The Great Events by Famous Historians

Meanwhile, what had become of the naval cooperation, on which so much reliance had been placed? It had failed, through the tragic weakness of one man. Candido dos Reis is one of the canonized saints of the Republic; but I think it shows a good deal of generosity in the Portuguese character that the Devil's Advocate has not made himself heard in the case. Dos Reis had undertaken the command of the naval side of the revolt; but oddly enough, he seems to have arranged no method of conveyance to his post of duty. He found at the wharf a small steamer, the captain of which agreed to take him off to the ships; but there was some delay in getting up steam. During this pause, some one as yet unidentified, but evidently a friend of Dos Reis, rushed down to the wharf and shouted to him that the revolt was crushed and all was lost. Dos Reis, who had assumed his naval uniform on board the steamer, took it off again, and, in civilian attire, went ashore. He proceeded to his sister's house, where he spent an hour; then he sallied forth again, and was found next morning in a distant quarter of the city with a bullet through his brain.

There is no doubt that he committed suicide. The theory of foul play is quite abandoned. As it was he who had vetoed the proposed postponement of the rising, one can understand that the sense of responsibility lay heavy upon him; but that, without inquiry into the alleged disaster, without the smallest attempt to retrieve it, he should have left his comrades in the lurch and taken the easiest way of escape, is surely a proof of almost criminal instability. The Republic lost in him an ardent patriot, but scarcely a great leader.

The dawn of Tuesday, October 4th, showed the fortunes of the revolt at rather a low ebb. The land forces were dismayed by the inaction of the ships; the sailors imagined, from the non-appearance of their leader, that some disaster must have occurred on land. It was in these hours of despondency that the true heroes of the revolution showed their mettle.

In the bivouac at the Rotunda, as the morning wore on, the Republican officers declared that the game was up, and that there was nothing for it but to disperse and await the consequences. They themselves actually made off; and it was then that Machado dos Santos came to the front, taking command of the insurgent force and reviving their drooping spirits. The position was not really a strong one. For one thing, it is commanded by the heights of the Misericordia; and there was, in fact, some long-range firing between the insurgents and the Guardia Municipal stationed on that eminence. Again, the gentle slope of the Avenida, a hundred yards wide, is clothed by no fewer than ten rows of low trees, acacias, and the like, five rows on each side of the comparatively narrow roadway, which is blocked at the lower end by a massive monument to the liberators of 1640. Thus the insurgents could not see their adversaries even when they ventured out of their sheltered position in the Rocio; and the artillery fire from the Rotunda did much more damage to the hotels that flanked the narrow neck of the Avenida than to the Royalist forces. On the other hand, it would have been comparatively easy for the Royalists, with a little resolution, to have crept up the Avenida under cover of the trees, and driven the insurgents from their position. Fortunately for the revolt, there was a total lack of leadership on the Royalist side, excusable only on the ground that the officers could not rely on their men.