Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

would treat its rights with much respect, or that its own rebellious subjects should not draw encourage ment from the fact that the work of insurrection was the work of Spain. But Spain, with an infatuation for which it would be difficult to account, were it necessary to account for any measure of a government in which brutal, uncalculating bigotry occupies the place of foresight, prudence, and honesty, was determined to persist in her career, till she should put it most thoroughly out of the power of any sensible man in Europe to say a single word in her behalf. Even now she might have retraced her steps without much humiliation; she would only have been the last to acknowledge a government, whose principles she thought dangerous to herself, and her hatred to o whose institutions she did not think it necessary to conceal; the inroads made upon Por tugal in October might have afforded her as favorable an opportunity as she could now expect, to come off without open disgrace, as if that unblushing and regular invasion had for the first time forced upon her the unwilling belief that her good-nature had been abused.She might still have yielded without appearing to yield to force; England had not yet laid her hand upon the sword; France had not yet treated her with contempt; Russia had not yet read to her a lecture of grave disapprobation; the semblance of good faith now would have covered all the faults and follies of the past. But Spain, besides being deprived of the exercise of sound reason, seemed to have lost every feeling of national pride and regard for national character, and to reckon it nothing that she failed in her object, unless she could contrive

[ocr errors]

to add to that failure as many circumstances as possible of contempt and disgrace. During the whole of November, amid her re-iterated assurances that nothing further needed to be dreaded from the refugees of Portugal, a new, and far more serious, invasion of that country was actually preparing. Tó the rebels themselves were now added Spanish lancers and guerillas; Spanish arms were distributed among the ranks, and sent across the frontier to be distributed among the peasantry; and a park of artillery was ready at Badajoz to accompany the division which was to enter the province of Alentejo. Longa and St. Juan, the captains general of Valladolid and Estremadura, who again and again had been pointed out to the government by name, as the deliberate and obstinate violators of neutrality, and who, probably for that very reason, had been studiously continued in their commands, allowed and encouraged all this bustle of preparation under their own eyes, where the lowest whisper of discontent could not have escaped the snares and spies of the police. On the 23rd of November the rebels entered Portugal, penetrated from the north across the Douro, as far as Viseu, threw Oporto into consternation, pillaged town and country, proclaimed Don Miguel king, established juntas of regency in his name, and, for six weeks, kept the fate of Portugal turning almost upon a point. The whole of this was the work of Spain; she seemed about to derive from her obstinacy and deceit the advantage of a momentary triumph; and, but for one cabinet, she might have been successful. So soon as the invasion was known, the Spanish minister at Lisbon was

I

[ocr errors]

3081 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1826. to it boog lundroze q bir sete suspended from his functions; at Madrid, 1, the Portuguese envoy instantly demanded his passports, and departed the British minister, hastened off the intelligence to England, and absented himself from court. England had patiently watched the progress of Spain, anxious not to interferet till the -conducts dof that power should justify interference to all the world. Her advice and authority had often restrained Portugal, when provocation might have led Portugal to measures of justifiable retaliation. bBut, if Portugal had thus done -violence to her sense of insult for daiswhile, in order that her ally night stand before Europe on immoveable ground, so much the more was that ally now bound to laet in her defence with promptitude and vigour. Within five days after the intelligence of the invasion reached London, in the be-ginning of December, the troops esof Britain were on their march fouthe assistance of her oldest friend, and, before the end of the -month, they were again landed on the scene of their earlier glories.

19.

:

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

3

[ocr errors]

difol

if

cross

01 and I st conduct were all, more or less, expressions of censure, but none of them presented any impediment to Ferdinand prosecuting his own schemes, in his own way, and with his own means; they gave him no aid, but they opposed to him no positive resistance. A British army, however, was an obstacle of a very different kind; Portugal was now beyond the reach of attack; the very rumour of the arrival of the British troops had struck dismay into the rebels, and blasted all their hopes; retreat and defeat followed fast upon each other, and within a few days they were swept, with their Spanish allies, from every corner of the kingsom seeking mercy in submission. n. Spain might arm the fugitives again i she dared, but they themselves would never choose again their the frontiers with arms in the hands. Like a recreant bully, Ferdinand found it necessary to disavow his pretensions, when he had most surely reckoned on making them good. He consented to receive a minister from the Portuguese regency, a virtual recognition of the government, on his own minister at Lisbon being reinstated in his diplomatic functions. General Longa, and the governor of Ciudad Rodrigo, who had again permitted a few miserable fugitives, from the last defeat of the rebels, to re-enter Portugal, probably because new instructions had not yet reached them, were suspended from their commands, and ordered to be tried by a military tribunal. Instead of all the points, at which it was known that the rebels were to leave Spain, being stripped of troops, the garrisons on the frontiers were increased, and supported, by an army of eight thousand men, along the

This energy and rapidity of decision came upon Spain like a thunder-bolt like her own Sancho, when the imperious physician of Barataria snatched the favourite viands from his lips, she stood staring in stupid amazement. On an actual war with Britain she had never counted: for any thing else she might have been prepared. The recal of the French ambassador who had encouraged her in her policy, in opposition to the sentiments of his government; the departure of the Swiss guards of France from Madrid which immediately followed; and the disapprobation which the autocrat of Russia now formally bestowed upon her

"

stant and proverbial good faith of the noble and elevated Spanish character." Not a word of all this was liable to any doubt; and every syllable of it had been pressed upon the Spanish government for months, with exemplary forbearance; but it was extremely doubtful how far these sentiments proceeded from sincere conviction, or would be acted on longer than the necessity continued. The ministers who had so misguided Spain still re

[ocr errors]

line of the Tagus, to guard the Spanish territory from violation by either party, and prevent the importation of the constitutional contagion measures, the honest adoption of which, two months sooner, would have saved Spain from all the contumely to which she was now exposed. The captains-general of the provinces, and the inspector of the royalist volunteers, were now informed by the minister of war, that "his Majesty has the most lively desire to maintained their places, and their influtain the relations of amity which unite him with his august allies, and insure their inviolability by means calculated to secure reciprocal confidence that of all these means, none is more indispensable than that of observing neutrality, by abstaining from interfering by any hostile acts or co-operation against Portugal, so as not to compromise himself either with that country or with its ally, England; country or with its that to suffer any hostile force to remain assembled in arms, on the Spanish territory, would be acting in a manner contrary to these principles, and, consequently, hazarding the dignity, and the con

2101

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

ence; except that M. Calomarde suffered a temporary disgrace, for having, by some piece of bad management, allowed a great number of the original orders, which had been sent to the captainsgeneral of the provinces on othe frontiers of Portugal, and memoranda of the rest of them, to fall into the hands of Mr. Lamb, the British ambassador, furnishing documentary evidence upon which, if need were, to pronounce a verdict of guilty against Spain, as having brought upon herself much humiliation by want of sense, want of prudence, and want of principle.

[ocr errors][ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[graphic]

PORTUGAL-Death of John VI. - Don Pedro's Resignation of the Throne in favour of his Daughter-Establishment of a Regency— New Constitution of Portugal-Promulgation of the Constitution State of Public Opinion Discontent of the Ultra-Royalists, and Desertions from the Army--Election of the Deputies to the Cortes Intrigues of Spain and the Marquis of Chaves Spain refuses to disarm the Deserters Conspiracy discovered in Lisbon-Decree against Emigrants-Demands of the Portuguese Envoy-Revolts in Algarves and Tras os Montes Meeting of the Cortes-Don Miguel btakes the Oath to the Constitution-Renewed Remonstrances of the Portuguese Envoy at Madrid -Preparations of the Rebels-They nyade Portugal Spanish Minister at Lisbon suspended-Assurances given by Spain-Progress of the Rebels in Tras os Montes Revolt fin Lamego Insurrection in Beira Progress of the Rebels under Magessi in the Alentejo-Magessi is into Spain-He driven back re-enters Portugal in the Province of Beira-Revolt in Almeida Military Movements of the Rebel Commanders and of the Constitutional Troops-Arrival of British Troops defeated at Coruches-They retreat into Spain.

[ocr errors]

OHN VI. king of Portugal, and titular emperor of Brazil, died at Lisbon on the 10th of March, 1826, at the age of fifty nine, after a reign of thirty-four years. During twenty-five of these years, from 1792, he had exercised the sovereign power as regent for his mother, who labour ed under mental alienation. He succeeded her upon her death in 1817, and was crowned at Rio Janeiro, to which he had retired with the court on the invasion of Portugal by Napoleon, His character was marked neither by eminent virtues, nor debasing vices; and, though he had passed, during his reign, through many vicissitudes of fortune, he did not display in them any sagacity of design, or much steadiness of purpose. To leave Portugal when Napoleon

+

1

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

had declared that the House of Braganza had ceased to reign, and to prefer ruling over an inde pendent empire in America, to wearing the crown of a vassal in Europe, was a singular step, and, perhaps, a wise one; but it was the result of foreign policy and urgency, not of his own voluntary deliberation. While he held his court at Rio Janeiro, and, in Portugal, after his return to Europe, he still was guided in b his course by the circumstances which sprung up around him, seldom attempting, and still more seldom attempting successfully, to foresee, to direct, or to control them. The revolution of 1822 carried him before it, until it sunk beneath th weight of its own vices and absurdities, and left him, for the remainder of his reign, the old,

[ocr errors]

the

[graphic]

good time, the independence of queen dowager, and the emperor's

Brazil, he preserved that empire
to his family while Ferdinand of
Spain, blinded by bigotry and pre-garded
judice, and guided by a faction as
unthinking as himself, not only
lost his dominions in the new
new
world, but lost them amid loud
bravadoes and empty threats, which
rendered his weakness as con-
temptible as his
his obstinacy had
been ridiculous.

A vessel was immediately despatched to Rio Janeiro with the intelligence of the king's decease, and, in the mean time, the government was administered

regency, appointed by the late king on the 6th of March, a few days before his death, at the head of which was the sister of the new monarch, the princess Isabella Maria. There was only one circumstance which could make the death of John VI. an occasion for political intrigue. If Don Pedro accepted the throne of Portugal, it was imperative upon him to lay down the crown of Brazil; for the constitution of Brazil, to guard against the misgovernment which had afflicted it when a colony, had provided, in securing its independence, that the two crowns should never be united on the same head. It remained, therefore, to be seen, whether Don Pedro would choose to be emperor of Brazil, or king of Portugal. But at home there was a strong party which had opposed to the last the recognition of Brazilian independence by the late

younger brother Don Miguel, both of whom had shewn, in the preceding year, how little they regarded the affection and the respect due to a husband and a father, when it stood in the way of their own wild and ambitious designs. This party itself, again, was in a great measure merely the creature of some foreign courts which held the same general creed of political obedience, and more especially of the court of Madrid, which was wedded to such principles of policy by a community of in interest. It was the wish of this party to induce Don Pedro to temporize as long as possible before making his choice between the crowns, and to prevent all representations to him which might hasten that choice, in the hope that, by evading and procras tinating, expedients might be found to restore the supremacy of Por tugal, and enable him to wield both sceptres. The regency had the good faith, and the good sense to follow better advice; and when they informed Don Pedro of the death of his father, they pressed upon him earnestly the necessity and expediency of a speedy deter mination. Delay would have been dangerous to his authority in both countries, for in both his authority would have been uncertain; and in fact, every act of government exercised by the regency of Por tugal in the name of Don Pedro, after he should have learned his title to the crown, would have

« EdellinenJatka »