In 1841 he confided the ministry to the Marquis de Paranagua, who exiled the revolutionaries, reinforced the political unity of the country, and re-established the Council of State. New ministries continued the conservative reaction. Without freeing the slaves, Brazil prohibited the traffic in this black merchandise, at the suggestion of England. The Empire, faithful to its traditions, intervened in the affairs of La Plata. The Viscount de Itaborahy, once the external conflict was at an end, presided over an administrative ministry. Immigrants were attracted, and founded German colonies in the south; the navigation of the interior was protected, and the higher regions of the Sertaõ were conquered. A new commercial code, an administrative organisation, agrarian laws, and the reform of the treasury: such were the various forms of the Imperial activity. Itaborahy was followed by an authoritative minister, the Marquis de Parana, a political figure of lasting national significance. A great administrator, he organised public education, and extended the railways and the navigation {187} of the rivers of the interior. He was assisted in his labours by distinguished statesmen: a jurist, Nabuco de Araujo, and a diplomatist, Baron de Rio Branco. His activities were not merely administrative, but political and social as well. He wished to reconcile the parties; he absorbed the liberal element in the conservative group, and by this fusion of the old parties prepared the way for the appearance of new groups, dominated by a definite intention of liberation or conservation. The reactionary cabinets and the philosopher-Emperor had founded order in the place of revolutionary dispersion. But this order, the victory of narrow traditionalism, could not be lasting. Multiple racial elements--Portuguese, Indian, and African--were seething in the new society; democracy would prove to be the protest of redeemed slaves against a powerful oligarchy. The Marquis de Parana, who, having attracted the liberals, transformed his own conservative group, and consolidated order by reuniting the factions, understood that reaction could not be permanent in an incoherent democracy. He was the last of the conservatives and the first of the liberals.