. He suspected that the members within a short time were spending their salaries in Rio as ‘sinecuristen’, caused by the national problem: listlessness!
The Dutch translator of this articles some remarks of his own. In his opinion the article was slightly overdone. The Brazilian government was seriously with solving the naval problems. Important statesman and expert officers visited for instance the Netherlands and to use newly knowledge in their country. One of the agreed that their navy was lacking good attention. He gave an example that a frigate was built of heavy wood, mahogany?, based on designs made by Sane for a French frigate, without considering the differences in weight between oak and the used wood. The frigate was a complete disaster.
Source
Jhr. G.A. Tindal and Jacob Swart. Verhandelingen en Berigten betrekkelijk het Zeewezen en de Zeevaartkunde. Amsterdam, 1846, vol 6, 2nd part, p. 571-572. Digitized by Google
