A Viceroy was therefore sent out, with the strongest injunctions to close the Brazilian ports against all foreign powers, in order to preserve to Portugal the exclusive trade in the diamonds and other precious stones with which it was now found that the country abounded. For a long time, this beautiful land, rich in all the gifts of nature, languished under the rule of Portuguese Viceroys, with a thinly-scattered population, poor, oppressed, and destitute of all mental culture. At length, the year 1807 opened to it a brighter prospect. Napoleon's ambitious views extending even to Portugal, forced the Royal Family to take refuge in the colonies. They were followed by fourteen thousand soldiers, and about twelve thousand other adherents. The presence of a court and government in the capital, Rio Janeiro, had the most beneficial influence on all the interests of the country. The ports were opened to all European ships, and commerce, wealth, and civilization advanced rapidly. Napoleon's victories having found a final termination, in his banishment to St. Helena, the King of Portugal returned, in 1821, to his European dominions, leaving the Regency of Brazil to his son, the Crown Prince, Pedro, already married to an Austrian princess. But the example of the newly-established republics of America had a powerful effect on the minds of the people; the King's departure was a signal for the breaking out of revolutionary disturbances, which, though the Crown Prince could not appease, he was, nevertheless, by means of a strong party he had gained over, enabled to direct. In the year 1822, he declared Brazil independent of the mother-country,--promised the people a Constitution,--and was at last proclaimed Emperor, by the title of Pedro the First. From the day when the nation tendered its allegiance, the Emperor and all patriots have worn on the left arm a green cockade inscribed with the words, "Independence or Death." At the coronation, the order of the Southern Cross was founded, and the new national flag hoisted: it is green, with a yellow square in the middle, on which is represented the Earth, surrounded by thirteen stars (the number of the provinces), and leaves of coffee and tobacco, as the produce of the country.