This was the last attempt for more than forty years to establish a federal system. The necessities of the stormy period from 1827 to 1848 had led, step by step, to a form of government which was centralised and yet not absolute. The imperial system had been the result of a natural growth. When the fabric reached stability the professional ruling classes feared to disturb it, and the people were too inert and indifferent to afford support to agitators and reformers. [Illustration: PRINCESS ISABEL IN 1889.] Agriculture, commerce, and industry advanced only slowly during the first eight years of Pedro's rule. The country was getting ready for the activity which followed. Great Britain's efforts to induce the Brazilian government to carry out its treaty obligations for the suppression of the slave-trade had been futile. In 1845 the British Parliament passed the Aberdeen Bill, which authorised British men-of-war to capture slavers even in territorial waters. This measure was especially directed at Brazil, whose coast had become practically the sole market for the horrible traffic. The bill did not immediately effect its purpose, and the slavers made the most of the opportunity. In 1848 over sixty thousand negroes were imported into Brazil. Immigration from Europe had practically ceased with the expulsion of Pedro I. and the anti-foreign demonstrations of the Regency, but it now slowly began again. In 1843 Dom Pedro, being then not quite eighteen years old, was married by proxy to Theresina Christina, daughter of Francis, King of Naples. There is a tradition that the Emperor turned his back when he saw his bride's face. Nevertheless, he made her a good husband. Their two boys died in infancy, but in 1846 Isabel was born, who still survives and lives in Paris with her husband, a grandson of Louis Philippe, and with her three sons, the eldest of whom is named for his grandfather and was twenty-seven years old in 1902. CHAPTER XVIII EVENTS OF 1849 TO 1864 After the final pacification of the country prosperity came with a rush. In the six years from 1849 to 1856 foreign commerce more than doubled. The circulating medium was brought to a sound basis. Coffee had doubled in value by 1850, and its culture was rapidly extended. The profits of sugar-raising had not risen in the same proportion, and Rio, Sao Paulo, and Minas drew slaves from the northern provinces. The decline of mining in the late years of the eighteenth century and the profitableness of sugar and tobacco during the great wars had made Maranhao, Pernambuco, and Bahia overshadow the South for a time, but now the tide turned the other way. Brazil's drift has ever since been to the South.