[Note 106: The crown is of a purple velvet, enriched with diamonds. There was some mistake or misunderstanding about the fact of wearing the crown at the opening of the assembly. As the crown is only a ceremonial badge of dignity, it should have been worn during the ceremony; but owing to the mistake alluded to, it was not.] The Emperor having deposited the crown and sceptre with the proper officer, and received the oaths of several of the deputies, spoke as follows; and it was remarked, that so far from the speech having the air of a thing read from a paper or studied, that it was spoken as freely as if it was the spontaneous effusion of the moment, and excited a feeling as free in his favour. "This is the greatest day that Brazil has ever seen; a day on which, for the first time, it may show that it is an empire, and a free empire. How great is my delight, to behold real representatives from almost every one of its provinces, consulting together on its true interests, and on these founding a just and liberal constitution to govern them! We ought long since to have enjoyed a national representation. But either the nation did not in time perceive its real interests, or, perceiving them, was unable to declare them, on account of the forces and ascendancy of the Portuguese party; which, perceiving clearly to what a degree of weakness, littleness, and poverty, Portugal was reduced, and to how low a state it had fallen, would never consent (notwithstanding their proclamation of liberty, fearing a separation,) that the people of Brazil should enjoy a representation equal to what they themselves then possessed. They had miscalculated their plans for conquest, and from that miscalculation arises our good fortune. "Brazil, which for upwards of three hundred years had borne the degrading name of a colony, and had suffered all the evils arising from the destructive system then pursued, exulted with pleasure when my Lord Don John VI., King of Portugal and Algarve, my august father, raised it to the dignity of a kingdom, by his decree of the 16th of December, 1815; but Portugal burned with rage, and trembled with fear. The delight which the inhabitants of this vast continent displayed on the occasion was unbounded; but the politic measure was not followed up, as it ought to have been, by another, that is, by the convocation of an assembly to organise the new kingdom. "Brazil, always frank in her mode of proceeding, and mortified at having borne the yoke of iron so long, both before and after that measure echoed the cry for the constitution of Portugal, immediately on the proclamation of liberty in Portugal; expecting that after this proof of confidence given to her pseudo brethren, they would assist her to deliver herself from the vipers that were consuming her entrails, and little thinking she should be deceived.