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By Root 2007 0

de Canabrava would be disembarking on Bahian shores, where not only the Autonomists but the entire populace would accord him the triumphal reception that he deserved and that this would be the best possible way of making amends for the lies of those who were attempting to associate his name and that of his Party and that of the authorities of Bahia with the deplorable events to which the banditry and moral degeneration of Canudos had given rise. Whereupon the Honorable Deputies of the majority, having risen to their feet, acclaimed and applauded the name of their President, the Baron de Canabrava, while the Honorable Deputies of the Progressivist Republican Party remained seated and shook their chairs as a sign of their disapproval.

The session was temporarily adjourned to permit the Honorable Deputies to partake of refreshments and to allow tempers to cool down. But during this brief pause in their deliberations, heated discussions and vehement verbal exchanges were heard in the corridors of the Assembly, and the Honorable Deputies Dom Floriano Mártir and Dom Rocha Seabra had to be separated by their respective friends inasmuch as they were on the point of resorting to fisticuffs.

When the session resumed, the Honorable President of the Assembly, His Excellency Sir Adalberto de Gumúcio, proposed that, in view of the lengthy agenda before them that evening, the Assembly proceed to discuss the new budgetary funds requested by the Ministry of the Interior for the laying of new railway lines to open up the remote inland regions of the State. This proposal aroused the ire of the Honorable Deputies of the Progressivist Republican Party, who, rising to their feet with cries of “Treason!”

“Underhanded maneuver!” demanded a resumption of the debate concerning the most crucial problem confronting Bahia and hence the entire nation. The Honorable Deputy Dom Epaminondas Gonçalves warned that if the majority tried to sidestep debate concerning the Restorationist rebellion of Canudos and the intervention of the British Crown in Brazilian affairs, he and his fellow members of the opposition would walk out of the Assembly, for they would not tolerate this attempt by the majority to dupe the people by resorting to such farcical maneuvering. The Honorable Deputy Dom Eliseu de Roque declared that the efforts of the Honorable President of the Assembly to prevent debate amounted to a palpable demonstration of what an embarrassment it was to the Autonomist Party to be obliged to discuss the subject of the English agent Gall and the English arms, which was not surprising, since the nostalgic monarchical leanings and the Anglophilic sympathies of the Baron de Canabrava were common knowledge.

The Honorable President of the Assembly, His Excellency Sir Adalberto de Gumúcio, declared that the Honorable Deputies of the opposition would not succeed in intimidating anyone by resorting to such blackmail and that the Bahia Autonomist Party was precisely the one most interested, out of patriotism, in putting down the fanatical Sebastianists of Canudos and in restoring peace and order in the backlands. Moreover, he added, far from avoiding a discussion, they were eager to engage in one.

The Honorable Deputy Dom João Seixas de Pondé declared that only those who lacked a sense of the ridiculous could continue to speak of the supposed English agent Galileo Gall, whose charred corpse had purportedly been found in Ipupiará by the Bahia Rural Guard, a militia that according to vox populi, he would like to add, was recruited, financed, and controlled by the Party of the opposition, words that gave rise to furious protests from the Honorable Deputies of the Progressivist Republican Party. The Honorable Deputy Dom João Seixas de Pondé offered the additional information that the British Consulate in Bahia had attested to the fact that, having come by knowledge that the individual who calls himself Gall had a bad record, it had so notified the authorities of the State two months ago in order that they might act accordingly, and that the Police Commissioner of