By 1807 England was the only power which still defied Napoleon. Portugal had been Great Britain's ally for a century, but Napoleon found it necessary to have command of Lisbon and Porto in order to enforce his Berlin and Milan decrees. He peremptorily commanded Portugal to give up her English alliance. The pusillanimous John, who had been prince regent since the insanity of his mother in 1792, hesitated and shuffled, seeking to put off the emperor with negotiations and evasions and a show of hostility to England. A single despatch indicating his double dealing was enough for Napoleon, who promptly made an agreement with Spain for the division of Portugal and ordered Junot to march on Lisbon. The people were ready to make a desperate resistance, but their king was in two minds each day, and the army had been withdrawn from the frontier to bid the British fleet a hypocritical defiance. John shed tears over his unhappy country, but prepared to save his own person by a flight to Rio. Junot had passed the frontier and was advancing on Lisbon by forced marches. The Prince Regent and his Court huddled their movable property on board the men-of-war lying in the Tagus. Fifteen thousand persons, including most of the nobility, and fifty millions of property and treasure were embarked. Junot's advance guard arrived at the mouth of the river on the 27th of November, 1807, in time to see the fleet just outside and bearing south under British convoy. Six weeks later the exiles caught sight of the coast of Brazil, destined thereafter to be the principal seat of the Portuguese race. The Prince Regent disembarked at Bahia, where the people received him with enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty and tried desperately hard to induce him to make their city his capital. He adhered to the original plan, and on the 7th of March, 1808, arrived at Rio, where he was received with equal cordiality. No conditions were imposed on the helpless fugitives. The first acts of the prince regent proved that the removal would be of inestimable advantage to Brazil. He promulgated a decree opening the five great ports to the commerce of all friendly nations. The system of seclusion and monopolies fell to the ground at a single blow. Other decrees removed the prohibitions on manufacturing and on trades. Foreigners were allowed to come to Brazil either for travel or residence, and were guaranteed personal and property rights; a national bank was established; commercial corporations were given franchises; a printing-press was set up; military and naval schools and a medical college were founded. Foreigners were encouraged to immigrate and that improvement in art, industries, civilisation, and manners began which can only result from the daily contact of different types of humanity. For the first time Brazil was opened to scientific investigation, and scholars, engineers, and artists were imported to aid in making its resources known. The commercial nations lost no time in