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and his legitimate successors. It was provided that the subjects of each power should have full religious toleration when residing in the territories of the other; should enjoy all the rights, privileges, and exemptions, which had been, or thereafter might be granted to the most favoured nation; and were not to be subject to military service or contributions, or forced loans and imposts. It was declared that vessels of the one country entering the harbours of the other, should pay no higher dues for tonnage, &c. than vessels belonging to the most favoured nation, but that Portugal should not be taken as the term of comparison, if it should come to enjoy commercial privileges in Brazil, and that, until the deficiency of seamen could be supplied, all vessels built or owned by Brazilian subjects, and carrying a Brazilian captain and mate, should be held to be Brazilian ships, although three fourths of the crew should not be subjects of the empire; that, under the same modifications, articles of French growth or manufacture should be admitted into Brazil, either in French or in Brazilian vessels on payment of no higher duties than those imposed on the most favoured nation; and, on the other hand, that the produce of Brazil, imported into France for consumption, whether in Brazilian or in French vessels, should pay no higher duties than those imposed on them by the French tariff when imported in French bottoms. In accordance with this article, France abolished, in favour of Brazil, the additional duty of 10 per cent on merchandize imported in foreign ships, and like wise the distinction between stuffs of long and short wool. Each state bound itself to deliver up to

the other deserters from its army or navy, or even from its merchant vessels, and to expel from its dominions, so soon as an application to that purpose should be made, all persons accused of treason, felony, or the forging or coining of money whether metallic or paper. The stipulations regarding the duties on shipping and goods, and the character of Brazilian vessels were to continue in force for six years from the date of the ratification; the others were to be perpetual.

The treaty was ratified at Paris on the 19th of March.

To the European powers, by far the most important part of the foreign policy of France, was her conduct in regard to the affairs of Portugal. When the armed interference of Spain against the regency and constitution of Portugal, compelled Britain to send her troops to the peninsula for the protection of her ally, the peace of Europe depended on the cabinet of Versailles. An exaggerated dislike, on its part, of the establishment of popular institutions, excessive complaisance to the wishes of Ferdinand, or jealousy of the influence, and, still more, of this armed interposition of England, could hardly have failed to light up a war. It was, indeed, impossible that France, governed, herself, by a representative body, could, with any regard to decency, become the enemy of the Portuguese constitution, merely because it was framed after the model of her own. As the charter had emanated voluntarily from the legitimate and sovereign authority, it was equally impossible for her, with any regard to consistency, to wish well to the Portuguese insurgents, who were in open rebellion against their lawful sovereign. And still less could

she, with any regard to good faith, support the intrigues of those who laboured, by rebellion, to elevate a treasonable faction that was deter mined to annul the separation of the colonies from the mother coun try; since, by the treaty, which has just been mentioned, she had solemnly recognized the independence of Brazil, and the legitimacy of its imperial dignity. These were considerations to induce the French cabinet to allow the new order of things in Portugal to try its own strength, and take its natural course, and to lend no ear to the bigotted apprehensions, or any countenance to the intrigues of Spain. Other considerations even made it still more decidedly her interest, unless she wished for a war without an object, to be prosecuted for its own sake by the sacrifice of all principle, to use her influence in preventing, on the part of Spain, any aggression against the Portuguese government. France knew well that, in the event of such an aggression being made, Britain was bound by treaty to support Portugal in repelling it; and the decision and rapidity with which, when it was made, British troops were con veyed to the Tagus, proved to all the world that Britain would not be tardy or hesitating in fulfilling her obligations. But a war between Britain and Portugal on the one hand, and Spain on the other, while Spain was occupied by a French army, would almost necessarily involve France as a party, however contrary it might be to her policy and her interests. That French troops should fill the barracks, and occupy the fortresses of Spain, and perform the duties of the interior, to let loose a Spanish army against Britain in the field, would

have formed an anomalous species of armed neutrality which Britain could not have recognized: for she evidently was equally entitled to bombard Cadiz or Barcelona, and besiege Badajoz or Ciudad Rodrigo, whether they were garrisoned by French or by Spanish troops. If again, France should withdraw her troops altogether, it was perfectly certain, from the internal state of Spain, from the crowds of exiles on account of their political faith, ready to return to her shores with fresh hopes, and the additional excitation communicated by the establishment in Portugal of a free constitution given by its native monarch, and protected from fo reign attack by the power of Eng land, that the departure of the French army would be the signal for an immediate renewal of the revolutionary excesses, and tumultuary government, the suppression of which had been the very object for which she had marched her squadrons across the Pyrenees. France had entered Spain to maintain, as it were, the public peace; and she would now be quitting it, just because that peace which she had gone thither to maintain, was about to be broken. Unless, therefore, she gave up all that she purchased, or thought to have purchased in 1823 with so many sacrifices, France could not avoid war, if the conduct of Spain towards Portugal should provoke hostilities with England; but to her such a war could have no object; it could add nothing to her real power, and its inconsistency would have lowered immensely her influence on opinion. was thus equally her interest and her duty to preserve the peace of Europe, by preventing, if possible, the mad extravagancies of Ferdi

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or Robespierre cheering on the blood-hounds of the Jacobin Club. With such principles, and against such prejudices, it was difficult to reason; such apprehensions prevented all solidity and consistency

nand, and expressing decidedly her disapprobation of his hostile and faithless policy for Ferdinand, blind and bigotted as he was, had no resource but abject submission, when left to cope with the giant power of England, unaided by the of conduct; and, accordingly, these active co-operation, and even unconsoled by the friendly sympathy, of the Bourbons of France.

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Fortunately the ministers of France were moderate and just; and these plain considerations of good policy decided their conduct. They went hand in hand with Britain in endeavouring to bring Ferdinand and his advisers to their senses. But there was a clamorous, and, in some respects, an influential party in France, whose wishes pointed in a very opposite direction, and who were eager for a war which must be unprofitable, on grounds which, to sound reason, were untenable. The ultra-royalists, consisting partly of many members of the old noblesse, and supported by almost all the multifarious influence of the clergy, considered the representative go vernment of Portugal as much an object of terror and abhorrence as did even Ferdinand himself. In every thing that approached to the nature of a popular institution, they saw the subversion of the altar, the proscription of nobility, and the downfal of the divine rights of monarchy; the charter of Don Pedro was not in their eyes, much less pregnant with misery and crime than the most tumul tuary ordinance that ever issued from the National Convention; and the Princess Regent of Portugal, exhorting her chambers to proceed faithfully, and prudently in settling the government which her brother had bestowed, presented to them in a milder form, Danton

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men, while they were the chosen apostles of the absolute power of kings, justified, and supported, and applauded, the Portuguese rebels, who were marching in arms to dethrone their lawful sovereign, and acknowledged the title of Don Miguel to usurp the crown of h his brother and his niece. From the press they unceasingly demanded that the ministry should send an army into Portugal, a friendly country, and up-root every germ of the constitution, the willing gift of its hereditary monarch. It would be easier, they said, t now to move the army from Spain into Portugal, than it had been three years before to march it from France into Spain, At all events, they insisted that every thing should be done to aid the wiles and efforts of Ferdinand against the constitution; that he should be backed with all the tenance which France could give; and that every encouragement should be secretly given to him, and to the Portuguese rebels, whom they designated royalists, because they were fighting against their king. The private intrigues of the party to confirm Spain in her policy, were more successful than their public declamations to force France into a war. The baron de Moustier, the French minister at Madrid, lent himself to their views. As the French ministry had nothing to gain by falsehood, and as their whole conduct spoke nothing but. sincerity, it is impossible that they could have given this man private instructions at variance with the

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but secret instructions he undoubtedly had from the leaders of the ultra-royalists: and, trusting to the influence of that party to justify whatever he might do in furtherance of their schemes, he ventured to trifle with the policy, and compromise the character of his government. He strengthened the Spanish cabinet in its resolution to refuse acknowledging the Portuguese regency, and assisted all its expedients to evade the demands and the remonstrances of the Portuguese envoy. Although the minister of a power which had received in Paris an accredited diplomatic agent of Portugal, and had itself accredited to Lisbon an ambassador of high rank, he pretended, when requested to state whether his government had recognized that of Portugal, that it was a matter which did not concern him, that he knew nothing, and had received no instructions about it. The pretext, under which Spain endeavoured to veil her obstinate hostility was, the necessity of knowing the sentiments of her allies; and De Moustier took care that she should never want an excuse for pretending to be still officially ignorant of the determination of France. When the French ministry learned this conduct of their servant, they expressed their opinion both of him and of Ferdinand, by instantly recalling him. Less they could not have done, unless they were willing to make themselves proverbial examples to Europe of falsehood and insincerity; and a severer censure would have tended better to remove from them every taint of suspicion, that it might only have VOL. LXVIII.

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as solicitous for peace, that had confirmed them in a just and honourable line of policy. The secret springs, however, by which the ultra-royalists worked behind the curtain, were powerful; but, although De Moustier, on his arrival at Paris, in December, was admitted to an audience of the king, the cabinet immediately took another step which told much more plainly how sincere was their resolution to lend no aid or countenance to the policy of Spain, than the recalling of an ambassador. When the French army took possession of Spain, two regiments of Swiss guards, troops of ancient proverbial fidelity, had been spe cially assigned for the protection of the royal person; and when part of the army was withdrawn in 1824, these regiments had been allowed to remain at the particular request of Ferdinand. now recalled them; and in recalling these troops, in preference to any others, she seemed to intend to impress upon Ferdinand the opinion which she entertained of his conduct personally. Every expedient was had recourse to by the Spanish government to have the order revoked; Ferdinand himself wrote a letter to his most christian majesty. But the French ministry would not sacrifice their own character, already somewhat compromised by the conduct of De Moustier, to save him from the consequences of his own folly and stupidity persisted in with an obstinacy which only bigotry could have produced. The Swiss regiments left Madrid in different divisions, and returned to France in the month of January. England [S]

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and France were thus united to preserve the peace of Europe in so far as it was menaced by Spain. Such an union deprived the cabinet and Camarilla of Madrid of their last hope of being able to extend over a neighbouring country the

dark and dreary reign of despotism and superstition, amid whose palpable obscurity they prowled for their own prey, or, when sated with victims, slumbered on in brutish indolence.

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