The Congress of Central America declares absolute independence from Spain, Mexico and any other foreign nation, including North America, and a republican system of government is established. July – Robert Peel ensures the passage of five Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, effectively abolishing the death penalty for over one hundred offences; in particular, the Judgement of Death Act allows judges to commute sentences for capital offences (other than murder or treason) to imprisonment or transportation. The Transportation Act of July 4 allows convicts transported to the colonies to be employed on public works. July 10 – The Gaols Act is passed by Parliament of the United Kingdom, based on the prison reform campaign of Elizabeth Fry. July 15 – The Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome is almost completely destroyed by fire. August 1 – William Pitt Amherst arrives in Calcutta with Lady Amherst, to become the new Governor-General of India. August 4 – Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, the Mexican government administrator in charge of Anglo-American immigration into Mexico's state of Coahuila y Tejas, allows Stephen F. Austin to put together an 11-man police force, that will later be expanded to become the Texas Ranger Division. August 5 – The Royal Hibernian Academy is founded in Dublin. August 16 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia draws up a secret "manifesto", designating his second younger brother Nikolai to succeed him, bypassing Nikolai's older brother, Grand Duke Konstantin. The existence of the manifesto is revealed on Alexander's death in 1825. August 18 – Demerara rebellion of 1823: In British Guiana (South America), an insurrection of 10,000 black slaves begins; it is suppressed after three days, but hundreds of suspects are executed in the reprisals that follow. August 20 – Pope Pius VII dies after a reign of more than 23 years that began on March 14, 1800; he is remembered for crowning Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France. August 24 – Hugh Glass gets mauled by a sow grizzly while on a fur trapping expedition in the Missouri Territory. August 31 – Battle of Trocadero: French infantry of the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis" capture the fort of Trocadero and turn its guns on Cádiz. September 10 – Simón Bolívar is named President of Peru. September 22 – Joseph Smith first goes to the place near Manchester, New York, where the golden plates are