A new quarrel also arose in the Brazils. Lord Wellington had been created conde de Vimiero, Beresford conde de Trancoso, Silveira conde d’Amurante; and other minor rewards, of a like nature, had been conferred on subordinate officers. These honours had however been delayed in a marked manner, and lord Strangford, who appears to have been ruled entirely by the Souza faction, and was therefore opposed to Forjas, charged, or as he termed it, reported a charge, made against the latter, at the Brazils, for having culpably delayed the official return of the officers who were thus to be rewarded. Against this accusation, which had no foundation in fact, seeing that the report had been made, and that Forjas was not the person to whose department it belonged, lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart protested, because of the injustice; and because it was made in pursuance of a design to remove Forjas from the government. The English general was however thus placed in a strange position, for while his letters to Forjas were menacing rebukes to him, and his coadjutors, for their neglect of public affairs; and while his formal complaints of the conduct of the regency were transmitted to the Brazils, he was also obliged to send other letters in support of the very persons whom he was justly rebuking for misconduct. In the midst of these embarrassments, an accidental event was like to have brought the question of the British remaining in Portugal to a very sudden decision. While Massena was before the lines, one d’Amblemont had appeared in North America, and given to Onis, the Spanish minister, a plan for burning the British fleet in the Tagus, which he pretended to have received orders from the French government to execute. This plan being transmitted to the Brazils, many persons named by d’Amblemont as implicated were, in consequence arrested at Lisbon and sent to Rio Janeiro, although Mr. Stuart had ascertained the whole affair to be a forgery. The attention paid to this man by Onis and by the court of Rio Janeiro, induced him to make farther trial of their credulity, and he then brought forward a correspondence between the principal authorities of Mexico and the French government; he even produced letters from the French ministers, directing intrigues to be commenced at Lisbon, and the French interest there to be placed in the hands of the Portuguese intendant of police.