A regency of three was elected to rule until the five-year-old Dom Pedro II reached the age of majority and the ability to rule in his own right. One of the regents chosen was Luís Alves' father. The regency had little effective authority, resulting in nine years of chaos, during which the country was plagued by rebellions and coup attempts initiated by unruly political factions. The army, "demoralized by the far from exemplary part it had played in the April Revolution Pedro I's abdication," said historian C. H. Haring, "became the ready tool of any popular agitator or demagogue, and often the source of riot and sedition." The government severely reduced the size of the standing army and effectively replaced it with the newly created National Guard, a militia force. In July 1831, without troops to command, Luís Alves and other officers joined the Volunteer Soldier-Officers Battalion as soldiers. As second in command of that unit, he put down a mutiny of navy artillerymen in the Ilha das Cobras (Island of the Snakes) on 7 October. A year later, on 18 October 1832, he was appointed commander of the Permanent Municipal Guard Corps, a police force in the city of Rio de Janeiro.