On 27 November, the Prince Regent, the Queen and the entire royal family, accompanied by much of the nobility as well as their servants, boarded fifteen Portuguese ships gathered in the Tagus with an escort of several English ships, as planned the year before when the British ambassador advised the prince that the Portuguese Crown should be transferred to Brazil. Approximately 10,000 people, including the entire governmental administration and the judiciary, joined the royal family as they moved to Brazil, a possession of Portugal, and established the capital of the Portuguese Empire in Rio de Janeiro.