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a few generals of little note, and own crown. He could at all some noblemen of extensive pro- times, moreover, be lavish of reperty. The deserters uniformly grets, and assurances, and protook refuge in Spain, carrying mises; and he might hope that with them their arms and ammu- the mask might thus be safely nition; at different points within worn, till the triumph of the Porthe Spanish frontier, were esta- tuguese rebels should have enabled blished regular dépôts, where they him to throw it off, and come forth might be concentrated and organ- as the acknowledged champion of ized, under the rebel commanders. the true public opinion of PortuThese were the bands whom Spain gal. determined to employ in invading Portugal; they were a species of force, which, if sufficiently strong in numbers, would be doubly efficient for her purpose by the example which they set, and the disaffection which their appear ance in arms in the kingdom could not fail to excite among their friends and dependents; she flattered herself with being able to conceal, or to explain away, the aid which she might afford them; and that she thus might conquer Portugal without incurring the odium of attacking an unoffending ally, or exposing herself to certain destruction by attacking her single-handed. If the captainsgeneral of the frontier provinces allowed the refugees to assemble in arms, or provided them with arms, for the attack of Portu gal, Ferdinand could pretend that it was done on their own respon sibility, and contrary to his wishes; if money was conveyed to them, he could represent it as being no aid from the public treasury, but the pious collections and offerings of the holy servants of the altar; if they took solemn oaths, amid pompous ceremonies, on the Spanish territory, to maintain the title of Don Miguel to the throne, and the claims of the queen-mother to the regency, he could answer, that the Portuguese best knew the rules of succession to their

A system of policy like this required much wiser and cooler heads than were to be found in the cabinet of Ferdinand, and a ministry much more faithless, and capable of being hood-winked, than that which conducted the policy of England; and, unfortunately for the whole scheme, while it threatened, as its issue, to bring down upon Spain the whole vengeance of England, it necessarily set out from acts which would have justified an immediate declaration of war on the part of Portugal. Its very foundation was a refusal to recognize the existing government of Portugal, as a regular and legitimate government, or to acknowledge the title of the young queen, or the title of the regency appointed by Don Pedro to exercise the powers c sovereignty. To persist in this refusal was a measure which could neither be concealed nor explained; it was treating the Portuguese government as an illegal usurpation, and, if Portugal had been quarrelsome, would very speedily have led to open hostilities. If Spain, again, acknowledged the government, she acknowledged its right to insist upon the faithful execution of existing treaties between the two countries; but to execute these treaties was to coun-< teract all the machinations which Spain was devising. By these

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treaties, Spain was bound at least to disarm all deserters, to send them into the interior, to preserve the peace of the frontiers, and deliver up their arms to Portugal from whom they had been stolen. But if the legality of the Portuguese government were recognized, a refusal on the part of Spain to fulfil these conditions would be equivalent to a declaration of war. She might pretend not to see the positive assistance rendered to the rebels by her authorities; but she could not refuse, at least, to order their dispersion, and the restoring of their arms: for the execution of these orders she was responsible; if she was too feeble to command obedience from her own servants, it was full time that other powers should take the authority into their own hands. If such orders were obeyed, her poliey was at an end; if they were not obeyed, peace was at an end, for their non-fulfilment was an infraction of solemn treaties. She wished equally to avoid war, and to save her policy against Portugal; but, as she managed them, these objects were incompatible, and she ended with adding to the disgrace of disappointed cunning, the humiliation of unsuccessful war. In fact, Ferdinand seems never to have suspected, till the truth burst upon him at the same moment that it overwhelmed him, that Britain would take the decisive part which she soon adopted; that she would do any thing more than remonstrate, or, at the worst, threaten, or would require any thicker veil to be thrown over his policy than would just enable her to say with decency, that she had been mistaken in its character.

The military operations carried on by the bands of rebels whom

Spain thus received, encouraged, armed, organized, and sent back to the invasion of Portugal-accompanied on some occasions by bodies of Spanish troops-belong more properly to the history of the latter country: at present we have only to trace the progress of the policy which Spain had thus adopted. The complaints of Por tugal on the refusal to recognize her government, and to execute existing treaties by disarming and dispersing the rebel refugees, were unceasing and unanswerable. M. Gomez, the ambassador of Portugal at Madrid, having declared himself against the constitution, and declined taking the oath required by the charter, there was no accredited minister of that power to urge her remonstrances, till the arrival of his successor, count Villa Real, in the month of September. All the pressing applications of that minister, joined to those of the ambassador of England, were unable to procure an acknowledgment of the new government; and a change which had taken place in the cabinet seemed to hold out more unfavourable prospects than ever. The council of the king had not been unanimous in approving of the course on which Spain had entered; some of the members had been in favour of a more plausible neutrality by disarming the rebels in terms of the treaties, and allowing events to take their own course: they could not see the prudence of giving Portugal a motive and a justification for adopting dangerous measures in her turn, and embodying on the frontiers the multitudes of Spanish refugees whom the proscriptions of the last three years had forced into exile ; and still less could they discern the policy of strengthening the Portu

guese constitution by compelling England to interfere in its defence. The ultra-royalists, with Calo marde, the minister of justice, at their head, undervalued the danger, and silenced every whisper of prudence by pourtraying the horrible consequences of liberal institutions to the Crown and religion of Spain. The duke del' Infantado would seem to have been inclined to the more moderate and the safer course, but found himself unable to resist the united influence of the personal inclinations of the king, and the secret influence of the Apostolics, to whose burning zeal, moderation seemed treachery and indifference. He resigned the ministry of Foreign Affairs in the month of August, and was succeeded in his office by don Manuel Gonzalez Salmon.

The Portuguese ambassador directed his applications more particularly to obtain the disarming and dispersing of the rebels, whose numbers had now increased to an alarming extent, in all the frontier provinces, but especially in Gallicia, Valladolid, and Estremadura. The captains-general of these provinces not only opposed no obstacle to their proceedings, but treated them as if both parties had been allies armed in the same cause; supplied them with military stores, and refused nothing that could complete their military organization. The determinations of the Spanish cabinet were more fixed than ever, because some recent events seemed to realize all its apprehensions of destruction from the vicinity of so dangerous a neighbour as a free constitution. The promulgation. of the Portuguese charter had excited much interest at Madrid, though every expression of satisfaction was prevented by the police; and desertion, still more alarming

than those from Portugal, now took place among the troops of Spain. These desertions occurred principally in Gallicia and Estremadura, but were more formidable from the disposition which led to them, than from their extent. It may be well doubted whether they proceeded, in point of fact, from any thing connected with politics. The men no doubt belonged to those troops of the line who had formerly set up the constitution; they were said to have arranged their desertions upon a regular plan, and to have announced to the governors of the Portuguese provinces in which they took refuge, their purpose of aiding Portugal to bring the Spanish government to the adoption of a system of greater moderation; but these latter circumstances were of very doubtful truth; only two officers had joined in the desertion, and no name was even mentioned of sufficient weight to head a plot. The Apostolics, to whom even a public suspicion of political discontent existing in the army was an object of alarm, ascribed the deser tions to the jealousy excited in the army at large by the gay trappings and regular payment of the Royalguards. Probably both reasons operated: an ill-paid, ill-clothed, and ill-fed, soldiery, might expect better treatment in the ranks of their neighbours, and in the politi cal quarrel between Portugal and Spain, they would not doubt but that their services would be thankfully received. But, whatever might be the cause of the desertion, Portugal kept faith most honourably with Spain, and, on her part, at least, honestly fulfilled the obligations in which she was bound by treaty. Spain had been doing every thing to provoke her,

and had allowed her refugees, during nearly two months, to assemble under her protection for purposes of invasion; and Portugal would have been perfectly justified in the eyes of all Europe, if she had embodied these deserters, and sent them into Spain, to teach Ferdinand what he had been doing against Portugal. But Portugal, under the restraining advice of Britain, took a nobler course. The moment the regency was informed of the desertions, it disarmed them, and sent them into the interior. The decree of the Spanish government disbanding the regiments to which they had belonged, and holding out to them a conditional pardon if they returned to their duty, was published in the Lisbon Gazette; while the Spanish government refused to allow a similar proclamation of the princess regent to be printed either in the Madrid Gazette, or in the provincial newspapers, lest it should entice stragglers from the rebel standard. The incendiary pro clamations, which were profusely circulated within the Portuguese frontier, and reached even to Lisbon, were openly printed, with out any impediment, in Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo. The Portuguese governor of Elvas com plained of the abuse to the commandant of Badajoz, and threat ened to retaliate, if it was not put an end to. In such a war of retaliation Spain was sure to be a loser; and yet she seemed determined to provoke it, for no one officer or public authority was censured for whatever he might do or permit in favour of the rebels, and against the constitution. The Spanish people were amused, and the Spanish government pretended to be alarmed, by tales of exiled VOL. LXVIII.

Revolutionists, and Liberals from almost every state in Europe, being about to enter the field against Spain, with the countenance and protection of England. There was no truth in these inventions; but, if she dreaded such a danger-and well might she dread it it was madness to persist in a line of conduct which, if it did not render it inevitable, gave Portugal, beyond all doubt, a full right to produce it. Spain could have had no reason to complain, if Mina had entered her territory at the head of his brother exiles from the frontiers of Portugal, so long as Chaves and Montealegre were invading Portugal from Gallicia and Salamanca.

In the mean time viscount Cavellas, himself a refugee, and one of the prime leaders in all the plots of the rebels, had taken up his abode for a time in Madrid, where he resided in full communication with the ministry, supporting the interests and arranging the plans ofhisparty. The presence of a declared rebel to his native sovereign was at best a gratuitous insult to Portugal; and her minister demanded that he should be ordered to leave Madrid. M. Salmon did not hesitate to give assurances that Cavellas would be ordered to leave Madrid, within three days, and Spain within a month; but M. Salmon had not the most distant intention that his assurances should be fulfilled, or if he had, there were stronger influences which counteracted his. At the same time, in the begin ning of October, Portugal was invaded by the rebels almost simultaneously in the provinces of Tras os Montes and Algarves; the Spanish minister having promised, on the 3rd of October, that measures would be taken to prevent any further

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disturbances from the armed re- the oath to the new constitution, fugees. Their success was brief; and been solemnly betrothed to the they were speedily driven back young queen, in obedience to the across the frontier; but while they will of his brother. This last agremained in possession of some gression, too, against Portugal, had small towns, they were publicly so completely unveiled the designs congratulated by the Spanish au- of Spain, and the active, share thorities of the neighbourhood, which she had borne in hostilities, without any expression of disap- which but for her assistance could probation on the part of the govern- never have been committed, that ment. This new outrage almost forbearance could no longer be exexceeded the bounds of forbear- pected from Portugal, or her allies. ance; and especially as the rebels, "Is it consistent," said count Villa after being repulsed into Spain, Real, in a note to M. Salmon in were received with the same en- the end of October, "is it consistent couragement as before, supplied with the interests of the Peninsula, with the munitions of war, and and of Europe, that Portugal should again prepared for a similar en- be kept in alarm on account of terprise. The government could what may befal her from without? no longer pretend ignorance of that the attention of its governarmies being formed within its ment should be withdrawn from territory, and formed for purposes the objects of its internal adminis of invasion; it could not but see tration; and that it should be imthat these armies had been formed, peded in its progress by the enand these invasions made, under couragement which the passions, the eyes, and with the connivance, inseparable from changes such as of its own authorities, who had the this country has recently underpower, and ought to have had gone, will naturally find in the atorders, to prevent them: yet not titude of Spain? If Portugal has only did it adhere to the same hitherto been able to abstain from policy, which obstinacy might ac- taking measures which the duty of count for, but, by repeating its her preservation would appear to assurances that all this had been dictate to her, she has done so only done without its knowledge, and in the confidence which she has contrary to its orders, seemed placed in the support of her allies. actually to imagine, that, while In thus proving her moderation, adhering to that policy, it could Portugal has acquired the right of still by possibility be believed. The addressing herself to them, without pretext, under which Spain now re- fearing that her appeal will be fused to recognize the Portuguese made in vain." regency, was her want of information as to the sentiments of Austria and France upon the subject. Of the inclinations of both these powers it was mere trifling to doubt for a moment. Both of them had accredited ministers at Lisbon; and at Vienna, the Infant don Miguel, whom rebels and Spain had set up as entitled to the crown, had taken

To these and similar remonstrances, Spain replied by palpable evasions and lying assurances, If she intended with good faith to prevent violence against the frontiers, for what reason could she refuse to recognize its government? So long as it was known that she regarded itas anusurpation, it was impossible to hope that her own functionaries

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